Robert Greenwald vs. Frank Gaffney on Hardball

[Hissyspit]

Run time: 06:42 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgeWyxswAFk   Posted on YouTube: October 02, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: October 03, 2007 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 1660

 
Robert Greenwald talks about Blackwater USA on Hardball with Chris Matthews.

[Mojambo]

1. Gaffney is pathetic there.

He keeps saying Greenwald was stringing along assertions, but you'll notice he never said they were incorrect assertions.

[Tafiti]

2. No shit.

His "gobbledygook" line is about like putting his fingers in his ears yelling la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la!

I wish Greenwald would've driven home the point a little more that their profits are our tax dollars!

[Oilwellian]

3. Can you imagine using that word in a high school debate?

We would get an "F"...he gets paid for using it. Go figure. Gaffney also heads up a think tank called "Center For Security Policy" and guess who funds it...defense contractors.

[Voice for Peace]

6. If Blackwater employees are not war profiteers, why don't they just enlist in the military

& get paid the same as the rest of the military
& be under the rules of engagement of the military
and be accountable like the military
and make the military as big as they can
so taxpayers don't have to support private war profiteering contractors any more.
Nobody is asking us if we want to support Blackwater employees.
I don't care how dangerous their work is, it's quite simply a profit-driven killing machine.

[aggiesal]

4. Heard a story today that it cost our governent, ...

$50K - $70K/year for a MSgt. That's not how much they get paid, but
total cost to train, house, feed, pay, ...
While it cost our government $400K to pay Blackwater for the same position.
That's about 6x to 7x what we would pay a military person.
I say that we pay the MSgt $200K. We make the MSgt happier, and we save
half our tax dollars.

And, no, I'm not a MSgt.

[ClintonTyree]

5. War profiteers....

War: 1 a (1) : a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations (2) : a period of such armed conflict (3) : STATE OF WAR b : the art or science of warfare c (1) obsolete : weapons and equipment for war (2) archaic : soldiers armed and equipped for war

Profiteer: one who makes what is considered an unreasonable profit especially on the sale of essential goods during times of emergency
- profiteer intransitive verb

What part of war profiteer doesn't Gaffney get? :wtf: Apparently he doesn't think Blackwater is being paid an unreasonable profit. :eyes: When these mercs make about, on average, 10X the amount our American soldiers make, I consider that unreasonable. Apparently the neo-con definition of unreasonable is somewhat different than that of the average person. Nothing seems unreasonable to them when it comes to spending money we don't have to perpetuate Bush's insane war. :grr:

[Voice for Peace]

7. archaic indeed

archaic : soldiers armed and equipped for war

[Evergreen Emerald]

8. It is Clinton's fault!

did everybody get that?

[Wally Pipp]

9. Yes, of course, it's Clinton's fault.

And whatever happened to the Neo-Con mantra of supporting our troops? Why is it that the troops are good enough to catch bullets on the streets of Baghdad and yet not good enough to provide security for the Neo-Con aristocracy visiting their future oil fields? Or their future hedonistic playground in New Orleans?

Whatever happened to free-market, capitalistic theory? If you need more people to sign up for the Armed Forces, wouldn't it make sense to make it more financially attractive to choose that vocation?

But the most galling part is how they harp on support of the troops and yet don't trust them to provide their security. Is this an example of Bill Cosby's "soft bigotry of low expectations"?

Best regards, Wally Pipp