Jeremy Scahill: Blackwater's Youngest Victim

[laststeamtrain]

Blackwater's Youngest Victim
By Jeremy Scahill, The Nation
Posted on January 29, 2010, Printed on January 29, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145469/

Every detail of September 16, 2007, is burned in Mohammed Kinani's memory. Shortly after 9 am he was preparing to leave his house for work at his family's auto parts business in Baghdad when he got a call from his sister, Jenan, who asked him to pick her and her children up across town and bring them back to his home for a visit. The Kinanis are a tightknit Shiite family, and Mohammed often served as a chauffeur through Baghdad's dangerous streets to make such family gatherings possible.

Mohammed had just pulled away from his family's home in the Khadamiya neighborhood in his SUV. His youngest son, 9-year-old Ali, came tearing down the road after him, asking his father if he could accompany him. Mohammed told him to run along and play with his brothers and sister. But Ali, an energetic and determined kid, insisted. Mohammed gave in, and off the father and son went.

As Mohammed and Ali drove through Baghdad that hot and sunny Sunday, they passed a newly rebuilt park downtown. Ali gazed at the park and then turned to his father and asked, "Daddy, when are you gonna bring us here?"

"Next week," Mohammed replied. "If God wills it, son."

Ali would never visit that park. Within a few hours, he would be dead from a gunshot wound to the head. While you may have never heard his name, you probably know something about how Ali Mohammed Hafedh Kinani died. He was the youngest person killed by Blackwater forces in the infamous Nisour Square massacre.

In May 2008 Mohammed flew to Washington to testify in front of a grand jury investigating the shooting. It was his first time out of Iraq. The US Attorney, Jeffrey Taylor, praised Mohammed for his "commendable courage." A year after the shooting, in December 2008, five Blackwater guards were indicted on manslaughter charges, while a sixth guard pleaded guilty to killing an unarmed Iraqi. American justice, it seemed to Mohammed, was working. "I'm a true believer in the justness and fairness of American law," Mohammed said.

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http://www.alternet.org/world/145469/blackwater%27s_youngest_victim

[Solly Mack]

1. "I'm a true believer in the justness and fairness of American law,"

Ouch. :(

[The Doctor.]

3. Not any more he isn't.

We all know how that turned out.

I've asked some of the RW scumbags that cheered when BW was let off the hook; "So, if foreign mercenaries killed your family, and then were set free in their home country after a trial, I'm sure you'd be just as thrilled."

These assholes just can't put the shoe on the other foot. And they wonder why anyone could hate us. :eyes:

[Solly Mack]

4. True that

[Jamastiene]

2. Blackwater are fucking evil. n/t