The unchecked and arbitrary power of the privatised mercenaries in Iraq received another boost today as the Blackwater soldiers who massacred seventeen Iraqis in 2007 will not stand trial. A US dismissed the charges against the men;
on the grounds that the five had had their constitutional rights violated by the way confession statements they had made had been used by the prosecution.The Guardian describes the incident in this way;The statements were made when the men were under threat of losing their jobs if they did not cooperate with investigators. The US government had promised that their statements would not be used against them in a criminal case.
The incident began when a heavily armed Blackwater convoy moved into a busy square in Baghdad, after breaking an order to stay in the US-controlled green zone of the city, prosecutors allege. The five were accused of opening fire with automatic weapons and grenade launchers on unarmed civilians, killing children, women and men attempting to flee in their cars. One victim was alleged to have been shot in the chest while standing with his hands in the air.The men do not deny their role in the incident but claim they killed the men, women and children because they felt they were under enemy fire. I guess we'll never know.
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6 comments:
I broke out in a cheer when I heard these charges had been dropped.
Those guys where doing a tough gob, where putting there lives on the line, and that kind of treatment do they get from the likes of you?
Contempt and zeal to see them convicted.
Would be so hard for you to give those guys the benefit of the doubt? ie...presume innocent? Of course that is too much, you and the far left 'wanted' them to be guilty of something and 'wanted' to see them convicted.
That is simply disgusting.
I broke out in a cheer when I heard these charges had been dropped.
Those guys where doing a tough gob, where putting themselves on the line often to protect our government workers, and that kind of treatment do they get from the likes of you?
Contempt and zeal to see them convicted.
Would it be so hard for you to give those guys the benefit of the doubt? ie...presume innocent? Of course that is too much, you and the far left 'wanted' them to be guilty of something and 'wanted' to see them convicted.
That is simply disgusting.
The problem with presuming innocence is that there is a well documented history of Blackwater employees opening fire on civilians in Iraq. That said, its the way that company (and the whole mercenary/occupying regime) operates which promotes such behaviour, although this shouldn;t excuse some actions of mercenary groups. The allegation of shooting someone with their hands up is particularly horrible.
Unfortunately, Blackwater isn't going to be replaced with anything any better as my last post on www.leftwingcriminologist.blogspot.com points out
"Blackwater Employees" or mercenaries as they should be known.
Well documented? Ok so other unproven crap, makes it ok for you to condemn these guys out of hand?
Pre-judged before, so its ok to pre-judge now....weird logic you got going there!
Nick,
Use whatever term you want, it says more about you that you look to try and paint them with as dark a brush as possible. They provide protection and security services. They have a risky job and a lot of our government and civilian contractors are alive today because of companies that do that work. Truth is much of the venom directed at them is really a 'bleed over' from the lefts hate of the war. Xe is a security firm and the ICs are simply doing a job. They are presumed innocent under our legal system and that system just tossed out the charges.
The question is the left so upset about this ruling, because they wanted them to be guilty is my guess.
How many of the left even take the time to consider if they are innocent, or just jump to condem I wonder
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