The Blackwater Breakup
| By Guy - Oct 9th, 2007 at 2:59 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
The rather rocky relationship between Iraq and Blackwater may be coming to an end.
Monday the Iraq government released a press release (good to see them back to work!) stating that the US government has to break off from Blackwater within six months and pay each family who lost a relative $8 million ($136 mililion in all).
BBC Story
Also on similar note, the news feeds are reporting that two women were killed in Iraq by a currently unknown private security firm.
NY Times Story
!
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The true power brokers in the Iraqi government will *never* kick out Blackwater.
Why?
Because half of them are protected by private security firms - Blackwater and the like.
This is not a situation unique to Iraq. You think Hamid Karzai trusts Afghans to protect him? Hell no! He wants some Blackwater boys who might shoot first and ask questions later but who haven't lost a VIP yet.
I stop reading any press release (and that's all this is, essentially, a press release -- read it and you can tell that the BBC didn't do much of any actual reporting for this story) that starts out with "The Iraqi government did _______". Iraq's government is fragmented and you have to know WHERE in the government this stuff is coming from.
For instance, the law to 'ban' Blackwater - that was the Interior Ministry getting back at Blackwater for a firefight they'd had with IM guys earlier, but the IM didn't actually have the power to enforce anything they said.
Yes, Blackwater shoots first and asks questions later, yes, they've almost certainly killed more than a few innocent civilians.
We don't have any other good options.
These sort of capabilities simply can't be done cost-effectively within the US military anymore -- not in the way that you need for something like Iraq. The logistics of it are just impossible. Blackwater and its ilk need greater regulation, but it's still our least worst option.