Blackwatergate

[babylonsister]

Blackwatergate
by Charlie Cray

“More than in most criminal law areas, prosecution of corporate criminals has a significant element of general deterrence,” the Department of Justice’s new strategic plan for 2007-2012 suggests.

Yet everyday we see more evidence that the Bush administration’s Department of Justice has no interest in deterring the ongoing epidemic of corporate crime.

During yesterday’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Blackwater, for instance, we heard about how a drunk Blackwater employee killed one of Iraqi Vice President Abdul-Mahdi’s bodyguards in the Green Zone on December 24.

Not only was the unnamed Blackwater employee almost immediately flown out of Iraq to avoid prosecution under the Iraqi legal system, but 10 months after the case was referred to the Department of Justice, he apparently has yet to face any charges. In fact, not one Blackwater or other private military contract employee has been charged for crimes committed in Iraq.

It’s obvious that problems like that are the inevitable result of the use of private contractors. And rather than try to regulate them (as Rep. Price has proposed in his bill — an approach that I previously endorsed but now do not because, as Jeremy Scahill has pointed out, the law would be virtually unenforceable), we need to push for a reversal of the privatization of war. More on that soon.

But what escapes this discussion so far, is how the Blackwater case fits the broader pattern of the Bush administration’s almost total failure to enforce the law against corporations.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/04/4322/

[Me.]

1. Another Corallary To Valerie Plame

"* The Department still has not cleared Halliburton of any charges resulting from a grand jury investigation into the company’s decision to conduct business in Iran in violation of Treasury Department regulations"