Murder indiscriminately, then move along and never look back

It has happened again.

American mercenaries opened fire on a vehicle in Baghdad and killed civilians who were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This weeks indiscriminate murder of civilians occurred on Karada Street, a popular shopping didtrict in the babel neighborhood.

The mercs involved work for the Dubai-based company Unity Resources Group. The company confirmed that one of it's security teams was involved in the incident, and for what it's worth, they are conducting an internal investigation.

An American official in Baghdad confirmed that Unity Resources Group was working for RTI International, a non-profit based in North Carolina that offers advice to local governments, and works in Iraq under contract to USAID. No RTI employees were in the convoy at the time of todays murder of civilians.

A spokesman for Unity Resources said that the shooting occured shortly before 2:00 p.m. Baghdad time. He claims that the four-vehicle convoy was “approached at speed by a vehicle. That vehicle failed to stop despite an escalation of warnings including hand signals and a signal flare. Finally, shots were fired and it stopped at that point.”

A shopkeeper who saw the whole thing told a different story. He said that the white SUV's blocked an intersection, and the vehicle that was fired on approached from behind, and was shot first in the radiator. When it failed to stop immediately (the vehicle came to rest about 12 meters from the initial shot) a barrage of gunfire was volleyed from the back of at least one of the SUV's. The man, who would only identify himself as "Mohammed" said he heard no warning of any kind before the shooting. “They shot from the back door,” he said. “The door opened, and they fired.”

He said the convoy moved out right away without checking to see what damage had been done. “They left immediately and did not give any help,” he said. He pointed out to a reporter where the convoy had stopped and where the vehicle had approached from.

Multiple gunshots ripped into the vehicle and killed the two female occupants in the front seat, while two children riding in the back seat survived. The car was towed to a police station and a priest was summoned after the terrified children who survived that the women who fell victim to the thuggery of the mercenaries were Armenian Christians.

The incident takes place under the cloud of Blackwater, which is accused of a wanton murderous rampage on September 16 that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead and 27 wounded.

The shopkeeper who witnessed todays massacre said he was angry, but his anger is directed at the Iraqi government. “We can’t blame the contractors,” he said. “We blame our officials for this. We blame the American government. They’re working here under the authority of the Iraqi government. They did not come here without authority.”

A thumb in the eye of the civilized world

To no ones surprise, but the dismay of civilized people the world over, the partisan hacks on the Roberts court have refused without comment to hear a case brought by a German citizen of Lebanesse descent who claims he was abducted by CIA agents and spirited to a prison in Afghanistan where he was subjected to torture tactics. His case is the most extensively documented instance of the United States practice of "extraiordinary rendition" of terrorism suspects.

The Supremes upheld the unanimous ruling of a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit, which found for the government on the specious grounds of "state secrets."

When the Fourth Circuit refused to hear Mr. al-Masri's case, they had reservations. “We recognize the gravity of our conclusions that el-Masri must be denied a judicial forum for his complaint,” Judge Robert B. King wrote in March. “The inquiry is a difficult one, for it pits the judiciary’s search for truth against the executive’s duty to maintain the nation’s security.” When the Fourth Circuit ruled, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the action “truly unbelievable” and “reminiscent of third-world countries.”

While today's action by the Supremes, which let the ruling by the Fourth Circuit stand, is not a surprise; it is expected to cast a further chill over the relationship between the United States and Germany, strained over the United States bullheaded persistence in prosecuting a failed policy in Iraq.

...Mr. Masri’s lawyer in Germany, Manfred Gnijdic, said the high court’s refusal to consider the case sends a message that the United States expects other nations to act responsibly but refuses to take responsibility for its own
actions.

“We are very disappointed,” Mr. Gnijdic said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It will shatter all trust in the American justice system.”

Mr. Masri contended in his suit that he was seized by local law enforcement officials while vacationing in Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003. At the time, he was 41 years old and an unemployed car salesman.

“They asked a lot of questions — if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood,” Mr. Masri said in a 2005 interview with The New York Times. “I kept saying no, but they did not believe me.”

