Private Crime in a Public War

by Brian Sullivan · 2009-01-08 08:06:00 UTC
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Sifting focus away from the domestic criminal justice system, CNN.com reported on Tuesday that five former Blackwater employees have plead not guilty to murder charges in the shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis. The defendants claim that they were defending themselves on a battlefield in a war zone, and thus that the killings were justified. The defendants also claim that they are immune from the current prosecution. I don't think that I am being hypocritical when I say that this is one of those cases where I have little sympathy for the criminal defendants.

To begin with, the whole idea of private contractors enforcing America's will abroad on a battlefield is strange to me. It seems to put an artificial barrier between private and public power. Think of these guys as an extension of the US military. They loose my sympathy because they are an integral part of concerted exertion of force and violence that I find completely objectionable. The one sympathy vote they get arises from the artificial public/private barrier at play here. I am guessing that these Blackwater employees feel pretty picked on. And in a way they are right. Focusing on Blackwater just because they are a private organization can divert attention away from other attrocities and civilian casualties committed in this war. The fact that they are a private organization is problematic for a whole host of reasons, but the violence they participate in abroad should be understood as part of the US military's overall program.

The second prong of the defense's legal theory is also troubling. Blackwater's position seems to be that they are subject to no court's jurisdiction. Not only are they innocent, they just can't be touched by a court. The Justice Department can't go after them, the Iraqi government can't go after them, and the State Department supposedly offered some sort of immunity. They get to basically just do what they want. This utter lack of oversight and control is exactly the sort of thing that Change.org's immigration blogger Dave Bennion criticized in a recent post.

And in case you are wondering, yes, I did link to Dave's post because it mentions one of my former posts.

Brian Sullivan
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