August 20, 2009
Hats off to Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times for reporting that it was after CIA Director Leon Panetta’s holdover lieutenants finally told him that, under President Bush, they had farmed out assassinations to their Blackwater subsidiary, that he abruptly stopped the project and told Congress.
2 comments:
Ray, you have been a hero of mine for a number of years now and I read just about everything you write.
Just in case you read this, what in hell are we going to do about gangs of sociopathic, religiously insane jerks like Blackwater (XE)?
I have to say that they really scare the hell out of me, kinda like the SS in every WWII film I have ever seen.
Anyway, Good Bless, Brother.
Ray,
Certain rhetorical excesses aside, there's no reason not to compare the failures throughout German society during the Hitler era with similar failures here during the period sandwiched by Bush I & II.
Some of the war crimes in the Gulf War were crimes by our own forces that injured our personnel, e.g. depleted uranium weaponry, others were crimes against the Iraq nation and its people, e.g., bombing of Iraqi infrastruction, massacre of Iraqi troops withdrawing from Kuwait along the highways of death and so on.
Whether US war crimes are less heinous than German war crimes is likely a matter of quantity and not kind.
I'm reminded of the opening of Ken Burns' series War at the Coolidge Corner Theater, Brookline, MA, a few summers ago.
A group of uniformed octogenerians were recognized and their leader came forward and mentioned that when his group captured Germans they knew what to do with them. There was no doubt the 'solution' was execution, and perhaps worse.
The audience erupted in applause.
College psychology studies have shown the propensity of most people to follow the herd and do horrific acts together they might not do acting alone.
George Collins
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