Here’s a story that has gone under the radar screens of most Americans, but which almost uniformly angers and confuses Muslims around the world.
Days ago, a U.S. federal court judge threw out charges against five former Blackwater security guards implicated in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in 2007.
This article by K. Selim of Algeria’s Le Quotidien d’Oran provides a good sense of the general mood.
For Le Quotidien d’Oran, K. Selim writes in part:
Apparently for procedural reasons, an American judge simply decided to absolve the murderers employed by Blackwater, who had fired on peaceful Iraqis for fun, killing 17. This is an imperial message on behalf of the law; American law, of course.
The “blunders” and “collateral damage” inflicted by Americans are so numerous that they’ve become part of the routine for a militarized civilization. Humanitarian organizations are indignant, the American military is content offering a laconic, “the investigation is in progress,” and the local Karzai laments the electoral consequences. The script is extremely well known.
The fact remains that the judge’s ruling to absolve the Blackwater murderers is one of stunning violence. … Blackwater, which changed its name to “Xe Services” after its massacre of innocents, is in fact an organization similar to al-Qaeda, but one under the full protection of American law. We should perhaps consider this January 1, 2010, “Blackwater Day,” or “Ricardo Urbina Day,” after the judge who granted these gangsters the right to kill in broad daylight. The “Urbina Doctrine” endorses the right of mercenaries to kill without being held accountable. The gun-toting enterprises that accompany the regular army of the United States have just been issued the most satisfying assurance. They can continue to use their weapons indiscriminately against Arabs and Muslims, all of whom, of course, are subversives of al-Qaeda – that enemy which is so useful to the Empire.
By K. Selim
Translated By Sandrine Ageorges
January 3, 2010
Algeria – Le Quotidien d’Oran – Original Article (French)
The year of Obama is over! Now is the year of Bush, only with Barack Hussein in the White House. The news at the end of one year and the beginning of another is like a road map. In recent days, we’ve suddenly been returned to the great confrontation of the Bush era: al-Qaeda, which is everywhere, against the Empire, which preemptively, is similarly everywhere. The Republicans, who’ve already won by imposing Bush’s war agenda, are committed to erasing the “aberrations” of the Obama presidency in 2009.
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news and views about our nation.
