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Friday, October 12, 2007

Whose Side Are They On, Anyway?

posted by on October 12 at 11:45 AM

This week’s edition of Newsweek leads with a scathing report depicting a completely off their nut Blackwater running amok in Iraq.
Adding to an ever-increasing list of recently reported abuses, we can now add: drawing weapons on and detaining U.S. troops:
The lead graf:

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. Army Humvee 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.
These guys are totally, fucking out-of-control. (DHinMi at Daily Kos has a good analysis of the FUBAR’d situation here.)

RSS icon Comments

1

Why in God's name am I laughing my ass off right now?

***
Keep up the posts, COMTE! We need more of you and less of this.

Posted by Mr. Poe | October 12, 2007 11:56 AM
2

I can't believe our own soldiers didn't fucking kill these guys - they allowed themselves to be forced onto the ground? I mean, all that firepower and no fire fight? Pussies.

Posted by west point | October 12, 2007 11:59 AM
3

Doesn't that technically make the Blackwater guys enemy combatants?

Posted by Dougsf | October 12, 2007 12:10 PM
4

I appreciate Newsweek writing about this, but I am sure that they will forget all about it the second something shiny passes their eyes.

Posted by arduous | October 12, 2007 12:24 PM
5

In "Babylon by Bus," the memoire of those two crazy kids who went to Iraq during the brief period of less violence after our takeover in 2003, there are interesting descriptions of the frisson felt by Green Zone denizens when, e.g., a contractor entered a disco.

Posted by Amelia | October 12, 2007 12:48 PM
6

It's time to bring them all home.

Posted by Will in Seattle | October 12, 2007 12:51 PM
7

The soldiers should've killed the motherfuckers. I mean c'mon, were they confused by the white faces? If those Blackwater mercernaries had all been dark and swarthy, I guarantee they would not have survived that incident.

Posted by keshmeshi | October 12, 2007 1:30 PM
8

Worst of all, is that Proconsul P. Bremer and crew sactified immunity from Iraqi law for all contractors shortly after the invasion. Only NOW is anyone paying attention to it when they blatantly kill civilians with no pretext.

Most sickening is when Leerless Feeder Bush was asked last year by some college co-ed about this loophole, he played it off as the I'm-just-a-dumbfounded-4-year-old routine:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=GciV0TaiAPc

Posted by DrJackass | October 12, 2007 2:15 PM
9

My compatriot Naomi Klein has a great essay in this month's Harper's connecting the outsourcing of the Iraq war to disaster-response-for-profit. It's from her new book, The Shock Doctrine, and it outlines the way corporations like Blackwater are gaining staggering amounts of power through what she calls 'disaster capitalism'. I just read it yesterday, and now this Newsweek story -- jeesus.

Posted by Irena | October 12, 2007 3:05 PM
10

it's not your daddy's Military/ Industrial Complex anymore. they took out the slash mark and now the corporations are themselves militarizing outside any sort of oversight. pair that with the suspension of habeas corpus, flouting of the Geneva Conventions... are you scared yet? you should be.

Posted by andy niable | October 12, 2007 3:20 PM
11

@10: Yup. All you need now is extraterritoriality within property owned by corporations, and you've got chapter one of the Shadowrun backstory.

Posted by Greg | October 12, 2007 3:44 PM
12

If outsourcing our military to Blackwater is what's necessary to usher in a new age of magic and cyberpunk set in a dystopian future, then I for one welcome our new extraterritorial corporate overlords.

Posted by Aexia | October 12, 2007 5:39 PM
13

11 & 12:

That was brilliant. FTW!

Posted by Dono | October 12, 2007 10:45 PM

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