THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

It's nice to know that you appreciate the use of those words in the way you describe, but I didn't use them in that way. I offered two (where I allowed for the possibility of others) choices BOTH of which I considered "logical and rational". Nothing in what I wrote painted anyone else as anything else.

My obvious point was that if it is true that Bush is failing to "unite" people across the political spectrum, that does not necessarily disprove the notion that Bush wishes to unite them.

Of course, the whole question is stupid. Every President would love to unite everyone behind his stated vision. Every President wants to be a "uniter". The question is whether this President has made efforts to reach out to people with whom he disagrees and offer them some of what they want based on their vision. I'd say he has done that, and it's one of the reasons I offer him only qualified support.

In my opinion, Bush has been a good President so far, but he could be a great President if he'd stop worrying about what the left wants and show the American people that the core concepts of limited government, personal liberty and accountability, and peace through deterrence would result in a better life for everyone.

Steve, welcome back, and thank you for clear and unequivocal posting.

I agree with your reasoning, and share your sentiments. I feel this is a very low point in our history, and I am ashamed.

I cannot believe that a Labour government, which I voted for, has led us into this.

I never trusted Bush, and didn't vote for him, but I am stuck as an American to his misquotes, missteps, and misguided leadership. I am more ashamed, because our country failed too many allies that depended upon us to lead the world in the right way. This administration has wrought destruction and increased terrorism as this world has never seen before. I'm just wondering when the governments of the coalition are going to realize the futile goal of this administration to bring democracy in the middle of the middle east. America has lost almost 700 of our sons and daughters. I'm wondering when the American People are going to realize when the cost is too high to pay for this administration's misguided leadership.

I thought terrorists caused terrorism.


Was it a futile goal to bring democracy to Japan and Germany after WWII? Or maybe you don't think Arabs are deserving of liberty and prosperity...


Let's try an analogy here...

Suppose your family is being held hostage and tortured in your own home. Some people want to send police in to help you, but others don't see why we should bother; it isn't our problem, right? And maybe your family is happy to live under the thumb of others. Who are we to judge, say these people.

Others advocate helping you, and are willing to put others in harm's way to do so. Police go in and are successful in beating back the bad guys to a point, but will need time to completely drive them from your house and return control of it to you.

Sadly, a couple of cops lost their lives trying to save your family, and now people from the first group above are arguing that these cops lives were lost FOR NOTHING, that the cost was too high, that they never should have sacrificed for you in the first place, and that the remaining cops should leave now before any more are hurt or killed, no matter that this will place your family at peril yet again.

I think that's a pretty apt analogy. (I look forward to reading from others why they think it is not.)

What does Kucinich advocate with respect to economic policy?

Income Tax Rate--uniform, or increasing with amount earned?

Income Tax exemptions--uniform, or smaller for the less wealthy and larger for the more wealthy?

Income Tax Deductions--none, or more for you and less for me?

Entitlements--More or less wealth transfer?

Subsidies--More or less federal support for "special groups"?

What does Kucinich advocate with respect to federal aid/control of education?[/u]

More?
Less?

What does Kucinich advocate with respect to interpreting the Constitution?

As intended by those who adopted it and by those who adopted its ammendments?

As judged by the appointed (e.g., federal judges) to be appropriate for current circumstances?

ican your questions are highly indicative of a Libertarian agenda however, Kucinich is a liberal democrat and the answers to your questions follow the agenda he has offered open and honestly, he does not pretend otherwise. In fact I would offer that his honestly about his "liberalness" has ensured his lack of "electability" while maintaining his integrity, and I think you would admit that is a rarity these days.

McG, I'm so ugly, I don't care about the looks of anybody else, and don't rate anybody by their looks. I only care about their ethics, the their ideas about how they would be as our pres. LOL

surely McGentrix you aren't suggesting we go by looks for in that case Clinton would be the man regardless of the constitution and Bush the younger would still be in the oil fields of the Permian Basin of west texas spitting chew and talking trash, or perhaps you want to go for H. Ross again?

Dys - Are you saying that you don't think Dubya is HOT? :wink:

well yeah Dubya is HOT but nothing that penicillin couldn't fix.

Close enough! Less Government but More rule of law.




Yes! Same is true for a candidate honest about his libertarianness.

