Woman Fired for Photo

In the Sunday Seattle Times, the front cover had a poignant picture of flag draped coffins loaded on a plane, ready to be flown home to the States. The picture was a needed reminder of the human cost of the war, one we have not been allowed to see because of Bush Administration policies. Since 1991 it has been against regulations to take photos of remains being returned to the U.S. until they reached their final destination, however they were allowed to be photographed as they were being unloaded in the U.S. However the Bush Administraton has a policy of not even allowing photos at that final stage.

Unfortunately those policies have come back to haunt the lady who took the photo in the Sunday Seattle Times. She and her husband have both lost their jobs over their violation of their company and miltiary policies. She was told that the policy was in place to show respect for the dead, however it seems to me that it is even more disrespectful of them to try and hide their sacrifice from view.

As a Democracy, we are all responsible when we go to war. In order to make good decisions about war, we need to fully understand the consequences, and take responsibility for them. That is the only way we can truly make informed decisions. The policy of the Bush Administration that hides these returning heros from our view is meant to minimize the negative fallout that such images might provoke. But hiding them simply removes us from our responsibility. That should never happen.

Click here for the link.

Imprisoned without trial

The Supreme Court today is hearing a challenge from lawyers representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. These prisoners are accused of being "illegal enemy combatants" and they have been held imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay (Gitmo) for over two years now. They were captured during the war in Afghanistan. They claim they have the right to go before a judge and have a hearing challenging their imprisonment. The Bush Administration of course claims that they have no such right, since they are not U.S. citizens, and they are not within the United States.

There are two scenarios I can see for these guys. Either they are prisoners of war, or they are criminals arrested overseas. Prisoners of war have the right to be repatriated after hostilities cease, and the war with Afghanistan is long over. The Bush Administration would of course claim that they are not Afghanistani soldiers, but Al Qaida soldiers, and therefore they can be held until hostilities cease with Al Qaida. However, if the Bush Administration gives these guys Prisoner of War status, then they automatically gain certain rights that we refuse to give them, such as the ability to communicate with family, the ability to be visited by the red cross etc. So we are refusing to give them official prisoner of war status.

So if they are not prisoners of war, then they are criminals apprehended overseas. In this case they are subject to the justice system, and review by judges. The Bush Administration has been refusing to allow that also, claiming that these guys aren't on U.S. soil, so they are not under the responsibility of any U.S. judge. Normally this is true, if a criminal is being held in a foreign country, then they are subject to the laws and judges of that country, and not those of the U.S. until they are extradited. However in this case they are in a legal no man's land, since they are in Cuban territory leased by the U.S. The U.S. does not recognize any law in Gitmo other than the U.S. military. So these guys have nowhere to turn.

The prisoners at Gitmo may very well be the worst kind of terrorists. They may be killers who want nothing more than to destroy America. The problem is we don't know. They have never been before a tribunal. They have never appeared before a judge. They have never been before a jury. They have only ever appeared before United States interrogation officers. Don't they deserve to be heard?

Apparently we are fighting this war for freedom and our way of life. If we stoop to the tactics of our enemies in fighting that war, then we have already lost. We stand for many things, and one of the most important is the right to be innocent until proven guilty, and the right to judicial review. No these guys aren't Americans, but should that make a difference? If we don't feel we have enough evidence on these guys to feel confident that we could prevail under judicial review, then maybe we have made a mistake! Maybe some of these guys are not terrorists. Then we have simply locked up someone forever on a suspicion of wrong doing, and that is just awful.

The counterargument of course is that if we err on the side of caution, and one of these guys we let go because of lack of evidence ends up committing a terrorist act, then that would be even worse. I do not agree. That is utterly against every principle we stand by under American law, and is simply a way of letting fear stand before principle.

If we don't stand up for human rights and freedom, if we simply succumb to fear, then the terrorists have already won. The Bush Administration might have a good legal argument to keep the Gitmo captives indefinitely, however they do not have a good moral one.

