Hessians Redux: Blackwater, U.S. and England

By Dr. Sam Hamod

09/20/07 "ICH" --- - It's strange that most of our American brethren have forgotten the Hessians, the mercenaries the British hired to fight against us in the Revolutionary War. You may recall that George Washington and his small band of patriots, men who were fighting for their country, crossed the Delaware River during the icy winter season in small boats and caught the Hessians unaware in Trenton and defeated them and broke the spirit of the British regulars who had depended on the famed Hessian mercenaries to finish off General Washington and his troops.

These Hessians were mercenaries, fighting for money, not for any moral cause; the Blackwater "security" people are mercenaries and who come from all over the world, South Africa, the Congo, Chile, Nicaragua and other places. Though Blackwater is an "American firm," its mercenaries are not all Americans, though some are. But, they, like the Hessians, are there for money, to do the bidding of those who wish to occupy a land against the will of the natives of that land—in our case, we were fighting for our independence, in the case of the Iraqis they are fighting for their country. We label them "terrorists" for fighting for their families, their homes and their religion—but we label Blackwater, "security forces"! Ah, what euphemisms, wrongful labeling and upside down semantics can do for you.

To this day, though I and others have written thousands of articles making clear that the analogies between Americans fighting for their country and the Iraqis fighting for theirs, in both cases, from foreign invaders, and against mercenaries hired to kill them, is clear and is an unequivocally honest analogy. While most analogies have flaws in them, this one does not. At this point, according to the AP and Reuters wire services, the mercenaries of Blackwater outnumber our American troops in Iraq. Remember also, that we, as taxpayers are paying for these mercenaries to work for the benefit of Halliburton, Bechtel and other American companies who are ensconced in Iraq at our government's pleasure. Blackwater was not invited in by American taxpayers, nor by our congress. Not only that, but they have caused so much mischief, that according to some veterans, there have been firefights between U.S. troops and Blackwater mercenaries. Add to that they huge salaries these mercenaries are being paid, upward of $5000 per day in some cases, but never less than $1500 per day, compared to the salaries our regular military, our reserves and our national guard are being paid, and you can see something is out of whack in this situation. In addition, our military has certain rules of engagement and behavior, though Rumsfeld and company have even destroyed our commitment to the Geneva Conventions and the common decency and morality our troops learned in their churches and synagogues—whereas Blackwater has no rules of engagement and no desire or regulation to follow Geneva Conventions—and in most cases that have been reported, they have not.

Of course, one must add, that even we, the American government, was not invited into Iraq either. So we have two forces that are encroaching illegally on another country; one is a government, ours, and the other is a mercenary killer force that has no legitimacy except to make money at the expense of the lives of others. This does not put us in a very good light, does it?

Then add this little nugget to this mix—why is Blackwater protecting our State Department personnel when we have American troops that could do the job as well if not better? Aren't our troops there to protect our personnel, or just what are our troops there for? Is it possible they are there to kill people, not to protect our personnel? How Americans realize we've helped create a Hessian monster in Iraq that has killed thousands of Iraqi civilians, as was exemplified this week when civilians were killed needlessly because some macho Blackwater killers opened fire on civilians because they were to close to a convoy they were "protecting" ( in lieu of American troops)!

Please tell me how, with our destruction of the "City of Mosques", Fallujah, anyone with even half-a-brain can think that we Americans can "hearts and minds" when we have people like Blackwater operating with no boundaries of behavior, when our troops and planes are involved with the wholesale destruction of mosques and churches, when 72% of the Iraqi people want us to leave (though some of our puppets who are out of power, Allawi and Chalabi still crow that "America must stay").

As I said before in COUNTERPUNCH.COM, this illegal and immoral war began, Bush was opening Pandora's Box and the tiger would come out and devour him and us. And it has. We have lost thousands of our young people in Iraq, we killed or are responsible for,according to a new British military estimate that was published this week in England, over 1 million Iraqis—and to what avail?

Now we have come to another moral milestone and we are already showing we are going to make another wrong choice. The nominal leader of Iraq, Mr. Maliki has ordered that Blackwater leave and has no right to operate in Iraq because of its frequent and unlawful killing of Iraqis. The first American government response was to defend Blackwater and even question if the Iraqis have the right, through their democratically elected government to make such an order without our American governmental consent. One of the U.S. spokespersons said that according to the laws we (we Americans) passed about Iraq, allows our security firms and military in Iraq not to be prosecuted or governed by the Iraqis government or anyone else! How's that for Chutzpah! We had our puppets in power, much like Hitler had the Vichy in France, to pass laws that would give us complete power and non-responsibility for any illegal or immoral acts—and certainly killing people who are civilians and blowing up their homes on pure suspicion or no suspicion because you want revenge is wrong and should be punished. But no, though our government is seen by the world, see the UN and other international polls that rank America as 3rd behind Israel and Iran as the most distrusted nations—and you can see that we are stepping further into the abyss –all in order to justify our Hessians.

One of the reasons our military went on a major bombing and killing spree in the early days of the Iraq occupation was that 4 mercenaries were attacked and brutally killed. These men knew they were taking risks for a huge salary—some of these 3 men were reputed to make thousands of dollars per day, and they were on missions to kill Iraqis.

I hate to see anyone killed for any reason. But, in this case, what would you do if you had people in your country killing your family and friends, would you sit by and just let them do it or would you fight back? If the Russians or Chinese came into America tomorrow with their troops and over 150,000 mercenaries to take over our country, brutalize our wives and children and take over our lives, wouldn't you fight back? Of course we would. That what the Iraqis are doing.

Blackwater is not America, it is an out and out mercenary hiring firm that is not only operating in Iraq but is now being hired to do more and more work in America, against American citizens and their rights. Just look into the situation and you'll see how this infamy and immorality has spread, without the realization of most of our citizenry who understand so little of it all.

Al Maliki has set himself on a collision course with Blackwater and the American government by his statement that Blackwater no longer has a right to operate in Iraq. In the past month or two, there have been utterings out of Washington, that our government is tired of Al Maliki and would like to see him replaced by Allawi. From what I've read, we are even helping fund Allawi's campaign to return to power. We'll just have to wait and see how long Al Maliki can survive. The thing that worries me is that I fear our government will stand behind Blackwater, the Hessians, and that this terrible war will go on indefinitely, or at least until someone intercedes against us, because, as I said when this lousy war first began, "In order to take control of Iraq, you'll have to kill every Iraqi, man, woman and child." If it was up to Blackwater and some in our government, they would do this—all for the sake of power and oil.

Tis a sad day, a day that President George Washington would condemn.