So thus we actually have it: a choice between a dishonest conservative and a dishonest liberal. Which one will do the least damage?

Betcha you're wrong!

I do! Dys is right on the money this time!

now that's an opening for some real discussion I would really enjoy.

How about: The one who steals the fewest votes in November!

WADDAYA THINK OF THIS?

April 19, 2004
By DAVID BARSTOW
This article was reported by David Barstow, James Glanz,
Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Kate Zernike and was written by
Mr. Barstow.

They have come from all corners of the world. Former Navy
Seal commandos from North Carolina. Gurkas from Nepal.
Soldiers from South Africa's old apartheid government. They
have come by the thousands, drawn to the dozens of private
security companies that have set up shop in Baghdad. The
most prized were plucked from the world's elite special
forces units. Others may have been recruited from the local
SWAT team.

But they are there, racing about Iraq in armored cars, many
outfitted with the latest in high-end combat weapons. Some
security companies have formed their own "Quick Reaction
Forces," and their own intelligence units that produce
daily intelligence briefs with grid maps of "hot zones."
One company has its own helicopters, and several have even
forged diplomatic alliances with local clans.

Far more than in any other conflict in United States
history, the Pentagon is relying on private security
companies to perform crucial jobs once entrusted to the
military. In addition to guarding innumerable
reconstruction projects, private companies are being asked
to provide security for the chief of the Coalition
Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer III, and other senior
officials; to escort supply convoys through hostile
territory; and to defend key locations, including 15
regional authority headquarters and even the Green Zone in
downtown Baghdad, the center of American power in Iraq.

With every week of insurgency in a war zone with no front,
these companies are becoming more deeply enmeshed in
combat, in some cases all but obliterating distinctions
between professional troops and private commandos. Company
executives see a clear boundary between their defensive
roles as protectors and the offensive operations of the
military. But more and more, they give the appearance of
private, for-profit militias - by several estimates, a
force of roughly 20,000 on top of an American military
presence of 130,000.

"I refer to them as our silent partner in this struggle,"
Senator John W. Warner, the Virginia Republican and Armed
Services Committee chairman, said in an interview.

The price of this partnership is soaring. By some recent
government estimates, security costs could claim up to 25
percent of the $18 billion budgeted for reconstruction, a
huge and mostly unanticipated expense that could delay or
force the cancellation of billions of dollars worth of
projects to rebuild schools, water treatment plants,
electric lines and oil refineries.

In Washington, defense experts and some leading Democrats
are raising alarms over security companies' growing role in
Iraq.

"Security in a hostile fire area is a classic military
mission," Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a member of
the Armed Service committee, wrote last week in a letter to
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed by 12 other
Democratic senators. "Delegating this mission to private
contractors raises serious questions."

The extent and strategic importance of the alliance between
the Pentagon and the private security industry has been all
the more visible with each surge of violence. In recent
weeks, commandos from private security companies fought to
defend coalition authority employees and buildings from
major assaults in Kut and Najaf, two cities south of
Baghdad. To the north, in Mosul, a third security company
repelled a direct assault on its headquarters. In the most
publicized attack, four private security contractors were
killed in an ambush of a supply convoy in Fallujah.

The Bush administration's growing dependence on private
security companies is partly by design. Determined to
transform the military into a leaner but more lethal
fighting force, Mr. Rumsfeld has pushed aggressively to
outsource tasks not deemed essential to war-making. But
many Pentagon and authority officials now concede that the
companies' expanding role is also a result of the
administration's misplaced optimism about how Iraqis would
greet American reconstruction efforts.

The authority initially estimated that security costs would
eat up about 10 percent of the $18 billion in
reconstruction money approved by Congress, said Capt. Bruce
A. Cole of the Navy, a spokesman for the authority's
program management office.

But after months of sabotage and insurgency, some officials
now say a much higher percentage will go to security
companies that unblushingly charge $500 to $1,500 a day for
their most skilled operators.

"I believe that it was expected that coalition forces would
provide adequate internal security and thus obviate the
need for contractors to hire their own security," said
Stuart W. Bowen Jr., the new inspector general of the
authority. "But the current threat situation now requires
that an unexpected, substantial percentage of contractor
dollars be allocated to private security."