More Fun with Numbers

After I gave my conservative friend the numbers yesterday, his response was “Wow, a liberal who argues with facts!” and then conceded that the numbers were correct. However, he argued that the probable reason for the numbers is that Democrats increase the number of employees working for Government, and in his mind, Government employees don’t count as a good thing.

So I worked the numbers. On the same site below, you can run the numbers for just Government workers. Here are the number of Government workers at the end of each Presidential term (a couple are joined since they are really continuations of Administrations)

President…………………Term…………….# Govt Jobs at End…..% Change
Roosevelt (D)…………….1933 to 1945…….6,254,000
Truman (D)……………….1945 to 1953…….6,794,000……………..8.63%
Eisenhower ®……………1953 to 1961….….8,564,000…………….26.05%
Kennedy/Johnson (D)…..1961 to 1969……..12,209,000……………42.56%
Nixon/Ford ®…………….1969 to 1977……..15,056,000……………23.32%
Carter (D)…………………1977 to 1981…….16,360,000…………….8.66%
Reagan ®…………………1981 to 1989….…17,774,000…………….8.64%
Bush 1 ®………………….1989 to 1993…….18,901,000……………..6.34%
Clinton (D)………………..1993 to 2001……..20,828,000…………….10.20%
Bush 2 ®………………….2001 to 2004……..21,573,000…………….3.58%

Now looking at these numbers, it appears that the Republicans have added relatively few government jobs, although Eisenhower and Nixon/Johnson were up there. But you have to remember that according to the numbers we have already looked at, the Republicans have added relatively few jobs overall! So we need to look at two different numbers, what percentage of the workforce overall was employed by the government for each Administration, and what percentage of the jobs added in their Administrations were government jobs. The numbers may surprise you:

What percentage of total jobs are government jobs

President…………………# Govt Jobs……..Total Workforce….% Govt…..%Change
Roosevelt (D)…………….6,254,000………..41,903,000………14.92%
Truman (D)……………….6,794,000………..50,145,000………13.55%……-1.38%
Eisenhower ®…………….8,564,000………..53,683,000………15.95%……2.40%
Kennedy/Johnson (D)……12,209,000………69,438,000………17.58%……1.63%
Nixon/Ford ®……………..15,056,000……….80,692,000………18.66%……1.08%
Carter (D)…………………16,360,000……….91,031,000………17.97%……-0.69%
Reagan ®…………………17,774,000………107,133,000……..16.59%……-1.38%
Bush 1 ®………………….18,901,000……….109,725,000……..17.23%…….0.64%
Clinton (D)………………..20,828,000……….132,388,000……..15.73%……-1.49%
Bush 2 ®………………….21,573,000……….130,548,000……..16.52%…….0.79%

When you average all these percentage changes, the Democrats averaged an increase in the percentage of government jobs at the level of 0.48%. The Republicans increased the percentage of government jobs at 0.71%. So the Democrats have increased the percentage of jobs in America that are Government jobs less than the Republicans.


What percentage of the increase in jobs during an Administration were government jobs

President……………….Inc. Govt Jobs….Inc.Total Jobs……% of increase Govt
Roosevelt (D)…………..2,266,000………11,980,000……….18.91%
Truman (D)……………..540,000…………8,242,000…………6.55%
Eisenhower ®…………..1,770,000………3,538,000…………50.03%
Kennedy/Johnson (D)….3,645,000………15,753,000……….23.14%
Nixon/Ford ®……………2,847,000……….11,254,000……….25.30%
Carter (D)………………..1,304,000……….10,339,000……….12.61%
Reagan ®………………..1,414,000……….16,102,000……….8.78%
Bush 1 ®…………………1,127,000……….2,592,000………..43.48%
Clinton (D)………………..1,927,000……....23,663,000……….8.14%
Bush 2 ®…………………..745,000………..-1,840,000……….-40.49%

