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24 January 2010

Whose side are they on, anyway?

You'd think the US government would be happy about their citizens not being tried for murder, but the administration wants to try again to put the Blackwater guards on trial for the Nisoor Square shooting, in which no evidence was ever recovered, and the case hinged on eyewitness reports from a population known for making things up to suit the mood (anyone remember how 'happy' everyone was to re-elect Saddam in January of '03?)

The U.S. will appeal a court decision dismissing manslaughter charges against five Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Saturday.
Biden's announcement after a meeting with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani shows just how diplomatically sensitive the incident remains nearly three years later. A lawyer for one guard, noting that word of the intended appeal came in Iraq, accused the Obama administration of political expediency and said the U.S. was pursuing an innocent man, rather than justice.


By: Brant
at

1 comment:

  1. Guardian24 January, 2010 14:24

    You know what the difference is between an insurgent and an "innocent civilian" in Iraqi (or Afghan) firefights?

    Whether or not his buddies were able to recover his weapon after he went down.

    My bet is that this is exactly what happened in Nisoor Square: after the Blackwater-guarded convoy broke contact, the surviving insurgents policed up the evidence that their buddies were armed and then screamed "massacre!"

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