“I want you to feel that Iraqi life is precious,” he told them.
Well, that’s not going to happen. Here, at the level of basic humanity, the occupation of Iraq — indeed, the entire Bush administration — begins to unravel. We can see this with excruciating clarity as requests for an apology waylay the smooth, legal cover-up (one in a series) of the latest spasm of panic and target practice by Blackwater thugs, which left 17 Iraqis dead in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square in September.
Even the embedded media, so valiant in their attempts to cast the American presence as well-intentioned and, you know, doing the best it can (under the circumstances), couldn’t help but convey, as they reported on the investigation of the Blackwater killings, the humanity of the grieving Iraqis. In so doing, the coverage hinted, unavoidably, at the truth about the occupation: that we are, to put it mildly, the bad guys, that what we’re doing there is barbaric, racist, insane.
Nothing drives this truth home quite as blatantly as America’s mercenary army in Iraq, which is immune from prosecution under either Iraqi or U.S. law. And the baddest of the American privateers are the Blackwater guys, about whom a rival security contractor told Fortune magazine: “They always shoot first and ask questions
later. When we’re out in country, we often fear Blackwater more than the Iraqis.”
Back on Sept. 16, Blackwater personnel — not for the first time — convulsed the people to whom we are bringing democracy with an unprovoked shooting rampage. While providing security for a U.S. embassy mission, they opened fire in the crowded square. By the time they stopped, 17 Iraqis lay dead and another several dozen were wounded. These were just ordinary people going about their lives. No one had fired at the security team first, witnesses insisted. But apparently something spooked them, and when you’re not accountable under any law, why take chances?
The incident, or massacre, as the Iraqis call it, was outrageous enough to require some sort of investigation by the occupying authorities — albeit a meaningless one, if you measure the seriousness of an investigation by the potential consequences that would flow from it. In the middle of it, the State Department renewed Blackwater’s contract in Iraq, indicating that, whatever the result, nothing was at stake.
The U.S. also tried to buy its way out of this sticky wicket by offering money to the injured and the relatives of the dead. For some reason, the Iraqis refused their envelopes full of cash; they wanted apologies.
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