First, Do No Harm

Medical interventions alway carry risks.  So do other types of
interventions, such as those carried out in the name of national
security.  Just as physicians must not let their enthusiasm
for healing carry them into the realm of medical misadventure, we, as a
country, must exercise prudence and restraint in the application of
force.  We must be cautious about allowing our collective
might to be used in ways that defy that prudence and restraint.



Let us not forget, that in the interest of promoting national security,
we need to protect ourselves not only from external threats, but also
from threats arising among our own people, and our own government.
 

From Bob Hebert's Times Select editorial, href="http://www.radicalleft.net/blog/_archives/2006/7/10/2095955.html">A
Vietnam Lesson, Unlearned:

This is the sort of thing that happens when the
military is run by power-hungry amateurs who lack the maturity and the
sense of history to temper their arrogance.

I suspect that the founding fathers had some degree of wisdom, when
they decided to have the military commander-in-chief be a civilian.
 But this is one of the consequences they couldn't have
anticipated:

According to federal prosecutors, an Army private and
several comrades attacked an Iraqi family last March, raping and
killing a young woman after executing her parents and her younger
sister in their home. The men disguised themselves for the attack and
worked as a team, the prosecutors said. Iraqi leaders are in an uproar,
as are American officials in and out of the military.

That's from Benedict Carey's recent NYT article, href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/weekinreview/09carey.html?ex=1310097600&en=9eb3a2ffc40675d4&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss">When
the Personality Disorder Wears Camouflage.
 I'm not arguing that the founding fathers could not have
anticipated the atrocities; surely, such things happened in the 1700's,
too.  What they could not have anticipated is the way it would
come about.  From Herbert's essay:

It was already known that the Army had become more
reluctant to release soldiers who were seriously out of shape, or
pregnant, or abusing alcohol or drugs.



The pressure to put somebody — anybody — in uniform
also led to the lowering of standards for admission to the junior
officer ranks.

We've been told that some quantity of "Collateral damage" is inevitable
in war.  I can even accept that, although it rankles me to do
so; I can accept it under the conditions that nobody is being
deceitful, or negligent.  



For example, there was an incident in Bosnia, when an A-10 "Warthog"
attacked a civilian convoy.  We were told that, due to the
risk of surface-to-air missiles, the plane was flying above 10,000
feet.  From that height, the civilian convoy looked like a
military formation.  



We'll have to await the results of the investigation to know what
really happened in Iraq.  Even then, it is likely that we
never will have the full truth.  



Perhaps it is somewhat speculative to say that the lowering of
standards has led to the inclusion of soldiers with personality factors
that would predispose them to commit atrocities.  



According to a href="http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?site_area=1&aid=197">Southern
Poverty Law Center href="http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?aid=66">report,
(also covered in the href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/07/AR2006070701096.html"
rel="tag">Washington Post):

Ten years after Pentagon leaders toughened policies
on extremist activities by active duty personnel -- a move that came in
the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing by decorated Gulf War combat
veteran Timothy McVeigh and the murder of a black couple by members of
a skinhead gang in the elite 82nd Airborne Division -- large numbers of
neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists continue to infiltrate the ranks of
the world's best-trained, best-equipped fighting force. Military
recruiters and base commanders, under intense pressure from the war in
Iraq to fill the ranks, often look the other way.



Neo-Nazis "stretch across all branches of service, they are linking up
across the branches once they're inside, and they are hard-core,"
Department of Defense gang detective Scott Barfield told the
Intelligence Report. "We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," he
added. "That's a problem."

The SPLC has a href="http://www.splcenter.org/intel/news/item.jsp?sid=20">timeline
illustrating instances of extremism in the military.  It
appears that the government has made efforts in the past to eliminate
the problem.  I do not mean to fault them for lack of effort.
 Rather, my point is this: it is a lot harder to keep the
military in top professional form, when the forces are stretched too
thin, fighting an unnecessary war.  



If military recruiters are knowingly bending the rules, and military
officers are knowingly or negligently allowing unfit members to serve,
and if such deceit and/or negligence led to the atrocities in Iraq,
then this was not mere collateral damage.  It was criminal, and
the culpability goes right to the top of the chain of command.



There are a lot of "ifs" in the preceding paragraph, and we need to be
prudent, not jump to conclusions.  But given the fact that the
US military is under civilian control, it is necessary that we
civilians keep an eye on what is happening.  The fact is, we
are responsible fro what is going on over there.  



I can't help but add one more point to this montage.  In order
for us to exercise out responsibility, we need a free press.
 That is, we need journalists who are not href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/29/intel.leaks.ap/index.html">intimidated
by the government.