Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

This blog will pay for itself.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

This really is a full service blog.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

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Reader Interactions

51Comments

  1. 1.

    Richard

    blackwater (blkwôtr)
    Wastewater containing bodily or other biological wastes, as from toilets, dishwashers, or kitchen drains.

  2. 2.

    JWL

    Well, I won’t be watching that video. But I recall seeing a similar scene in the film The Pianist, in which a car of SS drove over a wounded victim they had just shot down in the street.

  3. 3.

    samara morgan

    from Iraq, to Afghanistan, to Pakistan.
    next year when Imran Khan gets Zardaris job…the US gets a boot in the ass from Pak as well.
    And the Paks have ~100 nukes.

    After the Arab Spring, the American fall.

  4. 4.

    BigSouthern

    I live right up the road from the part of the GDS Blackwater got its start and many of the locals still rock the Blackwater/Xe gear. Every time I see it I get a pit in my stomach. I wonder what will ever be the nail in their fucking coffin. Instead of fining them over and over again the government should just forbid any more contracts with them. Fuck, that’s what we did with ACORN, and near as I can tell Bertha Lewis never ran anyone over or gave AK-47s to the King of Jordan.

  7. 7.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Yes.

    Let’s not forget that the Waffen SS had GREAT looking uniforms.

  8. 8.

    Clime Acts

    God, Cole, I can’t believe you’re disseminating this SECRET information, which obvs will serve as material aid and comfort to OUR ENEMIES.

    You should be in solitary with Bradley Manning. After having been tortured first, of course.

  10. 10.

    Bnut

    I know one guy that ended up working for Triple Canopy after he left the service. He was a real douche and a half. Everyone I knew who even thought of working for those kind of companies were always the mouth breathers and basketcases. Fuck em.

  11. 11.

    trollhattan

    High fives and bonuses all around.

    Just to make sure I understand fully: privatizing the military means we taxpayers pay the contractor personnel several times what we pay our enlisted personnel and they’re not bound by rules of engagement, international law, etc.?

    A Randian triumph if ever there were one.

  13. 13.

    Joel

    I don’t know if I can watch those videos. This stuff is appalling. And the victims will see no justice…

  15. 15.

    Southern Beale

    Just saw this on Twitter:

    “When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in excess body fat & carrying a misspelled sign.”

    God I want that T-shirt/bumper sticker

  16. 16.

    bogdan

    Seeing as how you voted for Bush (twice) and were in favor of the Iraq quagmire before you were against it are you going to take partial responsibility for this Not Republican Cole? Didn’t think so which I also find quite appalling.

  18. 18.

    Argive

    Absolutely appalling. Next time some neocon bashes Obama for cutting and running in Iraq, I’m gonna point them to these videos and ask if it’s any wonder the Iraqis wanted us to leave.

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Let’s not forget that the Waffen SS had GREAT looking uniforms.

    Designed by Hugo Boss, no less. Blackwater missed a real marketing opportunity here: they could have gone to Tommy Hilfiger to have some really nifty outfits designed. I mean, think of the merchandizing revenues! And Dick Cheney would’ve gotten Uncle Sam to pay for it, no probs.

  20. 20.

    cathyx

    Why would anyone not understand why they hate us so much they want to hurt us? Open your eyes and accept the reality of what we are doing there.

  21. 21.

    gex

    @BigSouthern: Blackwater is the religious fascists’ backup in case the AirForce still thinks they fall under civilian and not theocratic rule. They’ll never stop using them.

  22. 22.

    kindness

    I sometimes wonder how John Cole spends his day. I see his posts. Most the time I get where he picks these things up. We all see much the same things around the inter-tubes.

    But sometimes…..

  23. 23.

    Marcellus Shale, Public Dick

    in order for the surge to work, you have to get to the point where you can call for a surge. blackwater made sure that there would be a need for a surge.

  24. 24.

    danimal

    These acts are new pieces of information for Americans to digest; they are quiet familar to Iraqis.

    I predict many war supporters will be “outraged” over the callous nature of the contractors (when did we stop calling them mercenaries?), but nothing will change the next time war fever hits the Potomac/Wall Street.

  25. 25.

    Dr. Squid

    Remember- they hate us for our freedom.

