But a visit to the Sunni settlement this week laid bare the huge cost
of that victory. The town is now emptied of its 80,000 residents, and
building after building has been destroyed – by air strikes, bombings
and artillery fire.
After four months of battles between the Isis
and the Iraqi army, about 10,000 pro-government Shia militiamen were
poured into this area in Babil province for a final push, according to
Hadi al-Amiri, who leads the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade and
co-ordinated the operation.
Defeating the militants involved
clearing out all the residents and leaving the town nearly flattened,
underscoring the challenge the Shia-led government faces in areas where
demographics do not work in its favour.
-- Loveday Morris, "Iraq’s victory over militants in Sunni town underlines challenges government faces" (Washington Post).
The U.S. mercenary war drive
By Editor on November 2, 2014
Because
of the enormous pressure placed on the U.S. government by the heroic
surviving victims and witnesses to the Blackwater massacre at Baghdad’s
Nusoor Square, a federal jury convicted four Blackwater contractors on
Oct. 23 in Washington, D.C. One was found guilty of murder and three of
manslaughter, as well as several weapons charges.
Seventeen civilians were killed, including two children, on Sept. 16, 2007. Twenty more were injured.
The four killers were
underlings in the criminal U.S. war machine, whose executive officers
included the top war criminals of the George W. Bush administration and
the Blackwater bosses.
“Seven years ago, these
Blackwater contractors unleashed powerful sniper fire, machine guns and
grenade launchers on innocent men, women and children,” said Ronald
Machen, the U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case.
“It was horror. People
running out of their cars were being shot at. … Anything that moved in
Nusoor Square was shot. Women, children, young people, they shot
everyone,” said witness Hasan Jaber, who himself was shot three times.
(CNN, Oct. 23)
“Holding individuals
responsible is not enough,” noted Baher Azmy, the legal director of the
Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented Iraqi victims of the
killings in a human-rights case against Blackwater that settled in
2010.
“Private military
contractors … have engaged in a variety of war crimes and atrocities
during the [2003 Iraq] invasion and occupation while reaping billions of
dollars in profits from the war. To this day, the U.S. government
continues to award Blackwater and its successor entities millions of
dollars each year in contracts, essentially rewarding war crimes,” Azmy
said. (atimes.com, Oct. 23)
None of Blackwater’s
executives were charged with any crimes around this massacre, even
though they tried to cover it up. Blackwater Worldwide repaired and
repainted its trucks immediately after the Nusoor Square shooting. “The
repairs essentially destroyed evidence that Justice Department
investigators hoped to examine in a criminal case that has drawn
worldwide attention.” (Harpers Blog, Jan. 19, 2008)
Blackwater execs, Bush leaders walk free
Letting Blackwater
executives walk free is in stark contrast to the prosecution of heroes
like U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who face decades in prison
for exposing U.S. war crimes.
For its “services,”
Blackwater has received some $2 billion in U.S. government contracts for
providing armed personnel to the Pentagon, the State Department and,
secretly, to the CIA.
Other U.S. mercenary
companies, like CACI and L-3 Services (formerly Titan Corporation), were
involved with the torture of prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib
prison. Numerous reports indicate these private firms also worked with
the CIA in its infamous “rendition” torture campaign.
Why is Wall Street
employing its own private armies when it has the most powerful war
machine in the world at its disposal — the U.S. military? To supplement
U.S. recruits, reduce the number of U.S. troops killed in action and
provide more tax dollars for private profit, the Pentagon hires
companies like Blackwater.
U.S. imperialism has
poured billions upon billions of dollars from the people’s treasury to
pay these hired killers like those from Blackwater to conduct torture
and murder, much of it in secret, to further protect the vast flow of
wealth into its coffers.
Erik Prince, the former
head of Blackwater, told a reporter that the new “promised land” is
Africa, where he is “investing in firms providing services to the oil
and gas industry, in places where he thinks his expertise in providing
logistics and security can give him a competitive edge.” (economist.com,
Nov. 23, 2013)
The conviction of the
Blackwater contractors is a step in the right direction. But why stop
there? The Blackwater executives also deserve punishment. And it was the
political leaders in the Bush administration who plotted the plunder of
Iraq; sold it to the rest of the U.S. ruling class by promising an
easy, quick and cheap victory; and sold it to the world with the Big Lie
that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction.”
Massacres like the one
at Nusoor Square will not stop until all these mercenaries and those who
stand behind them are brought to justice before the people of the
world.
