Democrats Cheer Falluja Outrage

[seemslikeadream]

Here's what they're saying about us


By PowerLineBlog.com
PowerLineBlog.com | April 5, 2004

Michele Catalano ran a quiz on her site, A Small Victory, yesterday. Guess which one of the following is not a genuine quote from a contributor to Democratic Underground:

1. Contractors wear hardhats and carry lunch pails - These guys are mercenaries.
2. Death to ALL mercenaries. The beer is on me.

3. Sad, if I were the wife I would have said hell no you won't go; the wife must have said great pay-check and the hubby, yeah, can buy a Hummer when I get back.

4. These swine were MERCENARIES. Paid Hessians. Murderers for hire.
They're worse than Al-Queda. At least Al-Queda is fighting for a cause.
I say "too bad, so sad, bye-bye."

5. They are Mercenaries - They are in it for the money, they are thugs and hoodlums, working outside the boundaries of the law. And yesterday the Resistance got even with 4 of them in a barbecue ceremony, that alas pushed the bounds of good taste.

6. Mercenaries - These men are just serial killers with a good retirement plan. They deserve what they get.


Well, actually it was a trick question. The quotes are all genuine. They were all posted by Democrats.

The scandal doesn't end there. The biggest Democratic blogger is Markos Zuniga, whose Daily Kos is said to get more hits than any other liberal site. Zuniga is a player within the Democratic Party, too; he is a principal in the Armstrong Zuniga political consulting firm.

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12859

[trotsky]

1. How easy for them.

No need to verify it was actual Democrats who posted that - hell, they could register themselves, post a bunch of inflammatory stuff, then point to it as an example of how evil Democrats are.

Sad. They dismiss the bile at Freeperville, but assume that all Democrats believe the most asinine of posts at DU.

[demnan]

2. Exactly

Anybody know if these posts are indeed true? There are no links for the reader to check them out for themselves. Wonder why?

[RebelOne]

5. Hate to say it, but I do recall seeing a couple of those posts

here on Friday.

[lapislzi]

13. Me, too

Although I support any DUer's right to say whatever he wishes within the bounds of the law, the comments were in poor taste, and I think I said as much at the time.

I deplore the violence and the killing. ALL of it.

[RedEarth]

23. I too hate to say it, I also say some of those posts....nt

[Media_Lies_Daily]

44. I blasted every one that I found...it is truly disgusting to be pleased..

...about the death of anyone, regardless of their nationality.

In all honesty, I thought more than one of the posters were freepers on a mission to be as disruptive as possible.

I also think that the remainder of the posters were never in the military and can't understand why anyone would want to be a mercenary. I don't think it's a question of "want to be". I think it's much more a question of making the most money out of years of military training so that they can support their families.

[KittyWampus]

9. One Epithet That Sticks In Mind "Death Ho's"

that's what one DU'er called the mercenaries.

[leftchick]

43. they are all true...

I read and agreed with most of them as things were getting hot in LBN on Thursday.

[Mike Daniels]

55. I recall seeing #1, 4, and 5 on the earliest threads.

Believe it or not, these are some of the more restrained responses that were posted as well.

[KittyWampus]

8. Well, I've Been Upset At The Vitriol Spewed Out At Those Dead Mercenaries

here on DU.

That much callousness and heartlessness is not healthy.

[trotsky]

11. And so have I!

But naturally, our sentiments are conveniently neglected when they hop onto DU to conclusively demonstrate what "mainstream Democrats" think.

[SemperEadem]

53. yeah, let's see some IP addresses first

before making the assumption it was Dem's.

[seemslikeadream]

3. and John Kerry

A number of Democratic candidates advertise on The Daily Kos; Friedman sent emails to them asking them to remove their ads in light of Zuniga's hate speech. So far, three have done so; Congressman Martin Frost of Texas was the first. But as of this morning, Jane Mitakides, the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are all advertising on the site.

There's more: In the last few days, there has been a lot of news about John Kerry's successful use of the internet for fund-raising. Who is Kerry's number one online fundraiser? Yup. The Daily Kos.

