ABC-TV's Ted Koppel will dedicate a whole edition of Nightline to reading the names of US soldiers killed in Iraq [Only Iraq? Why not Afghanistan? - Ed. Makes you wonder right?]. Scrappleface muses that Koppel, in the interests if impartiality, next week will read the list of
"Iraqis who were raped, tortured and killed by Saddam Hussein's regime after President George H.W. Bush declared victory in the Gulf War on February 28, 1991."
Mr. Koppel said next week's Nightline will be a "special extended episode starting Friday and running non-stop until the day I retire from ABC."
Leftists still hung up in the Vietnam war are convinced that the way of assuring a coalition defeat in Iraq is to concentrate on the body count, be it the names or the coffins.
On March 23, the Defense Department proposed a rule saying that civilian contractors who accompany the military in battle areas can't carry private firearms unless they received permission by an order from the chief of U.S. forces in the area. That restriction has prompted heated discussions at the 45th annual National Contract Management Association convention.
Deidre Lee, the Pentagon's director of procurement and acquisition policy, whose office proposed the weapons restriction, said it's designed to settle one of the biggest questions facing contractors: "to arm or not to arm."
Lee said this is a life-or-death issue because "we don't have the military providing security for our contractors."
I hope this is not a response to stupid whining about "mercenaries."
PS: While we're on the topic, it is worth noting that the UN uses private contractors as police officers in Kosovo, as was revealed in the shooting incident some weeks ago. Are they "mercenaries" too, or does that term only apply to wars the loonie left hates?
