September 19, 2007 archive

This is an OPEN THREAD. Here are four stories in the news at 4 o’clock to get you started. My apologies in advance, but today’s Four at Four news is all related to Iraq.

1. The fallout from the Bush administration using private contractors for security for U.S. officials in Iraq continues and with Rice’s apology yesterday on the behalf of Blackwater and the company’s own defiant non-apology, it is clear that the Bush administration will not abandon its Praetorian Guard anytime soon.

   The Guardian reports that now the U.S. has restricted diplomat travel in Iraq. “The US has suspended all land travel by its diplomats and other civilian officials outside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone due to an “increased threat” in the aftermath of the alleged killing of civilians by the American embassy’s security provider, Blackwater. ¶ The move came as the Iraqi government appeared to back down from its initial statements after Sunday’s shootout that it would order Blackwater’s 1,000 personnel to leave the country. ¶ ‘We are not intending to stop them and revoke their licence indefinitely, but we do need them to respect the law and the regulation here in Iraq,’ a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh” said. The article reports that 20 Iraqis were killed in the Blackwater shootout, eleven more than originally reported.

   AFP also is reporting that the Iraqi government is apparently backing down from kicking out Blackwater from Iraq even though Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki wants them to be replaced. ‘For their own interests, the Americans should hire a new company to protect their people so they can move freely… This is a big crime and the seventh such crime committed by this company and which has been registered by the interior ministry,’ Maliki said.” However the article quotes Dabbagh: “We understand that this company is giving security to embassy staff so we don’t want to revoke their licence permanently.”

   It seems obvious that pressure is being applied to the Iraqi government and not Blackwater USA, which leaves Time magazine to run a headline for a story featuring quotes from Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice asking can the U.S. live without Blackwater? “When asked if the State Department should reconsider its reliance on such companies to secure U.S. personnel, Rice said not yet. ‘It’s very early to try to do that kind of analysis, I think.’ In the meantime, the State Department has just announced the formation of a new, joint U.S.-Iraqi commission that will handle details of the Blackwater episode, an apparent attempt to defuse the growing controversy.”

2. The Los Angeles Times also reports that normally misdeeds by private security contractors are covered-up. “Several U.S. diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity said in interviews that past private security misdeeds had been swept under the rug. ¶ ‘It’s one of the big holes we’ve had in our policy: the lack of control, the lack of supervision over the security force,’ a U.S. diplomat told The Times on condition of anonymity because of the topic’s sensitivity. ‘No one took on the responsibility of policing these units, neither the military or the Regional Security Office [the embassy’s security department]… So many people, not just the Blackwater people, are there in Baghdad unsupervised with basically diplomatic immunity,’ he said.” And, it is not just Iraqis who are the target of Blackwater, the company has also shot at other private security firms. “‘They are untouchable. They’ve shot up other private security contractors, Iraqi military, police and civilians,’ said one security contractor, who declined to give his name because of the sensitivity of the issue.”

3. McClatchy Newspapers has a story about two survivors of the Blackwater USA shootout that happened at a busy Baghdad traffic roundabout on Sunday.

   Hassan Jaber Salma, 50, a lawyer who suffered eight gunshot wounds in the incident, said he and other motorists were attempting to clear a path for the convoy when the Blackwater guards suddenly strafed the line of traffic with gunfire.

   Sami Hawas Karim, 42, a taxi driver who was shot in the hip and side, said he, too, had stopped for the convoy when he saw the guards suddenly open fire on a car bearing a man, a woman and a small child. The guards then opened fire on maintenance workers in the square, the car in front of him, the car behind him and a minibus full of girls.

   When he felt the pain of his two wounds, he opened the door of his car and fell to the ground; his 13-year-old son in the car with him wasn’t harmed. “I thought about my family and my five kids,” he said. “I remembered my two brothers who were killed, and I said to myself, ‘I’m going to be the third.'”

   …Neither of the two survivors interviewed at Baghdad’s Yarmouk Hospital said he’d heard explosions or gunfire before the Blackwater guards opened fire on cars that had stopped to allow a four-vehicle convoy to pass.

   Salma said that as the Blackwater guards opened fire, he turned his car into oncoming traffic in an effort to escape, only to have Iraqi soldiers nearby also begin firing on him, apparently fearing that he was a suicide bomber. Ducking his head to avoid bullets that slammed into the driver’s seat and dashboard, he lost control of the car and slammed into a truck carrying cooking gas canisters, breaking three ribs.

   “I swear they were not attacked by anything,” said Salma, his torso wrapped in a heavy plaster cast and his breathing labored from gunshot wounds in the chest, stomach and back. His wife sobbed next to him.

   Both Karim and Salma said a helicopter was on the scene. Salma said it also fired into the line of cars, contradicting Blackwater’s statement that its helicopter didn’t open fire.

   CNN has more from the two men in “Wounded Iraqis: ‘No one did anything’ to provoke Blackwater“. “‘So we turned back, and as we turned back they opened fire at all cars from behind,’ Salman said. ‘All my injuries, the bullets are in my back… Within two minutes the security force arrived in planes — part of the security company Blackwater. They started firing randomly at all citizens.'”

4. Lastly, BBC News is reporting that the Pope ‘refused to meet with Rice’. “Pope Benedict XVI refused a recent request by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Middle East and Iraq, Vatican sources say. ¶ The Pope refused a request for an audience during the August holidays. Senior Vatican sources told the BBC the Pope does not normally receive politicians on his annual holiday at the Castelgandolfo residence near Rome. But one leading Italian newspaper said it was an evident snub by the Vatican towards the Bush administration.” The story gives two reasons for the Pope’s refusal. “It was Ms Rice who just before the outbreak of the Iraq war in March 2003 made it clear to a special papal envoy sent from Rome, Cardinal Pio Laghi, that the Bush administration was not interested in the views of the late Pope on the immorality of launching its planned military offensive.” The second reason is the Vactican says Iraqi Christians are not protected under the Iraqi’s new constitution.

So is there any news outside of Iraq today?

okay… let’s keep it goin’ you swashbucklers and swine… those Errol Flynn-like sexy or toothless and grimy… talk about yer favorite movies

here’s an interesting site that claims to list every pirate movie ever made

but to get you started:

hay hay hay… it’s pfiore8 in the corral today… featuring pirate films. so start yer chit and chatting… but first, a Pirate Song by George Harrison (really… stick with it for a few seconds…)