They're fighting socialized medicine over there so they don't have to fight it here. Wait, what's the rationale for the war this week?

On the one hand corporations like Blackwater donate heavily to Republicans politicians (and even help out with their campaigns!), on the other hand you have a bunch of dead terrorists who were responsible for 9/11, so this is pretty much win-win, right? Or at least, that's pretty much how this is perceived by the White House and others who inhabit the alternate universe of reality known as the Republican party.

Just think about how many Americans continue to turn a blind eye to the incomprehensible scale of death and destruction the United States has brought to Iraq (1.2 million dead civilians, millions of refugees, the destruction of the infrastructure and a complete breakdown of law and order).

Now think about how little most Americans care about it. I'm not just talking about the extreme Republicans who believe these people 'got what's coming to them', or even the vast majority of Americans who are generally unaware of it or unconcerned with it. I'm talking about the Democrats, liberals, and other concerned citizens who are the most "horrified" by news of this kind. Even they don't really care, not really. Their "horror" rarely lasts more than a few seconds after they've finished skimming the article.

"9/11" became the catch-all justification for all of the suffering we've inflicted. Even six years after the Twin Towers fell, even the people who supposedly "care" still don't really blink an eye at the deaths of innocent civilians in a country we now know had nothing to do with the attacks. All this over the loss of 3000 Americans.

Should it be any surprise then that the majority of both Sunnis and Shi'a think it's okay to kill American soldiers?

In the minds of Iraqis, how many millions of American lives would have to be shed in revenge before they would start to care? How many years will have to pass before they will stop thinking Americans deserve to be killed (Americans are still fine with the continued killing of civilians even after 6 years)?

Should anyone really be surprised if some Iraqis were to come to the United States, detonate bombs or gun down a few hundred Americans at a mall or subway station? This country would lose its mind and people would want to carpet bomb Iraq. And yet that kind of thing happens on a weekly, sometimes daily basis in Iraq in no small part because of the environment the United States helped to create.

Certainly Americans don't make much of a distinction between the al Qaida terrorists who hijacked the planes on 9/11 and the Taliban government that gave the organization safe harbor. Do you think Iraqis really make much of distinction, either, between Blackwater and the United States government who hires them?

The Bush administration has basically helped to create the biggest bullseye on the citizens of American in at least half a century. And yet if another attack does come to our shores, most Americans will still probably see them as unprovoked.

That's how little Americans understand or care about the millions of lives we've killed and the millions more we've ruined. This Blackwater incident is just a paradigm of that dynamic.

/rant

It's a feature, not a bug. Everyone knows we're not leaving Iraq in the next decade. The corporate thugs figure we might as well remind the Iraqis who's really in charge.

Obviously, all the evidence, witnesses and investigators were smuggled to the site from Iran. The pistachio shells are a dead giveaway.

It's all a feature of free enterprise, and free enterprise is the same as democracy, no? Democracy is the same as freedom, so anyone who criticizes the enforcement of free enterprise hates freedom. God, it's great to see things so clearly, isn't it?

"they would be court-martialed."

Not like that means anything.

Not only is there no evidence that Blackwater guards were shot at, but the team involved in the shooting apparently wasn't guarding anyone (well, except themselves). The sequence, according to the report:

1. VBIED goes off outside the Izdihar Financial compound, within which is Team A (presumably with someone important).
2. Team A exits and heads back to the Green Zone (about 2Km away).
3. Team B is dispatched to support Team A.
4. Team B enters Nisoor; shit ensues. The report states that the command vehicle was "disabled" but subseuently states "The nature of the Bearcat malfunction is unclear."
5. Team A--having reached the Green Zone, is re-dispatched to support Team B.
6. Team B, with command vehicle in tow, exits Nisoor and returns to Green Zone.
7. Team A enters Nisoor, by which time Team B is long gone.

[trolling deleted]

These guys need to be stopped.