When we look at these numbers, the situation is even more startling. Under Republicans, a far higher number of the jobs that are created are Government jobs! Lets break them into the groups again by term length:

3 or 4 year terms

Bush 2 has –40% (this is a bit strange, obviously he has lost jobs so doesn’t work very well)
Bush 1 has 43%
Carter has 13%

8 year terms

Eisenhower has 50% (half of all jobs added under Eisenhower were Government jobs!)
Nixon/Ford have 25%
Kennedy/Johnson have 23%
Reagan has 8.78%
Clinton has 8.14%
Truman has 6.55%

Clearly you cannot say that the reason Democrats have such high job increases is because they just add more Government employees. They may actually do that in some cases, but they also add far more non-governmental employees. When Republicans add jobs, very often they add a higher percentage of Government vs. private jobs than Democrats. The only really successful Republican in this sense was Reagan, and both Clinton and Truman beat him.

So what have we learned? Democrats create more jobs, and a higher percentage of those jobs that are created are private sector jobs. Interesting huh!

One correction from yesterday

I have realized that there is a small flaw in the percentages on yesterdays columns. They are created correctly and accurate, but you can't really compare percentage to percentage, because some Presidents had longer to create jobs than others, and therefore have an advantage.

However even if we group the Presidents by similar term lengths, the Democrats still beat the Republicans at every level:

3 to 4 years:

Bush 2 has -1%
Bush 1 has 2%
Carter has 13%

8 Years

Eisenhower has 7%
Nixon/Ford have 16%
Reagan has 18%
Truman has 20%
Clinton has 22%
Kennedy/Johnson have 28%

So the study is still valid, but my average percentages later in yesterday's post (19% to 9%) are probably close, but not 100% accurate. In order to get the really accurate numbers you would have to calculate change month by month and find the average that way, far more work than I am willing to do now! :)

What is the truth about the job numbers?

I was speaking with a conservative friend, and we were talking about the economy. I mentioned that Bush was on track to being the first President since Hoover to leave office with the country having less jobs than when he started. He questioned this statement, and asked for sources. Of course I could find lots of sources that said this, but they were mostly ones he would find questionable (i.e. Liberal). So I went to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and did my own study. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go back as far as Hoover, since the earliest I could get the reports to run on their site was back to 1939. However the statistics still speak volumes. Here is what I found.

Using seasonally adjusted numbers (considered the most accurate) I found the following:

President.............Term..................Start.................. End....................Difference............% Change
Roosevelt (D)......1933 to 1945......29,923,000..........41,903,000........11,980,000..........40%
Truman (D).........1945 to 1953......41,903,000..........50,145,000.........8,242,000...........20%
Eisenhower (R)....1953 to 1961......50,145,000..........53,683,000.........3,538,000...........7%
Kennedy (D)........1961 to 1963......53,683,000..........57,078,000.........3,393,000...........6%
Johnson (D)........1963 to 1969.......57,078,000.........69,438,000.........12,360,000.........22%
Nixon (R)............1969 to 1974.......69,438,000.........78,619,000.........9,181,000...........13%
Ford (R)..............1974 to 1977......78,619,000..........80,692,000.........2,073,000...........3%
Carter (D)............1977 to 1981......80,692,000.........91,031,000.........10,339,000.........13%
Reagan (R)..........1981 to 1989......91,031,000.........107,133,000........16,102,000.........18%
Bush I (R)...........1989 to 1993......107,133,000........109,725,000........2,592,000...........2%
Clinton (D)..........1993 to 2001.......108,725,000.......132,388,000........23,663,000.........22%
Bush 2 (R)..........2001 to now........132,388,000........130,548,000.......-1,840,000..........-1%

As you can see, it is clear that Bush is down quite a bit from where he started, and the only President on this list who this is true for. Now I admit, that if he manages to keep up the 300,000 jobs a month between now and November, he will be able to dig his way out of the hole he is in, but that is a blistering pace, and not many economists are that optimistic.

