'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

The price of democracy? (Iraq)

This piece of reporting, by Awadh al-Taee and Steve Negus of the Financial Times, is worth reading every word of.

It adds another dimension to the "First shoot, then lie" story I posted here ten days ago. Namely, that it's not only the US troops who do this, but also the many private "security contractors", i.e. foreign mercenaries, now rampaging their way around Iraq.

One particular twist in this story is that the miscreant mob was, as Taee and Negus wrote:

a three-vehicle convoy belonging to a private security company, transporting a foreigner working to facilitate Iraq's parliamentary elections

The mercenaries in that convoy shot their way through a crowded intersection, leaving behind them two bullet-injured Iraqi motorists, one of whom died of his wound later that day.

Is this a case of "we had to kill this Iraqi voter in order to save his ability to vote?"

How on earth does the foreign "electoral specialist" in question feel about this incident? How should he or she feel? (Actually, does she or he even know about what happened there?)

But do please read the whole of Taee and Negus's fine story, which incisively shows how the stark power imbalance between Iraqi citizens and armed foreigners in their land impacts upon the Iraqis.

At one point they write:

Under constant threat from suicide attackers driving explosive-rigged cars, coalition soldiers and contractors follow combat zone rules of engagement to protect themselves: warn drivers who stray too close, but if that fails, shoot. With procedures designed to protect the identities of anyone who might be singled out for retaliation, the victim's families may never know what happened, let alone obtain justice. [And who keeps those 'procedures' in place, I wonder? ~HC]

In this case, the situation was eventually resolved to the satisfaction of the victim's family after negotiation with the security company. However, it is not clear if the parties would have found each other had foreign journalists not been involved.

Huge kudos to Taee and Negus for their reporting, and to the FT for publishing this piece.

I wonder (!) why we have seen no such careful and hard-hitting reporting in the US media?

I also note that even though Taee and Negus work for the grand "Pink old lady" of pro-capitalist journalism, they admit that they and their paper still felt intimidated enough by the "security company" involved that they did not actually use its name in the story: "its country manager, "John" (a pseudonym) preferred that it not be named. Given the very real risk of retaliation, the FT agreed not to do so."

Pseudonymous foreign managers, anonymous western companies, lies, evasions, and killings... Yes, welcome to the "New Iraq™".

By the way, Taee and Negus give us this very poignant little portrait of the man killed:

The unarmed victim of the January 23 shooting was Abd al-Naser Abbas al-Dulaimi, age 29. Unmarried, he worked in the power station across the river to support his mother, two sisters, and the two children of an older brother who went missing in the 1991 Kuwait war. When he was shot, say police, he was out looking for petrol, which most Iraqis are forced to buy on the black market because of a recent shortage at the pumps. They found no weapons on his body, nor in his car.

Ullah yerhamu (God have mercy on him.) But what about all the dependents he left behind? Who will have mercy on them?