The Raven 23 Ruling: A Blow Against Politically Correct Tyranny

I remember the day everything started to go downhill for Americans in Afghanistan. It was Monday, the 29th of May 2006 when an American army truck had a brake failure and plowed into a bunch of cars at the bottom of a long hill at the northern entrance to Kabul. The accident caused fatalities which caused the hundreds of locals milling around the area to converge on the accident scene. The situation rapidly escalated when a gunner on the back of the stricken truck panicked and started shooting people at point blank with his .50 cal machinegun. Tolo news was running the tape of that shooting over and over when my buddy Walt called from the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) office and told me to turn on the news because we had a major problem.

I watched the shooting play out twice before Tolo shifted to a live reporter and immediately went to General Quarters in our compound. We lived behind the American embassy in a local compound that looked like any other compound so we were safe. Our JICA clients were spread out in offices across Kabul and were not safe. It took less than 30 seconds to come up with our plan; local clothes only, no body armor or rifles as they were useless in this situation;  we would go with concealed pistols. I opened the golden conex (I had it painted gold to accommodate my quirky sense of humor) and grabbed the one CS grenade we had and then took as many frag grenades as I could carry without being too obvious. The rest of the expats took frags too and we started heading towards the various offices stopping briefly outside the JICA compound to get radio’s.

Our SUV’s turned out to be worthless as traffic was jammed up so badly that we could not make it to our various destinations ahead of the rioting crowds. We purchased a few bikes from locals on the spot for 15 times their worth and started peddling furiously down side streets. Unable to move our clients to safe harbored we gathered them into several different offices around town and strong-pointed them. Then we waited and thankfully the rioting mobs passed us by. It was, to be honest, terrifying and one of those times I remember with a shudder. We had only one incident. The guard manning the JICA office gate was shot in the leg. It was a minor wound and the Afghan, who was an albino and as white as Casper the ghost, told me latter; “every time there is a riot somebody shoots me in the leg because they think I’m a damn foreigner like you”.  Gotta love a guy who maintains a sense of humor in the face of adversity.

Over the years that I have been writing this blog I have bitched incessantly about the unnecessary killing of civilians due to convoy procedures and night raids. Examples can be found here, here, here and here. And it is with that in mind that I welcome the breaking news of the overturned murder conviction for one of the Blackwater contractors involved in the Nisour Square shootings along with the re-sentencing of the other 3 members of the Raven 23 team. If what they did in Nisour square was a “massacre” (as Wikipedia dubs it) what the army did in Kabul in May of 2006 was a mega massacre. Both incidents were unfortunate, both incidents happened in places I know well – I’ve driven through Nisour square dozens of times.

Of the two incidents the one I find the most unforgivable was the American army lighting up dozens of civilians in Kabul. With heavy machineguns at point blank range no less. That shooting pales in comparison to Nisour Square. When I read the circumstances behind the Nisour Square incident I can only say there but for the grace of God go I. There was a lot of lead being thrown at Raven 23 as they fought to reach safe harbor. When I remember what I saw during that long day in Kabul I can say with certainty that there is no way I’d react with deadly force. There was no lead coming their way; going to guns was an inexcusably amateur move.

The men of the Raven 23 PSD team were railroaded by a transparently corrupt Department of Justice who, I believe, was motivated by racial animus and politically correct group think regarding armed contractors. Matt over at the always excellent Feral Jundi has a good round up on the status of the Raven 23 story here.

I am not contending that the hundreds of military men who killed civilians they thought to be suicide (VBIED) bombers or shot regular villagers who were  responding to a night time raid on their own or a neighbors compound are war criminals. These things happen in war. My contention is that these deaths were due to poor tactics (convoys) and questionable strategic objectives (night raids) and thus could have and should have been avoided. But if the military men involved in these incidents aren’t murders neither are the members of the Raven 23 PSD team. That is a self evident truth.

Plus there is the fact that the contract Raven 23 was working stipulated they were under the tactical control of a State Department Regional Security Officer.  Why wasn’t he prosecuted? The answer is obvious.

Part of the Kangaroo court proceeding that went beyond bizarre was the federal court flying in alleged victims of this shooting. Leave aside the costs passed on to the taxpayer and look at the reality concerning the potential for veracity from these alleged victims. The best way to explain what I mean is  demonstrated by a story I pulled off of All Marine Radio. The episode, broadcast on the 21st of July, was titled You Paid the Iraqis for Detaining Them? ; the story I’m relating starts at the 28:08 mark. I urge you to listen to the whole hour – it’s hysterically funny, interesting and a bit alarming to those who lack experience in the Arab world.

The story starts when the Ops Officer of the MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit)  working Iraq rolled into Mac’s command post (CP) back in 2004. As they were shooting the breeze the OpsO talked about the MEU’s recent operation against the Shia militia of Muqtada al-Sadar in the city of Najaf.

S3  “We  had them surrounded in the main mosque in Najaf and the Iraqi’s from the national army who were with us were talking with the Marines about what it was like to fight Americans:

Marine: “How long have you been in the army”?

Iraqi solder: “I have been in the army for 15 years and fought against you guys in Kuwait and I am so excited to be on your side right now…this is wonderful with your tanks and your helicopters… fighting you was very scary so we ran away as soon as our officers abandoned us which is why we are still alive….This is awesome, we are going to go tomorrow with your tanks and guns and paint the walls of the mosque red with their blood”.

Marine: “Yeah that’s probably not going to happen”.

Iraqi: “what do you mean”

Marine: “Our country has this thing about attacking mosques”.

Iraqi’ “What? They are hiding in the Mosque and tomorrow we will go kill them all and cover the walls with their blood!”

Marine: “Yeah we’re probably not going to do that”

Iraqi’ “Then what are you going to do”?

Marine “We’re negotiating with them right now..”

Iraqi’ “No, no, no, no ..this is Jihad they will say anything because it doesn’t matter. You are the infidel and they can lie to you. They will lie and they will leave and within 10 minutes they will have another weapon and we will be fighting them again. How can you be a great nation and not annihilate your enemy”?

Needless to say the militia negotiated a surrender and the next day the Iraqi’s were fighting them again. The point being there are deeply embedded cultural reasons not to trust one word of alleged victims in the Nisour Square case or any other similar case. I urge you to listen to the podcast; there are a dozen or more examples of why this is so.

That our country now has a two tiered justice system is obvious. Were I to commit any of the many crimes that former FBI director James Comey outlined in his non indictment of Hillary Clinton I’d be rotting in jail for the rest of my life. And justifiably so. The legacy media is currently consumed with the Muh Russia story while trying to spin away the fact that it was Clinton’s who were paid millions by Russia after signing away a healthy percentage of our Uranium stocks.  The current scandal involving Debbie Washerman Schultz and the Awan family is, in not just my opinion, the biggest political scandal of my lifetime.  Yet the same corporate media shills who screamed for the scalps of the Raven 23 crew refuse to cover it.

Yesterday the current reign of progressive judicial tyranny was dealt a solid blow. Let us hope that this is the start of a trend to apply the rule of law equally to every citizen regardless of race, political affiliation or elected status.  If it is not then our country is in for a world of hurt. But that is down the road; right now three of the four men of Raven 23 are still in the Federal Pen and still need our support and prayers. The Raven 23 website is here – drop by and spread the love by giving them whatever support you can. They’ve earned it.