One thing you have to remember too, is that America adds approximately 150,000 new job seekers every month just through natural growth. So in order to just keep up with that growth you have to add 150,000 new jobs a month. At that rate, Bush should have added 5,850,000 jobs just to keep even. Obviously we are well behind that number.

So it is clear that the statement "Bush is on track to end his term with less jobs than he started" looks to be accurate. This is not a good sign for Bush, and obviously for America.

One other thing that is interesting, is that just for fun I looked at the percentage changes. Adjusted for the number of years they were in office, the Republicans average 9% growth during their terms, while the Democrats averaged 25.3% growth. Even taking out the outlier of Roosevelt, who benefited from the war, the Democrats still average 19%. Not bad huh!

You can run the reports yourself, here is the link to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics page where you can run the report. I selected All Employees in thousands, total non-farm, and then adjusted the output options on the report to include the earliest dates.


http://data.bls.gov/labjava/outside.jsp?survey=ce

Turn over Iraq to the U.N.?

Iraq is a mess, and most American's can see that now. So the question becomes what do we do now? On the Progressive side, there is a split in opinion between those who want to pull our troops out immediately, and those who want to internationalize the force there, turn to our allies, and turn over the leadership of the situation to the U.N.

Well the idea of involving the U.N. further has had a major setback today. Kofi Annan has ruled out sending any more U.N. personnel to Iraq because of the violence that continues. The U.N. and Kofi Annan have shown themselves to be very cautious when sending their personnel into harms way, and well they should. They didn't start the war. However it appears to me that the best possible solution to the Iraqi issue is to turn over control to the U.N., and if they are not willing to do so, then we will lose our only real possibility of getting out of this mess.

We cannot withdraw our troops, if Iraq becomes a failed state, embroiled in civil war, full of terror and violence for its people, then we have done the unconscionable. It replaces evil with worse evil. We now have a responsibility as a nation to ensure that they end up in a peaceful, stable nation, even if we vehemently opposed the war in the first place. So the only solution that is viable, is to bring in an international coalition, and of course the best one for the job would be the U.N. If they won't come in because of the violence, and the violence won't stop until they come in, then we are in a terrible situation.

Lets just hope things improve soon.

One Year Ago Saturday

One year ago Saturday, Saddam's statue had just been toppled in Baghdad the day before, and conservatives were all crowing about how easy the war had been to win. They were using the scenes of cheering Iraqis around the toppled statue as justification for their opinion that the Iraqis were just waiting for us to free them. They were accusing liberals of being totally wrong about the war, since it was going so well.

Well on that same day I posted a response to this crowing online, and here is what I said. The date was April 10th, 2003.

“You are right that the people in Baghdad appear to be happy to get rid of Saddam, and you are right that the war went well for the U.S. troops. However you are incorrect in making the assumption that Liberals like myself were opposed to the war because of the risks of the war itself, and because we thought we would get bogged down in fighting. Yes some Liberals thought that, and yes some said that, but I never argued that the war was going to be the problem.

I am not worried about the war. I have always argued that we would win it fairly easily. We have overwhelming superiority, and the war will be over soon, without too much of a problem. What I am worried about is what happens a year from now. Winning the war is easy, how do we win the peace? There are two major problems I see. One is our international alliances, and the other is bringing democracy to the Iraqis.

Our international alliances are in ruins. The whole world (Australia and Great Britain excepted) is opposed to our invasion, and this will be hard to mend. Finding WMD will alleviate that, and I hope that we quickly find evidences. I hope we stumble across some huge nuclear weapons factory buried in the desert somewhere. I will feel a lot better about our role in the war then, and it will go a long way to alleviating our broken alliances.

