The unquiet Americans

Here's news of the fine job that armed private security contractors are doing to build support for the American presence in Iraq:

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. military is investigating 16 private American security guards for shooting at U.S. Marines and Iraqi civilians during a three-hour spree last month west of Baghdad, officials said Thursday ... Marines spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said Marines reported seeing gunmen in several late-model trucks fire ''near civilian cars'' and on military positions ... ''Three hours later, another Marine observation post was fired on by gunmen from vehicles matching the description of those involved in the earlier attack,'' Lapan said.

... U.S. forces later detained the contractors without incident and held them for three days in a military jail, but no charges have been filed. The American contractors are believed to have left Iraq, and a Naval Criminal Investigative Service inquiry is under way, the military said.
... Many Iraqis resent high-profile security details who speed along highways in sport utility vehicles brandishing automatic weapons.

Since the Pentagon has proven chronically reluctant to punish its own, and these contractors are likely ex-servicemen themselves, don't expect this "investigation" to go very far. Remember that private contractors have also played a role in the prison abuse scandals, and it was the brutal murder of private contractors that led to the Pentagon's decision to level Fallujah. So the private tail has certainly wagged the public dog.

A while back, we had commented on a prescient scene from Clear and Present Danger:

ambush [] in Colombia, in which hidden locals with guns and rocket-launchers expose the fallacious belief of the American tough guys that if you wear dark glasses and travel around in big SUVs, you're safe

It looks like in this case, the tough guys in sunglasses and SUVs decided to even the odds by firing at everybody, all the time.