Blackwater and ‘Fiscal Responsibility’
The Lord reward him according to his works.
– The Second Epistle of Paul to Timothy
It is easy to take pot shots (as a drunken Blackwater USA employee would tell you) but occasionally they misfire (as a drunken Blackwater USA employee would tell you.)
And on this occasion, a news report has misfired. Facially the suggestion was an appealing target.
Closer examination reveals it was an example of fiscal responsibility.
On Christmas Eve in 2006 an unidentified Blackwater employee in Iraq got drunk.
According to the New York Times, a report compiled by the Democratic staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee described what then happened.
Close to midnight, as Santa was completing whatever was left of his Christmas rounds, the unnamed drunk employee was confronted by bodyguards for Iraqi Vice President, Adil Abdul Mahdi.
The drunk, without provocation other than that afforded by the libation, fired his pistol at the guards and hit one of them three times.
The guard died shortly thereafter.
The drunk then fled to another private military contractor’s guard post and told the guards he had been in a firefight even though the guards had heard no sounds indicting a firefight had taken place.
Shortly thereafter the police detained him but the report said he was too drunk to be questioned.
Since this is not a story about the drunk all that needs to be said in conclusion is that Blackwater’s Christmas present to the drunk was to fire him and arrange for the state department to fly him to the United States on the day after Christmas where presumably he lived happily ever after.
According to the report in the Times, senior diplomats in Iraq said that Blackwater should apologize to the dead man’s family and pay the family some cash.
For inspiration in writing the letter, Blackwater might have referred back to Col. John Nicholson’s spoken apology to the families of the 19 Afghan civilians who were accidentally killed in the spring. Col. Nicholson said: “This is a terrible, terrible mistake, and my nation grieves with you for your loss and suffering. We humbly and respectfully ask for your forgiveness.”
Whether Blackwater was able to match Col. Nicholson’s eloquence is unknown. But since this is not a column about eloquence no more need be said about that.
What this column is about is money.
According to the Times report, Margaret Scobey, the acting ambassador in Iraq, suggested in an e mail message that the regional security officer should follow up “to do all possible to assure that a sizable compensation is forthcoming.”
She reportedly suggested the sum of $250,000. One of the things that concerned her was that if the apology was not heartfelt and the payment significant, Iraqis might tell Blackwater “that they are no longer able to work in Iraq.” (The subsequent killing of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards in September rendered that concern moot. It may get kicked out of Iraq notwithstanding the post-Christmas apology given for one dead Iraqi.)
Cooler heads filled with frugality prevailed and $250,000 was not paid.
Recalling the compensation of $2000 paid for each Afghan killed in the incident for which Col. Nicholson apologized, someone (described in the Times as a “diplomatic security official”) realized what a dangerous precedent a $250,000 payment would be setting (in addition to suggesting one dead Iraqi was worth 125 times what a dead Afghan was worth).
Describing $250,000 as a “crazy sum” he made the perfectly sensible observation (for which he has been unfairly ridiculed) that if such a large payment were made it would encourage Iraqis to try to “get killed by our guys to financially guarantee their family’s future.”
And he’s almost certainly right.
The livelihoods of hundreds of thousands if not, indeed, millions of Iraqis have been taken away thanks to the actions of the United States.
If payments of $250,000 awaited all the families of security guards shot by drunken Blackwater (or other security firm) employees, many devoted children would do exactly what the official suggested and go out looking for drunk Blackwater employees hoping to get killed in order to restore a measure of financial security to their families. It is not clear that such an act would qualify as martyrdom and provide the victim with access in the afterworld to the virgins promised to suicide bombers.
However, if there were an earthly reward of a quarter of a million dollars (which probably even the most devout would agree is a more certain reward than the one promised in the hereafter) it is a virtual certainty that the search for Blackwater employees to provoke in the hope of getting killed by them will never stop.
I hope the diplomatic security official has received a promotion.
He clearly deserves it.
Blackwater… was to fire [the drunk] and arrange… to fly him to the United States… where presumably he lived happily ever after.
Au contraire, said drunk was hired by another security firm and is back working in Iraq. C’est la vie.
$250,000 is unthinkable! A more Wolfarian method would be to charge each dead Iraqi a fee for interfering with freedom bullets. If they can’t pay, then take the oil. This method not only creates more of a market for petroleum, It employs free people to carry it away. We could all be winners!
Blackwater might have referred back to Col. John Nicholson’s spoken apology to the families of the 19 Afghan civilians who were accidentally killed in the spring. Col. Nicholson said: “This is a terrible, terrible mistake, and my nation grieves with you for your loss and suffering. We humbly and respectfully ask for your forgiveness.”
Oh, fer Chrissakes - when will you idiots stop sentimentalising? Your nation grieves? BULLSHIT!
Cruz
Au contraire. C’est la guerre in America’s Iraq.
>… where presumably he lived happily ever after.
According to the NYTimes (October 4), he’s renovating his house in Seattle.
I’m sure the Army Specialists who raped and murdered a 14 year old Iraqi girl wish they were with Blackwater instead of the 101st Airborne. If they were with Blackwater, questions would be raised whether it could be proven the girl was really 14 or if the girl ever existed. They would be free men.