The biggest issue though is what are we going to be doing in a year. Rumsfeld and Bush have assured us that the Iraqi’s will great us with flowers, and yesterday it appeared that they were at least partially right. But how surprising is jubilance? How surprising is relief? These people are in the middle of a war zone, and anyone would be excited to still be alive. Plus, they hated Saddam, I do not doubt that. There is an old saying, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We are their friends now, when we are helping them get rid of Saddam. But that feeling only lasts as long as we have a common enemy.

A year from now is when I see the real problems. The Iraqi’s will be less excited about us being there. We will not have given them their country back yet, because we will be afraid that they will turn to an Islamic State rather than a Pro-U.S. democracy. We will be struggling with figuring out how to balance our needs for bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq, and our need to have a pro U.S. government. We will have to make the decision to put in place a pro U.S. strongman, or simply continue to postpone true democratic elections. The problem is that we no matter how much we say it, we really don’t want Democracy, what we really want is a stable, pro-U.S. government.

This will lead to more and more attacks on our troops, suicide bombings, guerilla warfare. We will have our own version of the west bank. It is unlikely that they will attack us in a coordinated fashion with military units, instead we will see suicide bombers, and Islamic extremists. We will be forced to deal with the same questions the Israelis have to ask themselves in Gaza and the West Bank.. How do we best deal with this? We will fight back, as the Israelis have, and we will simply further increase the opposition to us.

The truth is, left to their own fully democratic devices, Iraqi’s are unlikely to elect a pro-U.S. government. They hated Saddam, but they hate us too. We will quickly wear out our welcome, and then we will be in a world of hurt.

I was not afraid of the war, the war was the easy part, and it appears that it will soon be over. I am worried about a year from now, when we have a permanent trickle of dead soldiers coming home, when terrorists are taking advantage of U.S. troops close at hand, and when we are afraid to turn over power because things aren’t working out like we hoped they will. The peace will be much harder to win than the war. “

I hate to say I told you so........ But I told you so.

The thing that makes me mad is that to me this was so obvious. I am not an expert, but the Bush Administration has access to the best out there. Why could I see the problems coming, when Bush so clearly couldn't, or he could, but he ignored them. This is unacceptable.

Do we have any idea what we are doing?

Where is the exit strategy?

That is the question of the day. It has been clear, but now is crystal clear, that the Bush Administration had no realistic plan for the post war period in Iraq. The Bush Administration was living in a dreamland, where we our troops would be welcomed with flowers and where we would easily be able to bring in Chalabi and his exiles, and they would easily build a base of support amongst the Iraqi people.

What the hell were they thinking.

We have done very little to build up support amongst the people, and we have done nothing to build a legitimate successor power. Our priorities have been all wrong, and we have spent too much of our time getting solidified contracts for American firms so they can "rebuild" Iraq, instead of doing the harder work of building a coalition amongst Iraqis with some legitimacy in Iraq. Our approach has been extremely naive. We seem to think that if we bring in multinational corporations, everything will be fine.

(Although this is pretty much their approach to everything. As long as big corporations are taken care of, everything else will work out smoothly. This is their approach in the U.S., and it seems to be their approach in Iraq as well)

We are no facing a full blown insurgency. We have Japanese and Korean civilians as hostages. We have Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims marching together. We have Sunni Mosques calling for Jihad. We have 3 cities in enemy control. We have 36 U.S. solders dead in the last 5 days. We have Sistani, the highest Shiite cleric condemning the U.S. approach. What do we have left?

We have Chalabi and his ineffectual council that has zero legitimacy amongst Iraqis.

We are in for a hell of a ride.

It rips me up to see pictures of our dead and wounded, young men who should be starting their life, not having it ended for them. After all the arguments the Bush Administration used for war, the only one left with any legitimacy is making Iraqi's lives better than they were under Saddam. However we have failed at that also. If we bring extended war and suffering, how are they better off? Our soldiers are dying for no reason, and it breaks my heart.

We are between a rock and a hard place. We cannot bring our troops home, but leaving them there is inhumane. I have no idea what to do. We are in a lose lose situation. Thanks Georgie!

