Blackwater's Youngest Victim: "I am Allawi"

This is difficult to watch. Too many veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan have seen too many variations of this. Some were intentional; some were accidental.

They were all wrong.

Now we add drones and huge numbers of mercenaries to the mix. It's bad enough that soldiers are misled by our leaders and end up doing unthinkable things, but killing for money adds an additional menacing sting to it. After the cold blooded slaughter of all these people, Blackwater's murderers got off on a technicality. Another little boy dies and our government keeps paying the mercenaries to go back and do it again.

Meanwhile . . .

The soldiers who refuse to participate any more are rewarded with prison and separation from their families. Our government locks up our veterans who have incurred an auspicious injury we should all welcome: the inability to kill innocent people. Our veterans are becoming our prisoners of war.

“Blackwater’s Youngest Victim” is a short film we made about the death of 9-year-old Ali Kinani at the hands of Blackwater forces. He was shot in his head during the 2007 Nisour Square massacre and is the youngest victim of that shooting. The film is based on my article by the same title in The Nation magazine. This video was produced with Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films and aired on Democracy Now!

Watch the video, read the article and check out the slide show.

-thanks to Jeremy Scahill at Rebel Reports