How do you feel about the political controversy in Iraq of whether Iraqis could prosecute Americans over killings of Iraqis? In particular I mean the Blackwater employees that are accused of killing 17 Iraqis last September.

Should they be allowed the immunity they now enjoy?

             Generally speaking, when you break the law in a country other than your own, you must pay the price demanded of that country's population. This is how it's done regardless of how I feel about it. For the record, I don't like favoritism, period.

               However, we are at war and war puts special strains and stresses on any society.

               We knew that the war on terror was unlike any other war America has been involved in. It logically follows that it would present problems never before encountered. The investigation and potential prosecution of the Blackwater people is a good example of that.

               While the Whitehouse may be leaning towards prosecution in Iraq courts with "specific legal protections", I think this could be asking for trouble – "special considerations" tend to breed resentment no matter where they're applied.

               The delicate relations between people of the two countries are difficult enough without publicizing the unusual and risking it being seen as "normal".

               I believe Congress was writing a bill that would allow us to prosecute these people. I'll check on that.

               As we saw in Fallujah, contract services in Iraq are at best, a risky proposition. Nonetheless, they are necessary and frequently benefit both Iraqi's and Americans. If we start throwing them to the wolves, meaning to a court system in the process of rebuilding itself, it will limit the number of private contractors willing to do the work at a time when they may be most needed.

               With Iraqi troops are taking over and ours are being moved to Afghanistan, we don't need to get in our own way right now.

               We are perfectly capable of prosecuting these people with perhaps special representatives of people from the Iraqi government as consultants/observers. If it made the Iraqi government more comfortable, they might provide a prosecuting attorney, at their own risk. I say "risk" because American law is a complicated pain in the nether regions and one would wish for the best command of it possible.

               The American court system is overburdened at the moment and changing them to be more efficient won't happen overnight. A consideration that seems to have been overlooked lately in judicial decision making. Nonetheless, since ordinary people are the ones forced to shoulder these kinds of burdens, it may be wisest to put this in the jurisdiction of our military justice system, with proper allowances made.

               Before you surrender to suspicious accusations, let me explain. By "allowances" I mean realities such as these people have not had immediate supervisors from the military to "put the fear of God into them" when it comes to showing respect for the rules or that the suspects in question were handling security in places where semi-automatic weapons were common and often in the hands of battle-hardened criminals that given half a chance, would shoot liberal theorists just for the sheer pleasure of it.

               Would it be reasonable to expect them to have the same responses and reactions of soldiers or civilians?

               The recent move toward upon ignoring reality and insisting upon adherence to "if the world were perfect" standards does not serve us well when those that oppose us have no such limitations.

               Any disagreements could be discreetly handled out of sight, where controversy between groups on the same side belongs. In times of war, we don't air dirty laundry unless it's absolutely necessary.

               I am NOT going to stress the importance of meticulous adherence to not cutting anyone from Blackwater any slack here. I don't believe court processes should be subject to politics. Any judgments should be made as all judgments once were, in the ice cold world of the weight of the facts and evidence.

               Do I honestly think we would "go easy" on them? If I were to indulge in suspicions of bias, it would be in the opposite direction. Americans have given a lot to help the people of Iraq in spite of the enemy's constant onslaught of propaganda and that effort has produced positive results.

               If true, the behavior these people are accused of could land a solid blow to everything we've accomplished there. I suspect that if biased at all, any American judge's anger at them could result in the swinging of a judicial machete rather than a simple throwing of a very large book.

Sincerely,

The Political Stray

People watch the ministers in the black church and they always assume that everyone there approves of everything they hear. Why do they think white people can discriminate between good and bad information, but blacks cannot?

                       Good question, but you're starting out with too much assumption. The fact that the media implies that every black person there agrees with what they are hearing doesn't mean everyone thinks that. Personally, I haven't heard anyone claiming that white's can discriminate between good and bad information any better than any other color of person.

            Funny how seeing that in black and white clarifies how absurd it is, hm?

            People of all colors are subject to mass deception. It's more of a thinking and strength of character thing. Gullibility has nothing whatsoever to do with color except for those among us that use our color as an excuse for lame behavior.

            All of that aside, I suspect that the "minimum thinkers" are getting their "tip offs" from the way that people are standing, clapping and cheering at the end of the negative film clips. Perhaps cutting the cameras to those not standing might have given a more balanced perspective.

            If there was no one standing, then we need to ask ourselves what this kind of rhetoric and hate is giving these people that works for them?

            The second question might be if whatever people are getting out of this is worth the cost of a better quality of unity for not just us, but future generations.

The Political Stray

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What do you think of the theory that the government is responsible for 9-11?

           It's silly and highly insulting to those that were among the most hurt by the violence that day. Putting one's need for a dollar or excitement above the feelings of others is not okay.

            Looking in the wrong direction can lead to missing the obvious in favor of the illogical. This kind of logic is why we have predators on two legs roaming our streets right now.

              The people promoting this need to seek out more helpful pursuits. We all need to stick together right now.

Mildly Annoyed,

The Political Stray