What was Bush doing the morning on 9/11?

Takebackthemedia.com has put together a pretty powerful flash media presentation asking the above question. It is worth watching. Be aware that there are some disturbing images from 9/11, but it is worth watching.

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/true911.html

Ted Kennedy's Speech

I had to post a quick link to Ted Kennedy's recent speech to the Brookings Institute. It is a good summary of the problems we face today, and why we need to remove Bush from power.

http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20040405kennedy.pdf

Is Iraq part of the War on Terror?

Every day that passes leads us further away from a war on terror, and further towards a war of occupation. What do I mean? Well read on.

When the war in Iraq began, most American's believed the Bush Administration's assertions that the war on Iraq would make us safer. We were told that they had mountains of WMD, and that they were cultivating ties with Al Qaida. If both of those things were true, then there was indeed an imminent threat. If Saddam was working with Osama, then we needed to take him out before he supplied Al Qaida with the weapons they needed. Under these assumptions, Iraq was clearly part of the war on terror.

However as time has passed, we now know that Iraq had no WMD, and they had no connection to Al Qaida. No WMD have been found, and the only Al Qaida base in Iraq was actually located in Kurdish controlled Iraq under the U.S. no fly zone. This changes everything. The war in Iraq no longer was about the threat that Iraq posed to our safety. The rationale for the war had to change, and of course the Bush Administration did so. They started saying that the war was about liberating the Iraqi people from tyranny.

How exactly does that mesh with the war on terror? Well they would argue that Saddam was such a bad guy that he would have built weapons in the future, and may have become a threat, and he may have decided to give weapons to Al Qaida in the future. Also they would argue that if we can transform Iraq into a stable western style democracy, then that will spread throughout the middle east, removing many of the conditions that lead to terrorism.

I don't agree with them, but they could argue that.

The events in Iraq over the last couple of days have changed the situation again. Throughout the past year the attacks on American troops have been blamed on Saddam loyalists and foreign Al Qaida operatives. When that is true you can still say this is part of the war on terror. If I am fighting and killing Al Qaida loyalists or Baathists, then this is ok, but we no longer appear to be fighting them. The battle has now spread to regular Iraqis.

We are now fighting Sunni's and Shiites, both of whom are further turning against us. When we are fighting people who are fighting to get rid of our occupation, and have no connection to Al Qaida, how is this part of the war on terror? When we start fighting Shiite islamists, who want to found an Islamic state, how is this part of the war on terror? When we are fighting disaffected youth who have no jobs and no future, how is this part of the war on terror? When we are fighting men seeking revenge for the deaths of their family members, when we are fighting men who feel humiliated under the American occupation, when we are fighting boys who feel they are fighting for their religion or their country, how is this part of the war on terror?

The idea that Iraq was part of the war on terror was flawed from the very beginning. It was a diversion from the war, not part of it. However recent events have made this fact even clearer. Every person we kill in Iraq today is not making us any safer. A stable western style democracy is looking even less likely. Religious idealism is triumphing. Iraqi's are starting to discover nationalism. The war is becoming more about imposing our will on the Iraqi's than liberation.

It was a mistake to go to Iraq in the first place. It is also a mistake to assume that we are fighting terrorists in Iraq. We are now fighting a people struggling to remove our influence and regain power. It will not be a pretty fight.

2nd Front in Iraq

A little over a year ago, I was sitting in a living room with relatives, regaling them with my concerns about the war in Iraq. The war was imminent, and everyone was worried and concerned. I remember telling them that I wasn't concerned about the war itself, I felt that we would probably easily win that, but what I was concerned about was a year from then. I explained that soon after the war there would likely be a euphoric "honeymoon" period, where people were excited to finally be done with Saddam. However after about a year the people would be getting restless, and starting to turn their sights on the occupation.