As for money, I read a war supporter claim that the war expenditure for WWII was 90% of the GNP, Vietnam war was 11% and this war is a mere 4.5%. According to war supporters, this war is well managed and dirt-cheap. (Hey, just reporting what I’ve been told. I’m not responsible if you spewed your latte over the screen, you should’ve swallowed sooner) He concluded that we can afford this war “until the cows come home”. Actually we can afford it until we die, at which point it’s the problem of the poor schmuck who gets stuck with the tab. That would be our gift to our children, grand-children, nieces and nephews - a bill and mess that we would not face ourselves.
So what’s a few thousand dollars more? It’s not going to raise our taxes, we’ll just refuse to raise them. It’s on credit so it’s like free money anyhow - right? A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you’re talking real money, not some piddly amount like a quarter million.
Again, I will say that these Blackwater thugs need to be taught a lesson. Publicly hang their CEO Erik Prince and a few of his henchmen. Any mercenaries who so much as lay a finger on any Iraqi civilian will suffer the same fate. Any mercenaries who work for other renegade profiteer corporations and engage in arbitrarily shooting of civilians too will suffer the same fate. It is the only way to break this insane concoction of the Bible, guns, patriotism, and random shooting of civilians. I realize this may seem barbaric, but how else are you going to stop these lunatics??
When you look at this decision-maker, the one whose judgment was to give $250,000 as payoff money for the murder of an Iraqi bodyguard by a Blackwater employee, and you look at another recent decision-maker, the one at FEMA whose judgment was to stage a press conference and replace members of the press with FEMA employees who were given pre-arranged questions, you really gotta wonder if, as a nation, we are smart enough to even have a long shot at defeating Islamist extremism.
I also read that a former military guy guilty of command rape was then subsequently hired by Blackwater after leaving the military and is working in Iraq. Unbelievable. How can Bush even utter the phrase “winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people” without being struck by lightning?
The murderous mercenary’s acts reflect the Bush-Cheney-Rice junta’s. Drunk on power, they slaugher innocents, hide behind a farrago of lies, distortions, stereotypes, induced fear and secrecy, and escape justice.
The FEMA conference could have been worse: they could have trotted out Pat Robertson to tell us that the fires were God’s Sodom and Gomorrah judgment on California for tolerating gays, Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman to claim that the fires were set by antisemites because of the large number of Jews residing there, David Horowitz and Lynn Cheney to tell us the arsonists were inspired by Noam Chomsky, Rush Limbaugh to blame it on Democrats seeking to discredit Arnie, and finally Dick Cheney to tell us they were surely set by Iranian operatives and justify an all-out war.
Do you know that while Canadian and American soldiers are training the police in Afghanistan, that Blackwater is training Canadian (and, possibly American) soldiers? Hey, if we are then what are the odds that you aren’t?
From Question Period (part way through debate):
Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, not only are Saladin Security and Blackwater not recommendable, but the competence of the personnel employed by these companies is very questionable.
It is so bad that, last year, Blackwater was forced to dismiss 122 employees, mainly because of inappropriate use of their weapon. The American lieutenant colonel who spoke to the Washington Post said that these sad individuals shoot first and ask questions later.
Does the minister not find it scandalous and unethical to have Canadian soldiers trained by such mercenaries?
Hon. Maxime Bernier (Minister of Foreign Affairs, CPC):
Mr. Speaker, for the embassy in Kabul, we hired security officers who conduct their operations like all security officers. These are not military-style operations.
That being said, we care about our diplomats and the Canadians who visit the embassy in Kabul, and we want to ensure their safety. Those people are well trained and perform the duties of security officers.
Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ):
Mr. Speaker, those agencies are unsafe, not only for the protection of our diplomats, but also for training our soldiers.
Given all these allegations, is the minister not left with only one choice here this afternoon, which is to immediately cancel the Blackwater and Saladin Security contracts? The minister must promise to table them in this House, so that we can examine them. Will he have the courage to do so?
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=2&DocId=3085693
Christopher Brauchli fails to tell us what happened after the the Blackwater Employee who killed the guard was shipped back to the US and fired. This particular employee, Andrew Moonen, was hired by another mercenary firm and was in Kuwait from February 2007 to August 2007.
Brauchli does make a good point with the “limiting of liability” argument. How much is a life worth? According to Blackwater, not very much. Isn’t that a bit racist to insinuate that Iraqi life is not worth the same as the life of an American? Wasn’t that the slippery slope Adolf Hitler took Germany down? Wasn’t that also the mantra of the KKK?
I think that if Blackwater had to pay out $250, 000 every time one of its cowboys shot an innocent Iraqi, wouldn’t it cause Blackwater to deter such behaviour? I would think so because it would eat into Blackwater’s profits. Seems that $2000 per homicide doesn’t eat into the profits so much.
The argument that Iraqis would try to get themselves killed and use Blackwater as a life insurance policy! I would tend to dismiss it, mainly because the argument assumes that the Blackwater mercenaries (oh yeah, contracters) could not help but oblige anyone wishing to commit suicide in such fashion – that they have no free will to resist the urge to be so obliging. Shouldn’t one be looking into why Blackwater cowboys need to be so obliging whether the person wishes to die or not?
AlexLawyer says: Drunk on power, they slaugher innocents, hide behind a farrago of lies, distortions, stereotypes, induced fear and secrecy, and escape justice.
Let’s be honest here - Moonen was not just drunk on power.