So far, John Kerry has done nothing to disassociate himself from Zuniga's hateful reaction to the Falluja massacre. For him to do so might be dangerous; the truth is that Zuniga's hateful extremism represents the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Certainly the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are in no hurry to disassociate themselves from Zuniga's "screw them" sentiment.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

33. I hereby urge everybody who has seemslikeadream on Ignore...

...to unIgnore, just for a little time, to see this fine Republican campaign ad he crafted.

[On the Road]

42. Actually . . .

John Kerry has done nothing to disassociate himself from Zuniga's hateful reaction to the Falluja massacre.

Kerry dropped the link to The Daily Kos because of this comment and formally disassociated himself from it.

Personally, my main disagreement with Zuniga is that he (and others) are making an enormous and possibly unwarranted assumption about the Blackwater employees' mission.

There are many perfectly legimiate and respectable activities carried out by contractors. On the other hand, whenever a government wants to conduct a secret, illegal paramilitary operation, they often turn to companies like Blackwater. In those cases, they are justly vilified.

We don't know the details. And we should not insult the dead unless we do.

[seemslikeadream]

58. I see I forgot the link for post 3

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=12859

[jobycom]

4. When they stop supporting an unelected genocidal traitor, I'll listen

Until then, the blood they cheer runs much deeper than the few off-the-cuff statements they cite from here.

[cspiguy]

6. they were purportedly guarding food deliveries. Nice job fallujans!

idiots.

[DoctorMyEyes]

12. purportedly?

It was reported in American media that they were guarding food delivery for American troops. If that's true - what happened to the trucks full of food? Who would know that it was food and not weapons even if that is really what they were doing there?

Besides, you are overlooking the fact that the marines had just reversed the previous "let them stew in their own juices" method of containing Fallujah to a "go poke it with a stick" method. Eighteen Iraqis including women and children had been killed by US forces in the days before the attack on the "contractors".

It wasn't just DUers who made some pretty harsh comments about the contractors. I've read comments by soldiers and marines in Iraq that weren't "full of compassion".

[IndianaGreen]

16. The story about the food delivery was a cover story

These people were members of a contractor death squad.

[seemslikeadream]

21. Iraq's mercenaries: Riches for risks

By Clare Murphy
BBC News Online


The severe lack of security in Iraq has opened up a highly profitable market for private security contractors.


Security guards are hired from around the world
The brutal murders of four American security men in Falluja on Wednesday 31 March is unlikely to deter the many would-be mercenaries willing to accept the risks involved in providing security amid the instability of post-war Iraq, according to one security firm.

The US has so far spent $20bn on reconstruction in Iraq. The companies which have won these contracts currently expect to spend about 10% of their budgets on providing personal security planning and protection for their workers.

Hence a highly lucrative market has sprung up.

Industry insiders say the war has proven a godsend for British security firms - which have picked up much of the work. Their revenues are estimated to have risen fivefold, from around $350m before the invasion to nearly $2bn

more
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3590887.stm

[LagaLover]

36. Link?

or ANYTHING to support that interesting "theory?"

[IndianaGreen]

45. Where is the convoy? Where are the people driving the convoy?

It wasn't food for an NGO because they shunned anything connected to the US government, including contractors, several months ago.

If it was a convoy for troops, where are those troops?

How come no one has step forward and said that those guys were protecting their stuff?

THINK

[redqueen]

48. Critical thinking should be taught in elementary school

This country (not to mention the rest of the world) is suffering mightily due to a profound lack of it in the electorate.

[IndianaGreen]

54. Here is the link to thread started by NNN0LHI (no food convoys)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1347122

[bowens43]

18. sure they were......

Ex-navy seals and rangers guarding food supplies? right. These guys were there to kill. There is no oversight. They can commit atrocities that US troops would never get away with..

[Scurrilous]

7. Meanwhile...

...you can go over to Freeperville and read endless threads mocking the death of Rachel Corrie. I guess some dead Americans are more sacred than others.

[KittyWampus]

10. And Coulter Quips They Should Start Killing Liberals

in front of Bush Administration members who then applaud her.

Sorry, but the Left can be assertive without being equally DEPRAVED.

[KurtNilsen]

22. Who is Rachel Corrie?

[JVS]

27. Wasn't that some Simon and Garfunkel song

about a rich guy who shot himself.

[IndianaGreen]

30. She was an American peace activist murdered in cold blood by Israel

That "shitty little country" (as a French Amassador called it) that lobbied so hard for us to go to war in Iraq.

