October 19, 2007: "Misinformation"
(click for archives)
Here's a sadly frightening strip for your Halloween. It's all I got for today. Have a spooky time tonight!
Labels: dumbstruck, ups, war
October 19, 2007: "Misinformation"
(click for archives)
Here's a sadly frightening strip for your Halloween. It's all I got for today. Have a spooky time tonight!
5 Comments:
Just because he's crazy, doesn't mean he's wrong...
"180,000 Private Contractors Flood Iraq"
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3626620
"Blackwater Rising" (details on current and future US training sites, including Illinois)
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=investigative&id=5267983
Text of Blackwater's Immunity Deal:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3795318&page=1
"America's Own Unlawful Combatants?"
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blackwater15oct15,0,3330051.story?coll=la-home-center
However, there is a major distinction between Blackwater contract soldiers, who carry weapons and intimidate everyone around them, and all the other contractors who, say, haul fuel and supplies or repair the electrical infrastructure or organize the country's financial system. Those guys don't carry weapons and don't answer to a single military-minded company.
They answer to Haliburton... ;)
The problem, though, is that these "military-minded" companies have at their disposal better equipment and weapons than the U.S. military, a force of 180,000 highly paid people--as has often been reported, to the Iraqi population, there is no distinguishable difference between a U.S. soldier and a private contractor--and, most dangerously, they do not fall under any legal jurisdiction. So the fact that there is more than one "private contractor" outfit doing the work over there doesn't mean that the situation is any less dangerous. We're having enough issues with splintered insurgency factions without having to worry about paramilitary disntinctions. The funniest thing about all of this is that privatizing the war was ostensibly a move to do Iraq on the cheap--both in terms of economic and political capital (i.e. no draft)--but it's costing future generations more and more money and international good will (not to mention trust) every day.
However, keep in mind that the guys working on the power grids or banks or loading trucks aren't military trained men. The United Auto Workers has over a half a million members, but I wouldn't exactly call them a force that could overtake our military. The same with out nation re-building force.
Besides, we learned out lesson when we went in and didn't have enough troops. I'd rather have a flood of workers to get this job done right and quickly.
As would I. But these contractors have been working in Iraq for more than four years, and there is still not a sustainable infrastructure in place. On top of that, these people are working in a war zone, unlike the American Auto Workers, so, yes, they do receive trainig on how to live and work in a war-torn foreign country...
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