More Stupid Shooting in Iraq

This time it isn't Blackwater. And the victims weren't Muslims.

Two Christian women, Marou Awanis and Geneva Jalal, were killed by employees of Unity Resources Group (URG). URG is owned by Australian partners, but has headquarters in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

One of the dead women used the white Oldsmobile sedan they were in as a sort of taxi to support her children.

The URGs apparently were under the impression that their convoy was under attack by two women in a white Olds. Lobbing a smoke bomb at the car didn't make the driver slow down fast enough, it seems, so two URG guards opened fire. That left 19 spent 5.56 mm shell casings on the street, a severely messed-up Oldsmobile, two dead women, and two wounded people in the back seat of the Olds. Somehow, the URGs didn't even wing the remaining passenger.

Maybe the mask one of them was reported to be wearing interfered with the guard's aim.

Someone really should brief those guards on a few basic points. Like, a driver can't be expected to stop a car after being killed.

"These are innocent people killed by people who have no heart or consciousness. The Iraqi people have no value to them," is what one man, part of a group of relatives with a Christian priest at the local police station, said.

I see this as a good sign. Apparently there's enough cohesion and sense of national identity for Christian women to be seen as Iraqis, and for a member of the deceased family to see the attack as an attack on Iraqis in general.

Previous post on this topic: "Blackwater USA: Not the Ideal Goodwill Ambassadors"