[KurtNilsen]

39. Thanks for the answer.

I did a google just after I posted here. Horrible story. She was a true Martyr.

[seemslikeadream]

14. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER
Buffy Sainte-Marie
© Caleb Music-ASCAP

I wrote "Universal Soldier" in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It's about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all. Donovan had a hit with it in 1965.

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an athiest, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.

20040331/capt.sge.dfc46.310304154710.photo01.default-267x384.jpg

[Trajan]

15. Say you had Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao and Adolph Hitler in a cell ...

And you could pull them out one by one ...

These are some of the WORST mass murderers of all time ....

Would you stomp Mao's head in with your boot ? .. bludgeon his skull with a steel rod ?? ..

Would you cut off Hitler's nose, and pour acid in his eyes ? ... Light him afire and yank out his fingernails ??? ...

Would you cut of Stalin's limbs, one by one ??? .. Would you roast him alive, then pull apart his body and dance through the streets ?? ..

Saying it is OK to torture, maim and kill these 'mercinaries' reveals something darker within ...

Guess what ? .... It is simply wrong to torture another human being ... It is IMMORAL to torture ... even your enemies ...

EVEN in revenge ...

That thread was incendiary, and an embarrassment to DU, I believe ...

EVEN then: It is wrong to indict all of DU for the expressions of a VERY few, very inconsiderate DU posters ...

[G_j]

20. I agree

If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.

- Martin Luther King Jr., "Justice Without Violence", 4.3.57

[G_j]

59. to clarify

I agree with your take on violence.

I don't necessarily think the thread was incendiary, and an embarrassment to DU. Two or three remarks may have been offered with more sensitivity.
I do think it's always good to show some sensitivity when talking about the death of anyone.
However the discussion was mostly about the fact that these people were mercenaries.

[G_j]

17. some of the comments

came from this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=456077#456090

[saigon68]

50. That was my thread

A contractor is a guy with a lunch box who fixes your plumbing.

These "contractors" are mercenaries.




I guess the "Right Wing Patriots" or Military Jock-sniffers as Coulter is so fond of saying about democrats who've just "discovered" Veterans ---can't take it when someone tells it like it is



When Private Armies Take to the Front Lines
The security contractors killed in Fallujah represented a little known reality of the war in Iraq
By MICHAEL DUFFY


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040412-607775,00.html

From the article:

The current business boom is in Iraq. Blackwater charges its clients $1,500 to $2,000 a day for each hired gun. Most security contractors, like Blackwater's teams, live a comfortable if exhausting existence in Baghdad, staying at the Sheraton or Palestine hotels

"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"

MY TAKE____--- they are an undisciplined rabble, they even have Pinochet's secret police from Chile there working for one of these companys and those guys are THUGS AND MURDERERS

[seemslikeadream]

51. Making a Killing: The Business of War

April 5, 2004


Chapter Release Date
Making a Killing: The Business of War 10/28/2002
Privatizing Combat, the New World Order 10/28/2002
Marketing the New 'Dogs of War' 10/30/2002
Greasing the Skids of Corruption 11/4/2002
The Curious Bonds of Oil Diplomacy 11/6/2002
Conflict Diamonds are Forever 11/8/2002
The Adventure Capitalist 11/11/2002
The Influence Peddlers 11/13/2002
The Field Marshal 11/15/2002
Drugs, Diamonds and Deadly Cargoes 11/18/2002
The Merchant of Death 11/20/2002
Amid the military downsizing and increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments turned increasingly to private military companies – a recently coined euphemism for mercenaries – to intervene on their behalf in war zones around the globe. Often, these companies work as proxies for national or corporate interests, whose involvement is buried under layers of secrecy. Entrepreneurs selling arms and companies drilling and mining in unstable regions have prolonged the conflicts.

A nearly two-year investigation by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has also found that a handful of individuals and companies with connections to governments, multinational corporations and, sometimes, criminal syndicates in the United States, Europe, Africa and the Middle East have profited from this war

http://www.publicintegrity.org/bow/default.aspx



WASHINGTON, October 28, 2002 — At least 90 companies that provide services normally performed by national military forces but without the same degree of public oversight have operated in 110 countries worldwide, providing everything from military training, logistics, and even engaging in armed combat. Amid the global military downsizing and the increasing number of small conflicts that followed the end of the Cold War, governments have turned increasingly to these private military companies to intervene on their behalf around the globe, a new investigation by the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found.



