There's no place for hired guns

Everyone has relatives, and, therefore, no matter what you do, someone will try to stick up for you. That shouldn't blind us to the fact that the job the Blackwater company performs for George Bush and Dick Cheney is hardly different from that done by hit men for Mafia dons. There is nothing "patriotic" about murder for hire.

The excuse that we must pass on Blackwater because "we gotta win" is the reasoning of a thug and real proof of how rotten we have become since we decided to try to be the Roman Empire of the 21st Century. There will be a price to pay for our resort to these people that goes beyond the billion plus paid them directly.

The magazine, "The Nation," tells us that Blackwater killers have already been employed here in America -- in New Orleans during the Katrina flood -- and that they have apparently fired on local residents. Don't be surprised if this is the pattern of the future: chickens coming home to roost.

Anthony Nelson

Rolling Meadows