Thomas Jefferson on Blackwater

We're beyond being shocked at what this administration does, but the Blackwater revelations last week came close. We heard that this private army of mercenaries, hired by an ideological soulmate and close friend of the administration, has been killing Iraqis largely for sport, where drunken killers fire at random and face no legal consequences.

Mercenaries. Just think about it, what have we become? As Thomas Jefferson wrote of mercenaries 231 years ago,

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Indeed, this is "totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation."