I see this Faux News story is getting some play with the big leaguers--short version: a
According to Peters, when he called Casey the next day, help was the last thing he received.
"If I had to put it in a word, he was vicious," Peters told FOXNews.com, referring to his first conversation with the officer. "The guy came back really strong and made it very, very clear that he absolutely wanted me out of there, that the whole thrust of why I was over here was to make money."
Peters said Casey didn’t give him any explanation why he needed to leave and issued him a warning: "If I can find you, I'll have you out in 24 hours."
Faux News, as you might expect, isn't terribly preturbed by this--although Kos and Gilliard detect a degree of supply side sympathy from Murdoch's media minions:
But some contractors and their families contacted by FOXNews.com are telling stories of verbal abuse and humiliation at the hands of a few individuals in the U.S. military.
Although these contractors say they stand behind President Bush and the U.S. military in the mission in Iraq and ongoing efforts to rebuild that country and put it on the road toward democracy, they say a few bad apples aren't helping in those efforts.
And, in the interest of "Fair & Balanced," Faux suggests a suitable villain: the Iraqis themselves.
The predicament facing both sides is that as the Iraqi government becomes more established, it is seeking to reclaim some real estate. The property in question was vacated by many after the Baathists fled the zone once Saddam was toppled; many Iraqis then moved in rent-free.
Interesting.
But to me the point isn't "who's to blame"--the point is the bickering and shouting in the first place.
My guess is that, in wingnut nation, examples will be brought up of tensions, say, among the allies in World War II...Gen. Bernard Montgomery's arrogance/irascibility (though we probably won't hear much about his racism), ditto with DeGaulle--some of the more even-handed might even mention Patton.
However, a major difference between the ego battles among general officers and the hair-trigger tensions displayed between regular soldiers and, um, "contractors," is the difference between a gentleman's tennis match and a chance encounter between two rival gangs in territory equally hostile to both. In the latter case, both side can see obvious reasons for making common ground, but neither really trusts the other--and, should shit and fan meet, who knows what could happen.
To keep somewhat on the same theme, you can also liken the tensions between soldiers and contractors, particularly under the circumstances they presently face, to that of a sports team falling apart while in the midst of a bad slump. When players start to bicker amongst themselves, it's not exactly a good sign.
Like it or not, the contractors are, for lack of a better term, "allies." Indeed, they are the second largest contingent in the "Coalition of the Willing," most speak at least passable English, and I'm guessing that most of the US citizens in this role have some direct military experience. That said, the very idea that "security" itself would be privatized--in the middle of a shooting war--is more than a little troubling. And it's worse when, at least in this particular shooting war, the military itself is losing.
That's BOUND to exacerbate tensions between soldiers making $1200 a month while Blackwater guys might pull down that kind of loot in a day or two. Combined with incidents like the recent, um, "misunderstanding" in Fallujah--AND the general sense that things in Iraq are, in a word, UGLY, we're looking less at a bad slump, and more at possibly the beginnings of a meltdown. And the dog days of summer will last another couple of months.
By the way--this is just the sort of situation that requires strong, exceptional leadership at the top--which means fat chance with the crowd occupying the 50 or so square miles on the north bank of the Potomac.
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