Janie Boschma

World champs! That’s right, the Boston Red Sox did it again, second time in four years they hoisted the trophy. They swept the Colorado Rockies whose eight-day break between the National League Championship Series and the World Series is most likely the cause of their cool down.

Now that the games are over, I’ll be able to actually get some rest at night and get some homework done.

I will also have more time to pay attention to other news again. One thing I’ve been particularly paying attention to is a situation continuing to fester in Iraq – the Blackwater USA security debacle.

Early last month, members of the private contracting firm apparently fired upon Iraqis in a Baghdad neighborhood, killed 17 civilians and injured 24 others.

Iraqis recall the day’s events in a New York Times article as one Iraqi man driving his vehicle being shot in the head, which most likely caused his weight to press on the accelerator, moving the car toward the Blackwater convoy. The guards opened fire in multiple directions and the slaughter began. Some Iraqis recall the guards moving a bit up the street and engaging another line of traffic.

The most recent twist in events came this week when news broke that somewhere down the line of command, somebody gave limited immunity to the guards involved, protecting them from criminal prosecution based on their comments. Of course, once given protection, the guards involved in the rampage spoke up about the event and disclosed information. They knew it could not be used to prosecute them, only for internal use, under the stipulations of the immunity agreement. This leaves evidence collected from the scene of the crime the only possible way to bring criminal charges against the guards.

Since the guards are private contractors, they are automatically immune from war tribunals. The major question is whether United States criminal law applies to their actions while they “fight” in war zones. The Iraqi government became more a part of the situation when they moved ahead on Tuesday with a law that would place private security contractors, such as Blackwater USA, under Iraqi jurisdiction should something as terrible as this event happen again. This is a great move on the part of the Iraqi government and I really hope the legislation passes.

If they cannot be prosecuted under Iraqi law, then private contractors should definitely be able to be prosecuted under American law, especially since they are American citizens. If any other private American citizen were to go to Iraq and savagely kill 17 innocent Iraqis and injure 24, they would be strung up immediately. Nobody would grant them immunity from the law. It should be no different for private contractors over there.

It is also ironic that the group just so happens to be the largest security agency protecting U.S. diplomats during their time spent in Iraq. It begs the question of what other ties the Bush administration has with Blackwater USA. I wouldn’t be surprised if somebody in the Bush administration is getting a kickback from however much they’re paying Blackwater to protect our diplomats. Why else would the government need to protect the contractors from killing innocent civilian? Other than the fact that if there were financial ties between the administration and the security firm, government leaders would be out their Christmas bonuses if the firm went under due to scandal. It seems to me like we could have another Halliburton on our hands.

The best part of this whole ordeal is the fact that senior officials in the State Department have not been commenting on the situation and when they do comment, they say they were “unaware” of the granting of immunity. There is obviously some poor leadership if an “unauthorized” person can grant immunity without asking his or her superiors first. How can an organization as tightly sewn together as our federal government not know what their employees are doing, to the point where their employees are giving so called unauthorized immunity to other citizens? As I said before, it seems to me as if there is something bigger brewing in this muddy situation.

We as a nation have been deceived for a long time by this administration and in the war in Iraq, and we are seeing more and more concrete examples as President Bush’s time in office comes to a close. I have a feeling the administration is starting to get lackadaisical in their approach to policy and ethics. This could be because Bush’s approval rating is in the mud, hovering somewhere in the low- to mid-20s. It could also be because they’ve been covering up so much of their work; they’re getting tired and letting things slip, which might spell demise for whether Bush leaves office as a hero or whether he heads back to Texas as a villain.

However this case ends up, we need some new leadership. An administration that is accountable and doesn’t pass the blame off on others in the government. Whether it is a Democrat or a Republican, doesn’t matter in the long-run just so long as the new leaders are transparent and fresh.