Who says we're a heartless nation that doesn't understand and value human life? I'll tell you what a human life is worth: $2533.33 (Iraqi lives, that is, and adjusted for skin pigmentation and unwitting proximity to insurgents and terrorists. Rates may vary, see your local killing squad for details.). At least that's what we're hearing from today's New York Times.
Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the number two military officer in Iraq, has come up with some startling and deeply troubling conclusions: That not only are our nation's finest psychopaths raping and killing innocent Iraqi civilians, not only are they planning some of these acts of murder, rape and even rapine in advance, not only are we buying the silence of their few surviving relatives with a song and a dance but it was all done with at least tacit collusion with senior military officers who were in on the conspiracy of silence.
Yet, what are we hearing? Sorrow and concern for the lives that we've systematically destroyed, lives that are immeasurably worse off than they were under Saddam? Regret that our actions are getting our soldiers captured and beheaded? No, this is what we're hearing:
An officer who served in Iraq with the Second Marine Division at the time of the killings in Haditha noted that a spate of recent cases in which American troops were being investigated for killing unarmed Iraqi civilians -- including the rape and murder of a young Iraqi woman and the killing of her family in Mahmudiya -- had raised concerns that commanders may be under pressure to make an example of Marine officers in the Haditha incident.
Well,
yeah. That's why they're officers, that's why they're paid the bigger bucks, so they
can be made examples of, so they
can be held accountable for the actions (or misactions) of their subordinates. It's all part of the pay grade and you have to wonder at how high a premium ethics is taught at the military academies that churn out these self-same officers.
Here's one thing we're not hearing, not that I think for a minute that this article by Eric Schmitt and David Cloud is all-inclusive, is much of an interest in looking for evidence that these Orwellian rules of engagement are coming from the same command structure that is covering up for their increasingly out-of-control ground troops. In other words, the Mickey Spillane Shoot first and ask questions later School of Warfare has to come from somewhere much higher up than the ground troop level (and, really, even if the troops were able to make up the rules as they go along with no oversight, would it be much worse than the snowballing anarchy that we're reading about daily?).
"They said they would discuss the report, after being promised anonymity, because it showed that the military takes these incidents seriously and fully investigates them."
If that was the case, then Gen. Chiarelli wouldn't have had to conduct another investigation, in the first place. If they took the sanctity of human life seriously, instead of merely the incidents that brought about its violent end, then we wouldn't be struggling in this PR nightmare that is the stuff of which war crimes trials are made.
Don't get me wrong: It isn't as if there isn't cause for hope or a ray of light that promises to lead us out of this dark, endless cave wall tunnel. After all, Gen. Chiarelli's investigation promises to be followed up by (unspecified) disciplinarian action against these officers. After all, former Gen. Janis Karpinski, to date, is virtually the only command-level military officer who'd served in Iraq to be disciplined for the crimes that happened on her watch (at Abu Ghraib). After all, the article states, "If Marine commanders are found to have been negligent in pursuing the matter, the punishments could range from a relatively mild admonishment to a court martial that potentially could end their military careers."
OK, I could live with that, except for one niggling little detail:
But the statement gave no details of General Chiarelli's findings or recommendations, which will now be sent to his boss, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq. A senior Pentagon official said it could be several days before Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld receives a complete briefing on the matter, and before a redacted version of General Chiarelli's findings are made public.
Bottom line: As per the chain of command, the report has to go to Rumsfeld and, presumably, all the way up to Condi Rice so she can read it to George on the treadmill, the very same people who've been castigating the liberal media for insisting on reporting only bad news from Iraq instead of the good news, like almost 1/7th of the clinics and hospitals that were supposed to be built by the Parsons Group after all these years at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars have been finished ahead of the Five Year Plan, comrades.
And even if these senior military officers who'd apparently turned a blind eye or two while their ground troops were pulling a My Lai on the citizens of Haditha and Mahmudiya are found guilty and sentenced to the harshest penalty possible... Well, my older readers may remember something about Richard Nixon coming in like the cavalry to pull Lt. Calley's fat out of the fire. And since the report to Rummy will be redacted, we still won't know what atrocities have been carried out in our good name and with our tax dollars.
Of course, responsibility and accountability shouldn't stop with these senior military officers. These days, Harry Truman's famous sign is gathering dust at the Truman Presidential Library and doesn't mean much, anymore.
And the administration's in the awkward position of having to tell the torch-wielding mob that their Frankenstein really isn't such a bad guy, after all, he's just misunderstood, because Dr. Bush's entire professional credibility is wrapped up in this ungodly creation of his and if he were to join the torch-wielding mob in hunting down said Frankenstein monster, well, it wouldn't augur any better for the administration than would showing mercy.
The atrocities occurring with frightening regularity (and we've only seen the tip of the iceberg, people, mark my words) don't begin and end with a bunch of scared, badly-trained and occasionally psychotic individuals. But, a Navy recruiting poster from 2004 pretty much sums up more than it intended to by proudly proclaiming, "Kicking butt is mandatory. Taking names is optional."
I guess failure to provide oversight and accountability is also an option.
JP
http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com