"The numbers I've heard range up to 25 percent," Mr. Bowen
said in a telephone interview from Baghdad. Mark J. Lumer,
the Pentagon official responsible for overseeing Army
procurement contracts in Iraq, said he had seen similar
estimates.

But Captain Cole said that the costs were unlikely to reach
that level and that the progress of reconstruction would
eventually alleviate the current security problems.

Still, in many ways the accelerating partnership between
the military and private security companies has already
outrun the planning for it.

There is no central oversight of the companies, no uniform
rules of engagement, no consistent standards for vetting or
training new hires. Some security guards complain bitterly
of being thrust into combat without adequate firepower,
training or equipment. There are stories of inadequate
communication links with military commanders and of
security guards stranded and under attack without
reinforcements.

Only now are authority officials working to draft rules for
private security companies. The rules would require all the
companies to register and be vetted by Iraq's Ministry of
Interior. They would also give them the right to detain
civilians and to use deadly force in defense of themselves
or their clients. "Fire only aimed shots," reads one
proposed rule, according to a draft obtained by The New
York Times.

Several security companies have themselves been pressing
for the rules, warning that an influx of inexperienced and
small companies has contributed to a chaotic atmosphere.
One company has even enlisted a former West Point
philosopher to help it devise rules of conduct.

"What you don't need is Dodge City out there any more than
you've already got it," said Jerry Hoffman, chief executive
of Armor Group, a large security company working in Iraq.
"You ought to have policies that are fair and equal and
enforceable."

Company executives argue that their services have freed up
thousands of troops for offensive combat operations.

But some military leaders are openly grumbling that the
lure of $500 to $1,500 a day is siphoning away some of
their most experienced Special Operations people at the
very time their services are most in demand.

Pentagon and coalition authority officials said they had no
precise tally of how many private security guards are being
paid with government funds, much less how many have been
killed or wounded. Yet some Democrats and others suggest
that the Bush administration is relying on these companies
to both mask the cost of the war and augment an
overstretched uniformed force.

Mr. Rumsfeld has praised the work of security companies and
disputed the idea that they were being pressed into action
to make up for inadequate troop levels.

Still, the government recently advertised for a big new
contract - up to $100 million to guard the Green Zone in
Baghdad.

"The current and projected threat and recent history of
attacks directed against coalition forces, and thinly
stretched military force, requires a commercial security
force that is dedicated to provide Force Protection
security," the solicitation states. Danger Zones: Rising
Casualties and Deal Making

The words did not match the images from Iraq.

At a
Philadelphia conference last week, a government official
pitched the promise of Iraq to dozens of business owners
interested in winning reconstruction contracts.

William H. Lash III, a senior Commerce Department official,
said Baghdad was flowering, that restaurants and hotels
were reopening. He told of driving around Baghdad and
feeling out of place wearing body armor among ordinary
Iraqis. In any case, he joked, the armor "clashed with my
suit," so he took it off.

But the view from Iraq is considerably less optimistic,
with contracting companies and allied personnel alike
hunkering down in walled-off compounds. "We're really in an
unprecedented situation here," said Michael Battles,
co-founder of the security company Custer Battles.
"Civilian contractors are working in and amongst the most
hostile parts of a conflict or postconflict scenario."

One measure of the growing danger comes from the federal
Department of Labor, which handles workers' compensation
claims for deaths and injuries among among contract
employees working for the military in war zones.

Since the start of 2003, contractors have filed claims for
94 deaths and 1,164 injuries. For all of 2001 and 2002, by
contrast, contractors reported 10 deaths and 843 injuries.
No precise nation-by-nation breakdown is yet available, but
Labor Department officials said an overwhelming majority of
the cases since 2003 were from Iraq.

With mounting casualties has come the exponential growth of
the little-known industry of private security companies
that work in the world's hot spots. In Iraq, almost all of
them are on the United States payroll, either directly
through contracts with government agencies or indirectly
through subcontracts with companies hired to rebuild Iraq.

Global Risk Strategies, one of the first security
companies to enter Iraq, now has about 1,500 private guards
in Iraq, up from 90 at the start of the war. The Steele
Foundation has grown to 500 from 50. Erinys, a company
barely known in the security industry before the war, now
employs about 14,000 Iraqis.

