Freedom of Speech?

So, let me get this straight - as far as what we read in our newspapers goes, it's ok for the State Department's report of last month's incident, in which Blackwater guards were accused of killing Iraqi civilians, to be actually written by a Blackwater contractor working in the embassy security detail, but it's not ok for a peace group to place an ad criticizing a general for trying to tell us everything is just peachy keen over there.

That's right, according to CNN, "A source involved in diplomatic security at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad said a Blackwater contractor, Darren Hanner, drafted the two-page 'spot report' on the letterhead of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security for the embassy's Tactical Operations Center. That office - which tracks and monitors all incidents and movements involving diplomatic security missions - has outsourced positions to Blackwater and another private firm."

But let's not criticize the war effort. No, that would be unpatriotic. Let's slap the critical ad with a Congressional Resolution even, but let's not even bother to investigate the out-of-control corporate "security" force. After all, the mercenary army must not be called what it is, and by the way, let's let them provide their own oversight.

First of all, starting a war without a declaration of war from Congress is unconstitutional, a small little detail our government has decided isn't worth the effort, I suppose. Then launching the war on a lie and planning and managing it in just about the worse way possible, getting thousands of our troops killed, not to mention killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians, is horrific. But privatizing the army even one bit, to me, is approaching treasonous. And not having any trace of accountability for this mercenary force? Well, that's letting killers run loose in our name, and that's just asking for abject failure of any mission we thought we were "accomplishing," to put it mildly.

There have been many reports from various sources inside Iraq, despite the effort to sanitize everything, claiming the "private soldiers" have indiscriminately fired not only at Iraqi civilians, but also in at least one instance, at U.S. Marines, and there was even a report of a supervisor who liked to engage in "joy-ride shooting" of Iraqis. But no charges were brought in any of these cases.

So, we're supposed to be outraged that an organization promoting peace has criticized a military officer for basically covering up these atrocities by putting a rosy face on the war, but not by a mercenary army, that we pay for with our tax dollars, gone wild?

And we pay for their services at a rate many times what it would cost us to do the work the old fashioned way, with our own soldiers. But hey, that's always been this administration's M.O. - give out as many huge, no bid, unsupervised contracts as possible to their supporters, making a few CEO's very rich and putting the rest of the country in deep, deep debt.

January 2009 can't come soon enough.