Videos posted by Harper's Magazine show the
private contractor formerly known as Blackwater in Iraq running over a woman
with a car, smashing into Iraqis' cars to move them out of the way and firing a
rifle into traffic.
The behavior by Blackwater seen in the videos
adds even more fuel to evidence that the company "encouraged and rewarded the
destruction of Iraqi life."
The videos are included in a piece by Charles
Glass entitled "The Warrior Class" that looks at the rise of private security
contractors. Glass had been shown the videos by a former Blackwater
employee.
Describing the video dated April 2006 that shows a woman being hit by a Blackwater vehicle, Glass writes: "A woman in a black full-length burka began to cross the street. The vehicle struck the woman and knocked her unconscious body into the gutter. The cars slowed for a moment, but did not stop, nor did they even determine whether the victim was dead or alive. A voice in the car taking the video said, 'Oh, my God!' Yet no one was heard on the radio requesting help for her. Most sickeningly, the sequence had been set to an AC/DC song, whose pounding, metallic chorus declared: 'You've been… thunderstruck!' "
Glass writes that the tape he was shown ended
with the inscription, "In support of security, peace, freedom and democracy
everywhere." Common Dreams
*The five separate videos are joined into one here.*
Blackwater is the mercenary firm founded as
Blackwater The Blackwater family of businesses includes
Xe Services LLC (formerly known as Blackwater)
entered into a civil settlement with the U.S. State Department in which it
agreed to pay a $42 million penalty ($12 million of which was suspended on the
condition that it be applied toward remedial measures)
for 288 alleged violations of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and the
International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) between 2003 and 2009. The
alleged violations included illegal weapon exports to The Obama administration awarded Academi a $250
million contract to work for the U.S. State Department and the Central
Intelligence Agency in
AN/SM