Care to imagine, if you will, a private security company. Its staff is made up of highly trained, combat hardened, former soldiers. They are equipped, man for man, better than the U.S. army. They are not subject to the laws of the country that they operate in, nor are the subject to the laws of the country in which they are based. In essence, this private security company could do as they liked, well, almost.
Is this or is this not a scary thought. The company that I am talking about does exist, it is called Blackwater, and amongst its clients are the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Last month the jumpy security personnel shot dead 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians, their punishment was that they were ordered to pay $4 million to each of the families of the victims. They will not go to court neither in Iraq nor the U.S. for any sort of criminal acts, they will not even lose the contract that they hold with the American Embassy in Baghdad.
Yesterday they shot dead two Iraqi women in a car that they felt had passed too close to the convoy that they were escorting. There were also a number of children in the back of the car that were fortunate not to have been killed or seriously injured. Blackwater can probably expect to be ordered to pay compensation to the families of those involved, but it would seem that they will escape all charges of criminality or murder.
While the jumpiness and perhaps fear felt by the security personnel of Blackwater is understandable, it is absolutely no excuse for allowing such incidents to occur.
The people of Baghdad, the Baghdadis', walk the streets knowing that they do not just risk kidnap, being caught up in a bombing, being caught up in tribal warfare, in internecine fighting as well as regular criminality, but now they know that they could be the victims of any number of private security companies operating in the area. All they have to do is to come to close to a convoy, appear as though they may be concealing something, or even just walking around with a camera (camera's are notorious in war zones, many a photographer has been killed because from a distance soldiers thought that his camera was a gun).
To the Baghdadis, I bid them good luck.