Rhetorical Outbursts

Everyone should be shocked at what we’ve been reading about Haditha. Waiting for the facts and avoiding hysteria may be impossible.

Yes, if it happened as alleged, then it is horrific. Yes, if true it is certainly an aberration that should not be used (as it certainly will be) to smear the Marines or the U.S. military in general. Yes, it is important to remember that while we investigate and punish those who target civilians, the enemy praises such atrocities as pleasing to God and calls it “martyrdom” when the attacker dies in the process.

But, none of that matters much now, because the U.S. is held to a higher standard. And, we should be. Americans insist on it. I found this reaction from a CNN reporter who had been embedded with the very unit accused in this incident to be valuable context and a fascinating insight into what what we expect of our military:

I know the Marines that were operating in western al Anbar, from Husayba all the way to Haditha. I went on countless operations in 2005 up and down the Euphrates River Valley. I was pinned on rooftops with them in Ubeydi for hours taking incoming fire, and I’ve seen them not fire a shot back because they did not have positive identification on a target.

I saw their horror when they thought that they finally had identified their target, fired a tank round that went through a wall and into a house filled with civilians. They then rushed to help the wounded — remarkably no one was killed.

I was with them in Husayba as they went house to house in an area where insurgents would booby-trap doors, or lie in wait behind closed doors with an AK-47, basically on suicide missions, just waiting for the Marines to come through and open fire. There were civilians in the city as well, and the Marines were always keenly aware of that fact. How they didn’t fire at shadows, not knowing what was waiting in each house, I don’t know. But they didn’t.

And I was with them in Haditha, a month before the alleged killings last November of some 24 Iraqi civilians.

[HT: Little Green Footballs]