I'm Rapidly Approaching Outrage Fatigue - Blackwater Balderdash

An FBI group is headed to Baghdad to investigate the alleged murder of Iraqi civilians by employees of private security firm Blackwater. While there, they will be protected and escorted by... (get another pair of pants handy, as you may shit your current ones) Blackwater security firm.

From NYDailyNews:

Half a dozen FBI criminal investigators based in Washington are scheduled to travel to Iraq to gather evidence and interview witnesses about a Sept. 16 shooting spree that left at least 11 Iraqi civilians dead.

The agents plan to interview witnesses within the relative safety of the fortified Green Zone, but they will be transported outside the compound by Blackwater armored convoys, a source briefed on the FBI mission said.

"What happens when the FBI team decides to go visit the crime scene? Blackwater is going to have to take them there," the senior U.S. official told The News.

As beholden as the United States has become to private security contractors, I wouldn't be surprised if they were guarded by agents of such an organization. But the same one? Really? What were the dudes at Dyncorp doing?


To add to the already boggled mind, CNN reports:

The Bush administration said Wednesday it opposes a bill that would bring private military contractors overseas under U.S. law, warning it would have "unintended and intolerable consequences" for national security.

Keep playing the shit out of that fear card fuckwits.

The bill would state that contractors working for the U.S. government overseas are subject to the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, which allows American courts to prosecute crimes committed in a war zone overseas.

Blackwater, the best-known security contracting firm working in Iraq, said its guards responded properly to an attack on a U.S. Embassy convoy September 16. But Iraqi authorities said Blackwater contractors fired indiscriminately at civilians, killing as many as 20 at two scenes in western Baghdad.


But what say can Iraqi authorities possibly have in their own country?


Under an order laid down by the U.S. occupation government in Iraq, U.S. contractors can't be prosecuted under Iraqi law.

I continue to see flagrant hypocrisy in the administration's desire for the Iraqi government and its citizens to become an empowered, self-governing nation, while simultaneously refusing to allow them any say in the operations of our profit-driven, private security firms.

It's an obvious contradiction, where rhetoric clashes with true motives - private contracts for corporate interests, and money, money, money.

As usual, the only person making any sense is California Democrat Rep. Henry Waxman, who said:

...the U.S. reliance on private security firms in Iraq "is backfiring" by creating resentment of the contractors among Iraqis.

The only thing he forgot to explain is how this resentment is then generalized to all American forces in Iraq. That's been the obvious danger this entire time with the use of mercenaries. Private security firms can behave without consequence for themselves, but our own military bears the brunt of the accrued resentment.