Human Events Takes Blackwater Critics to Task

Human Events reports that

The Iraq Veterans Against the War held their Winter Soldier II event this weekend at the National Labor College. The implied intent of this event was to give testimony to a myriad of claimed atrocities committed by the US military in Iraq.... Additional time was spent on the left’s obvious and expected platitudes: no blood for oil, Halliburton and Blackwater are evil capitalists, etc., nothing you wouldn’t expect to hear at a Code Pink den meeting.

Remember, this is the same organization to which Jesse Macbeth belonged, until his claims his unit routinely committed war crimes in Iraq were debunked when it was proved he never finished basic training.

Author Katie O'Malley explains

Not surprisingly, [the event] fell far short of its intent.... My conclusions after hearing and reading hours upon hours of the testimony? War is hell. Bad things happen. People get hurt. Sometimes innocents get caught in the fire. As to the specifics that IVAW members alleged, perhaps a few things were questionable and they should certainly be investigated. The rest of the anecdotal stories confirmed nothing more except that in war, unfortunate things happen. This was a collection of war stories, not the exposure of war crimes.

This methodology is to be expected, really. When you don't have an actual argument, the best way to give the impression of one is to throw out some stories, find some "eye witnesses" - even if they weren't witnesses to the events you're alleging - and dance around the subject long enough that those not paying careful attention will connect the dots in the way you want. Thanks, Katie, for seeing through the smoke and mirrors.