With the ongoing international military presence in Afghanistan and a possible war in Iraq on the horizon, the issue of military privatization has taken on new relevance. Since 1994, the U.S. Defense Department has entered into 3,061 contracts with 12 U.S.-based private military companies identified by ICIJ, a review of government documents showed. Not every contract was for military services; records obtained from the Pentagon were not specific enough to determine the purpose of each of the contracts.

Drawing on classified intelligence files, government reports, court records and public documents, the investigation identifies the non-state actors in this growth industry and explains how they often influence the turn of world events. The nearly two-year investigation, conducted by 35 writers, researchers and editors working on four continents, will be published in 11 installments:

Today: Making a Killing: The Business of War An overview of privatization of combat since the end of the Cold War;
Today: Privatizing Combat, the New World Order A look at the world of private military companies, and the issues raised by the trend of outsourcing war;
Wednesday: Marketing the New Dogs of War How mercenaries, with the aid of public relations professionals, rebranded themselves as private military companies;
Nov. 4: Greasing the Skids of Corruption A case study of how the pursuit of oil in the third world fuels corruption and war;
Nov. 6: The Curious Bonds of Oil Production The U.S. government and a private military company court an oil rich state whose government has been accused of serious human rights violations;
Nov. 8: Conflict Diamonds are Forever Poor controls in the international diamond industry even in South Africa are undercutting attempts to clamp down on conflict diamonds that fuel wars in Africa and, possibly, fund terrorists;
Nov. 11: The Adventure Capitalist While Africa's wars have brought untold misery to millions, some have seen conflict in the region as a business opportunity;
Nov. 13: The Influence Peddlers An entrepreneur with global ties to arms smuggling, resource exploitation and private military companies epitomizes the business of war;
Nov. 15: The Field Marshal An arms trader who admitted to breaking a U.N. arms embargo also claimed ties to French intelligence, the Iranian government, and the since bought out oil company, Elf Aquitaine;
Nov. 18: Drugs, Diamonds and Deadly Cargoes When he was arrested on a drug charge in Milan, Leonid Minin, an arms trader under investigation across Europe, had his business records with him, providing a detailed look into the world of war commerce;
Nov. 20: The Merchant of Death Victor Bout, who has been accused of fueling Africa's bloodiest conflicts, ran a global transportation network with bases and front companies in Europe, the Middle East, Afghanistan, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, and even the United States.
The Center is also providing access to ICIJ's searchable database that chronicles the global operations of the private military companies. Most of the PMCs, as they are known, are based in the United States, Britain and South Africa, but the vast bulk of their services are performed in conflict-ridden areas of Africa, South America and Asia.

more
http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=177&sid=100




Child soldiers wait in Bule for orders to move. When this photo was taken, they were the only defense forces in a 25-mile radius. Two days later they too pulled out, and Bule was attacked.

[seemslikeadream]

19. US outsources its anti-terror war

US outsources its anti-terror war


CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA

TIMES NEWS NETWORK< FRIDAY, APRIL 02, 2004 08:17:12 PM >

An Iraqi man looks at US soldiers near the Republican Palace, now a US Army base, in Baghdad.

WASHINGTON: While the United States is still seething at the killing of four American 'contractors' in Iraq and planning to retaliate against those in Fallujah where the crime was perpetuated, the episode has brought attention to a little-known practice – the US outsourcing of its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to its private armies.


Reports suggest that the United States is using between 10,000 to 15,000 private "contractors," more than the size of the British armed forces in Iraq, for policing and protection of its operations.

Most of these 'contractors' – who would be called mercenaries or militias or vigilantes in other situations – are former US armed forces personnel employed through private agencies. They are said to earn as much as $ 1000 a day.

more
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow/597...

[Renew Deal]

24. They should cherry pick from Free republic

There are lots of gems of the same magnitude.

[redqueen]

32. They never will - doesn't fit their agenda

But Salon.com sure as hell should.

Have they? Has any media outlet published any of the hate speech from Freeperland?

