Triple play

Wow. Three separate comments prompted by one brief article.

A group of American security guards in Iraq have alleged they were beaten, stripped and threatened with a snarling dog by US marines when they were detained after an alleged shooting incident outside Falluja last month. ...

The security guards claim the shooting incident was a case of mistaken identity. A spokeswoman for the company told the LA Times that the guards had fired warning shots into the air when an unidentified vehicle approached their vehicle as it passed through Falluja, but had not fired at any marines.

Okay, first thing, raised in the article itself: Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution said the incident

raised the question of what happens to contractors if they are caught doing something wrong, such as firing on civilians, as their legal status is not defined. "If the marines think [the contractors] did do something illegal there is no process they can go through. Who are they going to hand them over to?" Mr Singer said. "There have been more than 20,000 [contractors] on the ground in Iraq for more than two years and not one has been prosecuted for anything."

They have been, thus far, largely a law unto themselves, answerable to no one. Which would seem on its face to be a stupid arrangement but it's one the White House endorses because to do otherwise is to question the whole Iraq enterprise, which has from day one of the invasion revolved around seeing how much of the Iraqi economy could be handed over to private, particularly American, corporations. Challenging the privileged position of the contractors by definition challenges the privileged position of such as Halliburton - and that's something the Shrub team is loath to do.

Second thing, accidentally revealed by the article: A lawyer for two of the contractors said his clients and others were subjected to "physical and psychological abuse" including being "slammed around," stripped them to their underwear, and having loaded weapons put to their heads.

"I never in my career have treated anybody so inhumane," one of the contractors, Rick Blanchard, a former Florida state trooper, wrote in an email quoted in the Los Angeles Times. "They treated us like insurgents, roughed us up, took photos, hazed [bullied] us, called us names." [emphasis added]

So it seems that "inhumane" treatment is the norm dished out to "insurgents."

And the third thing, left for last so we can leave this with a frustrated chuckle:

A Marine Corps spokesman denied that abuse had taken place and said an investigation was continuing.

Now, uh, just how could they know that if they're still investigating? Whoever it was that said that, they need a lot more practice at spinning.