Thursday, October 11, 2007

Guardians of life who kill

Oct.11, 2007

Guardians of life who kill




IT was unlikely that Tuesday's killing of two Iraqi women by guards working for a foreign security company in Baghdad would have been reported had it not been for the intense focus on Blackwater USA brought about by the Sept.16 gunning down of up to 17 Iraqi bystanders in the Iraqi capital.
There is every reason to believe that most foreign security guards working in Iraq — some 25,000 or so — are triggerhappy and behave in the same pattern as those of Blackwater USA did on Sept.16. The obvious explanation is that their job is to protect the life of people who pay them even it means taking no chance and killing at the first instance.
The reason that their actions go unreported in the media is that there is a deliberate suppression of any leak of such information and that such incidents occur in areas outside the reach of the media.
The Blackwater and Unity incidents happened in Baghdad, and eyewitnesses reported them, and hence they hit international headlines. Hundreds might have been killed in similar incidents elsewhere, but their deaths did not appear in the media because the media were not supposed to know about them. Whatever little we have indeed heard from areas outside Baghdad is only a scratch on the surface.
As commentators in the US emphasise, private security guards know their job all too well, which is to guard top US officials by any means necessary even it means casual gunning down of innocent Iraqis. They get paid six or seven times more than US soldiers.
Of course, US soldiers cannot do the job because the US military establishment has clearly laid-down the rules of engagement which are largely respected. On the other hand, private security guards operate outside of the restraints imposed on ordinary troops.
It was clearly observed in a post-Sept.16 report prepared by a US Congressional committee that the State Department offers private security guards protection. Here is the operative part of the report: “There is no evidence in the documents that the committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained contractors for investigation.”
The updated number of Iraqis killed in the invasion and the insurgency that followed it is said to be more than one million. Of course, there is no scientific data or accurate means to verify the numbers, and those who are in a position to be aware of the real situation are not talking if only because it is not in their interests to make the information public.
The long and short of it is simple: The mighty US military invaded Iraq and brought with it foreign mercenaries who go under the name of private security guards. They were given immunity from prosecution in Iraq or anywhere else. Since then, foreign security guards were having a free reign in Iraq, with no law or power to question their actions. The foremost question on the international mind is indeed: What did the Iraqis do to deserve this fate?