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Harry[_5_]

On 6/16/10 2:32 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:27:14 -0400,
wrote:

On 6/16/10 1:14 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 07:43:42 -0400,
wrote:

In 2008, two Blackwater employees were indicted for murder after a
shooting in Afghanistan, and The Nation reports that Prince is currently
facing several new civil lawsuits, including one put forth by the
company's Iraqi victims.

The danger in this is we may be setting up the US Army for the same
type of thing. There is plenty of evidence that our military has shot
innocent people too.
We can't even start to address the number of innocents who get killed
in aerial attacks, going back almost 20 years in these ill thought out
mid east adventures.
That is the nature of a war where virtually all of the combatants are
out of uniform, fighting from the cover of civilian neighborhoods.

Well, *we* can adhere to higher standards or, better, realize that these
wars are pretty much worthless adventures. As for Blackwater and its
criminal execs and employees, put 'em on trial and if they're convicted,
imprison them.

I think the question is whether the Army really does have higher
standards about who the lowest common denominator decides to shoot.
There are certainly a lot of reports about soldiers just shooting
Hajjis out the window of their HumVee for the hell of it.

As for air strikes. You hit what you hit, whether that is what you
want or not. They do make intelligent munitions that can be
deactivated if it looks like they will miss but then you just gave the
bad guys the makings of a nice IED.

I don't connect the horrors perpetrated by Blackwater with the horrors,
mostly inadvertant, perpetrated by soldiers ordered to do X,Y, or Z.
Either way, the victims are just as dead, but...we have redress,
imperfect as it might be, against the military chain of command. We have
almost no control over the Blackwater Hessians and others of their ilk.

It's one thing to hire contractors to drive trucks or wire showers (if
they can demonstrate competence). It's another thing for contractors to
be involved in killing squads.