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It needs to be said, because it hasn't yet been said, that many of the contractors that worked in Iraq and Afghanistan were not warriors. I personally know a woman who was a truck driver. She wasn't even armed. (They drove in armed convoys with US military security, but the contractors were not armed.) She suffers from PTSD, because her co-driver was hit in the head by an RPG and his brains splattered all over her. I guess she's not worth saving either.

How far we have come from the days when this country was proud and its people patriotic. How sad a day it is when we can argue about whether or not the lives of contractors are worth saving. We sacrificed over 400,000 lives in WWII to save others. Now some would suggest we don't sacrifice a single life to save our own people. {{smdgh}}

Cedar Park Dad wrote:

mojo84 wrote:If they are there at the request and on behalf of the United States, we are responsible for getting them out.

Now, if you philosophically disagree with sending them in the first place, that's a different issue. If we send them to help accomplish our mission, we need to get them out when they are in danger or things go bad.

Bottom line, our efforts and the huge price we've paid has been for not if the terrorists aren't stopped.

If they are contractors then no one is sending them. Thats kind of the point. They aren't US troops.

You have a strange concept of contractors. Apparently they just get a wild hair and decide to show up unannounced in some country for some reason that's inexplicable. Very strange.

Tic Tac wrote:If somebody signs up for a job with generous hazard pay, complaining when the hazard becomes a reality seems a bit...
What's the word?

If someone is hired to do a job and at the first sign of trouble, the employer bails, the employer is morally bankrupt. Welcome to Amerikka.

Unicorn Rancher wrote:

baldeagle wrote:You do realize that the country you live in exists, in good measure, because of mercenaries, right? It was Hessian mercenaries that trained the Americans to fight, thus contributing to their success in the Revolution.

What an interesting viewpoint on what the Hessians were doing on this side of the pond.

{{sigh}} I got my Hessians and Prussians mixed up. They all look the same to me.

Cedar Park Dad wrote:

baldeagle wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:

gigag04 wrote:

Beiruty wrote:

AndyC wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:Are these mercenaries? If so I could care less.

Define "mercenary", because I didn't meet any over there.

Hired private ex-soldiers, now AKA security contractors.

Why do we not care about them again?

I'm late to the party, I realize this, but I'm trying to catch up. I have some good buddies over there and in other parts of the world.

Live by the sword. Die by the sword.

You do realize that the country you live in exists, in good measure, because of mercenaries, right? It was Hessian mercenaries that trained the Americans to fight, thus contributing to their success in the Revolution.

And you also realize that our military are all mercenaries? IOW, they are paid to fight for us?

To equate our soldiers with mercenaries is...misplaced thinking.

To equate our contractors with mercenaries is...misplaced thinking.

Cedar Park Dad wrote:

gigag04 wrote:

Beiruty wrote:

AndyC wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:Are these mercenaries? If so I could care less.

Define "mercenary", because I didn't meet any over there.

Hired private ex-soldiers, now AKA security contractors.

Why do we not care about them again?

I'm late to the party, I realize this, but I'm trying to catch up. I have some good buddies over there and in other parts of the world.

Live by the sword. Die by the sword.

You do realize that the country you live in exists, in good measure, because of mercenaries, right? It was Hessian mercenaries that trained the Americans to fight, thus contributing to their success in the Revolution.

And you also realize that our military are all mercenaries? IOW, they are paid to fight for us?

AndyC wrote:In other news - my Brit team-mate is home after what he called a "hairy week". I just found out that an American I know is still there, trying to make it out.

Andy, that's great news. I am so relieved for your friend. As for the American, let's pray he suffers a similar fate - rescued before the evil beasts can get to him. Like you, and your buddies, in that situation I would take as many as I could with me, but I would be dead at the end (or all of them would be.)

Andy, maybe your buddy is OK? The Iraqi Air Force is evacing the contractors from Balad. 300 have already been evaced. There's 100 left. They should have them all out of there by midnight. http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/200-u-s-cont ... s-in-iraq/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; The US should be ashamed of itself. They hired the contractors. It was their responsibility to get them out. Absolutely shameful. If I was a contractor, I would never work for the US again.

I'm going to be a bit of a contrarian here. I agree with Obama that ultimately it's up to the Iraqis to defend themselves. They received years and years of our sacrifices, money and technical assistance. Now it's time for them to stand up for themselves. There are signs that they may well do that. They have apparently halted the ISIS advance in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and Shiite clerics have issued calls for people to rise up to defend Baghdad and beat ISIS back. Shiite Iraqis are flooding the recruitment centers eager to get into the fight. This action by ISIS may be just what the country needed to unite behind a common cause - or it may be an excuse to slaughter the remaining Sunnis in Iraq. (The Shiites certainly have plenty of reason to hate the Iraqi Sunnis, who enjoyed favoritism under Saddam while the Shiites were persecuted.) The ISIS don't seem to realize that Iran, which is Shiite, won't take kindly to them being right next door and may well jump in to the fight to assist their Iraqi brothers. If that happens, they might drive all the way into Syria and wipe them out. According to a press release from both governments, they have recaptured about 85% of Tikrit in joint Irani-Iraqi operations.

