Security in Iraq

Since it became a public word, Blackwater has taken more heat than any security organization in Iraq. We have seen media reports, television documentaries, you name it and it has been written about private security in Iraq, Blackwater in particular.

The media loves to portray them as high paid mercenaries, body armor and automatic weapons at ready for any attack. What they normally fail to address is that the majority of the security in Iraq are highly trained, Seals, Special Forces, SAS and other special operations personnel. These are the individuals that our country and others once called our best, our elite, the cream of the crop and governments have spent millions of dollars training and equipping these individuals to go out and perform jobs that no one else was capable of doing.

Now, they are no longer within the fold of the militaries they once represented and because of this, the media calls them killers, mercenaries, anything, but what they once were.

The media loves to say the word mercenary, they love to portray these individuals as shoot first and ask question later and let God sort them out, this sickens me.

We place these individuals in harm's way, dissociate them from any coverage or protection afforded the military and tell them if you shoot someone you will be tried under that government' s law and as a murderer in your own country. This is just wonder job security and yet, individuals work in these high risk situations.

If one or more of these individuals make mistakes and people die, then they alone should be tried for their crimes, not the entire security community. The same applies to outright homicide, if this is done, then those individuals should pay, not the entire community.

This entire mess has sickened me and the sad footnote to it all is that it is far from over.