The prolonged state of violence and large-scale conflict may have dropped down a bit across Iraq in the recent past, if compared to past years, even it is not enough to call the volatile place a safe state because civilian are sill dying and that too with a brisk rate.
Last Sunday, in another tragic incident in Baghdad at least 11 people died when security guards from the Blackwater, one of the most comprehensive professional military and stability operations company in the world, opened fired in a busy place in western Baghdad. One of survivor of the incident, Hassan Jabir, described the incident (from hospital bed) as an act of brutality, plotted by the private firm.
It is not true when they say that they were attacked. We did not hear any gunshots before they started shooting. I saw a 10-year-old boy jumping in fear from one of the minibuses and he was shot in his head. His mother jumped after him and was also killed.
However, the private security company, rejecting all the accusations of negligence, backed the deadly action as an inevitable act of self-defense against armed attackers.
There is no doubt that these kinds of civilian causalities may aggravate the situation in unstable place and provoke more civilian to oppose US force in Iraq and take arms against them. Meanwhile, the Iraqi prime minister, condemning the disputed Blackwater USA’s version of the shooting, has established a joint U.S.-Iraqi commission to investigate the cold blooded carnage of civilians.
US army personnel’s will have to be more responsible as well as cautious in their defense or armed operations, not only in civilian areas but across the nation, if they really want to bring about peace and stability in the volatile region and win the support of common people in the war against terror. For, without the support and readiness of common or local populace, it would not just be difficult but almost impossible for the US-led coalition forces to seek any sort of positive results in the terminal country.
