It's called murder... unless Blackwater is involved

America's mercenary army is going to eventually bite the hand that keeps them rolling in juicy government contracts and unprecedented layers of protection from prosecution. This should get interesting:

Federal agents investigating the Sept. 16 episode in which Blackwater security personnel shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians have found that at least 14 of the shootings were unjustified and violated deadly-force rules in effect for security contractors in Iraq, according to civilian and military officials briefed on the case.

Now, any civilized country employing mercenaries (Yeah! Doesn't that sound special?!) would:

A) Immediately cease doing business with such a company of soldiers of fortune until an investigation completely cleared the company of wrongdoing;
B) Prosecute those directly responsible for any and all criminal acts.

Prosecutors have yet to decide whether to seek indictments, and some officials have expressed pessimism that adequate criminal laws exist to enable them to charge any Blackwater employee with criminal wrongdoing. Spokesmen for the Justice Department and the F.B.I. declined to discuss the matter.

Well, it is still being investigated, so a civilized government would wait until all the facts are in before indicting their mercenaries.

The case could be one of the first thorny issues to be decided by Michael B. Mukasey, who was sworn in as attorney general last week. He may be faced with a decision to turn down a prosecution on legal grounds at a time when a furor has erupted in Congress about the administration’s failure to hold security contractors accountable for their misdeeds.

Ummm... any civilized country employing mercenaries would have a homegrown law which allowed prosecution of people who, you know, kill other people without justification. Hell, the US did it for "unlawful enemy combatants". If they can find a way to ignore the Geneva conventions, you'd think they could find a way to prosecute murder by their hired guns overseas.

Investigators have concluded that as many as five of the company’s guards opened fire during the shootings, at least some with automatic weapons. Investigators have focused on one guard, identified as “turret gunner No. 3,” who fired a large number of rounds and was responsible for several fatalities.

Yes, turret gunner No. 3 sounds like a real piece of work. Any civilized country employing this kind of mercenary would react by making sure that particular mercenary army, which obviously doesn't screen its recruits very well, was no longer allowed to take the field.

It gets better. You'll want to read the whole thing. Then you'll probably want to take a shower.

Oh yeah. Just case you missed the subtle hints. Civilized countries don't employ mercenaries. The US Declaration of Independence is just one document which says so.