Pharyngula

Posted by: Kristine | May 18, 2006 9:36 AM

I saw John Murtha interviewed last night on "Hardball" and I concur with him that, while these alleged crimes are inexcusable, they aren't to be unexpected and are in fact inevitable, considering the third or fourth tours of duty that the Administration is imposing on our troops, and the subsequent stress of daily attacks and casualties. Good commanders steer the circumstances under which soldiers fight, with clear battle plans, adequate equpiment and coverage, and exit strategies (I'm talking just on the platoon level). This seat-of-our-pants conduction of the Iraq War by our so-called Commander-in-Chief was beyond reprehensible long ago.

The American people need to realize that American soldiers will follow the same psychological and behaviorial patterns that exist for all human beings in specific circumstances, and that these patterns will not be avoided simply by appealing to American uniqueness, moral values, or personal responsibility. No more photo-ops of them handing out soccer balls and patting little girls on the head. These guys are going to crack, and while I shudder to think this, it's going to keep on happening! We need to accept that, and to realize that most of them (hopefully) will come home. We have the choice as to what state they come home in. As it stands now, the rate of psychological trauma among our Iraqi veterans is skyrocketing, but the military hospitals want to hear about how their mommies were mean, not about what this war is doing to them.

Murtha also mentioned the men who came home from the war and murdered their wives. The local news interviewed a veteran who related how he found himself freaking out in a Wal-Mart one day, screaming at some poor clerk for no reason. And there are still damaged men from the Vietnam War. At a reading of a memoir written by a friend of mine who was in that war, a debate erupted between my friend who is ashamed of his actions and one of his fellow veterans who defended what we did in Vietnam. The Vietnam War defender and I spoke afterward, and we shook hands though I disagreed with him, and then he said something like, "But you know, I can't sleep at night, and my health is shot, and no woman can stand me for long" and then he practically ran away from me.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."--Friedrich Nietzsche

Posted by: Caledonian | May 18, 2006 1:38 PM

Collectively, we are responsible for every death that has occurred since this invasion began. We are responsible for every killed, maimed, or traumatized civilian, every killed, maimed, or traumatized soldier.

Culpability, however, does not obey conservation laws. Incidents such as these become inevitabilities when sufficiently large numbers of individuals are involved, but individuals are responsible for them. Our collective culpability does not diminish the culpability of the soldiers involved in this atrocity.

Posted by: hemlok | May 18, 2006 6:18 PM

Just wanted to note that Hugh Thompson, the incredibly courageous OH-23 pilot who stopped the killing at My Lai at tremendous risk to his own well being and reputation, died just this last January. When you think of My Lai, it's important to remember that while war can bring out the worst in men, it can also showcase a kind of humanity you'd never see anywhere else. If you're not familiar with the story of how he put his chopper between the Vietnamese civilians and the American Soldiers, telling them to let the civilians leave and ordering his men to fire on any American Soldier who disobeyed (in spite of Thompson being outranked by all present officers--he was a CWO), you've got to look it up. It is the story of what REAL heroism is, what a REAL American does, and you can't read it without tearing up. CWO Hugh Thompson, Jr. Gone, but NEVER forgotten...

mikey

Posted by: gregorach | May 19, 2006 7:11 AM

Such events hardly compare to the mass death inevitably invovled in aerial bombardment. What difference does it make whether you shoot a child face-to-face or just drop several tens of thousands of tonnes of high explosive in the general vicinity? Their death is just as certain either way. Concentrating on symbolic, but minor episodes such as these merely helps draw attention away from the far worse but more run-of-the-mill mass barbarism that goes on all the time.