Haditha - An American Crime

When I think of the massacre at Hadaitha, I tend to think of American popular entertainment. Starting with 24 and going through the few movies I could stomach in the past few years, the image that comes to mind is violent, justified vengeance. In most of the popular entertainment I've seen, vengeance and vigilante justice are praised. And that, dear readers, is what the Marines at Haditha grew up on.

But this is reality, the United States is fighting a nominal war on terrorism and the Marines at Haditha apparently massacred eleven people. In an earlier age, we had Lt. Kalley and My Lai, another American massacre. We have Rodney Kings, lesser known victims of excessive police force captured by helicopter cameras, there are still beatings in the name of just vengeance. The point of all this is that we, America, are capable of evil. We'd like to drink the Conservative kool-aid and believe that we're the just nation, that we're God's country but the hard truth is that we're not God's chosen, we're just one nation under God, just as capable of evil as Nazi Germany or Saddam's Iraq. These massacres bring home that fact in spades.

We will get a whitewash report on this latest American embarassment. I would hope that more people realize that we, systemically, are capable of doing evil as a nation and that more espouse the notion that the only way of limiting these evils is enforcement, oversight and openness. The Washington Post is already reporting false statements filed in the Haditha case, something I'd expect. Doubtless those Marines thought they were inflicting justice on those they massacred. It would seem that justice will be meeted upon them as well. Will any commander walk the plank? I doubt it. This is Bush's administration where blame is shifted to the lowest possible level, the definition of the abdication of the responsibility that comes with leadership.