    Well, yeah, but the only freedom that counts now in Conservative World is the Freedom of Cruelty. Gay-bashing as religious expression falls under this as well.

  26. 26.

    wenchacha

    @bogdan: What does Cole need to do? Does he turn himself in? Send all his worldly possessions and animal companions to Iraqi survivors?

    My taxes helped pay for this shit, too. I never asked for it, I voted against it, and I marched against it. Nothing will ever make up for the loss of life and the ratcheting up of violence during and afterward.

    At least John Cole woke up. We want others to do so, too.

  27. 27.

    Amir Khalid

    @Amir Khalid:
    I went to Cat Lady’s NYT link. The SS uniforms weren’t actually Hugo Boss designs, after all; Herr Boss, then a manufacturer of cops’ and postmen’s uniforms, was just one of thousands of uniform contractors for the Third Reich. Hugo Boss only got into the fancy-suit biz on the 1950s, after its founder’s passing.

  28. 28.

    Jay in Oregon

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    “Oh my god, yes. Those NAZI uniforms?”
    “Hugo Boss!”
    “Shut up!”
    “Swear to god.”

    —Charles and Rudy in the Archer episode “Honeypot”

  29. 29.

    GregB

    Real tyranny is government run healthcare, not nameless, faceless armed men on a government payroll shooting and killing civilians on a whim.

    Stay on message, healthcare is tyranny.

  32. 32.

    Foxhunter

    Methinks those @ssclowns (‘hired’ by our tax dollars) prepped for duty in front of a console gaming system, playing Battlefield:Bad Company 2.

    WTF, over?

  33. 33.

    shortstop

    @danimal:

    I predict many war supporters will be “outraged” over the callous nature of the contractors

    I predict many of them will blame it on the “realities of war,” mutter about “fighting fire with fire” with the “savage” Iraqis, and defiantly say they’re all for it. Like they’re all for torturing suspected terrorists. Like they’re all for bombing before diplomacy. Like they’re all for shooting down unarmed kids for WWB.

  34. 34.

    Gustopher

    Remember- they hate us for our freedom.

    Killing people with impunity is pretty much the greatest level of freedom that someone can have, I hate Blackwater/Xe for their freedom.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    Over the weekend I (briefly) listened to some bonehead on the radio reiterate how it was such a good thing that we got rid of Saddam, and mocked Obama’s refusal to immediately back any desire by Israel to attack Iran.

    It was all about Saddam. Nothing about what was done to Iraq.

    @JWL:

    Well, I won’t be watching that video. But I recall seeing a similar scene in the film The Pianist, in which a car of SS drove over a wounded victim they had just shot down in the street.

    Dickens got there, also. One of the key incidents in A Tale of Two Cities

    In Paris, a wheel on the despised Marquis St. Evremonde’s carriage hits and kills the baby of a peasant, Gaspard. The Marquis throws a coin to Gaspard to compensate him for his loss. Defarge, a witness to the incident, comforts Gaspard. As the Marquis’s coach drives off, the coin thrown to Gaspard is thrown back into the coach by an unknown hand, probably that of Madame Defarge, enraging the Marquis.

    Some people just never learn.

  37. 37.

    Southern Beale

    @wenchacha:

    My taxes helped pay for this shit, too. I never asked for it, I voted against it, and I marched against it. Nothing will ever make up for the loss of life and the ratcheting up of violence during and afterward.

    AY FUCKING MEN to that. Jesus God every time some wingnut gets all foamy-mouthed about the shit his/her taxes pay for in only the most tangential sense (“birth control!” “Abortion!”) I just want to scream at the top of my lungs “GET IN LINE, ASSHOLE!”

    God I hate how precious their tax dollars are, but ours somehow don’t fucking matter.

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    I remember back in the day when Kos was excoriated by the right because he pointed out that the “contractors” who were killed in Fallujah were Blackwater mercenaries and said, “Fuck those guys.” Good times, y’all.

  39. 39.

    gex

    @wenchacha: We certainly don’t want to give the impression that waking up and changing your mind won’t do any good because we will keep abusing you either way.

    Well, I guess hipsters who like being in the minority and liking what other people don’t like want it that way. No thinking adult does.

