Ugh. Looks as if the bomb explosion was real, but the supposed gunfire from the crowd was imaginary. One of the Blackwater guys shot and killed a driver, whose car then rolled forward toward the Blackwater position, convincing them that they were under attack and leading to indiscriminate firing into a crowd consisting entirely or almost entirely of non-enemies.
No wonder the FBI has started a criminal investigation.
Yes, the Blackwater fighters were in a tough spot, surrounded by what they knew was a hostile population; if they’d been guarding someone in New York when a bomb went off, they wouldn’t have fired wildly into a crowd of American civilians. But since that hostile Iraqi population is crucial to our effort in Iraq — not to mention being the people we’re supposedly in Iraq to help — maybe Blackwater and the State Department ought to be a little bit more careful about increasing their hostility.
