Pioneering Blackwater Protesters Given Secret Trial

[katty]

more: http://www.alternet.org/rights/75244

Pioneering Blackwater Protesters Given Secret Trial and Criminal Conviction

By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet. Posted January 29, 2008.

Protesters who re-enacted one of Blackwater's worst civilian massacres in Iraq got jail time, while the real killers remain free.

Last week in Currituck County, N.C., Superior Court Judge Russell Duke presided over the final step in securing the first criminal conviction stemming from the deadly actions of Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration's favorite mercenary company. Lest you think you missed some earth-shifting, breaking news, hold on a moment. The "criminals" in question were not the armed thugs who gunned down 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded more than 20 others in Baghdad's Nisour Square last September. They were seven nonviolent activists who had the audacity to stage a demonstration at the gates of Blackwater's 7,000-acre private military base in North Carolina to protest the actions of mercenaries acting with impunity -- and apparent immunity -- in their names and those of every American.

The arrest of the activists and the subsequent five days they spent locked up in jail is more punishment than any Blackwater mercenaries have received for their deadly actions against Iraqi civilians. "The courts pretend that adherence to the law is what makes for an orderly and peaceable world," said Steve Baggarly, one of the protest organizers. "In fact, U.S. law and courts stand idly by while the U.S. military and private armies like Blackwater have killed, maimed, brutalized and destroyed the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis."

A month after the Nisour Square massacre, on Oct. 20, a group of about 50 activists gathered outside Blackwater's gates in Moyock, N.C. There, they reenacted the Nisour Square shooting and staged a "die-in," involving a vehicle painted with bullet marks and blood.

[fenriswolf]

1. they don't actually allow all the

mercenaries who were trained under dictators in the US right? they stay outside the US....right? we don't actually let blood thirsty murderers stay in here right?

[TechBear_Seattle]

2. Apalling, but not at all surprising n/t

[katty]

3. yes, not surprising given the 'brownshirts' atmosphere of the US

[juno jones]

4. Is it fascism yet?

Or until one's own relatives start dissappearing for secret trials which no one is allowed to divulge the details of, with charges that aren't made clear, and wittnesses that are introduced with no warning, with no Habeus Corpus or right to face accusers...until THAT day, we will keep on shopping because there is not the barest whiff of authoritarianism here, someone in governement would have warned us if there was. 'Besides,' we will rationalize, 'ol' Uncle Ed had it coming what with that peace crap and concern for brown people. Deserved everything he got too. Pinko.'

[Fovea]

5. Yes.

And it has been for 7 years now.
We have just been slow catching on.
The rest of the world figured it out sooner
but were and still are afraid to pull the switch
on our economy.

I feel their pain. It will hurt them a lot.
But an economic war against the US would reduce us to
North Korea status faster than one suspects.

But here, no. Since the Military Commissions Act, we cannot even pretend
that there is a rule of law to enforce, other than the dictates
of the deciderer.

His open comtempt in producing the emails legally subpeona'd should tell you
all you need to know about what kind of nation you live in.

[Corkey Mineola]

6. where can i find pictures or video of the protest

Sounds super cool.

Justice in Amerika is very hard to come by.

[R_M]

7. I have no sympathy for any "mercenary" who is killed.

They are terrorists and deserve what they get. :puke: