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TechnoratiThe Age of Irresponsibility
How Bush has created a moral vacuum in Iraq in which Americans can kill for free.
Imagine a universe where a man can gun down women and children anytime he pleases, knowing he will never be brought to justice. A place where morality is null and void, and arbitrary killing is the rule. A place that has been imagined hitherto only in nightmarish dystopian fiction, like "1984," or in fevered passages from Dostoevsky-or which existed during the Holocaust and Stalinist purges and the Dark Ages. Well, that universe exists today. It is called Iraq. And the man who made it possible is George W. Bush.
The moral vacuum of Iraq-where Blackwater USA guards can kill 10 or 20 Iraqis on a whim and never be prosecuted for it-did not happen by accident. It is yet another example of something the Bush administration could have prevented with the right measures but simply did not bother about as it rushed into invading and occupying another country. With America's all-volunteer army under strain, the Pentagon and White House knew that regular military cannot be used for guarding civilians. As far back as 2003, then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld convened a task force under Undersecretary of Defense David Chu to consider new laws that might be needed to govern the privatization of war. Nothing was done about its recommendations. Then, two days before he left Iraq for good, L. Paul Bremer III, the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator, signed a blanket order immunizing all Americans, because, as one of his former top aides told me, "we wanted to make sure our military, civilians and contractors were protected from Iraqi law." (No one worried about protecting the Iraqis from us; after all, we still thought of ourselves as the "liberators," even though by then the worst abuses at Abu Ghraib and other places were known.)
Nor can these private armies even be prosecuted in America under U.S. law. The Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act of 2000, which permits charges to be brought in U.S. courts for crimes abroad, apparently applies only to Defense Department contractors (and even then the administration has rarely used it). Blackwater and other security firms work for the State Department. Even today, despite the crucial role of Blackwater and other private security firms-who employ up to 30,000 operatives in keeping the civilian side of the U.S. occupation going-Iraqis can do nothing if they are abused or killed by them. While many Blackwater operatives are brave and honorable-the company has lost some 30 of its employees in Iraq-many of these paramilitaries have long been known to be cowboys who act as if they are free to commit homicide as they please. And according to numerous Iraqi witnesses, they sometimes do.
Take the case of the Blackwater guard who got drunk at a Green Zone party last Christmas Eve and reportedly boasted to his friends that he was going to kill someone. According to both Iraqi and U.S. officials, he stumbled out and headed provocatively over to the "Little Venice" section, a lovely area of canals where Iraqi officials live. He had an argument with an Iraqi guard, then shot him once in the chest and three times in the back. The next day Blackwater put him on a private plane out of the country-probably only because the incident involved a rare killing inside the Green Zone and the victim was a security guard for a high-ranking politician. That was it. The company has refused to disclose his name. (Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell did not return phone calls seeking comment.) Then there was last week's incident, when Blackwater guards killed between 10 and 20 Iraqis at a traffic stop, including a woman and a child. The company later said in a statement that "the 'civilians' reportedly fired upon by Blackwater professionals were in fact armed enemies ... Blackwater professionals heroically defended American lives in a war zone on Sunday." However, even President Bush acknowledged at a news conference Thursday that "evidently" innocent lives were lost in the incident.
As anyone who has been in Iraq (like me) knows, on the ground the unspoken rule of Bush's counterinsurgency efforts over the past four years has been that almost all Iraqis, at least the males, are guilty until proven innocent. Arrests, beatings and sometimes killings at the hands of security firms and sometimes U.S. military units are arbitrary, often based on the flimsiest intelligence, and Iraqis have no recourse whatever to justice except in a few cases like Haditha. Imagine the sense of helpless rage that emerges from this sort of treatment. Apply three years of it and you have a furious, traumatized population. And a country out of control.
And now we have the awful absurdity of U.S. diplomats going out to make allies among Iraqis and build civil society-winning "the battlefield of the mind," Marine Maj. Gen. Douglas Stone told The Washington Post-surrounded by security guards who operate in an amoral universe and are hated by Iraqis. The Blackwater phenomenon undermines the Petraeus surge, which applies counterinsurgency principles that require winning over the local population, and isolating the bad guys from them. Instead, Blackwater is seen by Iraqis as the face of a malignant occupation. Remember the scene at the beginning of the movie "Braveheart," when the evil English lord claims droit du seigneur-the right to deflower Mel Gibson's bride-over the powerless Scots? Well, that medieval reality is something like what Iraqis are living with today. This is the "model" George W. Bush will bequeath to the world.
Morality begins when people take responsibility for their actions. But no one in the Bush administration has taken responsibility for one disaster after another in Iraq. Nor does anyone seem to care. As Maureen Dowd has pointed out, so passé is the concept of taking responsibility that people who do bad things are even skipping the usual stage of shame, or "slinking away." Instead they are "slinking back" into public life.
The Bush administration's lack of concern about holding its employees responsible for their actions extends to obstructing civil suits against rogue contractors under the False Claims Act. "None of the lawsuits has been successful," says lawyer Alan Grayson. "In a couple of the cases the government has said the case has to be shut down because it involves state secrets." (The Justice Department has said it is carefully looking at the suits.) Who has been in charge of this? None other than Peter Keisler, the former head of Justice's civil division who is now acting attorney general, says Grayson, who is involved in several cases against Blackwater and other contractors. "They run people off the road. They treat the local population like it's some big shooting gallery. It's not just Blackwater; it's everybody." No, that's letting the responsible party off too easily: it's the Bush administration.
Michael Hirsh covers international affairs for Newsweek out of Washington.
© 2007 Newsweek
15 Comments so far
Show AllGod is all powerful, so: If God really wanted no killing, then God just wouldn't allow killing.
