you have to remember, Ty believes Sadaam got 100% of the popular vote.

Maybe so, but I see coverage that doesn't seem to assume as much.

I think you read more into that report than is there. Bhutto's party (and other opposition) are clamoring that there cannot be free and fair elections while martial law is in place. He keeps martial law, gives them a little window dressing, but still ends up "winning" the vote. Now he can claim a mandate - "see, even with real opposition (hey they even got to speak out and everything) I still won."

Perhaps I'm too cynical.

aV

I was even more cynically suggesting that Bhutto and Musharraf are in cahoots.

Maybe what I'm saying is that (U.S.) media coverage is painting Bhutto as a victim of sorts of government repression, which would tend to give her more populist cred than she has had. Everyone here likes her because she went to Harvard (hi Hank!), but by all accounts she was incredibly corrupt.

The FBI's work is now public:

• Investigators have concluded that as many as five of the company’s guards opened fire during the shootings, at least some with automatic weapons. Investigators have focused on one guard, identified as “turret gunner No. 3,” who fired a large number of rounds and was responsible for several fatalities.
  
  Investigators found no evidence to support assertions by Blackwater employees that they were fired upon by Iraqi civilians. That finding sharply contradicts initial assertions by Blackwater officials, who said that company employees fired in self-defense and that three company vehicles were damaged by gunfire.
  
  Government officials said the shooting occurred when security guards fired in response to gunfire by other members of their unit in the mistaken belief that they were under attack. One official said, “I wouldn’t call it a massacre, but to say it was unwarranted is an understatement.”
  
  Among the 17 killings, three may have been justified under rules that allow lethal force to be used in response to an imminent threat, the F.B.I. agents have concluded. They concluded that Blackwater guards might have perceived a threat when they opened fire on a white Kia sedan that moved toward Nisour Square after traffic had been stopped for a Blackwater convoy of four armored vehicles.
  
  Two people were killed in the car, Ahmed Haithem Ahmed and his mother, Mohassin, a physician. Relatives said they were on a family errand and posed no threat to the Blackwater convoy.
  
  Investigators said Blackwater guards might have felt endangered by a third, and unidentified, Iraqi who was killed nearby. But the investigators determined that the subsequent shootings of 14 Iraqis, some of whom were shot while fleeing the scene, were unprovoked.
  
  Under the firearms policy governing all State Department employees and contractors, lethal force may be used “only in response to an imminent threat of deadly force or serious physical injury against the individual, those under the protection of the individual or other individuals.”
  
  A separate military review of the Sept. 16 shootings concluded that all of the killings were unjustified and potentially criminal. One of the military investigators said the F.B.I. was being generous to Blackwater in characterizing any of the killings as justifiable.

NYT

Yes, I saw the article. However, it is still in dispute, allegedly by one of the Blackwater guys interviewed only days after the incident.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5...sZFRmrBqEII4Qw

It strikes me that if I were riding around Baghdad, I would have a very itchy trigger finger too.

aV

Of course they dispute it. The FBI says they essentially murdered at least 14 innocent people. The Army says they murdered 17 innocent people. [OK -- murder is a strong word -- more like manslaughter.] The guy may believe what he is saying. People's perceptions are unreliable, especially in dangerous situations.

There is also no doubt that the FBI wasn't working with a pristine, or even a good, scene from which to gather evidence. But "no evidence" the Blackwater guys were fired upon includes, I would expect, things like checking the Blackwater vehicles for any evidence of incoming fire. No evidence is no evidence.

Lord yes -- but if you're being paid by the US Government to do it, you're expected to keep the itch under reasonable control.

S_A_M

Who do you believe? The FBI investigators, or the potential defendant?

Indeed. Which goes to the original point I was making about Blackwater -- that using a private contractor like that to provide security undercuts the counterinsurgency mission. The military will do a better job of internalizing the conflicting demands.

Exactly. And the FBI questioned people weeks after the event. Who may have their own interests in mind that wouldn't necessarily support Blackwater. So of course, if they were being fired upon, that fact would likely be forgotten.

I have no idea what the FBI did in the investigation. Are you an investigator with the FBI?

aV

I don't know who is telling the truth here. The FBI investigators were not there on the day in question. This former army guy was. And so were people who, if they were firing on the motorcade, wouldn't necessarily be truthful during interviews.



I don't necessarily disagree. But the Govt. hired them to do the job. They did their job and the incident occurred. If the govt. doesn't think that its prudent to use them in the future, then so be it.

aV

No, but I have been a military and federal prosecutor. So, I know a little bit about crime scene investigation.

And more importantly, I read an article saying that the FBI was going over the Blackwater vehicles involved as well as collecting and examining the damaged and burned out Iraqi vehicles from the scene.

S_A_M

Great. Super. And I read a report quoting a "Senior FBI official" who stated that the 14 out of 17 number was highly speculative and that it was much to early in the investigation for that number to be reliable. In addition, this same report stated that the firearms used by the Blackwater detail only arrived in D.C. on Wednesday for examination, and that without ballistics tests it was far too early to draw any conclusions about the incident.

Perhaps, in your prosecutorial zeal, you are a bit too anxious to convict the Blackwater employees.

aV

I am not convicting anyone andf I'm not anxious to do so. I just don't necessarily put much credence in any one man's perceptions when they are under fire or believe they are under fire. Reading the public portions of the testimony of the Rangers who killed Pat Tillmann should show you that.

Also, I thought you had no idea what the FBI did or did not do? [And what did the FBI guy have to say about the Army's investigation? But that's not the point.] We'll see what the final investigation turns up.

While I appreciate their service to their country, and to the hundreds of thousands of dollars they're making doing a very dangerous job, they don't get a free pass from scrutiny when a shooting incident occurs. [Ask no questions, just wipe up the blood and pay off the relatives.] No sir. Nobody rides for free.

Why do you have such a fucking hard-on for this? Is one of them a relative of yours?

S_A_M

No relatives. Although I do know a Blackwater employee.

I wasn't the one who said that they murdered 14 people. You did. Yes, I know that you backed off on that, but why not presume innocence until proven guilty?

aV

Read what I wrote. I said that the FBI report "essentially said they murdered 14 innocent people. The Army investigation says they murdered 17 innocents. [Then I went to manslaughter.]" (Or words to that effect because my post isn't in front of me.)

Where in that do I say they are guilty? But if those shootings were unjustified, the killings were criminal acts (though jurisdiction is a big problem).

Of course we should presume innocence in a criminal sense -- but I have a harder time with that when the casualty figure is 17 dead Iraqi civilians, including a number who were clearly non-combatants (e.g. middle-aged women) and not a single American needed a band-aid afterwards.

I also put a lot of stock in the reaction/assessment of the Army units who arrived on the scene to provide back-up -- which was not at all favorable to Blackwater.

It is of course possible that they were provoked by insurgents, but it smells like a free-fire fuck up to me where other guys started shooting because the first guy shot at that white car, and just kept going.

S_A_M