Blackguards – Media and 'Justice' – Gang Up on Blackwater

Think press malpractice when, in political matters, you hear prosecutorial malpractice.

Indictments by the Justice Department against five former security guards for Xe, the private-security firm and military contractor formerly known as Blackwater, were recently jettisoned by a D.C. district judge in what seems to be, as the Wall Street Journal observes, “another instance of gross prosecutorial misconduct, as abusive Justice lawyers went after an unsympathetic political target.”

The guards were involved in a shootout in Iraq that killed some Iraqis and generated much anti-American feeling. The government maintains that the men went on an unprovoked murderous rampage, whereas the guards claim they responded in self-defense to a lethal threat. The complex, 90-page opinion of the judge who dismissed the charges compellingly reveals ongoing willful and irresponsible actions on the part of prosecutors. In short, he ruled that the government, in shaping its case, had violated the defendants’ Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination by “recklessly” using statements compelled under the threat of job loss.

Enter the media, to which these statements were leaked just after the firefight, and which apishly repeated the Justice Department’s rendition of bloody-minded mercenaries on a rampage against hapless innocents. What motivated the prosecutors and their faithful servants in the press? The Journal speculates:

… prosecutors felt they could get away with such abusive behavior because Blackwater was such a politically unpopular defendant. The firm had political ties to Republicans, and Democrats and their media allies had made Blackwater a whipping boy to further undermine public support for the Iraq war.

In this and similar cases, our presumed watchdogs in the media – so diligent in Watergate – and at Justice appear hopelessly in thrall to partisan politics and gaga with ideology. In this instance and in these times, they flaunt their dereliction of duty to seek truth on behalf of individuals, such as the accused Blackwater guards, and the American people.

How base.

Few believe them anymore.

How dangerous.