Morals in A Combat Zone (WaPo)

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/09/AR2006060901503.html

Morals in A Combat Zone

By Peter Kilner
Sunday, June 11, 2006; B07

The differing reactions to the alleged killing of noncombatants by American soldiers in the Iraqi town of Haditha reveal a troubling ignorance about the moral reality of war. Much of the national dialogue about the incident is being dominated by people whose approaches to making moral judgments on wartime actions are fundamentally flawed.

In one corner are those who are so convinced this war is wrong that they see only the bad things soldiers do in it. Such people are blind to all the good our soldiers and the war are accomplishing, and they revel in exploiting any incident of misbehavior by soldiers to smear all members of the armed forces and the entire war effort. By their logic, abuse of detainees by one platoon in one prison in 2003, or the alleged killing of civilians by one squad in one town in 2005, is conclusive evidence that the entire war effort is evil. These people are unable to reconcile the fact that unjust actions can and do occur within a war that nonetheless is morally justified.

In the other corner are those so convinced of the rightness of our cause that they refuse to acknowledge that our soldiers sometimes make choices that are clearly wrong and for which they should be held accountable. These people equate supporting the laws of war with being unpatriotic and disdainful of the troops. What they fail to recognize is that their implicit argument is both insulting to soldiers and corrosive to the foundation of the military profession. My fellow soldiers and I recognize fully that we are responsible for our individual actions, and that our permission to do violence to other human beings is constrained by our obligation to do so only when it is morally justified.

...

The incident at Haditha is not likely to be the last time that we as a nation find ourselves judging the actions of our soldiers at war. All Americans should resist the calls of those who seek to condemn all soldiers based on the actions of a few, just as we should reject any claims that soldiers are immune from judgment. Instead, we should judge each soldier and situation on the merits, paying special attention to the circumstances in which the fateful decisions were made and to the actions of the soldier's leaders.

The writer is a major in the U.S. Army. The views expressed here are his own.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. Let this be happenin on his own shores and see how the

story changes... immediately. A few bad apples... perhaps... depends on what a few means.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/36752/

But the truth is that the story is unique only in that the evidence that a terrible crime took place appears to be too great for "plausible deniability."

Consider just a few reports:

* A team of eight Amnesty International staffers reported on a host of abuses by coalition forces, including the killing of two unarmed kids -- one 12 years old -- during house to house searches. "Many of the coalition soldiers and military police engaged in law enforcement do not have basic skills and tools in civilian policing," Curt Goering, a member of the Amnesty team in Iraq, noted.

* The Associated Press reported that "Iraq's U.N. ambassador accused U.S. Marines of killing his unarmed young cousin in what appeared to be 'cold blood'" during another house search in Anbar province. The ambassador, Samir Sumaidaie, wrote that the troops had smiled after the "killing of an unarmed innocent civilian." He believed it was "a crime that may be repeated up and down Al-Anbar."

* In early 2004, senior British commanders condemned "American military tactics in Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate." One officer told reporters "the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen." (The Brits have been accused of their own share of crimes in Iraq.)

* In April of 2004, there were widespread reports -- in the foreign press -- that civilians were targeted during the "Siege of Fallujah." The Pentagon was outraged when journalists reported the number of civilians killed in the city. One report quoted Dr. Rafa Hayad al-Issawi, director of the city's main hospital, saying "the dead mostly included women, children and elderly." The Iraqi minister of health, Khudair Abbas, confirmed that U.S. forces had shot at ambulances -- in Fallujah and elsewhere -- and condemned the acts as possible war crimes. Snipers who served in Fallujah told the Los Angeles Times that "there might not have been such a 'target-rich' battlefield" since the World War II battle for Stalingrad.

[wtmusic]

2. "all the good our soldiers and the war are accomplishing"

If saying it only made it so

[ShortnFiery]

3. WAR, in and of itself is TERRORISM in Action n/t

The Officers who are active in the Cover Up always fall back on the "Just a Few Bad Apples" Arguments.

However, what they fail to realize is the fact that, as civilized peoples, we must work like hell to PREVENT WAR. Having a strong military deters aggression against our nation.

War is Terrorism!

Anyone with friends and loved ones serving in a war zone are keenly aware of that FACT.

Let's stop feeding the elitist's Military Industrial Machine with our precious sons and daughters.

The honorable Field Grade and General Officers train their troops for war but PRAY that they may never have to send them off to their potential deaths. The author of this piece of work, this Major, like Colin Powell, is just a PR Errand boy for the war machine. A few bad apples, my ass!

Civilian killings, extradition and condoned torture is ALL within the USA's Military and Civilian promotion of abuse and torture that bellows from Rumsfeld down to the rank-and-file troops. It's a culture of lies and horror that our troops must survive in. These war atrocities should be answered to all the way up the Chain of Command, to include Gonzales and Our Dear Leaders, Dick and Dubya in turn. :grr:

When the Warmongers run out of cannon fodder, they will BE FORCED to turn away from WAR as THE Answer. :patriot: