Bloody Sunday

There is a horrific story in the Independent about the recent bloody Sunday massacre of 28 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater mercenaries. Despite the call for Blackwater to leave by Iraqi government officials, military and diplomatic sources are clear that simply will not happen. Blackwater have too many connections (Bush, CIA, Pentagon etc) and too many contracts to protect top US officials based in Iraq. Blackwater said after the killing of of four employees (that led to the destruction of Fallujah by US forces),

"we also feel pride and satisfaction that we are making a difference for the people of Iraq."

That difference can be measured in terms of hundreds of innocent Iraqis gunned down by trigger happy mercenaries earning several thousand dollars a day.

Blackwater is run by a personal friend of George Bush. Erik Prince is an ex-navy seal, a right-wing fundamentalist Christian and a former intern in the administration of George Bush Sr.

Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, said this:

You tell me what nation in the world has operatives deployed in nine other countries around the world, can boast of a force of 20,000 men to call on at a moment's notice, has a fleet of aircrafts............one senior-ranking US military official, Brigadier General Karl Horst, the deputy commander of the Third Infantry Division, he became so outraged with contractor misconduct, that he began just tracking cases of contractor violence over a two-month period. He documented twelve instances of contractors firing at Iraqi civilians, resulting in six Iraqi civilian deaths and three injuries. That’s just two months and one general with his eyes open. So you multiply that across the scene, and what we have in Iraq is a Wild West-type scenario.