fTucker Hates the Troops, he Really hates them

In this rather amazing exchange on Real Time last night, Tucker Carlson made some rather emphatic suggestions in support of Blackwater USA.

Tucker: You can't go anywhere in Iraq without them (Blackwater), the military is not going to protect you.

So much for "the surge is working" and strolling through the market to buy five rugs for five dollars! I thought Bagdad was supposed to be like Walmart by now?

I don't think there's any evidence that the Blackwater guys have committed anymore atrocities than our troops.

Say what? Our troops have commited "atrocities"? Say it isn't so Tucker - say it isn't so...

Oh right, according to Tucker using Blackwater is obviously better than our troops since they haven't yet had their own Haditha (where U.S. Marines killed 15 unarmed Iraqis) and Moumoudiya (Where U.S. Soldiers raped and murdered an Iraqi teenager and her entire family)? Is that really the standard we should be judging them by?

We should wait they get to the naked man stacking ala Abu Ghraib before we say "Enough" and finally think maybe we should renegotiate this contract?

Following his previous attacks on the 82nd Airborne (What they hell do they know about (how the Iraqis feel)?), Tucker shows the standard Right-wing mantra that privatization is always better than using public resources, in this case - Mercenaries are always better than using actual U.S. Troops.

Mahar did a good job poking this mind-bubble with a big fat pin. (Note these are not full or complete transcripts)

Maher: There's have been over 200 incidents (of Blackwater shootings).

Paul Krugman: These guys drew weapons on American Soldiers, that was last year.

Tucker: If that's true - why did they get another contract the year after that?

Because nothing, but nothing, ever stands in the way of crony capitalism, not even treason - you should know that considering the little defense fund for Scooter Libby that your daddy runs.

Maher:If there were a bunch of mercenaries over in this country - say Iranians - and they shot up an intersection in the middle of Phoenix, wouldn't we call that terrorism?

Tucker: Well, we be offended by it.

Ok, I know I did a double-take when he said that - in fact if I'd been drinking something it would have been a spit-take. We'd be "offended" if a bunch of privately paid Iranian Mercenaries Enemy Combatants fired fully automatic weapons in the middle of a Phoenix street, killed 11 people and wounded 7 more? Hey dude, the "Democratic" Congress just voted to declare Iran's Republican Guard to be a terrorist organization. Are you fracking kidding me? The B2's would be in air on their way to Tehran in the first 5 minutes.

Tucker: We're pretending they're in control of their control, but let's stop pretending - we're in control of their country.

You call that "Control"?

Tucker: Maybe we shouldn't be (in control), but we are. So the idea that they get to pick and chose whose in their country is a lie, and we should stop aiding and abetting that lie. No, I'm serious - this "Democracy Nonesense" - that's all a joke.

So that means our brave men and women in harms way are fighting and dying for "A Joke"?

Krugman: I'd rather we use Marines - we used to have Marines protecting the embassies. And they're subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice if they do something wrong.

Maher: It's such an insult to the... (Troops?)

Tucker: Who protects your bureau, who protects the New York times Bureau in Baghdad because the military is not going to - you wouldn't have reporters there if it weren't for private contractors.

Krugman: What I'm worried about is why does the U.S. Government continue to deploy mercenaries?

Tucker: But it's not just them.

Krugman: But that's what's at issue.

Tucker: You deploy mercenaries - why are you doing that?

Maher: I'll tell you why...

Krugman: It's not same issue - why am I as a taxpayer paying for Mercenaries?

Maher: Because Iraq is a Boondoogle. It's a big dig overseas. There's nothing the Military couldn't do that Blackwater does - but there's No Money IN IT for the Republicans...

Tucker: I think we should make the New York Times live up to Mr. Krugman's standards.

Krugman: You know that's an idiotic arguement.

Tucker: No it's not and I'll tell you why - I was in Baghdad in November of 2003 and we got ambushed and you know who came to rescue us? Nobody. If you don't have private contractors you'll get killed.

Let's just ignore the fact that Tucker is a private citizen, and the New York Times is a private organization and if they want to hire their own Private Security nothing in the world really should stop them from doing that. The issue which he repeatedly ignored was that U.S. Tax Dollars are going to Mercenaries who are making as much as $1000 a day doing a job that our U.S. soldiers are fully capable of doing.

This shit is why Iraq has cost us $500,000 Billion and rapidly rising, and also why we aren't getting anything like decent results from our investment.

There's no money in bringing Democracy to Iraq.

Compare the above argument from Tucker with what he said earlier in the show on the issue of Health Care.

Tucker: Why is it that we should make health insurance manditory. She (Hillary) said the other day that if you don't have health insurance we're going to prevent you from getting a job - that's authoritarian.

So let me get the straight, we should be required to pay for Blackwater mercenaries - at highly inflated prices - to protect our diplomats in Baghdad using our tax dollars, because without them "we would die", but not for our own healthcare - without which - many of us would die.

Again Krugman takes him apart.

Krugman: The fact of the matter is that if you're uninsured in this country you show up in an emergency room and you get treated at everyone elses expense. The fact of the matter is that we ought to have a guaranteed system where everybody has healthcare and everybody pays taxes to make that system work.

Tucker: I thought you were all for choice and people making their own decisions about their own lives.

Krugman: Not at other people's expense.

Tucker: My only problem is that you're power of the government to force people to do things that you want them to do because you think it's best for them.

Krugman: No, no.. because it's best for the rest of us.

On the one hand Tucker is all for spending tax payer money to the tune of TRILLIONS on overpriced cowboy killers in Iraq, but the idea of spending a fraction of that to keep people alive is somehow "Authoritarian"?

War and Death = Good. Health and Life = Bad.

He's willing to have tax payers provide for any and all times of costs to keep his butt alive while he's running around Baghdad in a Humvee playing the Macho-Man - but not a dime for children who need care and have no other viable option?

And then later on in the broadcast, he argues that it's impossible to have a rational conversation over these issues when the other side automatically assumes that your "motives are Evil." I'm sorry but there really isn't much in this world more evil than letting sick kids suffer and die because you don't want to have uncle sam in your pocket to prevent or treat it properly.

I gotta say, I wish the kind of upside-down socipathic views that Carlson expressed were rare - but they aren't.

And yes, it is "Evil" in it's purest form. Self-preservation first and fuck everybody else.

Vyan

P.S. The Troops Suck - Tucker