| Videos posted by Harper's Magazine show the private contractor formerly known as Blackwater in Iraq running over a woman with a car, smashing into Iraqis' cars to move them out of the way and firing a rifle into traffic. The behavior by Blackwater seen in the videos adds even more fuel to evidence that the company "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life." The videos are included in a piece by Charles Glass entitled "The Warrior Class" that looks at the rise of private security contractors. Glass had been shown the videos by a former Blackwater employee. Describing the video dated April 2006 that shows a woman being hit by a Blackwater vehicle, Glass writes: "A woman in a black full-length burka began to cross the street. The vehicle struck the woman and knocked her unconscious body into the gutter. The cars slowed for a moment, but did not stop, nor did they even determine whether the victim was dead or alive. A voice in the car taking the video said, 'Oh, my God!' Yet no one was heard on the radio requesting help for her. Most sickeningly, the sequence had been set to an AC/DC song, whose pounding, metallic chorus declared: 'You've been... thunderstruck!' " Glass writes that the tape he was shown ended with the inscription, "In support of security, peace, freedom and democracy everywhere." Common Dreams *The five separate videos are joined into one here.* [facts] Blackwater is the mercenary firm founded as Blackwater USA in 1996 by former Navy SEAL and ... |