The reason would be twofold. First they would be getting bolder, and more willing to speak out and more willing to express themselves. The second reason would be that we would not have turned over power to an Iraqi government yet. At the time I thought that we would have either turned power over to a puppet government that would be seen to have little legitimacy in the eyes of the Iraqis, or we would be stalling because we were afraid of the Iraqis voting in a fundamentalist theocratic government.

I saw all these things, and I am no expert. I am not saying this to toot my own horn, or to claim some special powers. My point in saying this is that if I, just an average guy, could see this coming, why couldn't the Bush Administration? They are supposed to be the experts, with the world's best intelligence resources and analytic minds at their disposal. Yet they totally failed to see this coming? Either they totally avoided the resources available to them, or they did realize this would likely happen, but lied to us and themselves to make going to war seem a good idea.

July 1st is rapidly approaching. We are under attack by both Sunnis in the Sunni triangle, and Shiites in the south. Do we really think we are going to be ready to pass off sovereignty soon? Just yesterday 10 American soldiers, and 4 Salvadoran ones were killed. Not by Al Qaida Arabs, not by foreign agitators, not by disaffected Sunnis, but by the Shiite majority. The Sunnis hate us because we removed their privileged status, and they know that they will have little power in the new regime. The Shiites are starting to hate us, because they revere their clerics more than our authority, and many of them desire to have control of Iraq and to have that control predicated on Islamic law. Many of them want a theocracy, and would vote for one.

We will refuse to hand over power to an Iranian style theocracy and that will be our undoing. We say we want democracy in Iraq, but if we allow true democracy, a theocratic Iranian style democracy is most likely to be the result. So we will be stuck controlling Iraq, while the people get more and more frustrated, and more and more of our soldiers die.

This was the obvious outcome of the war and occupation. I could see it, why couldn't the Administration? That is the question that is of utmost importance.

Civilians killed in Iraq?

The horrific news yesterday that 9 American's were killed in Iraq was absolutely awful. The worst part of the story was of course the 4 civilians who were killed and then had their bodies mutilated, dragged and hung. This was unconscionable, and barbaric, and a tragedy in a very real sense.

However the news media has made a big deal out of them being civilians, mostly because this makes their deaths seem all the more horrific and shocking. The truth is a little more nuanced.

It is true that they were literally civilians, they were not active members of the military. However they were far from uninvolved civilians. They were pretty close to mercenaries. The security firm they worked for, Blackwater Security Consulting is a mercenary company providing mobile security teams. Their website describes their security teams in this way:

"BSC also provides services through our Mobile Security Teams. These teams are comprised of former operators primarily from the ranks of the US special operations and intelligence communities. Blackwater Mobile Security Teams stand ready to be deployed around the world with little notice in support of US national security objectives, private or foreign interests."

What are now called mobile security teams, were called mercenaries in the past. These are guns for hire, ex-military men and women who are hired to handle tasks that traditionally would have been handled by the full time military. According to Blackwater, the unit that was killed was providing security for food shipments for the military in the Fallujah area. It is reported they were likely ex-military, and they had weapons on them and in the vehicle. This is a task that traditionally would have been handled by full time military, but that is not necessarily true anymore.

Rumsfeld has made a lot of noise about reshaping the military, and using more of these mercenary groups for more missions in the future. There are some major benefits - someone else does the training, someone else does the dirty work, and there is a level of removal from official government channels. The United States is currently using mercenary groups like these in central and South America, especially in fighting the drug war. We are also using them extensively in Afghanistan and Iraq.

So what does all this mean? Well it means that it is a little disingenuous to describe these guys as ordinary civilians. They worked for a security firm that was hired to provide services that in the past would have been provided by the military itself. As we move to a world where more and more of our dirty work is carried out by hired guns and not our own military, where do we draw the line between civilian and military?

The death of these contractors is absolutely horrific and absolutely awful. But thinking it was worse because it didn't happen to official soldiers is wrong. These guys were soldiers in all but official status. They just got their paycheck from a private firm instead of directly from the military.