Iraq: Videotape of Blackwater Attack
Jaafari Maneuvers in Najaf
Iraqi authorities said Saturday that they have a videotape of the shootings in Nisur Square last Sunday by Blackwater security guards, which shows that they fired without provocation. The company has maintained that its personnel were responding to incoming fire. There is now talk in Baghdad of trying the guards, though a decree by US viceroy Paul Bremer may hold the US nationals harmless.
Meanwhile, charges surfaced that Blackwater employees had shipped weapons to Iraq without proper paperwork, which could be interpreted as a form of arms smuggling. The company denies the charges.
Meanwhile, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani wrote a letter to Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker demanding that Iranian national Mahmoud Farhadi Farhad Aghaie be released. The US military detained him in Sulaimaniya, alleging that he is actually an Iranian intelligence officer. Talabani seems confused as to whether he is president of Iraq or a representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government, since he complained that the US raid injured the sovereignty of the KRG. Uh, I don't think provincial administrations have sovereignty. And, shouldn't Talabani be representing the interests in sovereignty of all the provinces?
Plus, Mam Jalal, if you are a president and have to plead with a foreign general to release your own guest from prison, you don't have any sovereignty left and haven't had for some time. You've been colonized.
Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that former prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari visited Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Najaf on Saturday. Jaafari was expected to meet with representatives of the Sadr Movement later that day. Al-Hayat says that two main interpretations of the visit have been put forward. One is that Jaafari is attempting to repair the rifts in the United Iraqi Alliance, the ruling Shiite fundamentalist bloc created by Sistani in the fall of 2004. In that case he was getting Sistani's blessing for the effort and seeking his intercession with Muqtada al-Sadr, who has withdrawn his bloc from the coalition.
The second interpretation is that Jaafari is attempting to make a new bloc in parliament that would include the Sadrists, and which would undermine Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. In that case he was seeking Sistani's blessing for the effort or at least ensuring that the grand ayatollah was not dead set against it.
Al-Hayat also reports on the worsening security situation in the south. It reports one member of the federal parliament as complaining about a wave of assassinations in Basra. Some 100 persons were cut down just in the past week, he alleged, including two aides to Sistani. He demanded the resignation of the Basra police chief and threatened a vote of no confidence against the minister of the interior if nothing was done to stem the killings.
Sawt al-Iraq in Arabic says that not just one but several parliamentarians are called for the resignation of Minister of the Interior Jawad al-Bulani because of the downward security spiral in the south.
The head of the parliamentary committee on security, Hadi al-Amiri, agreed about the worsening situation but said that the security forces were doing the best they could. Al-Amiri is head of the Badr Organization paramilitary, attached to the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and many police and other security men in Basra were drawn from Badr. So, ironically, the head of the parliamentary security committee is also the leader of one of Iraq's best-trained Shiite militias.
Brazil is giving asylum to the Palestinian refugees whose families were expelled from their homes by the Israelis in 1948 and who had taken refuge in Iraq, but now have been forced out of Iraq, as well. (Argentina will take some, too). The Palestinians are the eternal Boat People. It would have been better for them to be able to go home than to a Portuguese speaking country half way around the world. But, well, Rio is rather better than three years in a tent in the desert, and at last they are no longer stateless. But on what will they live? It would be nice to send them some charity. If anybody knows how, please post in comments. (Brazilian Red Cross e.g.?)
At the Global Affairs group blog, Gershon Shafir reads the tea leaves on the possibility of a Hamas truce with Israel.
UN Human Rights chief Louise Arbour has expressed alarm about recent Israeli statements on depriving Gaza of humanitarian infrastructure.
At the Napoleon's Egypt Blog , the naked truth about Mamluk theft of French officers' uniforms.
Labels: Iraq
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/23/2007 06:30:00 AM
13 Comments:
It would be nice to help these people,but wouldn't our government veiw it badly. I would expect in these sad times to end up on a wacth list.Have a file started about me.
I believe there are large numbers of Arabs already living in Brazil around the Iguazu Falls. (Douglas Feith wanted to attack here after 9/11). The Palestinians can find support from this community.
Hi all, I'm an American expatriot here in Fortaleza, Brazil and I read an article, click here , about the palestinians that I thought I'd share. Minimum wage here is R$380 or about US $160 a month. The way the article describes the situation, they would fall in about the lower %10-%20 range though they'd be able to survive somewhat. I'm happy to hear Brazil is doing this.
If there is, in fact, a video of the Blackwater shooting, then let's see it.
I don't like like Blackwater, but I have even less use for the spreading of baseless statements.
"The Palestinians are the eternal Boat People. It would have been better for them to be able to go home than to a Portuguese speaking country half way around the world." While they deserve our sympathy, Juan, sixty years does not an eternity make. You could have said exactly the same thing about the Jews--ever since 130 CE! At least Brazil is providing them some assistance, instead of the Inquisition, which is what it gave the (converted) Jews when they arrived.
RE: "Plus, Mam Jalal, if you are a president and have to plead with a foreign general to release your own guest from prison, you don't have any sovereignty left and haven't had for some time."
The only sovereign entity in Iraq is the US. Iraq is a US client, having such authority as granted by its patron, the US. Under such conditions, Iraq cannot be considered a sovereign state, nor has it ever had any measure of actual sovereignty under the US occupation.
Jaafari went to Najaf on behalf of the UIA to persuade the Sadrists to return to the fold. They told him to forget it: the difference are fundamental, and they cannot be bought by high office or other incentives.
Maliki and Hakim find it difficult to even understand nationalism. Daawa is not an Iraqi party. It is international, aimed purely for the Shiia. There is an Iraq-branch with 13 seats but it is lost in between nationalism and Shiism.
