Mercenaries? Are they pond scum or just good old boys?

[NNN0LHI]

[DrWeird]

1. What's the difference?

Aren't "Good Old Boys" pond scum?

Anywho, I'm not shedding any crocodile tears.

[Mattforclark]

2. They were dead before they were mutilated, right?

?

[RapidCreek]

30. Unlike soldiers...they chose to go their

I feel no pitty for them, they were nothing more than mercenaries for a bunch of fucking war profiteers....and I sure as hell don't want some poor soldier to be ordered to avenge the loss of thier worthless lives. Dead before they were mutilated? Who the fuck cares? You fly with the crows you get shot with the crows. Don't want to get carved up, hung from a bridge and torched? Keep thy money grubbin ass the fuck out of Iraq.

RC

[NoPasaran]

3. Scummy scum.

Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum Scum

[rockymountaindem]

4. I can't fault people for wanting to do what they do best.

If you spent years in training and serving with special forces, would you want it all to go to waste after you left the service? I personally don't find this line of work distasteful, although I know lots of others do.

It's not like those people who died in Iraq were drug-running Columbian death squads or anything. I don't wish any of them ill.

[DrWeird]

5. How do you know they weren't death squads?

There's been an awful lot of liberal Iraqi intellectuals gone missing lately.

Obviously these guys were up to no good.

[rockymountaindem]

8. Well, perhaps they were

but I can't say for certain. I won't condemn them on something as far fetched as that. Yes, I know that some people are capable of anything, however I find it more likely that the Iraqi intelligensia who have been killed died at the hands of fundamentalists, who, like certain members of the religious right in the US view science and philosophy as a threat.

[DrWeird]

10. These people were the hired guns of the religious right.

Then there's this:

<http://www.afji.com/bullets/>

[KittyWampus]

9. How Do You Know They WERE Death Squads

Jeebus... it's like Free Republic.

[DrWeird]

11. Obviously they must have been up to no good.

If a bunch of civilians rush out of nowhere, kill them, set them on fire, and hang them from bridges.

It's a war zone. They went there to help kill Iraqis. How is that not a death squad?

[Djinn]

33. well they weren't insurance salesmen

they are almost all ex elite special forces types - trained to torture and kill - they're not there for their basket weaving expertise.

I personally think this poll is a little one sided and presented with a few other choices, like "ignorant" "excitement/terror addicted" then maybe I wouldn't have picked pond scum. But seriously anyone heading to Iraq knows what they're in for - if these people loved that life so bad stay in the services and atleast you're covered (loosely) by rules of engagement. There's no amount of money in the world that would see me wave goodbye to my family and head to Iraq right now...you takes your money, you takes your chance.

Its really weird that people outraged by the deaths of 4 people who choose to enter a war zone don't seem to be able to understand the rage of Iraqi's having watched MANY of their countrymen killed.

[Doctor_J]

6. and it's market-driven

the ones who pay then are just as scummy.

[baldguy]

16. I agree.

They were just trying to get the best deal out of life they could. That's just what each of us trys to do, right?

Their employers on the other hand...

The company making tons of money while these civilians are risking their lives. The US Govt farming out the job the military should have - and paying the merchs several times what they pay GIs (THAT must be good for the morale of our troops!) - and selling Iraq to the highest bidder. The insurance companies - God! The Insurance companies!

The evil here is not with the guys just trying to do their job - its with the human scum who put them there.

[Djinn]

34. sorry can't agree

"The evil here is not with the guys just trying to do their job - its with the human scum who put them there."

Yes the scum who put them there (and make FAR more money from it) are total scum, but since when is "just following orders" an excuse.

These people were not forced to go - they voluntarilly signed up to make money - how much would someone have to pay YOU to help an immoral invasion force kill people in their own country?

[KittyWampus]

7. Why The Hatred?

Honest question.

I'm as Liberal/Progressive as they come and don't get why someone with a Military background signs on for security overseas is called "pond scum".

Does that epithet include people who work as policemen too?

[number6]

12. all depends on what exactly there job was ...

people are assuming ....

my sympathy would depend on the circumstances

[DrWeird]

13. What's the difference between them and mafia hitmen?

There's child molesters in prison who have military backgrounds.

[NNN0LHI]

15. Umm...

I have relatives and good friends who are policemen. They consider mercenaries pond scum too. Why would that be do you think?

Don

[KittyWampus]

18. I Have NO IDEA!

I asked a freaking question.

