h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now I know I'm'a get a lot of flak for this, but nobody's innocent.

The contractors in question in the attack in Falluja were American-sponsored mercenaries. According to both the Guardian and the Village Voice, they were employees of Blackwater Security Consulting, which states that its mission is to "provide the client with veteran military, intelligence and law enforcement professionals with demonstrated field operations performance tempered with mature experience in both foreign and domestic requirements."

According to the Voice, "Often, they have been seen in military garb but without the insignias that would formally designate them as U.S. military." The New York Times state that they were wearing flak jackets and that locals had retrieved dog tags from them. The locals interviewed from the mob labelled them as "spies" and said it was "necessary" to kill them. Under Geneva conventions, they /are/ an irregular force and as such can in fact be treated as spies.

No source, however, gave a reason as to why they were in a hostile territory without a military escort. But speaking of military escorts, the contractors are specifically targetted by the Iraqis because they pose an even more abhorrent occupation than the US Army does. The extremists, in this case Sunni loyalists who view the occupation as American dissolution of Iraqi sovereignty, may be acting on the view represented by a Baghdad construction manager last October: "US contractors are importing labor and expatriating the benefits. Where's the benefit accruing to Iraq?"

According to the Department of Commerce, all but a handful of the contracts were no-bid or closed-bid handouts to American companies. Only three companies were not American, merely one Arab (Jordan business Shaheen - the other two were UK company Foster Wheeler and Israeli manufacturer MDT Armor, a subsidiary of US company Arotech), and all granted within the last two months.

In an interview with two US soldiers on leave this past February by Jay Shaft, editor of the Coalition For Free Thought In Media, the sentiment expressed as much:

Soldier 1 - "We can't even go out in convoy with anyone from Halliburton or Bechtel without drawing a crowd of angry Iraqis. They hate the Halliburton and Bechtel guys worse than they hate the soldiers. It's like painting a target on your back just to travel with those contractors and try to protect them."

Soldier 2- "Let me jump in here. I want to say that I am extremely mad that Halliburton and Bechtel have better equipment than our own troops do. The contractors have fully armored Hummers and the best body armor. The have us escort them in our lightly armored Humvees and they ride in heavily armored vehicles...."

And in an article by the UK Financial Times, "General Janis Karpinski, who is overseeing the prison [reconstruction] program, says she has had "no single security incident" involving Iraqi [sub]contractors."

Fishy? It /all/ stinketh.

Things I learned today:

1) Not only do WE know we're running a colonization with plenty of kickbacks, the Iraqis know it, too.

2) America hires mercenaries (wow!), and their justification is to lessen the impact on public sentiment that deploying formal military brings.

I think you are brave writing this. I fully support you.

Vestboy