Imagine --- in the Green Zone of Baghdad on Christmas Eve. An off-duty Blackwater USA employee shoots 11 times at close range a bodyguard to Iraq Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi. His only consequence thus far is that Blackwater fired him and gave him a ticket home.
Another great article by award winning journalist Bill Sizemore, of the Virgian-Pilot, went unnoticed by mainstream media yesterday.
Virgian-Pilot
Bill Sizemore got additional information using the Freedom of Information Act.
"Underscoring the sensitivity of the case, Abdul-Mahdi told then-U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad that 'he tried to keep the issue from the public eye and had not disclosed to the press the nationality of the suspect," according to a Jan. 8 memo from the U.S. Embassy to Secretary of State Condolezza Rice.
The U.S. Ambassador assured the Vice President that the United States government "took the incident extremely seriously." He went on to say "that the Embassy was working with the company in question to achieve an adequte offer of compensation." Following the familiar American government belief that money can fix anything.
However the Iraqi Vice President asked for something the US government is less familiar with---justice!
"Abdul-Mahdi said that justice was even more important than compensation," the memo went on, "noting that Iraqis would not understand how a foreigner could kill an Iraqi and retuurn a free man to his own country."
I guess Mr. Abdul-Mahdi never read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States!
The article goes on:
Blackwater President Gary Jackson said Tuesday that to the best of his knowledge the shooting is still being investigated. He said the shooter was flown home at the direction of the U.S. government."
Needless to say I'm sure the investigation will still be going on and on and on... while more Iraqis feel the pain of being abused, ignored, and devalued. And as the pain grows inside them it leads to anger that leads to the desire to strike back at those who have caused the pain.