Now now. Don't bow to the far rights pressure and censorship. Say what you mean: It is moral for Iraqi dissadints to kill Americans in Iraq because Americans in Iraq are imperialists raping the country for PNAC and corporate interests.

This is just the Battle For Seattle...except it is for real. Which side are you on? Do you want hired guns/corporate mercs in US streets in Novemember, backed by the talk-radio militia and corporations, when Bush refuses to quit office after he loses?

I know which one I am. And it isn't the Corporate Imperialist Right.

Leftie-- I'm not sure if you are a rightwing troll trying to discredit anarchists with bad rhetoric, or if you believe this stuff.

But I don't think it's ever moral to kill anyone. I'm not a pacifist, so killing to prevent even worse results may be justified, but I don't think I'd dress any kind of concession to pragmatism as "morality."

As for "which side are you on", I'm on the side of the vast number of people worldwide who see jihadists and Bush's militarism as just two sides of the same coin, in a mutual embrace of building each other up so each can gain power at the expense of moderate, non-violent alternatives.

I don't like newspeak by the Right, but clothing the Islamic fascism or ex-Baathist violence as some kind of "anti-imperial" struggle is equally intellectual crap.

O.K. You should understand that the tone of your comment makes it look like you support the "insurgents" against our guys, military and civilian. Mercenary is a loaded term. "Rent-a-soldier" is worse. If we are supposed to credit your good intentions in opposing the war, maybe you should credit the good intentions of those who are fighting it and risking their lives to rebuild Iraq?

Anyway, errors in tone are forgiveable. I accept your explanation. (Although, I still think you are dunderheadedly wrong) What KOS said, however, is unforgiveable.

"But it is crass hypocrisy to sit there applauding the US killing of Iraqis in that war of invasion, then act as if it is some kind of bizarre human rights outrage when Iraqi resist an illegal occupation."

Nathan, there is no distinction between a "legal" and an "illegal" occupation, in the eyes of the resistance. It's words on paper, far, far away from the blood and noise. Would it be different in your eyes if the Iraqis resisted a "legal" occupation in this way?

The outrage here is that four men who were guarding a food convoy were torn limb from limb, burned alive, beaten, and hanged. Their humanity is undiminished, whether they were working for Blackwater or for Greenpeace, for Doctors Without Borders or for the KKK - they died sad, gruesome deaths, cold and weak and bleeding out under the hot sun.

Dismissing them as mercenaries, and legitimizing their deaths as resistance to an "illegal" occupation, dismisses their lives and their work, and is fundamentally illiberal.

You are not worth any further time and argument.

Nathan

Your comments are on target. The mercenaries who were killed were present because they were hired guns in support of the US-UK occupation of Iraq.

Nathan

Your comments are on target. The mercenaries who were killed were present because they were hired guns in support of the US-UK occupation of Iraq.

jeff,

i don't think nathan legitimized the mercenaries deaths as resistance to an "illegal" occupation. i understand his statement:

"But it is crass hypocrisy to sit there applauding the US killing of Iraqis in that war of invasion, then act as if it is some kind of bizarre human rights outrage when Iraqi resist an illegal occupation."

to mean that we should also be outraged at the US killing of Iraqis. how is that "fundamentally illiberal"?

Of course, Glen doesn't have comments at his blog, but that doesn't stop him from sending his pack of baying hounds to tree an infidel.

You are quite right, Nathan.

The press and the Pentagon are both pulling a switch on us. Both want to portray the grisly deaths of "contractors" as an offense equal to the killing of U.S. soldiers.

The deaths are ugly and sad. The victims were in a dangerous place for their own reasons. They were, by their own choice, beyond the authority of any army or any government. They paid the worst price for their decision.

Do you even know what a "mercenary" is, you Stalinist scum?

Do you even know what a "mercenary" is, you Stalinist scum?

Mr. Newman: Let us suppose, for purposes of argument, that the American invasion of Iraq was "illegal." Let us further suppose that it was an act of raw imperial aggression that neither sought nor achieved any good end.

Even those of you who believe something along these lines must admit that the American military went to unusual lengths to avoid killing Iraqis - combatants and non-combatants alike - at considerable risk to itself. Civilians died, not because we wanted to kill them, but in spite of our best efforts to avoid it. If we could have further reduced the number of casualties without simply giving up, we would have done so.

Compare the insurgents in Falluja. They torture, kill and mutilate because they want to. They make no efforts to avoid civilian deaths. On the contrary, they seek to maximize them. And when they succeed, they glory in it.

