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Mercenaries paid with our tax dollars opened fire on Iraqi civilians over the weekend. They killed 8 people and shot 13 more.
“They are untouchable,” one private soldier told the Los Angeles Times. “They’ve shot up other private security contractors, Iraqi military, police and civilians.”1
Now the Iraqi government has had enough, and has ordered Blackwater to stop work in the country. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has promised an investigation, but that’s not enough.
Tell Sec. of State Rice to stop using hired mercenaries as state department guards.
http://act.truemajorityaction.org/o/2/t/21/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=21
Most of Blackwater’s work is guarding officials from the State Department. They are among the most high-profile mercenaries working in Iraq, but hardly the only ones. An astounding 120,000 “private security contractors” are in Iraq, 48,000 of them working as combat soldiers.2 They get paid far more than real soldiers, their deaths are not included in the official casualty counts, and they are essentially accountable to no one, according to state department officials.
This is still America. We can’t hire mercenaries to fire on civilians with no accountability.
Tell Sec. Rice to put an end to it, and follow the Iraqi government’s demand that Blackwater leave the country.
Aaron Fulkerson 