How about checking up on how much fundraising is done through sites like Kos's for the right - say Lucianne.com or some other crap site like that... anyone know if they also have links to RNC or repuke candidates?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

37. Ohhhh, but Air America will.

What about suggesting it to them?

[Spentastic]

25. So what? Fuck em.

Whilst in dubious taste the substance of those posts is in effect true.

These guys were guarding food for troops (from Blackwater's own statement). As such they are actively aiding the occupation. They are mercenaries. International law frowns upon the use of mercenaries. Calling them contractors does not change things.

Personally I think that expressing joy about death is never good but the media would have us believe that these guys were just ordinary Joes doing a job. They were trained killers doing a job.

[seemslikeadream]

26. Private Pentagon contractors are paying soldiers of fortune from

Mercenaries 'R' U.S.
Private Pentagon contractors are paying soldiers of fortune from
Chile and South Africa up to $4,000 per month for stints in Iraq
by Bill Berkowitz
www.dissidentvoice.org
April 5, 2004


Currently there are thousands of soldiers under contract with private companies serving in Iraq. "Squads of Bosnians, Filipinos and Americans with special forces experience have been hired for tasks ranging from airport security to protecting Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority," The Guardian's Franklin reported.

Chile isn't the only country from which private companies have recruited mercenaries for Iraq. According to the South Africa newspaper, The Cape Times, "More than 1,500 South Africans are believed to be in Iraq under contract to various private military companies." The United Nations recently reported that South Africa "is already among the top three suppliers of personnel for private military companies, along with the UK and the US."


Institute for Security Studies military analyst Henri Boshoff told Tromp that it appeared most of the South Africans in Iraq were former members of the South African Defense Force and South African Police. "The guys over there are walking a thin line, close to contravening the Foreign Military Assistance Act," he added.

According to the Web site of the South African-based Democratic Alliance, the private companies appear to be working in Iraq "in contravention of South African law." South African law states that all security companies working outside the country must register with the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), headed by Minister of Education Kader Asmal. "So far," according to Tromp, "two companies, Meteoric Tactical Solutions and Grand Lake Trading 46 (Pty) Ltd, have submitted applications to operate in Iraq."

Meteoric Tactical Solutions "is providing protection and is also training new Iraqi police and security units," while another company, Erinys, a joint South African-British company which has failed to register with the government, "has received a multimillion-dollar contract to protect Iraq's oil industry," the Cape Times reported. Earlier this year, an Erinys employee was killed when a car bomb exploded at a hotel where South Africans have been staying.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/April2004/Berkowitz0405.htm




Maria, a mother of three, lost her arm defending her children in Nizi, Eastern Congo. She says soldiers ate flesh from the arm after they had amputated it.

Mercenaries are responsible for continuing wars all over and they do not follow any international laws or are they protected by them. Private companies are waging these wars now and are the reason for attodities like this.

And by the way this is Congo where George Bush Sr. and his friends Barrick are raping the country for all the minerial wealth.

War is Golden for the Bush Administration
And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html

[chaska]

28. Observations:

Trajan said, "Saying it is OK to torture, maim and kill these 'mercinaries' reveals something darker within ..."

I disagree. I think the problem is the disconnect between thought and reality. It's real easy to think that one wishes another dead, but if we were in a position where we had the opportunity to kill, no strings attached, no complications such as jail time, etc. we would all still find it very dificult, if not impossible, to do. There are a lot of mental hoops one has to jump through to reach a state that allows the killing of another human being.

We all experience this kind of disconnect. It's the reason we have wars in the first place. If all the wars we support were required to be just outside our front door we would never support any war.

We have to remain ever watchful that we don't fall into these sorts of mental traps. Else we are no better than Coulter. Kos slipped and fell right into a big ol' pile of his own mental shit. I feel sorry for the guy.

New subject:

Concept: Turnabout is fair play. The right is certainly more guilty of this sort of stuff. There is a veritable treasure trove of material just waiting to be harvested and exploited. Sic 'em.

[mike_c]

29. well, I'm a democrat and I agree with these sentiments....

And you can quote me on it.

[leesa]

31. Rah. Rah rah we support our troops by sending them to their deaths

for absolutely no reason. Now THAT makes solid sense! Ignorant fools. How have Americans become so dumb? Is it the corporate food they have been feeding people at the fast food restaurants. I don't eat that shit so maybe it doesn't affect me.
The risk mercenaries take when they go to war zones for cash is to be killed, so be it.

