Ruben Navarrette seems to follow along with Kos' "Screw the Mercenaries" meme

While stated in a more polite manner than Kos, but in a Kos-like editorial carried nationally by the Washington Post Writers Group and picked up by the Detroit News, Ruben Navarrette in his article "Modern-day mercenaries blur vision of Iraq" seems to hold the four Americans killed in Iraq while protecting a food convoy in contempt and states any appeals to his sympathy was a result of manipulation as the news reports did not initially state the dead were employed by Blackwater as security.

I admit that when I first saw the images from Fallujah, I wanted the administration to send a message that we wouldn't be scared off from what is, I am still convinced, a just war. Now that I know more about what these four men were doing in Iraq and at what price, I feel manipulated. Here we were originally told that these were civilians killed while doing humanitarian work. Someone left out the part about how these civilians were also hired guns.

The administration had the right response, but we shouldn't blur the line between these modern-day mercenaries and U.S. military personnel.

One group takes with it the prayers of a grateful nation. The other takes its chances.

While Navarrette is more polite than Kos, as he didn't directly come out and say screw em, his sentiments are the same.

Somehow being paid by a private company rather than by the government while guarding a food convoy causes the likes of Navarette and Kos to lose all respect for the dead Americans. These Americans were in fact "civilians killed while doing humanitarian work" and Navarette's snide remark that because they were "hired guns" and that they as a group should take their "chances" is more revealing about Navarette's prejudices than the grateful nation for whom they died serving.