Trouble in paradise

So, it turns out that Blackwater USA, the U.S. government-contracted security company involved in the shooting deaths of unarmed civilians in Baghdad last week, has been involved in several violent episodes this year in which civilians were killed. Plus, the Washington Post reported today, Iraqi government officials have complained about incidents involving Blackwater several times, but were ignored by U.S. officials. Well, isn't this getting juicy. We have hired mercenaries to protect diplomats in Iraq and they have been committing atrocities against Iraqi civilians. We have to stop it. The Iraqi government is powerless to do anything because of laws passed by the old U.S.-dominated provisional government giving security contractors immunity from liability. I suppose that might have been understandable when Iraq had no governmental authorities in place, but that is not the situation now, and the Iraqis are justifiably unhappy about the situation. I wonder if President Bush is willing to take time from his Web site review duties to get to the bottom of this.