Numerous reports of the killings in Haditha by US Marines have appeared in the press, and on blogs like Daily Kos. As we all learn more about what happened, I hope political opponents of the US's war in Iraq will take some time to think about these killings and other wartime killings.
People are saying the killings in Haditha are "Iraq's My Lai", which is understandable. It's tempting to link the US war in Iraq to our war in Vietnam. Contemporary Americans have a gut level knowledge of the Vietnam war, a slew of bad memories. And war critics who tap into those memories may help hasten whe war's end.
But My Lai was hardly a first, nor will Haditha be a last.
I have a quick point to make.
When a nation sends its young men and women to war, it has to expect that atrocity will follow.
It's absurd to expect that a nation's army will NOT engage in atrocity - because every single war involves atrocity.
War means fighting and fighting means killing. And anybody who thinks this excludes civilians and women and children is a deluded fool.
Humans have beeen slaughtering each other for millenia. The Old Testament describes the slaughter of women and children in Canaan, and our own history books describe Colonel Forsythe killing the Sioux at Wounded Knee. Col. Chivington wiped out the Comanche at Sand Creek, and Gen. Smith ordered massacres to defeat guerrillas in Samar in the Philippines. We all know about Lt Calley at My Lai.
Guerrilla warfare, such as we find ourselves in now, is designed to bring about the death of civilians. Mao told his fighters to live among the people as fish live in the sea. Is anyone surprised when innocent civilians are killed? Guerrilla fighters know the civilians who shelter them will be killed in reprisals.
One measure of a society is how it deals with atrocities committed by its soldiers. The German army in WWII never prosecuted its troops who massacred whole villages of Poles - the slaughter was part of a sanctioned government program. Liebensraum.
The USA is different. The US people will, hopefully, investigate the marines involved at Haditha and, if the marines are guilty, punish them.
But atrocity always springs from war. If you go to war, you have to expect atrocity to follow - it always has. In my view, that's one reason why the threshhold for going to war has to be set so high. Because when we decide to go to war, we're deciding to get ourselves mixed up in truly horrific things.
Going to war the way Bush did - based on lies, hubris, ego, whatever - is even more inexcusable once you think about what the war involves.