(1)
I bet you didn’t realize that there’s a quantity discount on Iraqi civilians. Yes, they seem to be cheaper by the dozen.

I’m not sure if the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has a rate chart printed up and circulated to security contractors yet. But here’s what we know already.

If you kill one solitary Iraqi for no good reason (since even the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad does not yet consider “being drunk” as a good reason), it sets you back $15,000.

If you kill 17 Iraqis at one time, then the rate drops to $12,500 per. That’s a roughly 17% discount. What a lovely coincidence!

(2)

The U.S. Embassy on Wednesday began offering tens of thousands of dollars in payments to the victims of the Sept. 16 shootings in Baghdad involving Blackwater Worldwide security guards, according to relatives and U.S. officials.

But family members of several victims turned down the compensation, out of concern that any acceptance of money would limit their future claims against the North Carolina-based security firm and its chief executive, Erik Prince. Others said that the money being offered — in some cases $12,500 for a death — was paltry and that they wanted to sue Blackwater in an American court.

I’m not sure I’d be able to sleep at night if I described $12,500 as “tens of thousands of dollars”. If anyone knows Sudarsan Raghavan of WaPo, please ask him for me how he’s doing sleep-wise.

And why, pray, is the U.S. Embassy making these payments? Blackwater no longer shells out what the State Department tells them to?