WESLEY CLARK:(continued)
In war, terrible fears and passions are unleashed, with often unpredictable consequences. But military leaders know this--and they are charged with accomplishing the mission and protecting the troops, all without sacrificing our values. They'll do their best, even to accomplish the impossible. It's up to our political leaders to task them and give them the resources and to know and respect our limitations. And so Haditha must be a clear warning to the politicos: the window for effective U.S. action is almost closed; don't break our forces trying to salvage a failing mission when we've got more to do elsewhere.
Clark, a retired four-star general and former NATO commander, heads the political-action committee WesPAC
Rules of Engagement
PHILIP CAPUTO
Incidents like this are not just likely; they're inevitable in insurgencies. They happened in Vietnam and even to the British, who committed atrocities during the American Revolution. They happen because one of the things an insurgent does is attack the counterinsurgent's state of mind. The insurgent makes the counterinsurgent feel constantly insecure, constantly scared and constantly unaware of who or where the enemy is. The guy fighting the insurgent often feels lost in a hostile sea.
One of the reasons I wrote the Vietnam memoir A Rumor of War was to show how that kind of war can bring out a psychopathic streak in men of otherwise normal behavior and impulses ... snip..."
A former Marine lieutenant, Caputo is the author most recently of the novel Acts of Faith
GARY SOLIS
Some battlefield acts are so clearly contrary to the training and ethos of Marines and all service members that they remain unacceptable in any circumstance. ...snip... "Yet there apparently was a disregard of those standards by a very few. Even in a combat zone, one can commit murder, and Haditha looks like such a case.
But never forget the thousands of Marines, many on their third and fourth tours, whose conduct on this most treacherous of battlefields has been not just honorable, but selfless and heroic. ...snip..."
A lawyer and former Marine lieutenant colonel who served in Vietnam, Solis has taught courses in the law of war at West Point and Georgetown University
REUEL MARC GERECHT
To their credit, modern Western democracies feel shame in combat more profoundly than other countries. We have done terrible things--in World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and now, it strongly appears, in Haditha in Iraq. These dark moments--indiscriminately bombarding German civilians in World War II, mowing down Vietnamese peasants at My Lai--do not necessarily diminish the rightness of the cause for which we fight. For Americans, in whom isolationism runs deep, it is perhaps reflexive to feel revulsion and want to withdraw from conflicts and commitments where young Americans can do evil things.
Truth be told, however, ...snip... President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and their General John Abizaid, not any Marines at Haditha who ran amuck, are responsible for this far darker tragedy. .."
A former Middle East specialist at the CIA, Gerecht is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.
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