How Can Iraqis Respect Government That Allows Foreigners to Kill Them?

At the hearing that was held by Henry Waxman's committee into the operations by Blackwater in Iraq, every Republican defended Blackwater. One of them brought up the Move-On ad about General Petraeus. Not one Republican seemed bothered by the fact that an American company was allegedly killing Iraqis citizens and not being held accountable.

Now the Washington Post is reporting that the Pentagon report on the Blackwater incident will say that the Blackwater employees were at fault in an incident that took place on September 16, 2007. In that incident at least 11 Iraqis were killed. This is from a Reuters article about the Post article:

Citing a senior U.S. military official, the Post said the military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government's contention that Blackwater was at fault.

"It was obviously excessive. It was obviously wrong," a U.S. military official speaking on condition of anonymity told the newspaper.

"The civilians that were fired upon, they didn't have any weapons to fire back at them. And none of the IP (Iraqi police) or any of the local security forces fired back at them," the official was quoted as saying

This report, assuming that the Bush Admnistration doesn't pressure the Pentagon to change it, obviously makes those Republicans who rushed to Blackwater's defense at the Waxman hearing look ridiculous. Just as obviously most of them won't have the self-awareness to understand that it makes them look ridiculous. Here is a question, though: Don't they understand that having a American corporation kill and wound ordinary Iraqis without accountability hurts the American efforts in Iraq?

How would we feel if there was a foreign corporation, say a Chinese corporation, running around the U.S. killing American civilians while protecting Chinese diplomats? Our guess is that we would be really ticked off, and if our government couldn't stop it, we would be angry at our government. If it kept happening, we would lose respect for our government. Why do Republicans assume that Iraqis are any different?

On the one hand they claim to want to create a government in Iraq that has the support of the Iraqi people. On the other hand, they don't want to hold American corporations operating in Iraq accountable for their activities. It just doesn't make any sense, but, of course, this isn't the first time that Republican actions belie Republican words.