Our 'Murican Future

A few more GOP Administrations and the right-wings neofacists fantasies, being tried out in the "new" Iraq (similar to the old Iraq only with more product placements) can come to our shores.

Marines 'beat US workers' in Iraq

A group of American security guards in Iraq have alleged they were beaten, stripped and threatened with a snarling dog by US marines when they were detained after an alleged shooting incident outside Falluja last month.

"I never in my career have treated anybody so inhumane," one of the contractors, Rick Blanchard, a former Florida state trooper, wrote in an email quoted in the Los Angeles Times. "They treated us like insurgents, roughed us up, took photos, hazed [bullied] us, called us names." ...

... Mark Schopper, a lawyer for two of the contractors, told the newspaper that his clients, both former marines, were subjected to "physical and psychological abuse". He said they had told him that marines had "slammed around" several con tractors, stripped them to their underwear and placed a loaded weapon near their heads.

"How does it feel to be a big, rich contractor now?" one of the marines is alleged to have shouted at the men, in an apparent reference to the large sums of money private contractors can make in Iraq.

Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan, a Marine Corps spokesman, who did not respond to emails from the Guardian, said in an email to the LA Times: "The Americans were segregated from the rest of the detainee population and, like all security detainees, were treated humanely and respectfully."

Anybody find that last sentence a bit disturbing? Yes, these guys were mercenaries and there is something disgusting about that, and maybe they acted like boobs before they were stopped, but that doesn't excuse treating them like garbage, nor does it quiet the question of what the "non-Americans" were treated like.