America is losing the "war on terror" - as expected. We have not won one battle, nor are we winning on a single front, nor does it look like we ever intend to. (Some will falsely claim we have "won" in Iraq. Reality is we lost by the sheer fact we invaded.) The truth is we have capitulated to the terrorists without reservation. Our sons and daughters are not fighting for our freedom, the only threat to our freedom comes from ourselves. A bunch of cave dwellers halfway around the globe cannot invade and overtake us.
But they knew the hypocrisy of America (if not their own) and knew America would destroy herself if they deemed her to do so. So in burning hatred they did. The previous President described himself as a "teenager with a credit card" and thus every day we sow our financial doom in endless wars because today we don't feel the pain of what we purchase. But there's a far worse bankruptcy afoot.
The terrorists revealed our moral bankruptcy: jettisoning the freedoms we paid for in blood, abandoning our principles and ideals that made us strong, caving in to mass hysteria with mass cowardice. It's always been mankind's folly to believe we can save the body without saving the soul. There is no safety in selling out our values - or selling out justice.
Iraq Outraged As Blackwater Case Thrown Out
Seems a little thing doesn't it? A mere legal decision. Sort of like the decision on what O-rings to use on the Challenger. What could it possibly matter? Nobody's looking, who cares? Blindness to reality as our savior.
Let's visit Nisour Square in September 2007, and recount the events dismissed by the judge. Only let's Americanize the names and change it to Times Square in New York.
Government officials - the most highly valued lives in our country - stormed through the streets in a convoy "of four large armored vehicles with 7.62 millimeter machine guns mounted on top." For New York police, "it had become a standard part of their workday to stop traffic to make room for U.S. VIPs to blaze through."
David Smith, a NY traffic cop, "remembers vividly the moment the Blackwater convoy entered the intersection, spurring him to stop traffic. But as the vehicles entered the square, the convoy suddenly made a surprise U-turn and proceeded to drive the wrong way on a one-way street. The convoy came to an abrupt halt. According to Smith, a man atop the third vehicle began to fire his weapon 'randomly'."
That was because Tony Romo was about to enter that one-way street driving the correct direction, and for that was shot dead. His mother was in the car and started screaming, "My son! My son!" Officer Smith raced towards the car and signaled back to the convoy to stop shooting. A car which had not even entered the traffic circle, one that "did not closely approach the Blackwater convoy until the driver had been shot in the head and lost control of his vehicle," as reported by the NY Times.
Officer Smith's signal was ignored. In the next instant, Romo's mother was shot dead. In fact, so many shots were fired the car exploded in flames. Panic ensued on the street as bystanders fled for their lives. Officer Tom Jones was on the scene and reported, "Whoever stepped out of his car was shot immediately."
NY lawyer Thomas Paine also witnessed the event. "I saw women and children jump out of their cars and start to crawl on the road to escape being shot. But still the firing kept coming and many of them were killed. I saw a boy of ten leaping in fear from a minivan - he was shot in the head. His mother was crying out for him. She jumped out after him, and she was killed."
Paine, in fact, was behind the convoy when it stopped and was told to reverse his direction and go back. As he complied, his car was shot 12 times, four of which entered his back.
Officer Smith described the aftermath. "Each of the four vehicles opened heavy fire in all directions, they shot and killed everyone in cars facing them and people standing on the street. When it was over we were looking around and about 15 cars had been destroyed, the bodies of the killed were strewn on the pavement and the road."
Even the Blackwater guards knew it was out of control:
In all, the melee reportedly lasted about fifteen minutes. In an indication of how out of control the situation quickly became, U.S. officials report that "one or more" Blackwater guards called on their colleagues to stop shooting. The word "cease-fire" "was supposedly called out several times," a senior official told the New York Times. "They had an on-site difference of opinion [sane vs. insane]." At one point a Blackwater guard allegedly drew his gun on another. "It was a Mexican standoff," said one contractor.
The final tally? 17 men, women and children dead, and more than twenty wounded. "Within hours, Blackwater would become a household name the world over." In Iraq, however, it was not big news that a few Americans more or less were dead plus they fully believed Blackwater's account they were "violently attacked" and "acted lawfully and appropriately" and "heroically defended American lives" even though not one shot had been fired upon them. Besides, that kind of news interrupted their watching of "Iraqi Idol".
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Nisour Square guard and his lawyer,
laughing at the ruling
Last Friday, a federal judge dismissed all criminal charges against the Blackwater guards, "saying that prosecutors built their case on sworn statements that the guards had given with the idea that they would be immune from prosecution." Now why would they do that? I'm no lawyer but I'm smarter than most of them and it's pretty obvious this was rigged to get thrown out of court while at the same time we could say, "Aw shucks, we tried!"
But really, why should we care about justice for Iraqis when all we did was conduct the greatest terrorist attack on them since Hitler invaded Poland - a blatant land grab without provocation. It's fun storming through their country like Aryan gods shooting anyone we see. Why did we get so mad at that D.C. sniper when he's just doing what we as a nation condone?
I saw your soul today, America - and it will not be made safe by bullets. It will never be safe without a blind devotion to justice.
Note: Quotes of the account are from Jeremy Scahill's "Blackwater: The Rise Of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army"
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