Yes, of course they should be prepared for attacks with gas agents by men on their own side simply to clear the road of their check point.

The main military complaint was mostly that it was stupid, unnecessary, and dangerously disruptive. Not that there were any injuries.

There were no hospitalizations of military personnel. The effect on the civilians present is unknown, but may safely be assumed to have probably been minor and impermanent.

I'm saying they may have not been prepared, but within seconds of that shit hitting your eyes, you get your mask on. trust me.

I have a few blackwater friends, and while my friends are pretty cool- they work with some gung ho idiots. I am sure they got thiers.

I certainly hope so. The idea that we allow idiots like this run around with our money in a place where our mismanagement is so obvious is bad enough.

The thought that they won't get disciplined (or kicked out), is worse.

Let's see you do better.

No, you don't get to talk about issues of such magnitude without potentially having to deal with the larger implications and underlying issues involved.

Uh, that's pretty much exactly saying something about the people opposing the privatization of war.

So does your opinion of those who have seen combat but decry Blackwater differ at all from the baseline? Try to stay on point.

That's some masterful debating right there.

I really hope you're not trying to lessen the impact of the event in question somehow.

Okay, this first bit contributes very little to the conversation, but I found it amusing.

In a 2006 game made by Bethesda works called Oblivion there is a faction called the Blackwood Company. Hm... This company is made up of ex legionnaires who went to fight a war, failed and came back. "The Blackwood Company are in competition with the Fighters Guild, but are much less scrupulous and will accept any job." They later massacre a village. I just found this amusing, while possibly unintentional on their part. Apologies for the nerdiness.

As far as the main conversation goes,

While this is true, the dangers presented were not necessarily about the gas itself. In fact the gas' direct effect on health has been mentioned less than three times. What is more worrisome is that gas would blind/temporarily disable US soldiers from being able to spot a suicide bomber or enemy snipers. Also, while I lack the ability to empathize, I'd like to note that tear gas is bad on the civilians.

Here's the problem I see with Blackwater, they are hurting troop morale and their existence on the battlefield puts soldiers in danger because of the civilian casualties they cause. I mean, aside from tons of other moral, philosophical and political issues, I think this is one where you'd agree.

The 'need' for Blackwater is questionable to me as well. If it's monetary, then the fact that we are using a middle man, the corp itself, instead of going straight to any Spec Ops and offering them individual contracts is beyond me. I mean, for that corporation to function as a corporate entity all contracts with them for x number of men have an extra bit of cash on their to pay their CEO's, accountants, secretaries, paper pushers, lawyers etc. If they are thriving off all the money we are throwing at them, it must be a fair bit. Surely putting that into incentive packages, both to marines and to Spec Ops, would be a better use of the funds. Several members already suggested this. I'm ready to be wrong on this hypothetical, but I don't see how.

spec ops goes into blackwater when they get out because the money is good. As well as our infantrymen, ect. Blackwater is made up of veterans As civilians, they can do things the army cant do, they have better equiptment then most of the guys on the feild do because they are testing it for use with our guys in the service.

just because a few of these blackwater dudes are idiots doesnt mean they arent extremely valuible to saving the lives of the service men and women (and contractors) out there.

I would hate to have seen what the boards looked like when the abu gharib case broke. I'm sure it looked to most people that all or most of our service members were cold heartless beings.

Which demoralizes the troops who are getting paid comparatively little by the government and convinces more troops to NOT to reinlist.

The things they can do that the armed forces can't is the problem. See, they aren't legally answerable to anyone, they're in a grey zone. They have a license to kill and answer to a corporation, that sounds safe. What's more, the US military could spend some of the money it's spending hiring these guys and reallocate it to supplying troops with better equipment. But that's less of a budget issue, more of an issue of planning by the Bush administration who has chosen to short the soldiers. If these guys were answerable to some laws of military conduct half my complaints would disappear. Being able to do things that normal soldiers can't means they are able to do things that break the military code of ethics, sounds great doesn't it? I wasn't aware they were testing all this equipment for US soldiers though. The problem is that there are plenty of ways to test firearms, the soldiers would be fine with good equipment from this gen of technology.

So, ex-soldiers with better equipment and pay who answer to no one but Blackwater Worldwide save the lives of service men and women? Really? I don't mean to be patronizing. It's just that events such as the one cited in this article and many many more I've heard first hand accounts of make me think that more often than not Blackwater employees put US soldiers in danger, or at least worsen the already strained relationship between US soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

It's kind of like the whole Ron Paul debate. Ron Paul has a few things right, for the wrong reasons and is horribly off in a lot of places.

I don't know what it looked like then, but I know that I just thought that the CIA's torture techniques were performed by US soldiers, possibly with guidance from an agent, instead of how the CIA usually goes about it which is to get a third party to perform the acts while they supervise.

Because your talking points were comparable to the Greek scholars, right?

Then again, your only response to the several paragraphs that have been devoted to trumping any argument you've made has been to write pointless tripe like "I can hear your tears hittin' the floor." OMG LOL, that trumps everything! Check and mate!