In many cases companies are adapting to the dangers of Iraq
by replicating the tactics they perfected on Special Forces
teams. One, Special Operations Consulting-Security
Management Group, has recruited Iraqi informants who
provide intelligence that helps the company assess threats,
said Michael A. Janke, the company's chief operating
officer.

The combination of a deadly insurgency and billions of
dollars in aid money has unleashed powerful market forces
in the war zone. New security companies aggressively
compete for lucrative contracts in a frenzy of deal making.


"A lot of firms have put out a shingle, and they're not
geared to operate in that environment," said Mr. Hoffman,
the Armor Group chief executive.

One security company, the Steele Foundation, recently
turned down an $18 million contract for a corporation that
wanted a security force deployed within only a few days;
Steele said it simply could not find enough qualified
guards so quickly. Another company promptly jumped at the
contract.

"They just throw bodies at it," said Kenn Kurtz, Steele's
chief executive officer.

Early on in the war, private security contractors came
mostly from elite Special Operations forces. It is a small
enough world that checking credentials was easy. But as
demand has grown, so has the difficulty of finding and
vetting qualified people.

"At what point do we start scraping the barrel?" asked
Simon Faulkner, chief operating officer of Hart, a British
security company. "Where are these guys coming from?"

When four guards working for a subcontractor hired by
Erinys were killed in an attack in January, they were
revealed to be former members of apartheid-era security
forces in South Africa. One had admitted to crimes in an
amnesty application to the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission there. "We were very alarmed," said Michael
Hutchings, the chief executive of Erinys Iraq. "We went
back to our subcontractors and told them you want to
sharpen up on your vetting."

Troops and Guards: Distinctions Are Hard to Keep

For
private security contractors, the rules of engagement are
seemingly simple. They can play defense, but not offense.
In fact, military legal experts say, they risk being
treated as illegal combatants if they support military
units in hostile engagements.

"We have issued no contracts for any contractor to engage
in combat," Mr. Lumer, the Army procurement official.

What has happened, Mr. Lumer said in an interview, is that
the Pentagon has, to a "clearly unprecedented" degree,
relied on security companies to guard convoys, senior
officials and coalition authority facilities.

No one wants regular troops "standing around in front of
buildings," he said. "You don't want them catching
jaywalkers or handing out speeding tickets."

But in Iraq, insurgents ignore distinctions between
security guards and combat troops. And what is more, they
have made convoys and authority buildings prime targets. As
a result, security contractors have increasingly found
themselves in pitched battles, facing rocket-propelled
grenades, not jaywalkers..

It is in those engagements, several security executives
said, that the distinctions between defense and offense
blur most. One notable example came two weeks ago, when
eight security contractors from Blackwater USA helped repel
a major attack on a coalition authority building in Najaf.
The men fired thousands of rounds, and then summoned
Blackwater helicopters for more.

In an interview, Patrick Toohey, vice president for
government relations at Blackwater, grappled for the right
words to describe his men's actions. At one moment he spoke
proudly of how the Blackwater men "fought and engaged every
combatant with precise fire." At another he insisted that
his men had not been engaged in combat at all. "We were
conducting a security operation," he said.

"The line," he finally said, "is getting blurred."

And it
is likely to get more blurred, with private security
companies lobbying for permission to carry heavier weapons.


"We will keep pressing for that," said Mr. Faulkner, the
Hart executive - especially after four of his men spent 14
hours on a roof of their building in Kut fighting off 10
times as many insurgents. Another Hart employee was killed
in the assault, his body later dismembered by the mob.

"I cannot accept a situation where four of our people are
being besieged by 40 or 60 Iraqis, where they're talking to
me on a telephone saying, `Who's coming to help?' " Mr.
Faulkner said.

They are also seeking ways to improve communications with
military units.

Two weeks ago, a team of private security guards fought for
hours to defend a coalition authority building in Kut. They
later complained that allied Ukrainian forces had not
responded to their calls for help.

Even routine encounters between allied forces and private
security teams can be perilous. Mr. Janke, the security
company executive and himself a former Navy Seal, said that
in a handful of cases over the last year, jittery soldiers
had "lit up" - fired on - security companies' convoys.

No one was killed, but standard identification procedures
might have prevented those incidents, Mr. Janke said.