  40. 40.

    Schlemizel

    @wenchacha:
    No, Cole was wrong once therefore he is never allowed to join polite society again. Its really quite simple. Anyone who was ever wrong, whoever voted for the wrong candidate or supported the wrong proposal loses any right to ever have any opinion ever again.

    No matter how often they have said they regret it, no matter how well they have explained it, no matter what they have done to avoid such a mistake in the future.

    Either that or some useless asshole just shows up in your thread and reminds you that you got it wrong once and they, as chief asshole of the purity model, are here to ask why you should be allowed to ever have an opinion again.

    one of those two things there

  41. 41.

    PIGL

    @Mnemosyne: calling those four dead ones “contractors” instead of “mercenaries” or “murderers” was an essential prelude to the destruction of Fallujah. Normally, occupying forces arrest and repatriate mercenaries, rather than avenge their deaths 1000-fold.

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    @PIGL:

    Oh, I understand what the propaganda value was of claiming them as innocents and not mercenaries.

    Still, fuck those guys. I can’t find the information at the moment, but IIRC one of the reasons they were killed by the mob was that Blackwater mercenaries had massacred civilians a week or two earlier.

  43. 43.

    jl

    @Schlemizel: The hapless Cole, as well as all of us commenters, are to say what some random commenter would like us to say on any random day for any post on any topic. Otherwise we are double indubitably some species of fetid pond scum.

    Everyone knows this.

    Or, are you not aware of all internet traditions?

    Edit: ‘Double indubitably’ will be a good title for some suspense film noir about the the intertube blogs. I’m copyrighting it, and will have pitch ready later today, so none of you mooches filch it, you’re on notice.

  44. 44.

    Scott de B.

    Before we overreact, has anybody worked out with Matchbox cars and a sandbox whether this is even physically possible?

  45. 45.

    jheartney

    Doesn anyone remember the 2005 Aegis videos showing contractors casually shooting into traffic? (Note the lovely soundtrack.) The thuggery of these scum has been a matter of public record for many years. Kos was more polite than they deserved.

    I should note that a year after the video surfaced, a U.S. military “investigation” cleared the contractors of wrongdoing.

    “It is correct that the State Dept. conducted an investigation–as it does with all such events involving State contractors,” embassy spokesman Dennis Culkin said at the time, in a written statement. “However, as is also standard, the results of such federal investigations are not made public. So we’re not able to share any investigation results.”

  46. 46.

    El Tiburon

    My intense hatred for Bush, Cheney et al for doing this to us (and them)will never extinguish.

    American exceptionalism my ass.

  47. 47.

    Forum Transmitted Disease

    I predict many war supporters will be “outraged” over the callous nature of the contractors

    @danimal: Um, this is the same bunch who cheered Rick Perry for gassing death row prisoners and letting uninsured people die. Standing fucking ovations.

    I predict the only outcry will be that of envy, that they didn’t get to kill a brown themselves.

  48. 48.

    Maus

    @Forum Transmitted Disease:

    I predict the only outcry will be that of envy, that they didn’t get to kill a brown themselves.

    Or a lot of True Scotsmen abounding. Blackwater won’t see any negative response, I’m sure.

  49. 49.

    The Crafty Trilobite

    At the risk of a thread hijack, may I just give props here to the most civilized long-term occupation in modern history, which has so many fewer stories like this per soldier or per year that it puts us to shame, yet which far too many of my progressive brethren regularly excoriate for ‘brutality’?

    I am, of course, referring to the West Bank occupation by the State of Israel. 46 years in, those bloodthirsty, ravening imperialists are still using rubber bullets, giving enemy combatants emergency medical aid, giving civilian trials to fifth-columnists within the state borders, and court-martialing at least some of the inevitable violators in the IDF. This may sound like damning with faint praise, but when you consider the Western norm as illustrated by this post, it’s well-nigh miraculous.

  50. 50.

    dopeyo

    @Schlemizel:
    “cole was once wrong…”

    “researchers – make sure you generate a sufficient number of errors!”
    (notice on a bulletin board in the research labs at 3M circa 1980.)

    “there is more joy in heaven for one sinner who repents than for 99 who never sinned”
    (some jesus-guy)

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