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Hessians Redux: Blackwater, US and England

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Info Clearing House - Sep 20, 2007
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18429.htm

Hessians Redux: Blackwater, U.S. and England

By Dr. Sam Hamod

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.

Copyright Sam Hamod, Sept. 18, 2007

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