Things haven’t gone so well for me the past couple of years. Medical problems, the financial double whammy brought on by stacks of medical bills and the Great Recession, and… well, the same sorts of unfortunate things that have spoiled the party for a lot of Americans. The good news is that things will get better. Lifestyle changes and a rebounding economy will combine, I believe, to make for better days ahead. Thank God I am not Mohammed Kinani. For him things will never get better.
Mohammed Kinani, a lifelong resident of Baghdad, lost his 9-year-old son Ali on September 16, 2007. Ali was perfectly healthy and happy, laughing and joking one minute, then dead the next. His brain fell out of his skull and onto the ground as Mohammed frantically tried to pick up his son to take him to a nearby hospital.
His father says that Ali’s head was blown open and he was killed, along with 16 other innocent and unarmed Iraqi civilians, when gunslinging mercenaries employed by security services contractor Blackwater USA (now “Xe Services”) launched a merciless assault on men, women and children, everything that moved, in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. That’s what Mohammed Kinani says happened, and the U.S. Justice Department agrees with him. An additional 20 civilians were wounded in the mayhem.
Blackwater says it’s team of mercenaries was responding to an attack by Iraqi insurgents, acting in self defense. Really? I wasn’t there, but U.S. military investigators have been unable to find evidence of an insurgent attack, and it is without question that federal prosecutors dispute Blackwater’s story. Eye witnesses, including Mohammed Kinani, say it was an unprovoked massacre of civilians, a rip roaring hell of an attack the persisted for fifteen minutes. It is undisputed that Ali wasn’t armed.
Blackwater denies altogether that it’s employees killed Ali. Blackwater has speculated Ali might have been shot some time after its team had departed the scene, possibly hit by a stray bullet fired by U.S. military personnel. Jeremy Scahill, writing in The Nation, quotes one of Blackwater’s attorneys as speculating that perhaps Ali was killed by a warning shot that ricocheted around and ultimately struck Ali. Although Blackwater has reportedly reached a financial settlement with a group of survivors and families of others lost in the Nisour Square bloodbath, the company continues to deny wrongdoing. You decide.
Whatever else may be in dispute, it is undisputed that 9-year-old Ali Kinani was shot dead at Nisour Square. Think about that for a moment. It’s easy to hear a news report of some atrocity overseas, to casually comment about the horrible nature of the event, then promptly forget all about it. Somehow, our minds want to protect us from the horror of the truth.
Mohammed Kinani will never forget about it. His son, his little boy, was slaughtered on that day. Iraqi children, just like American children, are made of flesh and blood, have bright eyes, love to laugh and play, and are the center of their parents’ lives. Ali, a 9-year-old kid, was gunned down in the streets of Baghdad by an American. That much we know for certain.
Last month a federal judge ruled that the five Blackwater mecenaries whom the U.S. government says are responsible for the Nisour Square killings will never have to stand trial on criminal charges. Guilty or not, they don’t have to worry about going to jail.
U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed all charges against the alleged shooters—14 counts of manslaughter and a slew of other charges. Prosecutors, the judge ruled, used technically improper methods to obtain evidence against the defendants, so he threw out the case.
That’s it. No trial will ever be had. No jury will hear the testimony of survivors, and few Americans will remember the story six months from now.
Things will get better here at home, in fact some things are looking better already. We’ll come through this recession, and we’ll find solutions or workaround to whatever problems confront us. We’ll do okay and we’ll get by, but things will never get better for Mohammed Kinani. His son is dead.
Watch the videos to the right of this article and hear his story in his own words.
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It is the ability to kill a child and walk away that perplexes me. There is a place within that is meant to hold a compassionate heart. When the mind turns cold, however it happens, the worldview has to be awfully gray.