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By now the private security firm, Blackwater USA, has become a household name. The firm has been the subject of multiple investigations, lawsuits, and congressional inquiries—all leading to an obvious conclusion: Blackwater in Iraq has either acted in a manner of extreme disregard for civilian lives, or they are outright contemptuous murderers. Yet, as Democracy Now! reports, Blackwater continues to reap millions in profits from the government and was recently awarded a new contract from the State Department.

In the aftermath of the now-infamous Nisour Square Massacre of September 2007 in which 17 Iraqi civilians were mercilessly gunned down by Blackwater operatives, the puppet Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, demanded that Blackwater be held accountable under Iraqi law. Al-Maliki had apparently forgotten the directive in place since Paul Bremer’s tenure providing immunity to all private contractors in Iraq. The order to expel Blackwater from Iraq was rescinded by the Bush junta and Blackwater was already operating in the region again by last April.

Despite the initial military investigation labeling the incident “criminal” and an Iraqi probe calling it “premeditated murder”, no judicial action has been leveled against Blackwater. And while this immunity is not entirely unexpected (after all, we are not talking about a sovereign country… it’s clear that Bush is the real leader of Iraq), the level of immunity these thugs have received in the U.S. is simply disturbing.

Consider another case, in which a drunken, off-duty Blackwater employee shot and killed one of the Iraqi Vice President’s bodyguards. Naturally, the United States responded by quickly whisking the murderer out of the country to avoid the possibility of prosecution. Despite Blackwater’s subsequent firing of the man and overtures that he would have his security clearance revoked, just months after the incident Andrew Moonen was back in Iraq working for another private security firm.

Referring to the incident, Representative Carolyn Maloney stated:

If [Moonen] lived in America, he would have been arrested, and he would be facing criminal charges. If he was a member of our military, he would be under a court-martial. But it appears to me that Blackwater has special rules. That’s one of the reasons of this hearing.

The unaccountability of these trigger-happy thugs is one problem; the reliance of the U.S. military machine in Iraq is another entirely. Jeremy Scahill, the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, believes that Blackwater’s role in the occupation of Iraq is now that of a virtual Praetorian Guard—operating in the most critical areas of Baghdad, protecting high level-figures, and immune from the usual constraints placed on conventional armed forces—thus rendering the group impossible to remove from Iraq. This is the fundamental problem…