Iraq to Blackwater: LEAVE NOW!

It seems that there is a pattern here. In its latter years, Rome began creating legions out of non-Romans - often by extending the "honor" of Roman citizenship to people who had served in the legions. The Romans needed these "new Romans" just to be able to do the bare minimum of defending Rome's borders - and these legions collapsed pretty quickly under the pressure of Germanic invaders.

The United States couldn't "justify" the spending needed for the forces it needed in Iraq, so it pulled in a mercenary army called "Blackwater" to supplement the regular military forces.

Today, the Iraqi puppet government told Blackwater to get lost - immediately. This comes as little surprise - sooner or later, someone in the mercenary army was going to do something that was unacceptable to the locals - and would no doubt have merited a court-martial in the regular army.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight civilians were killed and 13 were wounded when contractors believed to be working for Blackwater USA opened fire on civilians Sunday in the predominantly Sunni neighbourhood of Mansour in western Baghdad.

“We have cancelled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,” Mr. Khalaf said.

When the local government, which right now is essentially a puppet of the BushCo administration tells you to get lost, you've really overstepped your bounds. In my limited little mind, this is a significant clue to just how badly BushCo thought things through. Not only did they hire what amounts to a mercenary army to provide security for government personnel, but they failed to bind those people to US military discipline - even though there is a military occupation in place.

But then again, we all know how well US Army discipline dealt with Abu Ghraib, don't we?