MURDEROUS XE SERVICES* (BLACKWATER) THUGS GET OFF… AREN’T THEY “ENEMY COMBATANTS”?
COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 2 Jan 2010
Perhaps they should be categorized as "enemy combatants."
The big problem trying international terrorists in civilian courts is that they might get off.
WaPo:
A federal judge dismissed charges against five Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in a controversial shooting in a busy Baghdad square two years ago in a ruling that sharply criticized the tactics of Justice Department prosecutors handling the case.
The judge, Ricardo M. Urbina of the District’s federal court, found that prosecutors and agents had improperly used statements that the guards provided to the State Department in the hours and days after the shooting. The statements had been given with the understanding that they would not be used against the guards in court, the judge found, and federal prosecutors improperly used them to help guide their investigation. Urbina said other Justice Department lawyers had warned the prosecutors to tread carefully around the incriminating statements.
(Also, see Jeremy Scahill’s piece on the front.)
So, the protections built into our justice system appear to have let a group of rogue mercenaries who opened fire without provocation on Iraqis in a busy urban thorough-fare off the hook. Interesting reality, given that the entire occupation of Iraq was an illegal act.
I’m not familiar with the judge’s ruling beyond what the newspapers say. I have no reason to assume the decision was not grounded in sound legal reasoning.
But consider the optics of the ruling from an outsider’s perspective:
On Friday, the Iraqi government said it may pursue its own legal case against Blackwater because it believes the employees committed a "serious crime" against its people, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh told Reuters.
"What happened yesterday confirms that the trial was biased," said Ali Adeeb, a lawmaker and top advisor to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. "This was an unreasonable, criminal operation, and there should have been justice in a trial.
Having watched the U.S. government declare individuals "enemy combatants," to be locked up with at best minimal due process, why wouldn’t people assume that the feds can convict anyone of anything when they commit themselves to getting a guilty verdict.
Actually, according to the logic that’s prevailed in some quarters since the 9/11 attacks, the accused mercenaries should be hooded, perhaps waterboarded — you know, for "information" — and then whisked away to Gitmo. After all, everyone knows they did it, so there’s no real need for a trial and evidence and all that jazz. It happened in a war zone — and we all know that people who do things in a war zone shouldn’t be tried in civilian courts. They’re terrorists — massacred civilians.
But most of all, if we’re in a war with Islamofascism, the thugs of Xe Services have arguably done more to provide aid and comfort to our enemies than any group in the history of the republic. If they’re not "enemy combatants," then who is?
After all, regardless of how we view ourselves or our adventures abroad, to the rest of the world, SUVs packed with heavily-armed and almost wholly unaccountable goons shooting wildly into crowds will always be the face of our War on Terror.
NOTE
* The WaPo story notes that the incident, "so badly stigmatized Blackwater that the company renamed itself Xe Services." So again I call on readers to start using the new name whenever possible — Xe Services shouldn’t be able to shirk its reputation as a group of brutal and unrestrained bruisers-for-hire by losing the name "Blackwater."
________________________
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer with AlterNet.
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