If a gang shoots down 17 people, those gang members are headed to jail… or worse. But if the gang belongs to a corporation, the perpetrators don’t even get charged and the corporation gets a multimillion-dollar government contract.
Welcome to Bushworld and the special treatment of Blackwater, Inc. Last fall, this notorious gang of privatized warriers was deep in hot water. The corporation, hired by the Bushites to provide security for state department officials in Iraq, fostered a culture of arrogance and violence, and some of it’s free-lance Rambos had gone on a rampage at a Baghdad intersection, gunning down 17 civilians.
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Outrage erupted, investigations were launched, justice was promised, and reforms were proposed. Six months later, however – nothing. Not a single charge has been filed against the gunslingers, and it is said that Blackwater itself will face no prosecution. Meanwhile, the Bush White House is working to kill a bill that would make such for-profit mercenaries liable for their actions in future cases.
All of this would be insult enough to our sense of justice, but now comes an outrageous capper for this sorid saga: the Bushites have handed Blackwater another contract to stay in Iraq. Crime does pay!
Even worse than the awarding of this contract is its rationale. The undersecretary of state for management showed how badly Bush & Company have mismanaged its war by flatly declaring:” We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq.” Excuse me? With all the might of the U.S. military deployed there, the administration is claiming that it can’t protect it’s own diplomats without resorting to paying a corporate thug? The undersecretary then added: “ If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq.”
If America is in that bad of a shape, let’s get out of there, pronto!
“Blackwater’s Impunity,” The New York Times, May 16, 2008
“Iraq Contractor In Shooting Case Is Rehired By U.S.,” The New York Times, May 10, 2008
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