What do Haditha and the alleged killings at the hospital in NOLA have in common? In both cases, the alleged perpetrators shouldn't have been there. More below the fold.
Watching the breathless news coverage about the alleged hospital mercy killings in NOLA, one thing keeps running through my mind: they were not trained to handle that kind of stress. We will never really know what happened in those long days. People will take sides and lawsuits will be filed but, in the end, the only people who will ever know the truth are the accused and the dead. We can piece together what likely happened and the picture is horrific. How would I respond in the same situation? I don't know. I have never been stressed to that point. Our civilized society is not supposed to push people that point. We are not designed to handle it.
And then there is Haditha. Again, the only people who will ever really know what happened are the people who were there and they all give differing accounts. The only people who will ever really know what happened are the accused and the dead. There, as in the NOLA case, is a definite stink of cover-up, but we will never really know. You can say soldiers are different. Soldiers are trained to control themselves and they should have a strong command structure in place. But doctors and nurses are highly trained, too. They had what was essentially a commander, the doctor, right in the middle of the fray. Those soldiers were in a place they shouldn't have been. They were asked to do a job that pushed them beyond their absolute limit and they cracked.
Two groups of people placed in situations where they shouldn't have been. People ask me about the incident in NOLA. I tell them "I am glad I wasn't the one that had to make the call that day." Remember how hot it was? It was hotter inside. The patients were being hand ventilated. There were armed thugs trying to break into the building. There was no electricity or clean water. The patients were lying in their own filth and in pain. There was no way to clean them. The staff had not slept in days. You damn well better believe I am glad I didn't have to make that call.
Please don't take all of this as an excuse for bad behavior. If the allegations are true, both the soldiers of Haditha and the medical staff in NOLA should be punished. They must be. But they are not the ones I blame. The ones I blame are the people that forced them into those situations to begin with. The people that got us into the mess in Iraq and are now completely clueless as to how to get us the hell out. The people that rotate troops endlessly through combat assignments because they won't fight the war they started themselves. I blame the people that forced the hospital staff to go day after day without any relief and any hope of rescue. The people that ate birthday cake while and entire city drowned and it's inhabitants slowly went mad.
My anger is focused white hot against the same people in both instances. They forced ordinary Americans that started their journey to infamy by going to work into situations they were not equipped to handle. Situations that I certainly am not equipped to handle. It reminds me of when I first read Sunflower. There is commentary at the end where a number of promenant people debate whether or not they would have forgiven the dying soldier. I remember thinking that the exercise was absurd because, unless you had been through the situation described in the essay, you could not possibly know what you would do. I certainly don't and I consider myself pretty damned enlightened. I have forgiven more than I probably should have through the course of my life.
The thing that makes me most angry is that the people most responsible are the people least likely to see justice. No one will go to jail over the destruction of NOLA. It is highly unlikely that the Neo-cons will get their due over Iraq. As in most of these cases, it is the people on the front lines that will live the horror and take all of the blame. They will bear the burden of justice for the real criminals: the people who put them in those situations to begin with.