They're having fun shooting at people. This is unacceptable. They clearly think shooting first and not bothering to ask questions is appropriate - and here they did it in the middle of town where others were watching.

We need to tell them this isn't appropriate.

I noticed that Drum hasn't been posting about Iraq very often lately.

Good to see that there's some bad news!
Posted by: mark

Now that's disgusting! Nice to see there's really no empathy, at all, of any sort, for Iraqi lives. mark thinks it's perfectly acceptable for mercenaries to shoot up Iraqis since KD posting about it gives him a chance to show his "kith and kin" what a smart guy he is.

This on a site run by a guy as responsible as any other purported "liberal" for those mercenaries being in Iraq in the first place.

It's little wonder why god doesn't exist. If it did, mark would have felt the wrath as soon as he thought this crack, let alone had time to type it.

What a man, mark, a real human being.

What, mark, you mean articles like this? A post which both has good news about Iraq and which explains why he hasn't been posting much on the subject?

Whew! For a moment there I thought that I had wasted another couple of minutes reading the comments and not finding any from Al. But Mark, may I call you Mark?, you saved the day.

Mark, you obviously have issues. Do you have a blog-site where we might come see your true feelings on all matters, especially those concerning Iraq? This would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

LTC Bob Bateman from Altercation has a great article in the Chicago Tribune--let's hope it's picked up on the wire:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-oped1012contractoroct12,0,4399312.story

But check out the comments. You know, the misunderstanding may derive from a basic incomprehension of English.

an Army investigation of last month's shooting in Nisoor Square had found no evidence that Blackwater guards were shot at.

obviously the army used phony soldiers to carry out the investigation. cause the contractors are the real heroes. at least that's what we thought when I was in the shit.

oh, sorry, not "in the shit" , just "in shit" -- i had this phase a couple years back where i wouldn't get out of bed. um, PTSD.

yeah, PTSD, from when i won my silver star -- it always comes back to haunt me.

it was for coming in second in the fourth grade spelling bee.

but liberals don't respect red-blooded american spellers. they'd rather listen to army investigators and wesley clark and ricardo sanchez and other whiners who, when their country called, ran away to some south asian sanctuary. not me. when lady liberty was threatened, i made sure to stay close to home to better defend her.

anyway, where was i? -- damn pills, have totally derailed my train of... something

Will someone remove this useless lump of flesh from me?

How about:

"Will someone remove this painful, infected, oozing lump of tissue from me?"

In the next two paragraphs from the article:
" Finally there was a pause of a few seconds in the shooting as the Blackwater convoy prepared to leave, he said. Then, Mr. Waso said with a look of disbelief on his face, at least one Blackwater guard began firing again, this time at a red bus full of people on the western rim of the square.

“The glass was all broken,� Mr. Waso said, struggling to describe the bus after the firing resumed. “Women and children, all of them were shouting and crying.�
------
Wow. That's really ugly. We are going to be hearing a lot more about this in the next few weeks. Blackwater or any of its defenders (including the media) are just going to paint themselves uglier and uglier the harder they try to weasel out of this. Then they will probably end up trotting out the trigger-pullers and paint them as a few rotten apples in an otherwise responsible organization. But, it will be too late by then. Maybe the Iraqis will end up kicking us all out and do us a big favor. This is going to be a very weird time...

Just more proof that the United States is still the occupier of Iraq and that the Iraqi government is our puppet. No independent government in the world is forced to put up with mercenaries from other countries. No rational government in the world allows their mercenaries to murder at will.

Augustus,

Someone should acknowledge how compelling your 'rant' was, so I'm doing so.

Gosh, we sure have a lot of highly paid bad apples, don't we?

Can anybody spell out just how these guys would be charged with anything, where and with what, exactly?

Serious question, cuz I dunno how it'd work.

If private security guards in the US did this, they'd be arrested, disarmed, charged with murder and conspiracy, and a RICO investigation would commence: right? It wouldn't matter if the guards weren't US citizens, either. I suppose if the guards had diplomatic immunity -- but I expect we'd throw out the ambassador immediately, don't ya think? And I don't think Blackwater has diplomatic immunity.

