Just imagine that Vice President Dick Cheney went on a visit to a foreign country - Great Britain, let’s say - and that one of his Secret Service agents was shot several times and killed by a drunken bodyguard hired by the Brits. Let’s say the British government quickly hushed up the crime and spirited the bodyguard out of the country, leaving him free to go about his life.
Americans would, of course, be outraged - and rightly so. They would demand justice for the slain Secret Service agent. The ensuing controversy would preoccupy the White House and damage relations between the two countries.
So what happened when a Blackwater USA security guard fatally shot a bodyguard of Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi? The Blackwater man, who had been drinking heavily, had left a Christmas party in the Green Zone last year when he was confronted by the Iraqi guards. According to reports, he opened fire, killing a 32-year-old Iraqi. The Blackwater employee was spirited out of the country, with the help of the U.S. State Department. He has so far faced no criminal proceedings. He was not subject to any Iraqi laws or to U.S. military jurisdiction.
If Americans are still puzzled by the hostility with which so many Iraqis - indeed, so many Muslims - view the U.S. occupation, this one episode ought to go a long way toward explaining the resentment. While the Bush administration continues to justify its invasion by pretending to a deep concern for the Iraqi people, the lives of average Iraqis haven’t counted for much. Blackwater paid the family of the slain Iraqi bodyguard $20,000 in compensation.
Last week, the House voted to hold private contractors accountable in U.S. courts for any misdeeds abroad; the Senate is likely to follow suit. Even if the law passes, the damage is done. A heavy-handed occupation has alienated much of the Middle East.
In what seems another lifetime, President Bush promised a “humble” foreign policy. But after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, he followed a swaggering and belligerent course, fueled by cowboy rhetoric and a stubborn, even messianic, insistence that he knew what was right. His policies were supported by a scared-silly American public desperate to believe that our military might still guarantee our continued dominance of the world.
Many of us, however, didn’t want to send our own sons and daughters to supplement that military power. So we relied heavily on mercenaries from companies such as Blackwater and DynCorp and Triple Canopy to do dirty jobs in dangerous places.
In testimony before Congress last week, Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater USA, vigorously defended his company as “Americans, working for Americans, protecting Americans.” Of the drunken bodyguard, he said, “We can’t flog him. We can’t incarcerate him. That’s up to the Justice Department.” He also noted that the bodyguard was forced to forfeit his Christmas bonus and pay his own way back to the United States.
For all the credit the White House takes for establishing a democratically elected government in Iraq, it is hardly a sovereign nation. If it were, it would be able to prosecute Blackwater’s bodyguards under its own laws and eject them from the country. But because the State Department depends so heavily on contractors, it’s unlikely they’ll be leaving even if the Iraqi government wants them out. That makes our presence a foreign occupation, not benign assistance.
Not so long ago, the United States was a master in the use of soft power and the light touch: food for famine victims, medicine for sick children, visas for foreign students, radio broadcasts about the wonders of our country, diplomatic missions to beg, cajole and threaten wayward countries back into line. As Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli has noted, the U.S. Agency for International Development employed about 15,000 people during the Vietnam era. Today, it has about 3,000. Now we use our billions to hire mercenaries.
It’s no wonder the rest of the world doesn’t hold us in such high regard anymore.
Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her column appears Mondays in The Sun. Her e-mail is cynthia@ajc.com.
Copyright © 2007 The Baltimore Sun
From Jack London’s IRON HEEL: “Another great institution that had taken form and was working smoothly was the Mercenaries. This body of soldiers had been evolved out of the old regular army and was now a million strong, to say nothing of the colonial forces. The Mercenaries constituted a race apart. They dwelt in cities of their own which were practically self-governed, and they were granted many privileges. By them a large portion of the perplexing surplus was consumed. They were losing all touch and sympathy with the rest of the people, and, in fact, were developing their own class morality and consciousness.”
Good luck America.
Hoa binh
The Congress needs to do MORE!! Not only should these monsters be held accountable (by the US and Iraq), their contracts should be cancelled. And US taxpayor dollars should be refunded if these monsters have in any way caused the deaths of American troops because of their actions.
But, of course, namvet is right. This mercenary killing machine is all part of the faschist plan. Mission accomplished.
Ms. Tucker: the exploits of USAID do not bear out well under close inspection. I also take exception to your characterization of Bush’s actions as reactionary to 9/11. See the (1999)PNAC position paper “Rebuilding America’s Defenses.”
’nuff said.
And 750,000 American families homeless. So much for Christianity and the Abrahamic right.
Thank you again, NamVet67.
The quotes from IRON HEEL show that the insidiousness of the powers behind the coup that we have just been through is nothing new. We as the elctorate let down our guard.
