Left I on the News

(At least!). To the surprise of no one who has been paying attention, and with the usual alacrity that the U.S. Congress follows up on such matters (that is to say, none), a Congressional Committee has concluded:

Blackwater USA triggered a major battle in the Iraq war in 2004 by sending an unprepared team of guards into an insurgent stronghold, a move that led to their horrific deaths and a violent response by U.S. forces, says a congressional investigation released Thursday.

That battle killed, we are told, 200 insurgents and an estimated 600 civilians (the "11" in the headline refers to the Iraqis that Blackwater mercenaries killed directly two weeks ago, which led to their banning (quickly replaced by their non-banning)).

It's worth reprinting an article I posted from Ha'aretz shortly after the massacre of Fallujah three years ago to remind ourselves of what happened in Fallujah:

During the first two weeks of this month, the American army committed war crimes in Falluja on a scale unprecedented for this war. According to the relatively few media reports of what took place there, some 600 Iraqis were killed during these two weeks, among them some 450 elderly people, women and children.

The sight of decapitated children, the rows of dead women and the shocking pictures of the soccer stadium that was turned into a temporary grave for hundreds of the slain - all were broadcast to the world only by the Al Jazeera network.

Mass graves in Iraq? Thank Blackwater (and the government that chose to privatize the war and hire them in the first place).