The Media Mullahs

Reporters at local, national, and international stations broadcast the Blackwater "massacre" story with evident glee. They and the prosecutors have to know that it is a common tactic of insurgents to hide in civilian crowds to cause innocent causalities as has been a ploy used against the US since the Korean Conflict. The BBC, Al Jazeera, and American networks can't wait to run stories showing our force's conduct as anything but exemplary. The lambasting of soldiers and private security guards who have volunteered to place themselves in harm's way to advance human liberty and our values is especially astounding in a world where Einzatsgruppen members still attend SS reunions basically unharried while collecting German pension checks. These were the perpetrators of the worst deliberate slaughter spree in history, but I have seen all of one story years ago about said get-togethers in my lifetime. The leftists and apologists for terror will never let America forget No Gun Ri, Calley, or that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded. But octogenarian Nazi war criminals can hoist a beer and sing Horst Wessel more or less unhindered.

Trial by Travesty

The pending charges against two members of the 101st Airborne are part of a disturbing, and I believe unprecedented (at least since the summary justice-injustice, of trials of soldiers during the American Civil War) trend. Blackwater contractors also face charges today. During Vietnam, William Calley and a literal handful of others faced charges similar to the allegations all too many of our troops are facing or have recently faced. What possible reason would the Blackwater employees have to shoot up an intersection except the ambush they described that they faced? If they wanted to massacre innocent Iraqis, there were plenty of more discreet ways to dispatch Iraqis, had that been their desire. These prosecutions have a chilling effect on combatants on the ground. A moment of hesitation in a life or death situation may cost US forces their lives or the lives of their comrades or even innocent Iraqi lives. A soldier, marine, or State Department bodyguard holding his fire out of concern for what a court may later determine may cost hundreds of lives as in the case of a truck or car bomber or dozens of lives in the case of a terrorist armed as in Mumbai with an AK-47 or AKM. President Bush, in the interest of preserving innocent life, should pardon these brave men now and ensure that other US contractors and troops never face the family breaking expense of litigation of this sort and its accompanying jeopardy. After all, Bush's decisions sent them into the line of fire in the first place.