So -- how come Americans in Iraq cannot be similarly charged by the Iraqi government? I think the deal is that Bremer established extrality over Iraq right away, so that Americans in Iraq are not subject to Iraqi law. Is that so?

Then -- are these guys subject to American military jurisdiction? I mean -- as I understand it, if an American soldier commits a crime in Germany, he's subject to BOTH German civilian and American military law (I think). An American serving in Germany who is convicted by a German court of a German crime serves that sentence, and then gets a dishonorable discharge, SFAIK.

If it's the case that the Blackwater guys are subject to NEITHER Iraqi civilian or American military law, I'd like to know how that happened.

Don't get me wrong -- I can understand why, in a mess like Iraq, we'd want to avoid having our guys (and face it, they ARE "our" guys) getting arrested and becoming a political cause -- but only to a point. (Hell, if the right case came along, wouldn't it be good for both Iraq AND the US if somebody got charged and had a fair trial? Think John Adams representing the Brits who killed Attucks.)

But if an incident like this don't push it all past that point toward a John Adams opportunity, nothing will. So does anybody know how the Blackwater guys could be charged, where and with what?

Cuz if they can't (which might be the case), it'd help to know that plain.

If it's the case that the Blackwater guys are subject to NEITHER Iraqi civilian or American military law, I'd like to know how that happened.

Paul Bremer happened. He issued Order 17, and gave them authority to run amok with no fear of consequence.

The solution is obvious - if Blackwater isn't
subject to any law, neither is Dyncorp. Fight fire with fire.

Iraqis do not need any law to confront Blackwater. They should adopt Blackwater rules of engagement for all foreign security firm employees.

Blogwhoring alert...

I have been posting about Blackwater since Katrina, when they behaved like thugs in New Orleans and faced no consequence. This post is the most comprehensive, but there is a LOT of blackwater stuff at my place if anyone wants more...

Blue Girl is correct about the exemption forced upon the Iraqis by Bremer.

Speaking about Germany, there has been a Status of Forces Agreement for years between, then West Germany, now Germany and the US - Similar to SoFAs in South Korea and other countries where US Forces are based.

As far as I know, there is no SoFA agreement with the Iraqis - However, some say that, technically, the Iraqi government could bring charges against US service personnel, but, none have been brought forward. Even with that, Blackwater is exempt.

Shouldn't these guys be tried for treason?

They are certainly undermining our mission in Iraq by turning the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqis against Americans.

Soldiers (with guns) v. Contractors (with guns) must be no different to your average Iraqi.

And even if they DO see the difference because of lack of camo on the contractors, why aren't the soldiers protecting the populace from the contractors just as they are from insurgents and AQ in Iraq?

Perhaps the solution is for the Iraqi government or the UN to declare Blackwater a terrorist group. As it is non-governmental and killing people randomly, the shoe would seem to fit.

UN to declare Blackwater a terrorist group

That makes a nice headline.

theAmericanist: I think the deal is that Bremer established extrality over Iraq right away, so that Americans in Iraq are not subject to Iraqi law. Is that so?

Yes; see Order 17. (And plenty more on BGRS's site.)

So does anybody know how the Blackwater guys could be charged, where and with what?

They might be charged under US law, although that's a bit iffy (the reason for the introduction of recent legislation). Blackwater could be charged and held accountable under Iraqi law *if* the US waved immunity as provided under Order 17.

In short, it appears to be not so much a question of how, what and were, as a question of will. Specifically, the willingness of the US to allow Blackwater to be held accountable under Iraqi law.

I hope everyone of these Blackwater criminals spend the rest of their lives in prison - Abu Ghraib prison! That would be poetic justice.

Soldiers (with guns) v. Contractors (with guns) must be no different to your average Iraqi.

Nor to me.