Out by midnight today or midnight tomorrow…
“Americans would, of course, be outraged - and rightly so. They would demand justice for the slain Secret Service agent. The ensuing controversy would preoccupy the White House and damage relations between the two countries.”
No, actually, I’m really not concerned about secret service agents or the vice president dying. In fact, it would be fun for cheney to realize just how unwelcome he is in the world.
I understand that the creature in question in Alive and Well and Living in Seattle - counting his money after yet another taxpayer funded adventure.
At the slightest hint of risk to their personal or mission safety, Blackwater and ilk will start a shooting sprees of Iraqi people the same way that Americans go on a shopping spree. They spend explosives and bullets, as free money, like dollars and cents in a supermarket. Do they care who cleans up the mess afterwards? Iraqi dead and injured are always at low cost. Each child is a potential hostile, every rag head a terrorist, according to US policy, the unwritten guidelines. The mercenaries probably have total kill count competitions. It makes sure that the paid killers may one day get home alive to spend their pay
How can the author compare US/UK, and Iraq/US ?
The US and the UK are both sovereign nations. Iraq is an occupied nation with a “government” having only as much power as the US wants it to have. Currently, the only real power the Iraq “government” has is to rubber stamp the US’ oil distribution plan. US propaganda makes this plan look like the oil would be distributed among Iraqis. It would actually be extorted by the multinational oil companies.
Once the Iraqi “government” signs off on the plan, it will have no excuse for existence.
New Orleans is my home. Let me tell you just how Blackwater “defends” Americans.
After Katrina Blackwater roamed the streets and if something moved, they’d shoot it. 50% of the dead brought into Charity Hospital had gunshot wounds to the head during the days Blackwater was here.
New Orleans was the training grounds for what is about to come to every major city after bush&co unleash their next phase to complete a total fascist dictatorship. What the SS was to Hitler, Blackwater is to bush.
Com_n_sense: Is that really true? I saw news footage of them in New Orleans, but I never heard anything about them shooting people. I believe you, but why is none of this info getting to us? Greg Palast did a lot of reporting on New Orleans (Big Easy, Big Empty). Where is this info buried and is there any way to get the MSM to report on it?
Rebel Farmer: I don’t have anything on Blackwater in New Orleans but “Balckwater West” is about to open shop in Potrero, CA (near San Diego). You don’t hear much about this either, not even in local media! I assure you it is for real. In fact there were about 200 protesters there on Oct 7. Not bad for a population of 800 or so
details at www.StopBlackwater.net
When you read Blackwater, think of the River Styx. It needs to be crushed.
Do you think these crimes were helped and covered up by the US State Department? http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=661
Com_n_sense
So why are Blackwater not prosecuted? If people are allowed to get away with murder, then they will murder. Where is the law?
Com_n_sense
Your insight cuts to the quick, Blackwater could be Bush’s Gestapo or SS; coming to any large demonstration or national disaster near all of us.
I really don’t see how Blackwater can afford to let non-neocons get elected. Unless they make massive contributions to Democrats and feel sure that the contracts will keep coming in they will need to intervene.
Perhaps this is the reason for candidates of both parties basically promising not to leave Iraq until 2013. A completely nonsensical position because we can’t afford it.
The Chinese will soon become bored with funding our demise after we have flushed our prosperity down the toilet. Then we won’t be able to afford mercenaries.
It seems that the “occupation in fact exists” in Iraq and that by this fact, the US government is liable for ALL the cost of Iraq.
When pursued in international courts and US courts, the silent Americans bill for the costs of this war will quintuple
Now unmasked: Why the US refuses to accept the International Court of Justice. It wants to get away with murder!
Hey Vince Lawrence:
Vince Lawerence is just one of those folks that voted for bush twice, you know can`t think for himself
During the 1960s USAID used to be called ICAA (International Cooperation Administration America). One of the good things they did was to give university scholarships to outstanding students in foreign countries. I happened to get one, although I wasn’t really outstanding. I remember some of the literature they used to put out was criticized by older students as CIA propaganda, although I was much of a bookworm at the time to notice that.
I don’t like the idea of sponsoring a bunch of mercenaries that are subject to none of our laws or those of the country they occupy. It’s like having thousands of James Bonds with the license to kill. Especially when they are getting 10 times the pay of our regular forces. It’s just another way we are being fleeced by the fascist’s who control us.
After some of the mercenaries were killed in Fulaga our militarty punished the whole city by turning it into rubble.
More war crimes to throw on the list being run up by our executive branch and complicit Congress. May the guilty be brought to justice. The whole invasion is one big war crime.