Useful Fools

Kos (Markos Zuniga), of daily KOS, authors the most influential left wing blog in America, with about 100,000 daily readers. His latest productions have caused considerable controversy. Both discussed the atrocities in Fallujah, in which four American civilians security guards were murdered, their bodies burned and mutilated, dragged through the streets and finally hung on a bridge.

Originally, Kos wrote:

et the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly.

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

This was then removed from his site, Google and the Wayback Machine. But others kept it. It’s hard to hide on the Internet.

This was followed by a pitiful attempt of an excuse:

There’s been much ado about my indifference to the Mercenary deaths in Falluja a couple days ago. I wrote in some diary comments somewhere that “I felt nothing” and “screw them”.
My language was harsh, and, in reality, not true. Fact is, I did feel something. That’s why I was so angry.

I was angry that five soldiers — the real heroes in my mind — were killed the same day and got far lower billing in the newscasts. I was angry that 51 American soldiers paid the ultimate price for Bush’s folly in Iraq in March alone. I was angry that these mercenaries make more in a day than our brave men and women in uniform make in an entire month. I was angry that the US is funding private armies, paying them $30,000 per soldier, per month, while the Bush administration tries to cut our soldiers’ hazard pay. I was angry that these mercenaries would leave their wives and children behind to enter a war zone on their own violition [sic].

So I struck back.

No, Kos, you let your real self show in a moment of anger. Just like death, that cannot be undone. Don’t try to change the subject to media editorial policies or the “real heros” whose job you make harder and more dangerous every day.

You have shown the leftist ability to rationalize terrible atrocities committed against human beings who don’t have your ideological approval. You have shown the lack of humanity and values of the hard left. You have shown why this nation, at this critical time, cannot afford to have the Democratic Party, which is led by people like yourself, in control of anything. You are continuing the proud tradition of the Vietnam era anti-war radicals, who looked the other way when the North Vietnamese started slaughtering those in the south after the fall, who ignored the killing fields of Cambodia, and blamed the boat people for their own distress.

Democrats and liberals pride themselves on their humanity in comparison with conservatives, but the left has long excused the excesses of communists and socialists and frankly, almost anyone who fights against America. You, Kos, don’t even mind when Americans are killed in the most barbaric way. Even when we were throwing out the Taliban,your ilk complained that we were causing too many civilian casualties.

Kos, what you did is similar to the actions of your hero John Kerry during the Vietnam War: devaluing American lives and constantly attacking your country during a war. About the only difference is that actually met and collaborated with the enemy, and used his actions to gain political power. It was despicable then and what you did is despicable now. Are you planning on running for office as a Democrat? Your actions are following Kerry’s precedent.

Do you understand the terrible irony of your failing to condemn the atrocities, while supporting a presidential candidate whose rise to political power came from condemning alleged atrocities by Americans (while ignoring those of our enemy)? Unlikely, since you probably have a rationalization for that candidate’s anti-American lying.

Do you wonder why some people might question whether those on the left love their countrymen as much as their vicious ideology? I doubt it.

You rationalize your actions by attacking the victims. You object to these “mercenaries” because they make a lot of money. I suggest that you volunteer to do the same job for free! Do you have the courage? Are you willing to guard food deliveries to Fallujah? If a bank guard is killed in a robbery, do you shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, he was just a mercenary?”

You were angry that five soldiers were killed and got less press. Do you really expect us to believe that? Those soldiers would have commanded that attention too had they received the same treatment as those civilians whom you call “mercenaries”. So because you don’t like an editorial judgment, its okay to say “screw them” about fellow Americans who were brutally murdered? You are angry at the war, so when American civilians are burned by a mob, it’s “screw them?” You are angry at a pay differential so “screw them” when their mutilated bodies are strung from a bridge? You are even angry at the victims, so “screw them” or what’s left of them?

In your time on this earth, you have performed one valuable service. You have revealed how the left of today has lost its humanity. You have revealed how the left of today can justify anything through ideology. You have revealed how the left of today is out of touch with the people of America. You have revealed how the left of today can ignore the terrible actions taken against someone who risks his life for money, but not those who do it for the government. You have shown the hate that lies beneath the veneer of “caring” and “helping” and all the flower child sentiments the left expresses so well. You have even sought to excuse your actions by referring to your childhood experiences – how touching, how typical, and how irrelevant.

Thank you, Kos, for letting the world know how “the most influential Democratic blogger” and his ilk really tick.

For the sane… Notice the use of language by Kos. He quickly brands the victims as “mercenaries,” even incorrectly capitalizing the first letter. This is how totalitarians and psychopaths justify and relieve any guilt about their actions against someone. Brand them with a pejorative, which makes them no longer a member of your part of humanity, and you can quickly forget they are human at all. An old trick, often used in propaganda.

[Tip of the hat to Ryan of Tasty Manatees for finding the original and for his own on the subject.]

UPDATE Watcher of Weasels has rounded up some of the lefty reaction to Kos’s defenestration.