After 23 days, he said, he was turned over to C.I.A. operatives, who
flew him to a secret C.I.A. prison in Kabul. There, Mr. Masri said, he was kept
in a small, filthy cell and shackled, drugged and beaten while being
interrogated about his supposed ties to terrorist organizations. At the end of
May 2004, Mr. Masri said, he was released in a remote part of Albania without
ever having been charged with a crime.

The CIA has never admitted to involvement in the al-Masri case, but investigators in Europe have found his account credible and arrest warrents have been issued for 13 CIA agents who have been implicated. While it is unlikely that the Bush administration would have any higher regard for the law in another nation when he doesn't even respect it at home, the existence of the warrants will hamper the ability of the agents to move about Europe.

The Constitution Project, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to focus attention on constitutional issues, called the Supreme Court’s refusal to take
up the case “profoundly disappointing.”

“The government’s treatment of Mr. El-Masri has been appalling, and the executive branch should not be permitted to hide its mistakes behind the so-called state secrets privilege,” said the organization’s senior counsel, Sharon Bradford Franklin. “Now that the Court has declined to consider this issue, Congress should immediately take up legislation to reform the state secrets privilege and clarify that it does not authorize unchecked power to disregard individual rights.”

Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has introduced legislation to ban extraordinary rendition, said today that “the Bush administration reflexively responds with the ‘state secrets’ defense whenever it is caught bending or simply ignoring the law.”

I have taken a few moments to contact my Senators and Representative and encourage them to support or sponsor legislation to rein in the abuses of the State Secrets provision that has become a petticoat under which to hide from accountability. I would encourage you to do the same - and remember to be civil.

And if this utter apostasy, this "fuck you" to the rest of the world, does not highlight the importance of a Democrat making the next Supreme Court appointment, I don't know how to reach you.

Osprey deploys, but not without incident

A V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft in flight

After 25 years, 30 lives and $20 Billion dollars, the controvercial V-22 Osprey has been depolyed to Iraq.

Living down to its reputation, even the short hop from the carrier in the gulf to the base in Iraq was troublesome. A malfunction caused one of the birds to have to set down in Jordan and parts had to be choppered back from Iraq to get it to it's destination.

On takeoff, the malfunction recurred, forcing a second set-down on Jordanian soil. Finally the problem was repaired and the Osprey made it to Asad Air Base in Western Iraq a day late.

The Osprey has a pretty iffy history, and quite frankly, the damned thing would have been scrapped a long freakin' time ago if it wasn't a source of major pork for dozens of congressional districts. (Cheney even tried to kill it when he was Secretary of Defense.)

That it is even deployed is jaw-dropping. How it was deployed is pretty definitive proof that the detractors are likely spot-on in their criticisms.

Imagine! An aircraft that costs $110 million each, and spent twenty-five years in development, deployed with no press release or announcement of any kind, in a day and age when the military needs all the feel-good stories they can muster, the long-awaited deployment is hush-hush and the media is barred from the ThunderChickens (that's the nickname of the Marine squadron that flies the birds) for the next several weeks.

The Osprey's mission will be to transport men and materiel. (In other words, it's a flying bus with a lousy safety record.) It's operation area will be the currently-restive Anbar province.

The Osprey's spotty safety record includes three crashes that killed everyone on board.

Another factor to consider is availability of parts. The thing has been in development a quarter of a century. (How many of the companies that originally supplied parts are now defunct?) This is an aircraft that would break sitting in the hangar in North Carolina - how is it going to fare in desert deployment conditions? Bell-Boeing is thinking the same way. They have squirrelled away $100 million in spare parts over the last year to be prepared for this deployment.

Mechanics have resorted to stripping parts from some to keep others ready to sortie. According to a Marine memo that circulated over the summer in advance of the deployment, Ospreys of the same generation as those deployed to Iraq are ready to fly less than 80% of the time, and had full use of their systems less than 62% of the time.

If you are a person of faith, now would probably be a good time to start petitioning your deity or deities on behalf of the Thunder Chickens.