Good news, the State Dept. has issued new rules for it's mercenary force, Blackwater USA. After a live fire incident last month that left 17 iraqis dead, State has decided that maybe we should keep an eye on these guys.Federal Computer Week:
Under the new guidelines, agents from the Bureau of Diplomatic Security will begin accompanying Blackwater's protective details. State officials plan to more closely review reported incidents, record radio transmissions between security details, mount cameras in security vehicles and archive electronic records of the vehicles' movement. The department will also expand existing communications links to U.S. military units operating in the same areas as the Blackwater details.
The bad news -- and those who have been reading my posts for a while know there's always bad news -- is that it's not likely to change a damned thing. The attitude of State toward Blackwater is to let them do whatever the hell they want. In fact, the Standard Operational Procedure seems to be to clean up Blackwater's messes for them. For example, I wrote back in August, "These security officers suck rocks at supplying security. On Christmas Eve, 2006, for example, a drunken Blackwater USA employee shot and killed a guard for the iraqi Vice President. The employee made his way to the US embassy, where he was flown out of the country. Eight months after this murder, he hasn't been charged with any crime."
We've literally helped Blackwater get away with murder -- it was State that helped the murderer flee the country. Given that, how likely is it that these cameras and recorded radio communications, all piped back to the State Dept., are going to make any damned difference at all?...
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