Happy New Year Blackwater Worldwide!
If the U.S spent the last year waving goodbye to Iraq in the rear-view, there certainly wasn’t much of a reckoning for the rotten and ultimately counterproductive abuse private security guards visited upon innocent Iraqis throughout the course of the seven- year war there. Nothing symbolizes this more than the New Year’s dismissal of murder charges against five Blackwater Worldwide guards who were accused of blasting away at 17 innocent men, women and children in the heart of Nisoor Square in September 2007. The judge has tossed out this explosive case not on the merits of the charges, but because Department of Justice prosecutors tried to hinge their case on testimony the guards gave immediately after the incident, when the guards believed they were under immunity.
So the American government bungled the case. This will no doubt cause a firestorm on the Baghdad streets, but at this point, since they are in the rear-view, their cries will be no more than a vague whisper here in the States. I mean, the Afghans are getting restive after a series of NATO airstrikes allegedly killed upwards of 20 innocent Afghans this week, but no one is talking about it here, and we’re supposedly paying attention to that war.
As for Blackwater, it gets quite a New Year’s “clean slate” — the chances are slim, reportedly, that U.S prosecutors will launch a successful appeal in the Nisoor case. Everyone seems to acknowledge Blackwater’s global war operations (now under the moniker “Xe” and new management) have been crooked as a dog’s hind leg, but Blackwater/Xe, thanks to brilliant connections in Washington, including former CIA, military and current purse string holders on the Hill, always seems to land on it’s feet. It’s not like Nisoor was hobbling Xe’s action anyway: aside from staying in Baghdad despite an Iraqi government ban, and its secret U.S-funded endeavors in Pakistan, Xe is poised for more lucrative and (less covert) contracts training Afghan security personnel. If Afghan cops are already considered more despicable than the Taliban in large swaths of the country …well, one gets the point.
So Happy New Year to Blackwater/Xe and all of the war profiteers who enjoy lush war-generated employment opportunities while the rest of us look towards 2010 with a mixed measure of trepidation and hope, and the people of Iraq wave us goodbye with no doubt an even more acute sense of trepidation, and a little less hope.
I am very pleased to see that The American Conservative is speaking out against Blackwater. I am astonished that we as a country, a democracy, would and can tolerate a private for profit army on our lands and actually use it as part of our military response around the world.
Is not anyone seriously concerned, seriously afraid of such an entity?
A pragmatic, Capitalist, Liberal who longs for the return of real Republicans, true Conservatives.
Stewart, you are an idiot. You said, “I am astonished that we as a country, a democracy, would and can tolerate a private for profit army on our lands and actually use it as part of our military response around the world”.
So, what did the French navy do for the United States in our war against Britain? Ben Franklin went to France to HIRE their navy to join our fight and help us out since we only had about 20-30 ships to fight theirs. Look it up. Without hired help, we wouldn’t be free.
Blackwater is not an army, and any fool who would condemn people who exchange a use of skills of war for cash because they seek profit for effort is a fool and a mental weakling whose bloodline likely doesn’t deserve continuance, obviously with propagation only at the mercy of God….
One troll begets another.
Stewart, I agree completely, from another liberal who enjoys TAC, please comment again.
Pete, no need for names, but thank you for the history lesson, even though it is irrelevant to the Blackwater case. We have an army, navy, air force, special ops, cia, dia, et al. Not only that, but take a guess what contractors offering higher salaries and less oversight has done to our retention in special forces, for instance.
Chris, way out of line, keep it to yourself.
Blackwater is a symptom, not a disease. I don’t understand all the hand wringing over our use of contractors per se. Their use in misbegotten wars like Iraq and Afghanistan is an indication of the degradation of our war fighting capacity. We use them because they are cheaper than regular troops. Moral qualms over the difference between career shooters and hired shooters are better addressed on some Quaker web site.