Haditha Was Inevitable

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

By Mickey Z.

My Lai massacre The Haditha Massacre™ was more than horrific...it was predictable. More than predictable, it was inevitable. Equally horrific, predictable, and inevitable is the devious reporting by the supposedly liberal media. The “alleged” war crimes at Haditha might be the work of a “handful” of Marines who “snapped” and, for those reading between the lines, those Marines are guilty of something far worse than mass murder: They’ve soiled the pristine, courageous image of the American military in Iraq. As Stan Goff sez: “The bad apple defense is back.”

Someone turn down the lights and start the My Lai slide show, please…

The date was March 16, 1968. “Under the command of Lieutenant William L. Calley, Charlie Company of the Americal Division’s Eleventh Infantry had ‘nebulous orders’ from its company commander, Captain Ernest Medina, to ‘clean the village out’,” explains historian Kenneth C. Davis. All they found at My Lai were women, children, and old men...no weapons, no signs of enemy soldiers. Calley ordered villagers to be killed and their huts destroyed. Women and girls were raped before they were machine-gunned. By the end of the massacre, hundreds of villagers were dead.

“This was not the only crime against civilians in Vietnam,” Davis adds. “It was not uncommon to see GIs use their Zippo lighters to torch an entire village.” Indeed, My Lai was not an aberration. On the very same day that Lt. Calley entered into infamy, another U.S. Army company entered My Khe (a sister subhamlet of My Lai) and killed a reported 90 peasants.

One of the My Khe veterans later said, “What we were doing was being done all over.”

Of course it was. It had to be. To expect otherwise is to ignore the reality we’ve all played a role in creating. “This culture has killed a lot of people, and will continue to do so until it collapses, and probably long after,” writes Derrick Jensen in his new book, Endgame.

A lot more and worth reading : http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/mickeyz06032006/

[uppityperson]

1. It is a reason war/occupations should not be entered into lightly

war is not just "our" soldiers fighting "their" soldiers. It is the whole horrific thing. Call it brainwashing, mob mentality, call it who knows what or why, but this has always been a part of it. That does not mean it is excusable, far from that. It means that war, occupying another country, should never ever be entered into lightly and should be avoided at all cost.

[TexasLawyer]

2. Good post

We have put an unbelievable strain on our military, and we have put both their bodies and their minds in harm's way. That's war, especially urban combat where the person who just mortared your convoy slips away into a house down the block.

The decision to take America to war is a disaster of unparalleled proportions, and we should not be surprised at incidents like Haditha.

I am saving my anger for the real culprits-- Bush and his cronies.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

5. Thanks... There's a whole cadre of culprits I'm Afraid.

[flamin lib]

3. It makes me weep . . .

From the link:

"The Haditha Massacre™ is yet another chance for “Jane and Joe Sixpack” to be reminded that when Iraqi rebels kill a civilian, it’s further proof of their inhuman status but when an American soldier commits premeditated murder, it’s an anomaly. It takes a whole lotta propaganda to condition a populace to buy into this formula...”


And yet they believe.

Somehow we are still the 'good guys'. It's all justified.

They kill and it's because their religion is one of hate. We kill and it's completely understandable.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

6. There are a lot of stupid people in America today.

[Imagevision]

4. Kiddin? how many Haditha's went unreported - how many journalists

were killed mistakenly by US. troops? - more in 2 years then entire nam war you say? you get the prize!

[xchrom]

7. haditha = oklahoma city.

our people have been under a barage of hate and propaganda now for a very long time.

bread and circuses keep the people entertained full tilt.

this is a very differnt experience from viet nam -- where doing was everywhere -- but the dissent at home was vigorous and heard around the world.

one can make a legitimate case that we were there for the government of south viet nam{i'm not saying that is my point of view}.

we beat the conservatives then -- now we battle a conservative enmy that has learned it's lessons well -- and has morphed into corporatism to boot. leaving the people wonder who is charge of anything.

our soldiers in haditha were simply carrying on in the spirit of t. mcveigh who in turn was acting on the orders of rush limbaugh, coulter, liddy, falwell, etc.

saddam = bin laden, iraq =al queda, arabs = the enemy.

just like

the poor =equals welfare queens, blacks = lazy tax sucking thieves, feminism = white male subjugation, white males = under attack from everything.

[catmandu57]

8. I predicted this in late 02

I wish I knew how to find the thread, much of what I predicted back then has come to be. I'm still waiting for Iraq to break into three seperate countries and for our troops there to be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of numbers.
If these bastards carry out any kind of attack upon Iran, especially nuclear, I look for 130,000 American casualties within weeks.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

9. I think a lot of people saw this coming...

Especially those of us who lived through the Viet Nam debacle.