Sorting out lines of authority and communication can be
complex. Many security guards are hired as "independent
contractors" by companies that, in turn, are
sub-contractors of larger security companies, which are
themselves subcontractors of a prime contractor, which may
have been hired by a United States agency.

In practical terms, these convoluted relationships often
mean that the governmental authorities have no real
oversight of security companies on the public payroll.

In other cases, though, the government insists that
security companies abide by detailed rules. A solicitation
for work to provide security for the United States Agency
for International Development, for example, contains
requirements on everything from attire to crisis
management.

"If a chemical and/or biological threat or attack occurs,
keep the area near the guard post clear of people," the
document states, adding in capital letters, "Remember,
during the confusion of this type of act, the guards must
still provide security for employees or other people in the
area."

The words are emphatic, but empty.

Government contracting officials and company executives
concede that private guards have every right to abandon
their posts if they deem the situation too unsafe. They are
not subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, nor
can they be prosecuted under civil laws or declared AWOL.

Scott Earhart said he left Iraq because he was disgusted at
the risks he was asked to take without adequate protection
or training.

Mr. Earhart, 34, arrived in Iraq in October to work as a
dog handler for a bomb-detection company hired by Custer
Battles. A former sheriff's deputy in Maryland, he said
that there were not enough weapons and that his body armor
was substandard.

"If you didn't get to the supply room in time you wouldn't
have a gun," he said.

Mr. Earhart said the breaking point came when he was asked
to drive unarmed to Baghdad from Amman, Jordan. "I felt my
safety was in jeopardy," he said.

Mr. Battles, of Custer Battles, said that it had taken
longer than expected to get weapons shipments, and that the
company had had "growth issues, like everybody else." But,
he emphasized, "under no circumstances did we let people
out into the field without proper equipment."

Clearer Rules: Search for Standards, Even a Philosophy


For more than a decade, military colleges have produced
study after study warning of the potential pitfalls of
giving contractors too large a role on the battlefield. The
claimed cost savings are exaggerated or illusory, the
studies argue. Questions of coordination and oversight have
not been adequately resolved. Troops could be put at risk.

Several senior American commanders in Iraq and Kuwait, or
who have recently returned, expressed mixed feelings about
the use of private security companies.

"The key thing is there are many requirements that are
still best filled with combat units that can call on
gunship support - Apache and Kiowa Warriors overhead -
medevac, and just plain old reinforcements," one senior
Army general wrote in an e-mail message to The Times. "Our
task is to outsource what MAKES SENSE given the enemy
situation."

In an unusual reversal of roles, the push for industry
standards is coming from security executives themselves. In
Washington, Pentagon lawyers are reviewing the rules
governing security companies. At the same time, coalition
authority and Iraqi officials are drafting operating rules
for the private security companies.

The draft rules urge the use of "graduated force" - first
shout, then shove, then show your weapon, then shoot. And
they spell out when the guards may use deadly force. But
they do not cover precisely how security operators will be
screened and trained.

For now, companies are often writing their own rules and
procedures for Iraq.

"It's an industry that if it's not careful could easily
blend into what is usually referred to as war profiteers or
soldiers of fortune or mercenaries," "It is a very
ill-defined operating space right now," Mr. Battles said.
"We draw the lines."

Custer Battles went so far as to hire an expert in military
ethics, Paul Christopher, who taught philosophy at West
Point. Mr. Christopher is helping the company define its
place and policies in the chaos of Iraq.

"He's the anti-Rambo," Mr. Battles said. "This is a deep
thinker."

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting from Washington for this
article.

It's too freakin long ............

well that's kinda a toss-up I don't much care for, so basically I am left with voting my pick (Kucinich) or voting against Bush/Kerry by voting Nader which means, as I see it, a vote for Bush, the only other option is voting Kerry which might happen but will also make me sad.

I say we reduce the scope of planned reconstruction projects by whatever amount necessary to pay for the security of those trying to carry out the reconstruction, and brief the Iraqi people regularly on what they are losing to the expense of safeguarding the lives of reconstruction personnel.

Perhaps after learning that plans to build yet another school, hospital, or water treatment facility have been scrapped due to the actions of those hostile to a free Iraq, the Iraqi people will be more motivated to put down those costing them these important facilities.

Hi dys, Seems you and I are in the same boat - sorta. Freak'n shame, if you ask me.