Comments on: This Is Totally Unfair (!) [part the third]

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:27:52 +0000

Update: the self-defense claims are all coming from Blackwater and parroted by the State Department. The Iraqi police and victims say there was a car bombing a half hour before the convoy appeared, and when the convoy saw the smoking wreckage they opened fire. The witnesses say that Blackwater was the only group firing which is why the Iraqi government is upset.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 16:27:24 +0000

Blackwater is not the police, nor the military, they are private citizens. Private citizens don’t get to “return fire” on crowds. Children are normally considered civilians.

Blackwater has no inherent right to open fire at random. Killing unarmed people by random fire, and firing automatic weapons is random, is a crime. The police in the US can’t do it, so why assume that civilians in Iraq can.

Blackwater has no standing beyond civilian in an Iraqi court. They are foreigners, and any sovereign nation has the right to expel foreigners, and to prosecute foreigners who violate their laws. There is no such thing as a “right of self defense.” It is a justification at trial, not a right.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:26:11 +0000

What are they complaining about?!? According to the way Iraq’s own ministry described the incident, it was self-defense. (from the CNN article) “The ministry said the incident began around midday, when a convoy of sport utility vehicles came under fire from unidentified gunmen in the square. The men in the SUVs, described by witnesses as Westerners, returned fire, the ministry said.” Even the witnesses said they “returned fire”. I also have a hard time believing there were “civilians” injured. A “civilian” pointing a gun is no longer a civilian. The “civilians” that don’t privide the military with info to prevent these attacks, (and you know they know something) or that aren’t making any effort to help stop the fighting, or stablize their own country should not be considered civilians.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 01:12:10 +0000

Blackwater provides all of the bodyguards, but this a definite problem for the “Iraq is a sovereign nation” claim.

By: Badtux

Badtux — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 00:57:35 +0000

Don’t worry about Blackwater. The Iraqi puppets may say they’re kicking Blackwater out, but they do not have the 82nd Airborne. As Nathan Bedford Forrest of Forrest’s Raiders fame was reputed to have said, it’s all about who can get there fustest with the mostest guns, and that’s the U.S. military (for the moment). The Iraqi prime minister can rant and rave, but until Iraq’s military has more guns than the U.S. military, what the U.S. military says, goes.

– Badtux the “Power grows from the barrel of a gun” Penguin