[hexola]

14. Sleeping With Soldiers

Sleeping With Soldiers

She's sleeping with soldiers to conquer her boredom
He's got a "Live to die" tattoo
So what if it hits her, It probably kills her
He's painted in red, black and blue

He’s a real tough cookie, he’s a green beret
Let’s live and let’s die by the sword
Likes his women in heat, Treats them like meat
Everyone but his sister’s a whore

I wanna be an Airborne ranger
Living life for sex and danger
Blood and lust, sex and danger
Oh I'm sleeping with soldiers

I was out with the boys in Idaho Falls
With his fist in her face, and his fist in the wall
Said life ain’t worth a shit if you haven’t got balls
And his shirt says "Death from Above"

She’s out with the girls, she’s avoiding the stares
At the scar from her face from a 'fall down the stairs'
She’s covered with bruises, she really don’t care
Cause she sleeps with the soldier she loves

I wanna be an Airborne ranger
Living life for sex and danger
Blood and lust, sex and danger
Oh I'm sleeping with soldiers

Well I love my man, and he loves me
We don’t have many friends, we’re our own company
And the priest down the road is the only other man that I see
And I can’t leave the husband I love

Some say our marriage is on the skids
Cause he drinks a little and he beats up the kids
But it’s not any worse than my dad ever did
And I can’t leave the man that I love

I wanna be an Airborne ranger
Living life for sex and danger
Blood and lust, sex and danger
Whoa, I'm sleeping with soldiers

-Jerry Joseph-

[maggrwaggr]

17. I have no problem with professional soldiers

soldiers are needed, why not hire professionals?

If this is what these guys are really good at, why not?

I do what I'm good at, why not them?

[Toby109]

19. Trained killers

What a profession to pursue.

:eyes:

[maggrwaggr]

22. all soldiers are trained killers

you want to live in a country that doesn't have a military?

[arcos]

42. Luckily, I live in one... n/t

[BabsSong]

20. Just some of the 308,000 people GWB has put back to work in this

country. And we are going to need a hell of a lot more of them so corporate America can flourish abroad. Pay is good. Sometimes a bad day at work is really a fucking bummer.

[OneBlueSky]

21. the pond scum are the people who hired them . . .

for a grand a day while our volunteer soldiers are paid slave wages and have to buy their own body armor . . .

[Cleita]

23. You didn't give the third choice.

I opted for pond scum, but I think there are people who can't do anything else that would pay equally as well, so they take the gamble and hope they survive.

My father was one of those. He didn't join militias but he did other dangerous overseas duties involved in mining.

[Cat Atomic]

24. Do mercenary jobs count in job creation figures?

j/k

George is hoping so.

[TexasMexican]

25. I have no problem with mercenaries per se.

I see nothing wrong with people becoming "mercenaries."

I'm a firm believer in the 2nd amendment. Police cant be everywhere, neither can soliders.

Individuals and organizations should have the right to provide for thier own protection.

[mr blur]

26. OK, but...

how is going to the other side of the world to kill people for money providing for your own protection?

[NNN0LHI]

27. Stop it. You are making way too much sense for some n/t

[TexasMexican]

28. Its providing protection for...

the private organizations who are working there on the other side of the world who dont have have real police or real soliders standing guard 24/7 over them.

[Djinn]

35. again

those companies DO NOT have to be there - they takes their money they takes their chances.

Iraqi's COULD actually do half of the work US firms are being (over)paid by your taxes for - pre the first Gulf war they were an advanced nations, they ran their own universities, hospitals, eductaion systems AND oil infrastructure.

I don't think they can do it all themselves at this point by they don't need profiteering corporations to theive everything either - it's this kind of stuff FAR FAR more than any "pro-Saddam" feeling that's fueling the resistance/terrorists (both words are next to meaningless these days)

Iraqi's do not want their nation to become another US client state

[mr blur]

43. Oh, I see...

You mean it's OK for US (or, indeed, UK) corporations to take hired killers with them to other countries in case some ungrateful citizen of that country objects to being treated like slave labour, for example? Just, "Blow them away, it's the only thing these third-worlders understand", right?

[revcarol]

29. Being in a foreign country that doesn't want you is

"providing for their own protection?" :puke:

Or are you talking about the CORPORATIONS being protected, with protection of the Iraqi assets they STOLE or were GIVEN(stolen) by the Bush administation?

Majority clarity needed here.

Absolutely NO connection with the 2nd Amendment!!

[TexasMexican]

31. Corporations, NGOs, Private Individuals

they all need protection, and if they pay someone to do the protecting I have no problem with that. I have no problem with someone who works to protect or guard a person, a place, or a shipment. As long as they arent murdering innocent civillians I see nothing wrong with it.

Law and Order needs to be restored in Iraq.

[NNN0LHI]

32. But it was just fine with you for the US to murder Iraqi civilians during

...Shock And Awe which made all these jobs possible. Or have you forgot that already? I bet the Iraqis haven't.

