Sometimes, there's a case which delineates the Right from the Left so easily.
My hunch is that those people who'll believe these men did kill innocent Iraqi civilians will be Leftists and those who will insist that they probably didn't (especially considering their very honorable military backgrounds) will be Conservatives.
It's a delineation of IS AMERICA ALWAYS WRONG or are we sometimes WRONGLY ACCUSED? If Iraqi thugs killed these people and our men are innocent, perhaps the "witnesses" have an agenda, no? Is it okay for them to have this type of agenda and be so blanketly believed and supported and it's not okay for our men who deny the accusations to be supported by Americans? Is it beyond terrorists to do a terrible deed like this and make it look like it was soldiers? I'm able to write like this because I have very little information on the facts, so I'm conjecturing and I think that's what's needed here for the general discussion.
Will our American newspapers rally around our guys at least in an effort to remain FAIR? Did they for Abu Ghraib? (of course not....how many photographs did we see? More than the terror in Mumbai which produced 171 DEATHS? I think so) Remember when Murtha accused our soldiers of cold blooded murder so shortly after he'd heard about the story...before investigations, etc? I believe all of those soldiers have been cleared of charges but I'm not surprised if you haven't heard that. No, you probably will have because if you're reading this blog, you're probably an informed Conservative; pardon me.
Yes, the reaction to particular stories really do draw a line in the sand...Left v Right. I'd have thought it's always best to believe the best in our people. And prosecute when the facts show differently.
Semper FI? They are, to US.
z
22 comments:
Unfortunately there are so few facts available that we won't know what happened until Judgment Day. I guess that innocent until proven guilty should apply to terrorists but not Americans defending the interests of America and her allies.
As long as people continue to attempt to deny the obvious - that leftists are incapable of rational thought - we will always run up against this dichotomy.
you guess THAT? a little sarcasm there, huh, shoprat!?
Yes, that's exactly the point.
The facts will be important in the trial, etc...or on Judgment Day, yes...but they're not so much here at the blog for THIS piece, I think...it's more the feel of the thing, the sense of it...we don't know. That's the whole point.
There's a "GOTCHA!" thing we do to OURSELVES I don't see other countries doing to their own. "The war's wrong, and we'll find and hugely expose ANYTHING that supports that" is a very dangerous precedent for our media to set.. This has to stop.
I heard the headline on the news about the accusation of these guys last night and had the usual thought from the Right that this is no doubt typical Leftist spin and these guys are most likely innocent. It's become predictable. Shoprat is right. Judgment Day is going to answer a lot of questions, including many we haven't asked of course.
I think, in war, instants can mean life or death. At home we watch in slow motion, safe in our living rooms.
We have no right from our perch, to accept guilt as an automatic response to this situation. The implication in the article, is guilty until proven innocent.
It cites Iraqi civilians as witnesses as if they have no agenda or complicity.
The term Iraqi civilians is a little laughable. What else are insurgents, but civilians?
If our men were being fired on, they had no time to discern a good civilian from a bad civilian.
It's one side's word against the other. I'll choose our side every time. War is live or die. In war there is no middle ground, and if my husband, son, or grandson were there, I wouldn't want him to hesitate.
I would want him to come home alive when the fighting is done, and I can want no less for those who are there.
Pris
This is ridiculous. These guys should be immune from any prosecution other than from a US military court.
FJ..You're so right, and just imagine when obama signs our sovereign laws to the WORLD COURT's jurisdiction like much of Europe's done. Bush will be brought to court, too.........wait for it.
Pris...great thinking, as usual.
Great post, Z. Bravo!!
