“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.” – Ernest Hemingway
“I’m a business guy just trying to make – provide our great services to customers that need us.” – Erik Prince, Founder of Blackwater Services.
Few things about our quagmire in Iraq, a slog that has lasted going on two decades now, are as clear in hindsight as the hubris reflected throughout the preparation and execution of its launch. We would be in and out promised Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the plans were geared to a few months, tops – this was long overdue. “I can’t tell you if it will last five days, five weeks of five months,” Rumsfeld mused to reporters in 2003, “but it certainly won’t last longer than that.”
Indeed, as “shock and awe” played out once the green light was given, whether or not Saddam Hussein actually possessed the large cache of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) aside, most accepted routing Iraqi forces was not going to be a problem. Of course, in retrospect, getting in was simply letting the genie out of the bottle; getting out – a subject given far too little consideration by W’s team – was the real problem from the start.
Blackwater USA received its first Iraqi war contract in August of 2003, a $21 million no-bidder to provide protection to top US administrator Paul Bremer and staff. The company, established in 1997 with the mission statement of providing “training and support to military and law enforcement organizations,” would eventually garner more than $300 million worth of business within the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of operation, most all in no-bid contract awards. The company would subsequently be accused by both US military leaders and State Department personnel of cutting corners and pursuing procedures with as much a mind toward corporate frugality as attaining objectives. This mindset also seemed to permeate the quality of its staff on the ground.
From the start, both military and diplomatic officials had a problem with civilians, armed to the teeth and wholly outside the bounds of both disciplinary and procedural channels most all other US personnel in-country were subject to. These reservations only intensified as Blackwater contractors often gratuitously disregarded directives designed to show Iraqis a degree of respect for both their nation and religion. Despite such misgivings the Coalition Provisional Authority issued Order Number 17, which granted Blackwater and other private contractors full immunity from Iraqi laws. Thus, a combustible situation was created that would only become more volatile the longer the occupation lasted. Time was not an ally.
The worst happened at Nisour Square, Baghdad on September 16, 2007 when Blackwater contractors, while providing security for a US Embassy convoy, opened fire on Iraqi civilians. The horrific scene, indiscriminate machine gun fire that killed 17 and wounded 20, including women and children, joined Abu Gharib as an atrocity Iraqis would not forget, an indelible stain on the sliver of moral authority the US may have still possessed. The contractors involved claimed they had come under attack, few witnesses corroborated that version of events.
No less than five separate investigations, including one by the FBI concluded the shootings were unprovoked, and nearly every victim was an innocent unarmed civilian, including women and children. Four of the shooters were not only singled out by Iraqi witnesses but also Blackwater colleagues, one of whom actually pointed his gun at a suspect to make him stop firing. After years of legal wrangling, much of it that sought to exonerate the primary perpetrators based on a variety of issues other than the facts and evidence, on October 22, 2014, a federal jury handed down one first degree murder and three manslaughter convictions. But even after the group was sentenced, an appeals court ordered they be retried and Nick Slatten, who was serving a life sentence for murder, be judged separately from the others. Again, their cases were heard, and yet again their convictions and sentences upheld. Presumably, a very dark chapter of America’s Iraq war folly was finally closed.
It’s become increasingly more difficult to chronicle the constant chaos affiliated with the end of the Trump Presidency. Far from simply “winding down,” each day begins and ends with yet another previously unimaginable assault on the very basis of America’s system of governance. Despite every indication our electoral process withstood the most dangerous challenge it ever faced, repose remains impossible because, like a disemboweled white walker in Game of Thrones, or the final scene of Terminator, the vanquished has no ability to cease activity. no capacity for moving on from defeat.
The dilemma with Trump is, despite full recognition publicity is all that impels him, he simply remains too dangerous and destructive to ignore. Worse, depending on how criminally servile the GOP remains to the militancy his mindless tweets will constantly exhort from his wretched core, similar malevolence may continue into the future, particularly if prosecutors pursue justice – as they must – when he leaves office. Trump and the Fox/AM political class he has weaponized may not allow the nation they’ve tormented to move on, their ruinous nihilism too dangerous to disregard, even if humoring it provides undeserved legitimacy.
The menu of options that will remain available to him until Biden takes his oath offers a buffet of outrages limited only by his attention span, and the imagination of the cabal of fringe elements still vying for his approval. And although the list is only available for another three weeks, the consequences of each offering will endure, depending on how difficult, or even possible it is to repair them. The growing monstrosity of White House pardons, including wiping out the convictions of the Nisour Square killers, fits squarely in that wheel house.
It’s a certainty Trump did not think up the incalculably seditious act of undoing thirteen years of democratic machinations necessary to show the free world we used to lead that, despite fits and starts, at the end of the day our good faith to live up to gaudy rhetoric is true enough to follow. No doubt, he gave the whole matter less thought than deciding to take a nine-foot gimme putt, or casually kick his Titelist 3 onto the short grass. Yet and still, the damage will linger long into the future, both at home and abroad.
Here it punctuates MAGA’s cynical premise that personal accountability is a relative concept, wholly dependent on what the Fox/AM narrative affixes. Americans in war zones can only be heroic, finding fault with them is by definition unpatriotic. Whatever collateral damage citizens under US occupation suffer never rises to a level that justifies taking Americans who inflict it to task. That’s article one of America First, baby! Our brave warriors are blameless, regardless of what capacity they are serving in. That few in the GOP leadership have made a peep about wave-of-the-hand sanctioning of mass murder merely adds more shame to its shamelessness, while making it harder to conjure the party as anything but Trumpist into the future.
Worst of all is how the pardons color perceptions of American power internationally. To allies and adversaries alike, Trump’s idiocy enfeebles the top priority of Biden’s foreign policy: restoring the perception of America’s determination to lead, its willingness to employ power for principles. The idea an incoming administration has no capability to reverse the absolute nadir of conduct by its predecessor is a very inauspicious place to begin changing course. It undermines the Trump-as-aberration pitch Biden has no choice but to aggressively sell. Continuity was always the strength of US policy, pardoned murderers only reinforce the appearance we are starting from scratch, which makes the task even harder.
Colin Powell famously quipped invading a country conveyed full responsibility to the conquerer – “you break it, you own it” – the implication being the costs may come to outweigh the benefits. Such wisdom was no doubt applicable to US forays into both Iraq and Afghanistan, but surely even more apt to the civic catastrophe of electing a sociopathic nihilist President. Trump’s desperate take on the legal and financial vagaries he will soon face sans executive privilege is making certain we pay top dollar to the very end for that hideous mistake. Some price tags will be higher than others, but the disgusting pardon of the Blackwater killers will be steeper than most. The world will make certain we pay it for years to come, yet another needless Trump expense that will keep on costing. BC