Don

[TexasMexican]

36. yeah I was actually.

I support the War in Iraq.

Not because of "WMD," I know that was all lies, but because we removed Saddam.

We should have done it the first time around but "Pappy" Bush fucked up, had we done it then we would have been all past it by now, and we would have been able to drag all our allies with us to foot the bill.

BTW the civillians that died during "Shock and Awe" werent murdered.

They were definately killed but they were not murdered.

[NNN0LHI]

38. Well in that case that makes you an accessory to murder

You may not want to admit it? But you are. This will be my last response to you because I do not knowingly associate myself with murderers.

Don

[TexasMexican]

40. adios dont let the door...

[Djinn]

37. They are however

assisting the forces that ARE murdering innocent civilians. These contractors were apparently escorting food and supplis to US army bases, in the eyes of Iraqis (and to be brutally honest, myself) they ARE collaborators.

As for the "removal of Saddam" bit "Pappy BUsh" didn't do it because he was scared he didn't do it because having Saddam there was better for US interests than NOT having him there - how will yuo feel when the NEXT client dictator takes over? or do you beleive the "bringing democracy" lie?

Why THAT dictator anyway, why not all the others? Why do business with Burma and Saudi but have a problem with an Iraqi dictartor...doesn't that ring a few bells for you?

[TexasMexican]

39. Americans are murdering Iraqis?

Do you have any evidience that American Soliders in general are murdering innocent civillians?

I think we may have different definitions of the word murder.

I dont consider civillians who are killed by stray rounds in a firefight or by failed bombings as being murdered.

If you have some evidence of Americans actually intentionally executing unarmed civillians or the like I'd be interesting in hearing about it.

Nope Bush Sr. just wanted an easy war so he could win his re-election (which he somehow fucked that up too and lost), he didnt care about Iraq or its people.

As for brining democracy to Iraq, I'd like to think that those people are capable of having a democracy, that being said I'd settle for westernizing them. Turning Iraq somewhat into how Iran was before the revolution. Althought that in and of itself has problem. Got to find a way to keep the conservative Islamics from rising up.

Why Saddam, because we had prior history with him, we should have finished him when we first had the chance. Better late than never.

[laura888]

44. exactly! evidence of american soldiers murdering? No...but!

but perhaps there is evidence of american mercenaries murdering innocent iraqi civlians?

These contractors are accountable to no one.

Why has it taken the Falujah story to reveal the presence of 1000's of "civlian military" contractors?

Americans want to know what exactly our military is doing and how our tax $ are being spent. The presence of mercenaries means we don't really know the answer to either.

This is reason for outrage.

[texasdem99]

45. OK,

"but perhaps there is evidence of american mercenaries murdering innocent iraqi civlians?"

Ok, fine.

Since you bring it up, do you have any evidence of American mercenaries murdering innocent Iraqi civilians?

Or is that just speculation on your part?

Just curious.

[gottaB]

46. Read the pieces I cited in that post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1324008#1337019

"just speculation"? To the degree that none of us are direct witnesses, and that investigations have not and in all likelihood will not be performed, we are all "just speculating."

Nevertheless, a mercenary shot a man in the hind quarters with an extremely lethal weapon. I don't know what wrongdoing the killed man was innocent or guilty of, but I have serious concerns as to whether he was, at the moment he was shot, posing the kind of threat that warranted killing him.

A second instance. Carlson mentions a mercenary who ambushed the ambushers, so to speak, certainly a dubious form of entrapment. When the mercenary's bullets failed to kill one of the men he took to be bandits, he clubbed the wounded man to death. Again, whatever we might assume about the wounded man's innocence or guilt, it's hard for me to imagine that killing him was warranted.

Carlson argues that these men make their own law, that everybody's a sherrif. He provides some anectdotes and factual observations to back that up. As I said, none of these instances of killing are likely to be tried in courts of law. Call that "just speculation" if you want. I'll call it "extrajudicial."

[texasdem99]

47. Don't see your point

I've read it through, and I still don't see any direct evidence on that thread of Blackwater employees deliberately targeting and murdering Iraqi civilians.

So you are still speculating, in my book. Sorry.

[gottaB]

48. Didn't say "Blackwater employees", but mercenaries

Evidence of mercenaries, aka "contractors" killing people under dubious circumstances, yes that's in evidence.

I will quote Ben Thomas first:

“The way I explain what happened to people who weren’t there is … this stuff was like hitting somebody with a miniature explosive round,” he said, even though the ammo does not have an explosive tip. “Nobody believed that this guy died from a butt shot.”

