Web Letters: Blackwater: Hired Guns, Above the Law

While the sort of conduct that Mr. Scahill describes certainly is contemptible, whether engaged in by professional soldiers or by our own military (although the line between mercenary and US soldier is significantly blurred if it is true that Blackwater is paid out of US tax dollars.), this is what happens when these kinds of people are given these kinds of opportunities.

This is part of the mess that our government has created by meddling in Iraq in particular and in the Middle East in general. It is sickening when one contemplates the mess that our government has made of Iraq. In order to save face and our "honor," we now feel obligated to restore order before we leave (with a puppet US government), but that will require another Saddam Hussein, or at least his tactics, which is what mercenaries like Blackwater also apparently believe. How many more lives is our "honor" worth? Attacking a country that had never attacked us was dishonorable to begin with. The first step in restoring order in Iraq is for us to leave. This will force the Iraqis to work out their problems. Then they at least will also no longer be able to make these sorts of awful accusations, although they will always be able to blame us for the mess there.

Saddam Hussein was a bad man, but it has not been worth the price in lives that is being paid to have deposed him. We simply cannot afford to go around the world deposing leaders we do not like on trumped-up national security charges. Our government has become like some nuclear-armed Don Quixote whose enemies are of its own making in its own delusioned head; but that would require making the perhaps incorrect assumption that our government's intentions are honorable, chivalrous and above reproach.

Rex Ward

Tooele, UT

Thank you, Nation, for having the backbone to alert people to Blackwater. I am in the middle of reading Scahill's Book, Blackwater: Hired...

To me, this is another example of how President Bush and Cheney are turning our Democracy into Fascism. And they are getting away with it, from removing the right of habeas corpus and the Posse Law, lying about our reasons for invading Iraq, to all the other criminal acts--all under the pretext of 9/11 that was partly engineered by our government just as Pearl Harbor, Bay of Tonkin and all the other "US created incidents" to justify our government's wars, horrible mass killings, occupations of other countries for their oil and other wealth to line the pockets of the already super-rich and powerful in our country that seem to be accountable to no one. Blackwater does not surprise me.

I can't believe our American military is allowing these mercenaries, who make 10 times more money than our American soldiers, to interfere with and/or replace the legitimate American military. And then to add insult to injury to our own troops, have our own Congress turn down more leave time between deployments for our American legitimate soldiers and military who are dying or being crippled for in Iraq. Now tell me how that is supporting the troops?

The scare tactics about "Al Queda," terrorists etc. by Bush & Company are ridiculous and getting old. We know that their tricks, lies, spins are only to keep Americans in a war that only benefits Bush and his buddies while our young people are murdered. The next step by Bush & Cheney will be for these Blackwater Nazi-type mercenaries to turn on the American people. Mark my words. We no longer believe or trust our government.

Dawn Remington

Issaquah, WA