The Iraqi government has terminated a contract with Blackwater USA, a private security firm that has provided cover for non-military US personnel--what our government euphemistically labels "ambassadors", but mostly representatives for various business interests. Last weekend, eight Iraqis were killed, apparently by Blackwater personnel, who have long provided a thuggish presence in Iraq. When outrage by citizens led normally dickish and ineffectual Prime Misister al-Maliki to announce plans to prosecute the Blackwater goons responsible, it was quickly pointed out that, according to terms drawn up by the US occupying forces, the government can't prosecute American contractors.
This is the democracy we've given them, ladies and gentlemen. This is the "victory" we're fighting for.
Oh, and according to a respected British polling firm, the number of Iraqi civilian dead could be as high as one million. That's one-sixth of the number of dead from the Nazi Holocaust.
The latest number of dead American troops: 3782.
The number of lives destroyed is, of course, beyond calculation.
Here's the final sequence of Milos Forman's adaptation of Hair, made in 1979, about the sixties, with absolutely no relevance today.