The Kurds have taken control of Kirkuk, and I seriously doubt the ISIS animals will challenge them. The Pershmerga will not turn and run like the Iraqi forces did. So the ISIS may have stepped in to what turns out to be a deadly trap, after what they've done (beheading thousands), they probably won't be shown much mercy. In the end, Iraq will probably end up partitioned, with the Kurds controlling the north, which they have always longed to do, the Sunnis controlling parts of the west and the Shiites controlling central and southern Iraq.

VMI77 wrote:

baldeagle wrote:

VMI77 wrote:there were no WMD's in Iraq.

Sadly, that is untrue. The left and the media have convinced a great many people that it is, so it doesn't seem to matter any more what the truth is. It's also true that Al Qaeda fighters were being trained in Iraq, but that has disappeared down the black hole as well. It says something about the power of the media that a lie becomes truth and truth becomes a lie.

Any idea where the chemical weapons came from that were used in Syria not too long ago? Syria didn't manufacture them.

I knew someone was going to respond as you did. Well, in the first place, calling the chemical weapons used in Syria WMDs is just a scare term. Weapons of mass destruction used to be nukes, now just about anything is called a WMD --it's like calling a semi-automatic rifle an "assault rifle" and with the same purpose....to exaggerate the danger of something. When Colin Powell was lying at the UN the talk was of yellow cake....uranium.....and the specter of Saddam having nuclear weapons. Now, Colin Powell claims that he was deceived and didn't know he was lying, which I find hard to buy, but he still lied in any case. The poison gas tale is a default excuse because Saddam didn't have nukes. How much public support would there have been to invade Iraq because they had poison gas? Well, they had used it before on their own people and the Iranians, and we not only did nothing --because it wasn't a threat to the US-- we continued to supply Saddam with intelligence and material support in his war with Iran.

Nuclear, biological and chemical weapons have been classified as WMD for as far back as I can remember. According to the History News Network the term was coined in a 1937 article that described the blanket or carpet bombing of a town in Spain. In any case, it's been known as NBC for as long as I can remember, especially in the military.

VMI77 wrote:So, how come poison gas wasn't a WMD requiring invasion back then? How come if the poison gas you say went from Iraq to Syria --and this claim isn't recent btw, it was being made back in 2003-- was so much of a threat we needed to invade Iraq, we didn't invade Syria to get the stuff we supposedly invaded Iraq to get? When the gas crossed the border did it morph from a WMD to just plain old poison gas? We expended a lot of lives and treasure going into Iraq and then decided it was ok for Syria to have the same thing that required us to spend all blood and treasure in Iraq?

As for why we did or did not do something previously, I don't know how you would expect me to be able to answer that. I can't explain much of what our leaders have done since 1960. Consistency has not exactly been their long suit.

VMI77 wrote:And you can't simply blame the media for lying, because yes, they lie all the time, but when they were lying before the Iraq invasion the lies they were telling were for the purpose of creating public support for the invasion. The media has supported every war we've ever fought....even Vietnam, initially...until the tide of public opinion turned against it....partly because of the ruling class getting deferments while the sons of blue collar families got drafted.

500 tons of yellowcake uranium was removed from Iraq by the US. Yellowcake has only two purposes - the precursor to nuclear weapons or the precursor to uranium fuel for reactors. I'm pretty sure Iraq didn't have any nuclear reactors except for the test reactor at Al Tuwaitha.

I don't think there's much point in arguing this stuff. Those who believe they didn't have any WMD or WMD programs will continue to believe that despite manifest evidence to the contrary.

VMI77 wrote:

philip964 wrote:http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/06/200-u-s-c ... s-in-iraq/

200 US civilian contractors trapped at A surrounded Iraq air base. Working for department of defense.

Taking small arms fire and RPG's from ISIS. So far holding. So far US military not helping to evacuate.

If true, I have to ask.....is the Head Clown deliberately wanting to look weak, foolish, and gutless? How does the clown posse think it's going to play politically if ISIS captures a bunch of Americans working for the military, parades them around on television, then lops off their heads?

If I was a contractor over there, they would only be cutting off my head after I was dead. There is no way I'd allow myself to be captured alive. Anybody who does is an idiot.

VMI77 wrote:there were no WMD's in Iraq.

Sadly, that is untrue. The left and the media have convinced a great many people that it is, so it doesn't seem to matter any more what the truth is. It's also true that Al Qaeda fighters were being trained in Iraq, but that has disappeared down the black hole as well. It says something about the power of the media that a lie becomes truth and truth becomes a lie.

Any idea where the chemical weapons came from that were used in Syria not too long ago? Syria didn't manufacture them.

Think of all the American lives lost freeing Fallujah and Mosul - and for what?