I think you know the answers to the questions you asked Z. To the left, America is always guilty, no court on this planet can find America innocent. Even if they do, rest assured there will be some leftie out there whining about something.
hey
every american should face evil for a brief 5 seconds and then talk about the situations military or contractors face as a ''pale face'' around the world. sorry for the dig...its too g.d. true. i'm an expat for 25 years and have seen evil in iraq, pakistan and somalia. a friend was sent to iraq to put up a water treatment plant...taken from his vehicle one day...never heard from again.
let the news lie all they want. funny...the indians after the attack are now ''republicans'' real quick, i might add. all you had to hear were accounts of the head of truama service (25 years same job)in the main bombay hospital (imagine that gig). the torture of the jews in their social center was beyond his power of description. women had their breast removed and more. last act of the rabbi was to cover his butchered wife with his prayer shawl-before he had his head blown off.
believe me the next hit taken by america will be a nice soft target and 1000's will die. the ''chatter'' on the internet is their. my kid in nyc says the national guard is at all train stations ''locked and loaded''.
kumbaya, BHO, kumbaya....
I dont know facts either, but one thing the mdeia refuses to discuss is that there is a difference between the facts and the criminal culpability. The same thing happens when a police officer kills someone. Just because he may have killed the wrong person does not mean he committed a criminal act.
The same is true for our warriors. The fact could be that they killed innocent civilians, but it could be that those innocent civilians were in a building with insurgents and someone dropped a grenade through a window.
Not quite the same thing as Murtha-easque renagades with mental issues.
Anonymous...what a story; hearing first hand...Thanks for being here. I hope you come back and talk more about what you've seen.
I hope you're wrong about soft targets, but I fear our Left's made us the perfect one.
Tom, thanks!
Robert..absolutely...we MUST go back to erring on OUR SIDE.
And MK...I sure DO know the answers; but it's sure good to get all these comments filling us in with other good opinions and facts! This is the best reason for blogging, isn't it!!?
Farmer, they aren't U.S. military. Why should mercenaries not be prosecuted ?
Why are these guys above due process?
I wonder what axe the government had to grind, that they're going after these guys. The people who want to prosecute should go over and ride shotgun on convoys for awhile.
Ducky, do you know what mercenary means? "only for gain"..in a very pejorative way. These are guys making a living as consultants. Most were soldiers, they know the lay of the land so it's smart for Blackwater to hire them.
This isn't the White Feather bunch.
The point is, Ducky, they're AMERICANS and, guess what, that doesn't mean they're automatically savage killers, no matter what you lefties think.
I think my piece was clear.
Hermit..that's another thing; same as American cops; Somehow, the Left just can't imagine that a cop can accidentally kill, or in self defense..it's just NOT OKAY. Obviously, it's never OKAY to kill someone, but can you imagine the fear cops have? Can't they have fear? Can't they maybe fire early when they're quite sure they're about to be shot without having their career ruined and being sued to the hilt?
PROSECUTE WHEN THERE IS A QUESTION OR OBVIOUS IMPROPRIETY, but to automatically condemn? No.
The point is, Ducky, they're AMERICANS and, guess what, that doesn't mean they're automatically savage killers, no matter what you lefties think.
I think my piece was clear.
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And it doesn't mean they aren't. Despite what the far right says.
Seems like a standoff.
Ducky, it would SO HELP if you'd READ THE BLOGS before commenting.
NOBODY said they were blanketly innocent. You're like the media, ignoring truth, obfuscating the obvious and then coming to your own conclusions.
Iraq has been a warzone in which anyone is a target of a brutal insurgency. Blackwater is assigned to protect civilians from terrorist military attacks.
The ones that should be charged in this case are the criminals that attacked their convoy in a premeditated attempt to commit murder of unarmed civilians.
Amen, Freedom.
Oops. (Smile!!)
These guys are accused of firing at and killing civilians who had their hands raised, firing a grenade into an elementary school and killing several young girls and killing people trying to flee.
Now the death toll was sufficient that this should be investigated. If what is being said is inaccurate then they are released. If it is accurate then these guys are either incompetent and it's only manslaughter or they're are stone cold pigs guilty of murder. Simple
And the Haditha marines were accused of similar killings, but that turned out to be propaganda.
These contractors were attacked and a firefight ensued. The fault belongs to the insurgents and they should assume responsibility for their actions.
Ducky..who the heck said anything different than what you said?
Except most of us don't believe everything they hear coming from Iraqis.
read Freadomnow...sensible and erring on OUR side.
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