Anyway here's a little music for a Sunday.
This the powerful ending to the film "Hair" based on the broadway hit.
Hair - Let the Sunshine In
Whitehouse: GOP Embarked On Desperate Mission of Propaganda, Falsehood, Obstruction, Fear
American Justice doesn't apply to Iraqis . Kill an Iraqi child payout $5,000 and everything's Okay.
Iraq Haditha Massacre Shocking Story of Marines Killing Iraq-2007
The Nisour Square massacre was the single deadliest incident involving private US forces in Iraq. Seventeen Iraqis were killed and more than twenty wounded. Jeremy ScahillJudge Gives Blackwater/ Xe Srvices Huge New Year's Gift, Dismisses All Charges In Iraq Massacre" By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. December 31, 2009.
Once again America's paid mercenaries get away with murder. Besides the 17 people murdered at Nisour Square another 600,000 to 1,300,000 Iraqis were also murdered besides tens of thousands imprisoned and tortured. America need not worry . They got away with murder , terrorists acts and torture in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Philippines, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Honduras and dozens of other countries.
Is the justice system to blame for no convictions in Blackwater/ Xe Services or is the government .Maybe the Obama government should have /or should send these criminals back to Iraq to face a trial. But no most Conservative Americans don't care about a case in which Americans killed Iraqi Civilians who in their view are not innocent at all. It is same with the use of torture, kidnappings, renditions etc. Conservative Americans only believe in justice for certain American citizens or as Sarah Palin puts it "Real Americans" that is white and Christian.
We also must consider the fact that the invasion of Iraq wasn't just unnecessary and unjust but was illegal and violated international law. But Bush & Co. re-educated millions of Americans that murder, torture and the invasion of a foreign nation is nobody's business but Americas.
Judge Gives Blackwater/ Xe Srvices Huge New Year's Gift, Dismisses All Charges In Iraq Massacre" By Jeremy Scahill, Rebel Reports. December 31, 2009.
Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of gunning down 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad's Nisour Square in 2007.
A federal judge in Washington DC has given Erik Prince’s Blackwater mercenaries a huge New Year’s gift. Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against the five Blackwater operatives accused of gunning down 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad’s Nisour Square in September 2007. Judge Urbina’s order, issued late in the afternoon on New Year's Eve is a stunning blow for the Iraqi victims’ families and sends a clear message that US-funded mercenaries are above all systems of law -- US and international.
In a memo defending his opinion, Urbina cited a similar rationale used in the dismissal of charges against Iran-Contra figure Oliver North -- namely that the government violated the rights of the Blackwater men by using statements they made to investigators in the immediate aftermath of the shooting to build a case against the guards, which Urbina said qualified for "derivative use immunity." Urbina wrote that he agreed that "the government violated [the Blackwater guards'] constitutional rights by utilizing statements they made to Department of State investigators, which were compelled under a threat of job loss.” He added that the "government is prohibited from using such compelled statements or any evidence obtained as a result of those statements" to bring indictments.
Urbina concluded: "the government has utterly failed to prove that it made no impermissible use of the defendants’ statements or that such use was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Accordingly, the court must dismiss the indictment against all of the defendants."
There are a number issues raised with this ruling. For instance if the statements cannot be used because they are seen questionable because they were part of a deal or due to duress etc. then shouldn't this apply to all those that United States captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and a number of other countries. No because justice as it were only applies to fellow Americans.So American soldiers and mercenaries can do what they like without much fear of facing the consequences for committing assaults, torture, kidnappings, renditions etc. because their victims have been demonized .Like the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists these conservative Americans and their fellow travelers the Religious Right believe God is on their side and so a different set of values and rules apply to Americans.
" Murderous Xe Services* (Blackwater) Thugs Get Off ... Aren't They "Enemy Combatants"?" by Joshua Holland, AlterNet ,January 1, 2010.
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.
...Perhaps they should be categorized as "enemy combatants."
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.
Jeremy Scahill fears the Bush Regime is again playing the few bad apples scam.
Blackwater Guards Indicted for Role in Nisour Square Massacre Jeremy Scahill on Democracy Now
also see;
"The public anger has never faded" By Kim Sengupta,who was in Nisur Square at the time of the attack at The Independent, 2 January 2010
Sitting swathed in bandages at Baghdad’s Yarmukh Hospital, a day after he had been shot four times in the back by Blackwater guards, Hassan Jabar Salman, shook his head “This is not the first time they have killed innocent people in our country, and nothing, absolutely nothing, will be done. You’ll see.”
I was in Nisour Square on Baghdad’s ‘Bloody Sunday’ when Mr Salman and around 40 others were shot. The eruption of gunfire was sudden and ferocious, round after round mowing down terrified men women and children, slamming into cars as they collided and overturned with drivers frantically trying to escape. Some vehicles were set alight by exploding petrol tanks. A mother and her infant child died in one of them, trapped in the flames.
Even by the standards of the savage violence of Iraq at the time, the massacre at Mansour with families out in a shopping district making up most of the victims, brought a sense of profound shock . What happened had been witnessed by Iraqi policemen as they sought shelter from the bullets, American soldiers who arrived in the blood strained streets soon afterwards shook their heads in incomprehension.
There was overwhelming evidence that this was a case of unprovoked killings and it sparked one of the most bitter public disputes between the Iraqi government and its American patrons, and brings into sharp focus the often violent conduct of the Western private armies operating in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, immune from scrutiny or prosecution.
Yet, many Iraqis would agree with Mr Salman, a 42 year old lawyer, that the trigger happy guards would get away with what they had done. Amid widespread public anger Iraq revoked Blackwater’s licence to operate --- only to back-track after just three days under pressure from Washington which still employed the company to provide security for State Department staff.
But the public anger over what happened at Nisour Square did not fade. Investigations were launchd by both the US administration and the Iraqi government and a number of Blackwater guards were eventually arrested and charged in connection with the deaths and injuries. The company, mired in criticism of its conduct, even changed its name -- - to the more anonymous ‘Xe’.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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