I'm on the run today. But (just about) everything you need to know about the Blackwater problem in Iraq can be found in these two first-person accounts.

Writing in the Chicago Tribune, Robert Bateman a U.S. Army officer who served in Iraq, recounts an encounter with a Blackwater convoy, during which Blackwater guards fired their guns and drove Iraqi cars onto the sidewalk. He recalls,

It enraged me...and Blackwater is, at least nominally, on our side.

Iraq operates on the basis of an honor culture. Honor is, arguably, more important than Islam. Being dishonored, in word or deed, or even by implication, is enough to set the average Iraqi man to plotting his revenge. This is a culture in which political assassinations (usually based on honor issues) are not an abstraction but an everyday occurrence. Every time one of those Blackwater convoys drives an Iraqi civilian off the road because the most important thing in the world is the protection of their "principal," they make a new enemy for the United States. Every time they ram another car to clear the way (and, yes, I've seen them do that), so that they could maintain their own speed and thereby minimize their exposure to "improvised explosive devices," they make another enemy. Every time they kill innocent civilians, or wound them, they make whole families of new enemies.

Talking to CBS News, Adam Hobson, a former political aide at the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, discussed the tragedy that occurred on May 12, when a Blackwater guard protecting him shot at two men in a cab. One of the men was killed. After Blackwater and the State Department investigated and found the guard had not followed appropriate procedures, he was sent home. There was no other punishment. Here's a piece of the CBS interview with Hobson:

CBS: How did having this aggressive security detail affect your work in Iraq?

Hobson: Yes. I think about it every day. That's when I really understood. I went to a meeting and somebody died because of it. It made meetings in the future a lot less important. In fact, I never left the [Embassy] compound again.

Blackwater is really a metaphor (or fall guy) for the bigger mess in Iraq--a war that a former commander calls a "nightmare." For years, U.S. policy and actions have alienated the Iraqi population (and, not coincidentally, much of the rest of the world). Ignorance and arrogance--did someone say hubris?--has been animating the Bush administration's approach to Iraq from before the invasion until now. Though Blackwater deserves investigation and punishment, it is a convenient heavy. It's only the muscle for a crew that doesn't know what it's doing.

Posted by David Corn at October 15, 2007 07:27 AM