In the wake of last month's shooting of 17 civilians by Blackwater gunmen in Baghdad, the Bush administration is finally acknowledging -- more than four years late -- that private security contractors in Iraq should operate under the law.
Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted to Congress that the State Department had inadequately supervised those contractors. As Karen DeYoung wrote in Friday's Washington Post, "Pressed to express regret for what Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.) called "the failures of your department, your failures," Rice said, "I certainly regret that we did not have the kind of oversight that I would have insisted upon."
Rice agreed that "there is a hole" in U.S. law that has prevented prosecution of contractors.
[We take a short rest stop]
There's a "hole"? There's a #$%@&%$!!! hole!?!?! Actually, it's far worse than that. Blackwater bodyguards were apparently promised legal immunity upon the very beginning of the formal investigation into the shootings. "Outrageous" doesn't even begin to describe the situation.
[Two very common slogans]
Iran watch:
After seven years of Emperor C-Plus Augustus and his Avignon Presidency (to use Charles Pierce’s exquisitely apposite terminology), the international community has apparently decided that America, so long as Bush and the John Bolton neocons remain in positions of power, cannot be trusted to play nice, particularly when it comes to Iran.
– The IAEA’s El-Baradei has said that there is no evidence that Iran is trying to make nuclear weapons. They are working on nuclear technology to supply power and electricity, which they are allowed to do under treaty. (In fact, Iran was given its first taste of nuclear energy back in the 1950s by American oil companies, who didn’t want the Iranians to waste all that lovely oil on themselves when they could be letting Americans take it from them.) Furthermore, he’s said flat-out that attacking Iran “would absolutely lead to disaster” — something our wonderful US corporate media doesn’t want to emphasize.
– Russia’s Vladimir Putin has come out and told the US to shut the bleep up with regard to Iran. In case you’re wondering why Bush might want to listen to Putin, it seems that Russia (unlike Iran) has these things called nukes. You may have heard of them. Bush won’t respond to morality, but he responds to force.
– Previous Bush efforts to isolate Iran economically have failed badly, so of course Bush is now ramping up the pressure. Europe, so far, seems to be yawning — that is, when guys like Putin aren’t telling Bush to STFU. Of course, Dick Cheney’s Halliburton has operated in Iran for decades, despite President Bill Clinton’s 1995 Executive Order forbidding American oil companies from doing business in Iran, and Cheney himself opposed sanctions while he was officially running Halliburton, so it could be that the Europeans are sick of the Bush-Cheney hypocrisy on this.
– Meanwhile, the Iranians get to look above the fray as they counsel the Turks, Kurds and Iraqis to stop attacking each other, even as Bush orders our troops to help Turkey hunt down Kurdish separatists in Iraq.
Whatever you’re hoping to accomplish, George — besides high oil prices — I don’t think you’re getting it.