The Blackwater Massacre

Out of control 'private' contractors terrorize Iraq

By Justin Raimondo

".....Instead, four armored vehicles manned by "private" guards employed by Blackwater USA moved into position and fired: Ahmed was hit, but the car continued on its path, out of control. When the smoke cleared, and the casualties counted, 17 Iraqis were dead and 24 wounded. The Washington Post cites one anonymous high-ranking U.S. official as saying:

"This is a nightmare. We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib, and it comes at a time when we're trying to have an impact for the long term."

It's a nightmare alright, especially for the Iraqi people, who have long resented this "private" army of thugs and wannabe heroes, apparently subject to nonexistent rules of engagement.....

The crisis will come when Iraqi demands for justice collide with the reality of Iraq's de facto status as a U.S. colony. In the event of a showdown over this case – and over the larger issue of sovereignty – the Americans will either go to war with the government they hailed as the vanguard of the region's democratic transformation, or else pack up their gear and go.

I'm betting on the former. In a war full of ironic twists and turns, this would be the crowning example of what Chalmers Johnson calls "blowback" – the unintended consequences of U.S. government intervention overseas that blow back in our faces. With one very important difference, however: it's hard to believe that growing tensions between Washington and the Shi'ite-dominated Maliki government, while unintended, were altogether unanticipated.

In their planned war with Iran, surely the best the neocons can hope for is a neutral – or effectively neutralized – Iraqi government. It doesn't take much imagination, however, to project the possibility of U.S. troops facing off against the Shi'ite party militias run by the parties of the ruling coalition.

How will our War Party explain this rather disturbing turn of events to their bewildered and war-weary constituency, which is, at any rate, shrinking fast? Easy. By that time, the image of a nuke-wielding terrorist-sponsoring Saddam Hussein will have long since morphed into a nuclear-armed, Hezbollah-sponsoring Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, bound and determined to wipe Israel off the map."

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As in Orwell's "1984," alliances are constantly changing and the populace does not know or remember if Big Brother is fighting Eastasia or Eurasia today and which one is the ally. Yesterday's ally is today's enemy.