Recent accounts of the now-infamous Blackwater activities during the opening weeks of September were compiled by the McClatchy news service yesterday. Not to sound blase’, but they’re not unfamiliar to Blackwater’s record. In Afghanistan and in Iraq, they and other Private Military Contractors have been involved in numerous outrages. Many apparently - according to our soldiers and the locals - go unreported.

Here is a video that did get reported - involving contractors protecting a convoy by shooting any car that came near.

The images may seem innocuous enough but, put into the words of a report of similar activities during the week of 9.11.07, their effects are more visceral:

Iraqi officials said the guards were unprovoked when they opened fire on a white car carrying three people, including a baby. All died. The security guards then fired at other nearby vehicles, including a minibus loaded with passengers, killing a mother of eight. An Iraqi soldier also died.

Why this is allowed to happen is because no law whatsoever binds Blackwater USA and other PMCs. What they do in Iraq doesn’t bring US law down on them. However, they are also not bound by Iraqi law. Thus they operate in a legal limbo. Proof of this is evident by the fact that Baghdad’s government revoking their license to operate had absolutely no effect.

Really, the only censure they might fear is embarassing the company. That is not particularly easy to do. I would posit that the reason we heard of the attacks that killed around a dozen people was because they took place right in front of a government building.

But as for the Iraqis, these kinds of incidents do not go unknown. Sadly, I should expect that your average Iraqi cannot tell the difference between an unregulated private employee and a scrupulously-regulated American soldier. Consequently, it inspires a general outrage that knows little to no discrimination for the sake of fairness.

The Iraqis will “remember 9/11″ in a very different sense indeed. Different attacker; similar rage. If only it was only a single day that they had to endure the terror of living under mercenary gun barrels. And if only we had another solution but to hire those guns.