It has become grimly obvious as details emerge about an incident in which Blackwater USA bodyguards shot and killed at least eight Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square that trigger-happy private contractors have no business doing jobs that should be filled by the military.
War, of course, can be a terribly messy thing.
But once combatants such as for-profit Blackwater mercenaries are relieved of having to take responsibility for improper actions and know that every time they open fire they face no serious consequences for acting badly, which time and again has been the case in Iraq, the rules of war are for all intents and purposes null and void.
There is now widespread agreement that the scene at the Nisour Square traffic circle about midday on Sunday, September 16 was chaotic, that the Blackwater employees involved did not act with restraint and that there was an altercation among them over whether to stop the hail of weapons fire against Iraqi civilians caught in the melee.
Accounts from Iraqi sources are incomplete or disingenous and minimize the role that Iraqi policemen apparently played in exacerbating a deadly situation. But based on accounts in The New York Times, Washington Post and elsewhere, this appears to be what happened . . .
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