Hakim is equally committed to Shiism, not Iraq. The US fantasy-based plan for Iraq was to create a pro-American Shiia Empire in the Gulf: Iran; Iraq; and at least the oil-rich eastern part of Saudi. The (anti-Iraq) Kurds were to get what they have now but with lost more $billions.
The IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps) who sponsor both Maliki and Hakim saw that as an American-sponsored Iranian Empire not a pro-American Empire so they were quite happy and went along.
What has happened in reality, is that Saudi and the other Gulf States grew very rich on the high oil prices that the invasion brought. They have made $1.5 trillions already, of which they kept $1T in reserves. They are now the 16th world economic power and rising fast, and have built great relations with China; Russia; and India.
The reality now is that the Gulf States are the ones calling the shots. The USA made great fuss about offering them $20B in military "aid", but they have been buying from elsewhere.
Iran's reality is a semi-failed state riddled with corruption and poverty. The Empire talk is a drug being used by its lost leaders.
Iraq is a proper failed state, but the relics of the Gulf Empire are still in power. The Americans must be still hoping for that fantasy, otherwise they wouldn't have kept them. But things are changing fast in Iraq too, with the nationalists coming to the fore. There is an increasingly high price to keep these relics but W is not the kind to change course.
Pulitzer prize winners Don Bartlett and James Steele speaking on Democracy Now noted that the Coalition Provisional Authority was a “rogue” agency. That “Congress has funded it with taxpayer dollars at that time, but it was never created within the legal process of Congress.” People have had whistleblower suits denied on the basis that the CPA did not exist.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/12/1410243
As concerns Blackwater and other mercenary contractors in Iraq, how can a decree by Paul Bremer have any legal force whatsoever, since Bremer was merely the titular head of a nonexistent organization.
Would it not perhaps be considered an act of terrorism to donate money to these Palestinians in Brazil?
As far as the Blackwater smuggling is concerned, it seems to be more than paperwork. According to this AP article
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Blackwater-Probe.html
They not only seem to have caught them reselling arms, but some of those arms were found by the Turks in the hands of the PKK. The Turks sent the serial numbers of the weapons to the US, which is what started the ball rolling. That is potentially a much more scandalous affair, and couldn't happen to a nicer company at a more opportune time.
"As concerns Blackwater and other mercenary contractors in Iraq, how can a decree by Paul Bremer have any legal force whatsoever, since Bremer was merely the titular head of a nonexistent organization"
Juan, this is something I have always been curious about... how (in the Iraqi legal system) did the 'diktats' of the CPA translate into the present Iraqi law? Are they part of the constitution? Can they be repealed by parliment? Or is it just the case that the military will act to release any U.S. national arrested in Iraq under Iraqi law? The CPA decrees concerning oil and company privitization seem to have gone by the wayside, so what force of (Iraqi) law do the decrees have? Finally, can Iraqi citizens sue Blackwater under civil law?
"But on what will they [Palestinian refugees in Brazil] live? It would be nice to send them some charity. If anybody knows how, please post in comments."
Gorilla Guides has an interesting story on this:
http://gorillasguides.com/2007/09/23/iraq-brazil-first-group-of-palestinians-arrive-in-brazil-from-desert-camp/#more-1836
"Palestinians are going to enjoy the same citizenship rights as Brazilians do,” he added. “Next week they will receive ID documents and passports. They will receive monthly financial assistance for two years until they are able to support themselves. They are already being given free health services and they and their children will attend Portuguese classes"
So, they will get handouts from the Brazilian government for two years and they'll be allowed to work so they can support themselves after that.
The money is distributed via Caritas do Brasil (http://www.caritasbrasileira.org/) I'm sure they would accept donations too.
Blackwater is a rather appropriate name for a company that operates out of the view of the public. Black-Ops would be even better. They have been connected to numerous unsavory and reprehensible situations, such as Abu-Grahib. They were awarded one of the Bush Cabal's infamous NO-BID contracts, which has become synonymous with NO-OVERSIGHT. The main requirements for one of these contracts is, apparently, that the company be a big financial supporter of Right Wing Republican causes and campaigns. The founder of Blackwater is said to be tight with Bush, contributed to his campaigns, and is a Fundamentalist Christian. This last attribute continues to amaze me. How in the name of God, can someone call themselves a Christian, when they significantly contribute to the deaths of innocent civilians; and assist in the destruction of an entire country?!!! Where does it say to do that in the New Testament? I do not recall Christ saying: "Go forth and murder and plunder." These so-called "Christians" have definitely read a different book than I have. Nevertheless, these folks attend their Prayer Breakfasts, then go on to the next meeting to plan smear campaigns and war-profiteering. The hypocrisy in that stinks to high Heaven, and then some.
Condoleeza Rice has ordered one of her "Go-nowhere, Do-nothing of Substance" investigations. In the meantime, Blackwater is back in the business of maiming and killing, with no consequences whatsoever, other than to earn their big bucks. Thus, the Republicans will get their fat, bloodsoaked campaign donations in due course.
What is the background of the people who work as mercenaries for Blackwater? What are the qualifications? I would suspect that there might be former members of Right Wing Militias. They are getting full-throttle training in the most up-to-date weaponry and explosives. That's a comforting thought, isn't it? If this debacle in Iraq finally ends, what will such people do next? I think I fear them as much as I do the terrorists. They have been operating in the shadows, with little or no oversight, the aforementioned hallmark of the Bush Administration. Add to that an extremist, religious zeal, and you have the makings of a mess that only Dick Cheney would love. As you ponder that, have a good day.......
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