We have spent the past few days talking about the horrible murder of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha by angry U.S. Marines. Make no mistake, this is an atrocity that should never have happened. But it was also inevitable.
Soldiers are people. They fall prey to weakness, frustration, boredom. the whole gamut of human emotions. And they are fighting a war, possibly the most terrible thing men have to endure. Consider an ordinary day for soldiers in Iraq. Go on patrol, maybe you make a friend but most everyone looks away or gets out of your way. They cower in ther homes and run away when they hear you coming. Your enemy is not one you can attack directly and use the skills carefully honed in training. He is a civilian most of the time, the guy who sells you oranges, the cabby, the woman with kids on the corner. He goes around unarmed and kowtows. He smiles at you and lies.
And he never attacks except when sure of absolute surprise. The first you see of him isn't a prepared position, but a bomb that explodes underneath your best friends humvee. It's an RPG round that flew overhead, or the crackling of machine gun bullets. Most of the time you're okay, but other times you are not, and a buddy, a man you trained with is screaming on the ground with his intestines strung out behind him.
And what can you do? That price is much more bearable when there is an enemy to fight, when the bodies of bad guys lie on the ground next to your friends. But this didn't happen. Just a big explosion, a comrade is dead and nobody knows anything. Nobody is nearby but a bunch of civilians and you know that at least some of them watched the bomb being buried. They helped your friend die mutilated, or at least they did nothing to stop it. Sure most of these people, maybe all, kept silent because they're terrified by the bad guys.. But this has been going on for months and you've seen this same scene again and again. You've written letters home to widows, orphaned children and grieving parents. You've watched your buddy the great athlete lose his legs.
How much can a man take anyway?
If you study the history of small unit operations you quickly learn that war crimes are fairly common. All the training in the world cannot undo the emotional nature of human beings. Men angered at the loss of friends sometimes murder and mutilate. That in order to kill you must dehumanize your enemy is some way and that default the prejudice extends to his countrymen. Prisoners get shot and mutilated. Men relieved to be alive rape. Combat somtimes brings on the red mist in men's lives. There is a story of a unit in Korea that atter a successful bayonet charge agains the Chinese kept running over the hill and bayoneted the Chinese pack animils until the helpless beasts were cutlets. Combat is a mad thing, and it brings on madness to men both temporaray and lasting.
What happened at Haditha was inevitable the day troops crossed into Iraq. We should be displeased that it happened, at the same time thankful it took so long. And so while I agree these men need punished, they also deserve some measure of our understanding, for what brought good men to this point. That includes the officers who looked the other way, for they did so not to protect themselves but their men who go out there every day to face death and mutilation.
IN war bad things happen. Horrible, terrible things. That is part of the price you assume when you choose war. If such things coming to light can threaten a nation's will to fight, or ability to achieve victory, then perhaps the war is not worth its cost.