VT 10-22-14… “Blackwater guards convicted in 2007 Baghdad shooting”

Primarily I’m posting this for the comment by Jim Dean, which indicates the change in feelings about “The US” operation in Iraq, and around the planet. Especially due to an increased awareness of how “THE USA CORP” (and NATO corp.) have been (now and in the past), in many (most) cases, “illegal occupiers” rather than “protectors without self-interest”. The Kingdom of Hawai’i is just such an example.

“Editor’s Note: Prosecutors did a good job, as these convictions will dampen the “anything goes” attitute [attitude] that grew out of the situation in Iraq of “shoot first and ask questions later”. It was one of the issues that framed the US as an occupation army, the civilians were expendable in any and all situations… Jim W. Dean”

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Blackwater guards convicted in 2007 Baghdad shooting
… from Russia Today,  Moscow

A Washington, DC jury has convicted one former Blackwater guard of murder and three more from the private military company of voluntary manslaughter in connection with infamous 2007 shooting in Baghdad that left 14 civilians dead and 17 others injured.

The jury of eight women and four men deliberated for 27 days before convicting Nicholas A. Slatten, of Sparta, Tennessee., of first-degree murder. The panel also convicted Paul A. Slough of Keller, Texas; Evan S. Liberty of Rochester, New Hampshire; and Dustin L. Heard of Knoxville, Tenn., of at least three counts of voluntary manslaughter, the Washington Post reported.

The jurors are still deliberating on more charges, as US District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth allowed the jury to announce only those verdicts they had agreed upon so far, the Associated Press noted.

The four former Blackwater Worldwide employees faced federal homicide and firearm charges for the firing machine guns and grenades into a Baghdad traffic circle. They have been found guilty on at least some of the charges, according to the Post.

During the 10-week trial, federal prosecutors argued that the defendants opened fire without provocation, firing wildly into the crowded area because they harbored deep-rooted hostility towards Iraqis. The government also claimed the guards later boasted of their indiscriminate shooting.

The 2007 shooting, which happened at Nisur Square in Baghdad, scandalized the Iraqi public and raised tensions with the US four years into the Iraq war. The guards were accompanying a State Department convoy through the streets of Baghdad when they opened fire at a traffic roundabout. The Blackwater troops reportedly faced no provocation, yet they opened fire on a mother and her son in a white Kia vehicle and then continued to fire indiscriminately.

The maximum sentence for conviction of first-degree murder is life imprisonment. The gun charges carry mandatory minimum prison terms of 30 years. The maximum prison term for involuntary manslaughter is eight years; for attempted manslaughter it is seven years.

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