A "Criminal Event"

That's what a US military investigator calls the actions of Blackwater in the Nisoor Square Massacre. Here's the evidence, from the MSNBC website:

• At least two cars, a black four-door taxi and a blue Volkswagen sedan, had their back windshields shot out, but their front windshields were intact, indicating they were shot while driving away from the square, according to the photos and soldiers. The Volkswagen, which crashed into a bus stand, had blood splattered on the inside of its front windshield and windows. One person was killed, soldiers said.
  
• U.S. soldiers did not find any bullets that came from AK-47 assault rifles or BKC machine guns used by Iraqi policemen and soldiers. They found evidence of ammunition used in American-made weapons, including M4 rifle 5.56mm brass casings, M240B machine gun 7.62mm casings, M203 40mm grenade launcher casings, and stun-grenade dunnage, or packing.
  
• A white sedan, carrying a doctor and her son, had not entered the Nisoor Square traffic circle, where the Blackwater vehicles had stopped, when it was fired upon, according to the aerial photos. News reports have said the guards shot at the car because they believed it approached them in a threatening manner.

By the time US troops arrived:

"[the square] was flooded with more than 50 Iraqi security force personnel, including top generals. The police were evacuating victims. By then, the smoke, which had risen from the burning white sedan, had vanished. Two charred bodies were still in the car.

"People were upset," recalled Sgt. Derrek Martin."

UPSET? I should think so. And it's even worse. Mercenary rampages like this feed into all the anti-US sentiment that Middle East terrorists feed on:

"It was absolutely tragic," said Maj. Gen. Joseph Fil, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division and the Army's top commander for Baghdad. "In the aftermath of these, everybody looks and says, 'It's the Americans.' And that's us. It's horrible timing. It's yet another challenge, another setback," he said.

Mercenary troops killing people who ARE DOING EVERYTHING THEY CAN TO GET OUT OF THE WAY make the task of doing anything good in Iraq incalculably more difficult. If we don't slap Blackwater and its ilk down, Iraq is as good as lost.