To be "outraged" by the atrocity in Falluja but not by the casualties inflicted by our own military is to reveal, not hypocrisy, but a level of moral insight that you seem to lack. The proper response to unintentional killing despite reasonable attempts to avoid it is not outrage, but sorrow and regret. And that is exactly what every supporter of the war that I know of feels. If you doubt this, ask them and see. But outrage is exactly the proper response to a deliberate act of desecration.

...must admit that the American military went to unusual lengths to avoid killing Iraqis - combatants and non-combatants alike - at considerable risk to itself.

hardly. i see no evidence (other than wishful thinking) that this is actually true. indeed, we did not need to go to unusual lengths to avoid killing iraqis. all we had to do was NOT invade.... and don't get me started on the sanctions.

I find it reprehensible that you consider the Baathist dead-enders and formerly favored subjects of Saddam Hussein who perpetrated the Fallujah atrocity to be part of some legitimate "resistance" to an illegal "occupation."

You're a moral cretin. You and all of your ilk.

Don't let the facts get in the way of sliming the dead:

Quote

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article 47.-Mercenaries

1. A mercenary shall not have the right to be a combatant or a prisoner of war.

2. A mercenary is any person who:

(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) Does, in fact, take a direct part in the hostilities;

(c) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;

(d) Is neither a national of a Party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a Party to the conflict;

(e) Is not a member of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict; and

(f) Has not been sent by a State which is not a Party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fails under test d. All four were US citizens, the US is a party to the conflict, and therefore they are not mercenaries.

Probably also fails under test b, since they were guards and not (apparently) engaged in military operations.

QED.

Newman, do you think that the invasion of Iraq will become illegal if you say "we illegally invaded another country" enough times?

Are the Democrats who are running ads on this site as intellectually bereft and morally bankrupt as you are? If they are, I think the voters have a right to know.

(c) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a Party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar ranks and functions in the armed forces of that Party;

Well, you can't say that it fails under test (c). And that, itself, is an indictment of the Pentagon's ongoing outsourcing.

Dear old Nate, ever the Stalinist, starts his scrubbing of posts that hurt his little feelings.

'Blue' are you seriously saying that a person can't be a mercenary in Iraq because they also happen to be American, because of an abstract definition?

Let me say, if accepting pay for going to war was the definition of a mercenary then all our soldiers would be mercenaries. I think most people would accept the definition that a mercenary was a person who accepted pay for fighting, and was not fighting out of a public duty. I think that these guys weren't there because of duty, and were accepting pay to fight, so hence calling them mercenaries is reasonable.

However a better term might simply be security guard. I wouldn't call the guy who protects my bank a "mercenary". I think a mercenary has to wage offensive operations to fully qualify.

Either they were in chain of command, and were soldiers, and they weren't and were carrying guns and were non-military combatants. The military can't have it both ways.

Personally I think it's a shame, both ways. One way because under the privatization schemes of Rumsfeld we're somehow saving money by hiring a guard for $100 a year instead of paying a soldier $30k a year to do the same job. Another shame is that they're being called mercenaries when they're really dying and being used like soldiers. Personally I say we should treat them like soldiers if we're using them that way. Their sacrifice was no less costly because they were being paid more.

That's why they call it "the ultimate sacrifice".

Still, Nathan is within his rights. He is under no obligation to give these soldiers for hire any special reverance. They had no US uniforms and answered to no code of conduct or oath of duty. They went there for their own gain, and having took that risk, died in the pursuit of their job. I would not look down on them, but I would not praise them either.

BTW I only remove posts that use expletives. The F--- word gets a post deleted. Please note that plenty of insults remain, although they are childish and show the low level of rhetoric on the rightwing.

And the silliness of calling me a Stalinist, for anyone who knows anything about my writings and actions around the antiwar movement, is just extreme.

Dear boy, you surely behave like a Stalinist.

So extreme or not, your recent opinons surely put you in that category.

Either way, you disgust me and a lot of other people. Perhaps you've been hiding your true colors and they're just now coming out...How long until you start hiring 14 year olds for a cell-phone and $50 to strap on an explosive belt and blow up a bus full of kids?

A week? Two? I'm betting two.

Orion

Orion- You just won the prize for the most bizarre comment so far. Bravo!

Nathan: as usual, you single out the weakest criticisms to respond to.

That is a mistake.

Joey,
You're a moral cretin. You and all of your ilk.

Better a moral cretin than an amoral one, heh Joey ?