By: Kayhan Int’l Staff Writer

Reports from Iraq and from elsewhere around the world speak of "shock” and "surprise” at the pardoning of convicted murderers serving their sentences by a super criminal still at large, but for Iranians and the Islamic Republic of Iran it was not a matter of surprise, since terrorism is ingrained in the satanic nature of the US administration.
Although the ghastly massacre at Baghdad’s Nisour Square was not during his presidency nor did the murderers of the murderous Blackwater agency start their jail terms (ranging from 30 years to life) after his election in late November 2016, Donald Trump, in his dying moments in the White House, took another devilish step to pardon the unpardonable killers. On 16 September 2007, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten had opened fire indiscriminately with machine guns and grenade launchers on a crowd of unarmed people at a roundabout in the Iraqi capital, killing 14 men, women and a child on the spot, and leaving 17 others injured.
After a belated trial, the four were convicted of first-degree murder in 2014, but instead of being executed, they began their prison terms in 2015 (full eight years of undeserving freedom), while the bereaved families who are still in the state of agony at the slaughter of their loved ones, lamented the lack of justice in the US.
The Iraqis are again decrying the rampant injustice in the US, and as admitted by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, Trump’s pardons "show contempt for the rule of law.”
A survivor of the Nisour Massacre rightly remarked that "the person who releases these criminals is more of a criminal”, but he erred when he added that the Iraqi government should ask the incoming Joe Biden administration to revoke the pardon.
Unfortunately, such statements show the naivety of the victims of the Great Satan who despite their shabby treatment time and again by the US, still think that the next administration in the White House will somehow reverse the policies of the previous one and grant them some reprieve.
Such an attitude is nothing but sheer moral, intellectual, political, and spiritual bankruptcy, which certainly makes the US more insolent and arrogant in its further mistreatment of the victims, and an opportunity to extract more concessions from them by imposing more stringent conditions.
For the Americans, the blood of the Iraqis – or for that matter, of all other people – is cheaper than water and there is no reason for Washington not to tighten its tentacles when the opposite side is willing to put its neck under the Yankee yoke.
True, FBI investigators who visited the scene in the days following the Nisour Massacre had described it as the "My Lai Massacre of Iraq” – a reference to the infamous slaughter of civilian villagers by US troops during the Vietnam war for which only one soldier was convicted, but the victims of American aggression ought not to be deceived by such meaningless statements.
If the Americans are sincere then they should hand over the criminals to the Iraqi people or government to punish them as per Iraqi laws, since the crime took place on Iraqi soil and the victims were the Iraqi people.
Over the past forty-two years the Islamic Republic of Iran has shown to the whole world that on no account should the US be trusted – as became crystal clear after Washington’s unilateral breach of the 7-nation international accord of Geneva 2015 on Iran’s nuclear rights.
There is no remorse on the part of the US, neither concerning the JCPOA with Iran, nor the continued occupation of Iraq where despite the Legislature’s unanimous decision to close down the American military bases, the Executive continuous to hesitate in showing the exit door for unexplained reasons.
Who knows how many Blackwater criminals still linger in US bases or the embassy in Baghdad, albeit under different names and designations, when the US has no inhibitions in setting up an American-led mercenary army in the UAE that has since reportedly been deployed in Yemen – and of all people under supervision of the notorious Erik Prince, the founder of the now supposedly dissolved Blackwater!
Our advice to our brothers in Iraq: Don’t trust the Americans and ask them to leave without delay before the criminal Trump commits another act of terrorism on Iraqi soil, and moreover no change of guard in the White House will redress the sufferings of the Iraqi people.