Below is the comment Kos made on the death of four mercenaries in Falluja. In all the furore surrounding them, I feel I have been somewhat amiss in not explaining my own feelings about them.
Let 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.
Now I don’t really see what was so objectible about these comments. He is right after all, unlike the people of Iraq themselves or the US and other soldiers send there by their country, they had a choice. They didn’t need to be there, they were just there for the money [1]. It’s terrible that they died, but no more so than anyone’s death is terrible, for those who know them. I can feel a sort of abstract compassion for them, but no more than that. Moreover, they knew the risks when they got the job. If you have the choice and you don’t want to get killed, don’t go work in a warzone!
So I don’t know why this comment was beyond the pale and got so much attention, other than the more …excitable part of the rightwing blogosphere seeing it as a convenient stick to bash “the left” with.
He didn’t say he was glad they were death, he didn’t call for all mercenaries to be killed, he just said he didn’t care much that they died.
And yes, I don’t think people who wage war for monetary gain [2] are outstanding moral examples, so I don’t care much about their death myself, certainly far less than I feel about the death of some Iraqi citizen whose only crime was living in a neighbourhood that became a battlefield, or an US soldier who only joined the army to lift herself out of poverty. Doesn’t mean I wanted them to die the way they did, or at all.
[1]: sure, their company claims they were there “to provide protection for food convoys into the town”, but that strikes me as a cover.
[2]: professional soldiers are different from mercenaries. They fight for their country, not for the person who pays the most.