Blackwater Aims to Be Good

Some of you may have read the recent news articles that indicate that private security guards, employed by a company called Blackwater, were involved in a shootout in Baghdad in September.

The facts, as is so often the case in my analyses of the news, are unimportant, except to note that a Blackwater "team" of unspecified numbers was, apparently, fired upon by 8 to 10 insurgents firing from various different concealed positions. At the end of the firefight, 11 Iraqis were dead, and 12 were wounded.

You might think that I am going to rant about the actions of Blackwater and other private security firms in Iraq.

Well, you're wrong.

You might think that this post is about how Blackwater guards could return fire on what they report to be 8 to 10 insurgents, and kill 11 and wound 12, but you would be wrong again.

No, what has me in a state of wonder is that the 8 to 10 insurgents, firing first from various positions of concealment didn't manage to hit even a single one of the Blackwater security guards.

After considerable thought, I can only attribute this miracle to one of the oldest and most arcane laws of metaphysics, which states "Good guys have good aim, and bad guys have bad aim".

You have, no doubt, seen this law at work in Hollywood movies and network TV shows, (which are all terribly real and make sure that they follow these laws very carefully) where bad guys can empty a magazine at a hero from ten feet, and miss with every shot, but the hero can pull off a remarkable 200 yard shot around a huge array of big metal things, through steel catwalks and around massive tanks filled with jet fuel (with the last bullet in a Derringer that he cleverly concealed in his sock, and which was somehow missed in the comprehensive body search) and pick off the bad guy, squarely between the eyes, without even nicking the beautiful (and equally "good") heroine.

The corollary to the "good aim/bad aim" law is that the good guy may, occasionally, be hit by a ricochet, but only in the upper arm or upper leg, and only in a manner that tears his clothing, and barely creases the skin below it. Such ricochets can only hit the non-dominant (or non-gun toting) arm, but the hero may be grazed in either leg, unless he practices Tae Kwon Do, in which case the non-dominant, or kicking, leg is the only limb that may be affected.

Clearly, it is this law, and only this law, that saved the Blackwater guards, and I am somewhat surprised that the White House has not pointed to this fact as proof that the occupiers are "good" and that the Iraqis are "bad".