Blackwater: Did anyone hear this???

[Jamougha]

Dbl,

[ QUOTE ]

Change the dates, and this report is pretty much a standard form letter for these guys.

Its always the same "They were cleared, but they shouldn't have been."

[/ QUOTE ]

An apparently closed door investigation by the US suffers from a lack of credibility. I have no idea what happened but I wouldn't count this as a major piece of evidence if I were to try to find out.

[DblBarrelJ]

There was nothing closed door about it. You misread my point. The point is, these guys are constantly accused of crimes, and always cleared.

Why does this happen?

#1. Perception - These guys are labeled as terrorists by a few nutjobs in the media, and the treatment is given to them so often that the average person buys into it.

#2. Credibility - I've become convinced any journalist who happens to be in Iraq will take down any and every story any Iraqi civilian tells them as they walk down the streets concerning the US Military, or Blackwater, publish it verbatim, without even going through the basic journalistic process of finding three sources which agree before publishing, then call the street story "fact." Then the same journalist will become incredulous when the State Dept actually investigates and says "uhhh No."

Also, another point I'd like to make about articles such as the post article is that they're always filled with these mystical "anonymous sources".

I'll accept an anonymous source on rare occasion, but one thing I've learned from police work is that most "anonymous" sources want to remain anonymous for one of three reasons. Either they:

A) Are lying
B) Don't Exist
C) Fear for their lives

more often than not, in my experience, A and B are the popular choices.

While I whole heartedly support, and am a strong defender of the 1st amendment, that also comes with a price. You are absolutely free to print and say anything you so desire, but, when you lose credibility for doing so, it's not my problem.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where the media has become responsible for its own credibility, as the story I've linked in the OP will never be given headline coverage. Think about it. I'm not just talking Blackwater here, I'm talking news in general, when is the last time you've actually seen a news organization say "We were wrong, this is the truth" in an easily accessable fashion, rather than on the back of the "Living" section, right in between the Obituaries and the Personal Ads?

[Taso]

Shame on you, blackwater!

[DblBarrelJ]

[ QUOTE ]
Shame on you, blackwater!

[/ QUOTE ]

Thank you, Taso.

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
There was nothing closed door about it. You misread my point. The point is, these guys are constantly accused of crimes, and always cleared.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually there was the incident with the 17 dead Iraqis where both the Iraq investigation, the military investigation & the subsequent FBI investigation found that 14 of those 17 deaths were inexcusable.

But it is very unclear if they can be prosecuted. And that is unfortunate. Do something similar as an soldier and you risk spending a good bit of time in Leavenworth. Now if an incident like that alone is enough to warrant huge wide accusation of BW behavior is very doubtful. Incidents like this do (unfortunately) happen in war.

What isn't excusable is if they walk because there isn't even the OPTION to prosecute, _then_ someone messed up.

War is a bad thing and when even worse things happen, we need the ability to punish the transgressors of rules of engagement to stop it from escalating into something very, very bad.

[Money2Burn]

[ QUOTE ]
What isn't excusable is if they walk because there isn't even the OPTION to prosecute, _then_ someone messed up.

War is a bad thing and when even worse things happen, we need the ability to punish the transgressors of rules of engagement to stop it from escalating into something very, very bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tame, I agree with most of the stuff you've posted in this thread. It seems like there is a HUGE conflict of interest for either the US or Iraq to be conducting investigations of Blackwater. There should be independant investigations held for these types of events by a neutral third party.

[tame_deuces]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
What isn't excusable is if they walk because there isn't even the OPTION to prosecute, _then_ someone messed up.

War is a bad thing and when even worse things happen, we need the ability to punish the transgressors of rules of engagement to stop it from escalating into something very, very bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tame, I agree with most of the stuff you've posted in this thread. It seems like there is a HUGE conflict of interest for either the US or Iraq to be conducting investigations of Blackwater. There should be independant investigations held for these types of events by a neutral third party.

[/ QUOTE ]

Something along those lines would do wonders for credibility, so it does seem like a very good idea.