[Aidoneus]

34. no objection to any of the quoted remarks

Mercenaries are the worst and most hated people on a battlefield--they chose to be there and profit from it. They were warned not to enter the city again a few days before, and found out what kind of muscle was backing up that warning. Now 1200 Marines may find the same because of their arrogance.

[Chitown_Dem]

35. hypocrisy

I don't condone or rejoice in any killing, but it is such hypocrisy to highlight these kinds of statments when just a little over a year ago war supporters were having Iraq war parties around the TV, complete with popcorn and beer. Is it not barbaric to treat a war like a Superbowl game?

[K-W]

38. Can we stop making a mountain out of a molehill.

Why are we acting like it is the worst thing in the world if everyone doesnt bow down and pretend that American life is some special form of life.

i am not saying these things are good or smart, but how are they any different than Bush administration people saying we need to kill the people who cheered in Falluja? How is this different than the huge number of people who wanted to kill every arab after 9/11. This kind of talk is not uncommon at all in our society. people talk about other people like this constantly, its not right, but it also isnt weird or totally out of line.

THIS NEEDS TO STOP

This is a republican attempt to villianize and devide liberals. This is an internet forum with all kinds of people posting with various levels of seriousness, and in some cases irrationally venting. Everyone alive has at some point wished someone dead in a moment of irrational anger, some people choice to voice that kind of irrational reaction on a forum or in a blog. We shouldnt be jumping down thier throats.

[apnu]

40. You can read anything you want when....

...things are taken out of context. Technically these quotes are probably real, but with out knowing what conversation they came from or how old they are... there's no data here but to FUD anyone leaning to the center or left.

People who do stupid stuff like this can take a flying leap for all I care.

[LeftwingPitbull]

41. Then...

The GOP should disassociate with Ted Nugent or Ann Coulter.

[apnu]

47. well... yeah...

The GOP isn't being all that "smart" IMO. They seem to be banking on low voter turn out and putting stock in what large voting blocks exist within that low voter turnout. Namely religious conservatives. Not a smart play, when government is supposed to be working for everyone.

But hey... they drew this line in the sand, and I for one, am happy to be on the other side of it where the real majority lives.

But, we need more people voting for the sake of the country!

[Doomsayer13]

46. they didn't pick my quotes condemning the crime

but that would make their illustration of DU as some communist anti-american internet refuge a bigt more difficult.

[bobbyboucher]

49. Horseshit propaganda!

There is no way of knowing who wrote those quotes is there? While I'm sure that some are legit, who really knows? It isn't that hard to get online and spew ridiculous shit while claiming loyalty to a certain side, is it?

Thanks for taking the bait. Or dit you bait the hook?

[DrWeird]

52. Notice it's called Democratic "Underground."

Two years ago it was politically incorrect to criticize president Bush. We did it anyway, despite what freepers thought.

If you don't want to read other peoples opinions that a few babykillers got a taste of their own medicine then you can go somewhere else.

[saigon68]

56. I agree Doctor

to them I say "sorry bout that'

[DemLikr]

57. Republicans cheer Iraq, Bin Laden, Enron, Economy, civil rights outrage

fuck em.

I'm all for everyone at DU saying whatever the fuck they want...including the lurking Freepers.

The day we try to go mainstream/respectable is the day we begin to fizzle out...

and by the way, this faux controversey is typical diversionary bullshit, just as when Vietnam protestors were accused of aiding and abetting the N. Vietnamese.

[nomatrix]

60. Here is the way Republican respond to it

Kathleen Parker has a column that appears in my newspaper.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/kathleenparker/kp20040403.shtml

"I suppose it would be considered lacking in nuance to nuke the Sunni Triangle.

But so goes the unanimous vote around my household - and I'm betting millions of others - in the aftermath of what forevermore will be remembered simply as "Fallujah."

Nuke. The greatest fear of all mankind, and these idiots throw it into the mix as a revenge solution. They fuel the fire by referring to those killed "civilian contractors" and they were "protecting food delivery".
Leaves the impression that this was missionary not mercenary.

No one has clearly stated as of yet what there mission was, though it seems the story will not disappear. Am I understanding correctly that Blackwater is training the Iraqi police?