BLACKWATER MERCENARIES DISARM U.S. TROOPS…
October 16th, 2007
Why the feck do you think you’ve never seen the above headline on the front page, above the fold, of your local newspaper? That’s a question I’d like to put to editors of my local newspaper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer.* I think mercenaries drawing down on our soldiers is a pretty big news story.
But hey, I’m sure there was an important sports story that day.
From Newsweek:
The colonel was furious. “Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers.”
He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. ArmyHumvee on a street in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV.
His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company.
Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, “This type of gossip has led to many soap operas in the press.”
Another private security company? How many of these cowboy mercenaries do we have running around Iraq?
Hat tip to I See Invisible People for the catch.
Once, the US actively prosecuted war crimes. Now we could be accused of them. We”ve armed and inserted mercenaries, exempt from military and civil laws, into a war zone where they act with impunity. And they act in our name and we do not prevent them. As more and more incidents come to light, maybe the press can do what the public cannot; force an accounting of the damage they”ve done. Applying the correct label is a place to start.
*For the record, I did check to see what the Plain Dealer wrote about Blackwater in 2006. I got two valid hits on the paper’s website; none of which address the above story. Here’s what I found:
Contractor deaths leave families asking why, Bill Lubinger;Plain Dealer Reporter; The Plain Dealer; May 7, 2006; pg. A.8;
Private contractors pulled to war by high pay, cause Jobs range from the mundane to the deadly, Bill Lubinger;Plain Dealer Reporter; The Plain Dealer; May 7, 2006; pg. A.1;
And, of course, I would have had to pay a premium to actually see what Lubinger had written.
i hate this strange combination of rage and helplessness, mild fear, disbelief, confusion, thoughtfulness, curiosity, disgust…its a hell of a mess inside here whenever i think of politics now a days
Shalom Molly,
One of my tasks this evening will be to write a thoughtful letter on the subject of Blackwater to senators Voinovich and Brown and Representative Jones.
B'shalom,
Jeff
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