We’ve all seen CSI, where within an hour two or three impossible cases are pieced together and there is an arrest headed for conviction. Or Law and Order, where they usually limit themselves to one case. The reality is different. Despite decades of law and orderism breaking out all over the United States, it is more possible to get away with a murder now than before.

Well it is a myth, and one which favors the right wing, because it creates the impression that modern police work is better. It’s not, the old police departments had more murders to deal with, and they had a better rate of clearing them by arrest. Now some of these clears as we find out later, was because they arrested the wrong person, but not by the proportion that we see a drop in solving crims.  Read more 

Whether it’s such good news for us, the country to which the people (and their vast stores of everything from guns to hardened vehicles to helicopters) are supposed to be repatriated toot-sweet, is, um, another question. Via NYT:

The Interior Ministry said Monday that it was pulling the license of an American security firm allegedly involved in the fatal shooting of civilians during an attack on a U.S. State Department motorcade in Baghdad.

The ministry said it would prosecute any foreign contractors found to have used excessive force in the Sunday incident.

Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul-Karim Khalaf said eight people were killed and 13 were wounded when security contractors working for Blackwater USA opened fire in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood of western Baghdad.

”We have canceled the license of Blackwater and prevented them from working all over Iraqi territory. We will also refer those involved to Iraqi judicial authorities,” Khalaf said.

This of course assumes the “Iraqi authorities” involved can execute the orders they impose. Blackwater being better armed than the current Iraqi military, such as they are, this is somewhat questionable.  Read more 

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The media has been going on about how what happened yesterday in VA is the “worst ever” massacre in American history. There are a few moments in American history that belie that. Here’s one:

Although official counts put the number of dead at 39; 26 black, 13 white, it is generally accepted that this number is substantially higher, especially among black victims. Estimates range from seventy-five to over three hundred. Based on the evidence available, most experts agree that the actual number of black citizens believed to be killed during the riot number around 300.  Read more 

[See UPDATE below the fold.]

As the Bush administration in the person of Dick “Dick” Cheney yet again uses its standard technique of conveying, through nods and winks, that torture is A Good Thing, and winger operatives helpfully explain the technique to any “young professionals” who want to follow along at home, the horror—Well, let’s just go ahead and use the right word, even if it sounds Shrill—evil done at Abu Ghraib will live on after us for a long, long time. Greg Mitchell:

[US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein] ruled today that graphic pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison must be released over government claims that they could damage America’s image. Last year a Republican senator conceded that they contained scenes of “rape and murder” and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said they included acts that were “blatantly sadistic.”

(And to think George Felix Allen (R-Severed Deer’s Head) is slamming Jim Webb about a Fuck-ing book.)

Gee, I don’t remember any Abu Ghraib prosecutions or convictions for rape and murder. And you’d think, with videotaped evidence, convictions would be pretty easy to get. Readers, am I having a senior moment, or did the rapists and murderers skate?  Read more 

Murtha’s appearance seems to be The Big Story out of the Sabbath Gasbags this time around. Before the show was even off the air (CDT anyway) I was seeing it in the “AP Reports” box most papers carry. I found the appearance remarkable—not for the Haditha Massacre & Coverup story itself, which blog readers have known for a week or more—but the fact that it could be discussed for ten solid minutes at least and the words “My Lai” never once get mentioned. What an exquisite squeeze the Bushits are in: Murtha can say, and others pick up and repeat, that this Haditha incident is “worse than Abu Ghraib” and the only line the warmongers could possibly come back with is “Yeah, but it’s not as bad as My Lai!”  Read more