Perhaps he doesn't see the killing because he too occupied commanding people who are taking his name in vain, or perhaps he's too busy scolding people for worshiping craven images.
Imagine having the power to stop all wars, all killing, all ignorance, and all suffering, but choosing not to do so, because...?
" THOW SHALL NOT KILL "
What part of this do these gringo's and soldiers not understand ? On judgement day they can stand up and say g. w. bush legalize murder for them, so they are not guilty.
Thow shalt not kill is a commandment not a suggestion.
that moral vacuum will return home.filled with newly hired foreign recruits(killers from columbia and other places)because of bush,can you even fathom how many mercenaries would relish target practice,here in america ??
Isn`t this a lovely world the Bushies have invented, where proven hired killers cannot be touched because Medal of Freedom winner Bremer put through an immunity law for them? Then on the other hand, someone our security forces may have picked up on the slightest pretext of guilt, or paid someone to grab off the street, can be thrown in prison forever and tortured with no chance of even getting charges filed against them and denied a lawyer or visitation. Put that in your legacy, Bush!! I would suggest if there is a shortage of fighting men and they cannot even be relieved for a decent time, that Congress and the entire Administration, past and present should go over to Iraq and relieve some of the troops. They could take all of their yellow magnetic ribbons along to show support for the troops. It should be easy for them, as we have made such good progress with the surge on the insurgents. (Love that war)
This not entirely true. The lower enlisted are taking the blame for their actions as well as the actions of their superiors. Maybe if they start holding the higher ranking personnel(hint,hint:officers)responsible for their actions\orders, things would start to shape up. As far blackwater goes, they protect "high value" targets, so of course they can't be touched.
i'm happy to see many posts tripping up this rather lackluster article's logic,
odd that a morality review is itself morally banal.
the author writes:
"While many Blackwater operatives are brave and honorable"
no one who kills for money can be brave or honorable, mister amoral moralist.
he prattles on:
"The moral vacuum of Iraq-where Blackwater USA guards can kill 10 or 20 Iraqis on a whim and never be prosecuted for it-did not happen by accident."
no foolin'.
and on:
"Nor can these private armies even be prosecuted in America under U.S. law."
sure they can - its called crimes against humanity.
the writer needs a morality refresher course.
I heard a commentary on the radio concerning this topic and the commentator quoted the State Dept. spokes person as saying that Blackwater followed the State Departments "rules of engagement" and pointed out how interesting it was for our diplomats to even have "rules of engagement."
I think if they do, that the very idea could be an undermining factor in their diplomacy. Also, it is short sighted to have our diplomats protected by an entity that is covered by contract rather than law because it would lower the prestige of these diplomats in what their presence represents.
Screw Blackwater. The Iraqis should kill as many of them as they can see. Death to all mercenaries who hire out as killers for the empire. Kill the bastards. Period. There's nothing honorable in their service whatsoever. Kill them.
curmudgeon99 September 21st, 2007 1:13 pm
"Morality begins when people take responsibility for their actions"
Morality seems to have become an elusive term in cultures and religions around the globe.
"Imagine a universe where a man can gun down women and children anytime he pleases......... a place where morality is null and void, and arbitrary killing is the rule."
Mr. Hirsh: It's difficult enough to have this happening on our planet. I can't bear the thought of a universe behaving in the same malicious and uncivilized manner as we do here on earth.
Phobos,
I guess you did not realize I was referring to the phrase 'good germans' - an epithet for the citizens of the Third Reich who claimed no knowledge of the atrocities being committed and therefore had no reason to oust Hitler.
Sorry if I somehow offended.
"It is yet another example of something the Bush administration could have prevented with the right measures but simply did not bother about as it rushed into invading and occupying another country."
And what makes you think Bush wanted to prevent it? Frankly I think this is exactly what they wanted to happen. It is the Bush form of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The less Iraqi's you have to deal with, the easier it will be to steal the oil. It is the same reason they disbanded the Iraqi Army instead of using them to help keep the peace. After seeing the documentary "No End in Sight", I am thoroughly convinced that this is exactly what they wanted. These people in this administration (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Bremer, et al) are just pure evil.
And if you haven't seen "No End in Sight" I recommend you do. It will open yours eyes.
"As the threat of forced evictions now looms in New Orleans and the city confiscates even legally registered weapons from civilians, the private mercenaries of Blackwater patrol the streets openly wielding M-16s and other assault weapons. This despite Police Commissioner Eddie Compass' claim that "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons."
Here's the kicker:
"That raises a key question: under what authority are Blackwater's men operating? A spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, Russ Knocke, told the Washington Post he knows of no federal plans to hire Blackwater or other private security."
So - no body hired Blackwater to "patrol" New Orleans. They just showed up, locked, loaded, fresh from Iraq, and without five minutes of Louisiana and/or Federal law enforcement training. Good thing we got clarity on the "deployment" of "private security contractors" here in the "homeland" so we can go ahead and tackle the deployment of them worldwide.
Dying does not make anybody honorable. I agree some Blackwater folks are not as bad as the others.
Iraq law applies to all in Iraq. Bremer's statements are irrelevant; he never had any legal authority in Iraq, only about how the US would deal with US people.
I say ship all of Blackwater to Iraq, disarmed, to face the justice system. Saddam may get some company, although I disagree with the death penalty. Life on a chain-gang cleaning up the mess is far more apt.
"I wonder if we'll be remembered as the 'good americans' if and when any justice is meted out."
How dare you to even wonder such utter nonsense? Whatever justice is meted out, it will never bring back the lives of 1.200.000 people. Though, I am happy that you feel guilty. Now go impeach your president!
"Morality begins when people take responsibility for their actions"
We as citizens are all collectively culpable since we collectively have done nothing to prevent these policies.
I wonder if we'll be remembered as the 'good americans' if and when any justice is meted out.