Last week at the gates of the mercenary company Blackwater, nonviolent protesters who re-enacted an infamous Blackwater shooting were arrested. “Blackwater” author Jeremy Scahill notes: “The arrest of the activists and the subsequent five days they spent locked up in jail is more punishment than any Blackwater mercenaries have received for their deadly actions against Iraqi civilians.”
Alternet:
Last week in Currituck County, N.C., Superior Court Judge Russell Duke presided over the final step in securing the first criminal conviction stemming from the deadly actions of Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration’s favorite mercenary company. Lest you think you missed some earth-shifting, breaking news, hold on a moment. The “criminals” in question were not the armed thugs who gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 20 others in Baghdad’s Nisour Square last September. They were seven nonviolent activists who had the audacity to stage a demonstration at the gates of Blackwater’s 7,000-acre private military base in North Carolina to protest the actions of mercenaries acting with impunity—and apparent immunity—in their names and those of every American.
The arrest of the activists and the subsequent five days they spent locked up in jail is more punishment than any Blackwater mercenaries have received for their deadly actions against Iraqi civilians. “The courts pretend that adherence to the law is what makes for an orderly and peaceable world,” said Steve Baggarly, one of the protest organizers. “In fact, U.S. law and courts stand idly by while the U.S. military and private armies like Blackwater have killed, maimed, brutalized and destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.”
A month after the Nisour Square massacre, on Oct. 20, a group of about 50 activists gathered outside Blackwater’s gates in Moyock, N.C. There, they reenacted the Nisour Square shooting and staged a “die-in,” involving a vehicle painted with bullet marks and blood. The activists stained their clothing with fake blood and dramatized the deadly shooting spree. Some of the demonstrators marked Blackwater’s large welcome sign—with the company’s bear claw in a sniper scope logo—with red hand prints. The demonstrators believed these “would be a much more appropriate logo for Blackwater,” according to Baggarly. “We’re all responsible for what is happening in Iraq. We all have bloody hands.” It took only moments for the local police to respond to the protest, the first ever at Blackwater’s headquarters. In the end, seven were arrested.
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Jump to Comments
By Conservative Yankee, January 30 at 2:43 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
... Try “Mr Tambourine Man”
Though i know that evening’s empire has returned into sand
vanished from my hand
left me blindly here to stand
but still not sleepin
my weariness amazes me - i’m branded on my feet
i have no one to meet
and my ancient empty street’s
too dead for dreamin
hey mister tambourine man, play a song for me
i’m not sleepy and there is no place i’m going to
hey mister tambourine man, play a song for me
in the jingle jangle morning i’ll come followin you
much more to the point.....no?
Report thisBy ocjim, January 30 at 1:16 pm #
The man is a disgrace, an embarrassment to the human race.
Report thisBy amunaor, January 30 at 10:26 am #
Bob Dylan eloquently frames this thought, in a melodious stanza of haunting soliloquy:
Its not dark yet, but its getting there.
Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
Report thisBy Jim Yell, January 30 at 8:24 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
It is a shame that so few people pay any attention to history, except maybe to laudatory historical biography.
History makes it clear that a democracy that doesn’t protect its citizens rights is soon to be a democracy in name only.
If it wasn’t for the mindless news about Britney, Speers and others to misdirect peoples minds from their own interests, some one might remember that private armies destroy the countries that tolerate them. Now thanks to hundreds of millions of taxpayers money, no bid contracts and criminal intent of the current administration and its enablers we will in the future find ourselves with groups of private killers, that will make the crimes of the Pinkerton Detectives seem almost friendly.
Report thisBy Sang Ze, January 30 at 4:57 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hooray for American justice!
Report thisBy James, January 29 at 10:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
This reminds me of the guy who stole the Poindexter sign in Brown County Indiana. Poindexter was implicated in the Iran Cantra affair but got off scott free. The town wanted to honor him so named the street in front of the school after him, understandable since he is the towns most famous native son. This all happened after congress was done. A local hippy resident thought this a travesty and one night stole the sign and hid it in the woods. Big search sign never found, the man spent 3 or 4 days in jail, more than the convicted, but overturned, felon Poindexter.
Report thisBy purplewolf, January 29 at 9:42 pm #
It is time to ban the bible. Anyone who actually reads it starting with the old testament will see a book that is filled with violence, murder, rape, incest,and unjust actions against others. Why anyone would consider this “the good book” is beyond me. As for Blackwater claiming they are Christians, they are using the parts of the bible that justify killing those from other villages and not from your own village as God says it’s okay to do so. Pretty damn funny, as they are the invaders in Iraq.
The Constitution, yeah right, is there still any of it left that still stands for integrity we once had before Bush?
We are now 90% of the way to being a police state, or not to far from that now. Bush still has a year to screw of over some more.
Report thisBy justsomeguy, January 29 at 7:19 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
We better be nice to the folks at Blackwater. Since the National Guardsmen at in Iraq, it will be the mercenaries who are sent in to protect us during the next false flag terror attack. We don’t want the same treatment as those ungrateful Iraqis.
pdd-51 the end is near
Report thisBy jdogg333, January 29 at 7:11 pm #
Any relation to David Duke? Inquiring minds want to know. Where was the ‘media’ coverage on this?
This clip is from 2006:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/video/200 7/12/12/VI2007121201544.html
The Smirking Decider reacts in typical fashion.
Report thisBy Don Stivers, January 29 at 6:39 pm #
Of course the protesters get more punishment. Remember a couple of years ago all you could hear on the radio was FFFFFfrreedom. We must go to war for ffffffrreedom. Freedom to kill but not to demonstrate.
Report thisBy QuyTran, January 29 at 6:29 pm #
These mercenaries aren’t human beings.
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