Letter: Why Blackwater has a license to kill

Sunday, Oct. 7, 2007 | 7:21 a.m.

Alan Wollman's Oct. 4 letter says he's not defending Blackwater security people if they kill without justification. "Let the investigations determine the appropriate outcome," Wollman writes. Then he goes on to defend the idea of shoot first and ask questions later because Iraq is a "war zone," and civilians get killed because "the enemy cannot be distinguished from the civilians."

First, there is no war in Iraq. That ended in 2003. Now there is an occupation to control Iraq's oil reserves and the resistance to it. The enemy cannot be distinguished from the civilians because the civilians are the enemy. Second, Mr. Wollman does not understand the difference between the regular military and the mercenaries.

What member of the armed forces would not want to be a part of Blackwater? You get six times the pay, better equipment and less hazardous duty. Sure the free market in military personnel depletes the regular Army from its best people, but that's just the free market. Besides, as a member of the Blackwater team, the "appropriate outcome" of an investigation, as Mr. Wollman suggests, can be no worse than getting fired.

It's hard enough to convict the regular military for an atrocity, but Blackwater has a license to kill. These 007s are not governed by military law, the laws of the United States or the laws of Iraq. Our government could revoke Blackwater's contract, but the company is a big donor to the Republican Party.

Investigating Blackwater on murder charges or even the accusations that it overcharges our government for its services is not likely to be effective when the corporation is the military wing of the Republican Party.

Jerry Bitts, Las Vegas