The question raised by Roos for Army Times concerns the appropriateness of using such ammo in war. And yes, that's the kind of thing the Geneva conventions frown upon. I further question the facts of the shooting itself, if only because the man who died was shot in the rear end--not the most menacing side. Of course we don't the facts. Had the killer been a soldier in uniform, there should have been an investigation by CID perhaps, minimally a report filed, oversight by superiors, rules of engagement to be followed, a Uniform Code of Military Justice--you know, law and accountability. With the mercenary, there was none of that.

Now I'll quote from Carlson's account. It is the most troubling.

"I don't even know that if you engage someone there's even an investigative authority to follow up," Kelly said. "With no parameters, how do I know if I've done something wrong? It's like the Wild West, but nobody's the sheriff."

Or, depending on how you look at it, everybody is. Last summer, a British contractor was run off the road by bandits on a highway south of Baghdad. The contractor, a former SAS man, got out of his car and pretended to surrender. When the bandits approached, he shot both of them. One didn't die immediately, so he clubbed him to death. The Brit was still laughing about it when Bill ran into him a week later.

Not all contractors want more CPA oversight of their activities. That's understandable. There's something to be said for limited bureaucratic interference. One night in December, two DynCorp contractors caught a man they'd been looking for outside the Baghdad Hotel. According to local witnesses, the man had kidnapped several children and attempted to sell them. The contractors reduced him to a bloody mound before turning "what was left of him" over to the Iraqi police. They told me about it at breakfast the next morning. They looked pleased.

I think that rather strongly makes the case for "extrajudicial."

[fujiyama]

49. Why now?

I never will understand the timing of this war, and how Iraq was such an immediate threat that it had to be dealt with immediately.

"we had a history with him" is not a good enough justification for going to war -- a war that has costed billions of dollars, THOUSANDS OF LIVES, was fought to help various contributors of the president an the vice president, that has distracted the US from the real terrorist groups and has pulled away resources from the real war on terror, not to mention flame the fans of millions of Muslims around the world leading to terrorist attack in Europe.

I could go on and on. Your rationale for this war is bullshit.

[Djinn]

51. LOL

"Turning Iraq somewhat into how Iran was before the revolution"

That's hilarious - first you say you want democracy in Iraq then you say it should be like Iran was pre-Islamic revolution. Maybe you should find out a little bit more about the Shah (and his US supporters) before condemning Iraqi's to the same fate.

"Got to find a way to keep the conservative Islamics from rising up."

What if the majority of the population WANT consrvative Islamics to run the place?? Or is it only rulers that the US agrees with that are permissable (gee and they wonder why some people call this an Imperialist land grab)

"I dont consider civillians who are killed by stray rounds in a firefight or by failed bombings as being murdered."

Neither do I really but you're actually moving away from a widely accepted definition of murder - randoming spraying bullets and/or bombs will kill unintended people and were you to do it anywhere else it WOULD be murder - either way but I bet you'd have a different view if another country illegally invaded YOUR country and dropped bombs on YOUR town. Find out a little more about how Australian troops pulled out of bombing missions because they realised the targets they had been given were NOT legitimate.

"Why Saddam, because we had prior history with him, we should have finished him when we first had the chance. Better late than never."

You have plenty of "prior history" with the completely undemocratic, brutal and murderous Saudi's as well - why not invade their country?? You do tonnes of business with Burma, why not invade them?

Your rational for this "war" seems to be "beleive what they tell me" and exceedingly naive

[gottaB]

41. After some soul searching, I chose pond scum

It's not idealism, but the way things really are. The dishonesty of the mercenary enterprise needs to be exposed before more people get hurt by it.

The connection between the mercenaries and the US military is concealed or downplayed, as if that concealment provided some kind of tactical political advantage. I dispute the realness of the advantage. Occupied populations are not so dense as to fail to distinguish between predators and protectors. So while CENTCOM and the dependent media struggle to maintain plausible deniability at every breach, the more these forces are used, the more resentment and anger against the US grows. That rebounds against us. Distrust of Americans hurts US soldiers engaged in peacekeeping and nationbuilding missions--which, even Bunnypants now seems to realize are vital to our national security--, and it threatens civilians, both US citizens and citizens of other nations who would partner with us through NGOs, the UN, or other arrangements.

There are cogent reasons for respecting international law and especially the rules governing warfare. Despots and mercenaries are, to borrow a phrase from our illustrious Defense Secretary, not helpful.

[Redleg]

50. I don't like it when people only give me a choice between two things.

So I'm not going to vote in your over-simplified poll.

[solinvictus]

52. Mercenaries

I have no problem with them, these guys are just earning a living.

[mitchum]

53. Neither...they're just dead mercenaries

No tears from me