Kos is 'on the other side', so sayeth the Fried Brain.
You all know what Kos said, so I'll spare you the rehash. But here's something many people seem to be forgetting:
The 4 in question were killed in combat - everything else happened afterwards. Killed doing what they were paid 1k a
day to do. That 1k could instead be used to buy our actual
soldiers armor vests - you know, the kind Bush sent them into the field without? Each of these 'contractors' makes enough in a month to equip 30 GI's. How many contractors are over there? Hundreds? Thousands?
These four men were far from patriotic. They were, by their very consentual employment in Iraq, denying our enlisted, volunteer, poorly paid army necessary equipment important for their survival. They - living and dead - are greedy, callous profiteers. There is nothing patriotic about them.
If they wanted to serve America as patriots, they could re-enlist, volunteer for humanitarian organizations or only take the same daily pay that our soldiers are getting, giving back the rest in a true show of patriotism. They did none of these things. Will their families donate their paychecks to the families of underpaid soldiers who died without an armored vest? That would be patriotic.
These are not American heroes, not patriots - they are users and abusers.
How ironic that us lefty-terrorist-sympathizers are the ones outraged over the injustice being done to our troops.
Whose side are they on, Mr. Friedman?
Here's an idea of what the military thinks. From TIME Magazine, courtesy of Ellen Dana Nagler over at BOP:
"Those Blackwater guys," says an intelligence officer in Iraq, "they drive around wearing Oakley sunglasses and pointing their guns out of car windows. They have pointed their guns at me, and it pissed me off. Imagine what a guy in Fallujah thinks." Adds an Army officer who just returned from Baghdad, "They are a subculture."
A Pentagon official who opposes their use nonetheless detects an obvious if unsentimental virtue: "The American public doesn't get quite as concerned when contractors are killed."
People insist on calling them 'civilian contractors', like 'a telecommunications engineer working for the CPA in Iraq'. Do telecom engineers drive around pointing guns at US troops? No.
Civilian contractors my gimpy ass.
Are the Army officer and Pentagon official cited by TIME Magazine 'on the other side', Mr. Friedman?
And while we're at it, how about Robert Novack, who willingly outed a CIA agent in deep cover, working on global terrorism. Surely he's 'on the other side', right? How much further 'on the other side' can you get without actually shooting a US soldier?
I'd like to know.
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This, and other rants can be read at I, Gimpicus!, the blogging left's home for political incorrectness.
