State Dept. Plans Tighter Control of Security Firm -The State Department will now send its own personnel as monitors with all Blackwater security convoys in and around Baghdad. The NY Times reports:
"What exactly will these monitors do, Condoleezza, count the bodies?"
"Why not use electronic monitors, Condi, like the kind I have connecting my baby's nursery to the kitchen, they're much cheaper than human babysitters and you could link right to your own office. Some of these mercenaries are real hunks, it would be like watching The Young and The Restless Take Down Baghdad"?
"Condi, if we just used real soldiers and marines instead of mercenaries we could use the money to buy those new 51 inch, plasma, high def flat screen monitors for the State Department, and by State Department of course I mean your den, kitchen and bedroom. Think about it. Hell, maybe we could just make a deal with Erik, rent one mercenary, get one monitor free, no one has to know what kind of monitor we're getting."
Representative Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat (pictured, fromWashington Post photo) who has been critical of what she calls the administration’s inappropriate use of thousands of unaccountable private security contractors in Iraq, mocked the decision to send monitors along with Blackwater teams. “This just shows how much they want to keep Blackwater on the payroll,” she said. “They’re going to have to send dozens and dozens of agents to baby-sit these Blackwater units.” She has introduced legislation to end the use of all security contractors in Iraq, replacing them with full-time government employees.First, kudos to Rep. Schakowsky for spotting the key issue (some might note the remarkable coincidence that officials who spot the key issue are always the same officials that agree with a previous post on As Good As News). Second, wake up NY Times. Calling the monitors babysitters is not "mocking". At worst it is mild sarcasm, but when we search for the most precise term we can find to describe the function of the monitor we keep coming back to, well... "baby-sit". Mocking would be something like this:
"What exactly will these monitors do, Condoleezza, count the bodies?"
"Why not use electronic monitors, Condi, like the kind I have connecting my baby's nursery to the kitchen, they're much cheaper than human babysitters and you could link right to your own office. Some of these mercenaries are real hunks, it would be like watching The Young and The Restless Take Down Baghdad"?
"Condi, if we just used real soldiers and marines instead of mercenaries we could use the money to buy those new 51 inch, plasma, high def flat screen monitors for the State Department, and by State Department of course I mean your den, kitchen and bedroom. Think about it. Hell, maybe we could just make a deal with Erik, rent one mercenary, get one monitor free, no one has to know what kind of monitor we're getting."
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