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Hessians Redux: Blackwater, U.S. and England
By Dr. Sam Hamod
09/20/07 "ICH" --- - It's strange that most of our American
brethren have forgotten the Hessians, the mercenaries the
British hired to fight against us in the Revolutionary War. You
may recall that George Washington and his small band of
patriots, men who were fighting for their country, crossed the
Delaware River during the icy winter season in small boats and
caught the Hessians unaware in Trenton and defeated them and
broke the spirit of the British regulars who had depended on the
famed Hessian mercenaries to finish off General Washington and
his troops.
These Hessians were mercenaries, fighting for money, not for any
moral cause; the Blackwater "security" people are mercenaries
and who come from all over the world, South Africa, the Congo,
Chile, Nicaragua and other places. Though Blackwater is an
"American firm," its mercenaries are not all Americans, though
some are. But, they, like the Hessians, are there for money, to
do the bidding of those who wish to occupy a land against the
will of the natives of that land—in our case, we were fighting
for our independence, in the case of the Iraqis they are
fighting for their country. We label them "terrorists" for
fighting for their families, their homes and their religion—but
we label Blackwater, "security forces"! Ah, what euphemisms,
wrongful labeling and upside down semantics can do for you.
To this day, though I and others have written thousands of
articles making clear that the analogies between Americans
fighting for their country and the Iraqis fighting for theirs,
in both cases, from foreign invaders, and against mercenaries
hired to kill them, is clear and is an unequivocally honest
analogy. While most analogies have flaws in them, this one does
not. At this point, according to the AP and Reuters wire
services, the mercenaries of Blackwater outnumber our American
troops in Iraq. Remember also, that we, as taxpayers are paying
for these mercenaries to work for the benefit of Halliburton,
Bechtel and other American companies who are ensconced in Iraq
at our government's pleasure. Blackwater was not invited in by
American taxpayers, nor by our congress. Not only that, but they
have caused so much mischief, that according to some veterans,
there have been firefights between U.S. troops and Blackwater
mercenaries. Add to that they huge salaries these mercenaries
are being paid, upward of $5000 per day in some cases, but never
less than $1500 per day, compared to the salaries our regular
military, our reserves and our national guard are being paid,
and you can see something is out of whack in this situation. In
addition, our military has certain rules of engagement and
behavior, though Rumsfeld and company have even destroyed our
commitment to the Geneva Conventions and the common decency and
morality our troops learned in their churches and
synagogues—whereas Blackwater has no rules of engagement and no
desire or regulation to follow Geneva Conventions—and in most
cases that have been reported, they have not.
Of course, one must add, that even we, the American government,
was not invited into Iraq either. So we have two forces that are
encroaching illegally on another country; one is a government,
ours, and the other is a mercenary killer force that has no
legitimacy except to make money at the expense of the lives of
others. This does not put us in a very good light, does it?
Then add this little nugget to this mix—why is Blackwater
protecting our State Department personnel when we have American
troops that could do the job as well if not better? Aren't our
troops there to protect our personnel, or just what are our
troops there for? Is it possible they are there to kill people,
not to protect our personnel? How Americans realize we've helped
create a Hessian monster in Iraq that has killed thousands of
Iraqi civilians, as was exemplified this week when civilians
were killed needlessly because some macho Blackwater killers
opened fire on civilians because they were to close to a convoy
they were "protecting" ( in lieu of American troops)!
Please tell me how, with our destruction of the "City of
Mosques", Fallujah, anyone with even half-a-brain can think that
we Americans can "hearts and minds" when we have people like
Blackwater operating with no boundaries of behavior, when our
troops and planes are involved with the wholesale destruction of
mosques and churches, when 72% of the Iraqi people want us to
leave (though some of our puppets who are out of power, Allawi
and Chalabi still crow that "America must stay").
As I said before in COUNTERPUNCH.COM, this illegal and immoral
war began, Bush was opening Pandora's Box and the tiger would
come out and devour him and us. And it has. We have lost
thousands of our young people in Iraq, we killed or are
responsible for,according to a new British military estimate
that was published this week in England, over 1 million
Iraqis—and to what avail?
Now we have come to another moral milestone and we are already
showing we are going to make another wrong choice. The nominal
leader of Iraq, Mr. Maliki has ordered that Blackwater leave and
has no right to operate in Iraq because of its frequent and
unlawful killing of Iraqis. The first American government
response was to defend Blackwater and even question if the
Iraqis have the right, through their democratically elected
government to make such an order without our American
governmental consent. One of the U.S. spokespersons said that
according to the laws we (we Americans) passed about Iraq,
allows our security firms and military in Iraq not to be
prosecuted or governed by the Iraqis government or anyone else!
How's that for Chutzpah! We had our puppets in power, much like
Hitler had the Vichy in France, to pass laws that would give us
complete power and non-responsibility for any illegal or immoral
acts—and certainly killing people who are civilians and blowing
up their homes on pure suspicion or no suspicion because you
want revenge is wrong and should be punished. But no, though our
government is seen by the world, see the UN and other
international polls that rank America as 3rd behind Israel and
Iran as the most distrusted nations—and you can see that we are
stepping further into the abyss –all in order to justify our
Hessians.
One of the reasons our military went on a major bombing and
killing spree in the early days of the Iraq occupation was that
4 mercenaries were attacked and brutally killed. These men knew
they were taking risks for a huge salary—some of these 3 men
were reputed to make thousands of dollars per day, and they were
on missions to kill Iraqis.
I hate to see anyone killed for any reason. But, in this case,
what would you do if you had people in your country killing your
family and friends, would you sit by and just let them do it or
would you fight back? If the Russians or Chinese came into
America tomorrow with their troops and over 150,000 mercenaries
to take over our country, brutalize our wives and children and
take over our lives, wouldn't you fight back? Of course we
would. That what the Iraqis are doing.
Blackwater is not America, it is an out and out mercenary hiring
firm that is not only operating in Iraq but is now being hired
to do more and more work in America, against American citizens
and their rights. Just look into the situation and you'll see
how this infamy and immorality has spread, without the
realization of most of our citizenry who understand so little of
it all.
Al Maliki has set himself on a collision course with Blackwater
and the American government by his statement that Blackwater no
longer has a right to operate in Iraq. In the past month or two,
there have been utterings out of Washington, that our government
is tired of Al Maliki and would like to see him replaced by
Allawi. From what I've read, we are even helping fund Allawi's
campaign to return to power. We'll just have to wait and see how
long Al Maliki can survive. The thing that worries me is that I
fear our government will stand behind Blackwater, the Hessians,
and that this terrible war will go on indefinitely, or at least
until someone intercedes against us, because, as I said when
this lousy war first began, "In order to take control of Iraq,
you'll have to kill every Iraqi, man, woman and child." If it
was up to Blackwater and some in our government, they would do
this—all for the sake of power and oil.
Tis a sad day, a day that President George Washington would
condemn.
C: Sam Hamod, Sept. 18, 2007
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