Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

Crooks and Liars and A Tiny Revolution refer to him as the "World’s Bravest Human". I have written about his articles in the past. He is Nir Rosen. He is one of the many reporters risking their lives in Iraq to try to tell the stories of this terrible war. He is one of the few reporters, like Time Magazine’s Michael Ware, who have been able to tell the story from the Iraqi perspective. He has done so at the risk of being killed by both the insurgents and the American military.

Most of my posts usually contain an analysis of the article that I am reviewing, however, in the case of Nir Rosen’s latest article, it’s fitting to let his words speak for themselves. Here is an excerpt from the beginning of the article:

Three years into an occupation of Iraq replete with so-called milestones, turning points and individual events hailed as “sea changes” that would “break the back” of the insurgency, a different type of incident received an intense, if ephemeral, amount of attention. A local human rights worker and aspiring journalist in the western Iraqi town of Haditha filmed the aftermath of the massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians. The video made its way to an Iraqi working for Time magazine, and the story was finally publicized months later. The Haditha massacre was compared to the Vietnam War’s My Lai massacre, and like the well-publicized and embarrassing Abu Ghraib scandal two years earlier, the attention it received made it seem as if it were a horrible aberration perpetrated by a few bad apples who might have overreacted to the stress they endured as occupiers.

In reality both Abu Ghraib and Haditha were merely more extreme versions of the day-to-day workings of the American occupation in Iraq, and what makes them unique is not so much how bad they were, or how embarrassing, but the fact that they made their way to the media and were publicized despite attempts to cover them up. Focusing on Abu Ghraib and Haditha distracts us from the daily, little Abu Ghraibs and small-scale Hadithas that have made up the occupation. The occupation has been one vast extended crime against the Iraqi people, and most of it has occurred unnoticed by the American people and the media.

Americans, led to believe that their soldiers and Marines would be welcomed as liberators by the Iraqi people, have no idea what the occupation is really like from the perspective of Iraqis who endure it. Although I am American, born and raised in New York City, I came closer to experiencing what it might feel like to be Iraqi than many of my colleagues. I often say that the secret to my success in Iraq as a journalist is my melanin advantage. I inherited my Iranian father’s Middle Eastern features, which allowed me to go unnoticed in Iraq, blend into crowds, march in demonstrations, sit in mosques, walk through Falluja’s worst neighborhoods.

I also benefited from being able to speak Arabic—in particular its Iraqi dialect, which I hastily learned in Baghdad upon my arrival and continued to develop throughout my time in Iraq.

My skin color and language skills allowed me to relate to the American occupier in a different way, for he looked at me as if I were just another haji, the “gook” of the war in Iraq. I first realized my advantage in April 2003, when I was sitting with a group of American soldiers and another soldier walked up and wondered what this haji (me) had done to get arrested by them. Later that summer I walked in the direction of an American tank and heard one soldier say about me, “That’s the biggest fuckin’ Iraqi (pronounced eye-raki) I ever saw.” A soldier by the gun said, “I don’t care how big he is, if he doesn’t stop movin’ I’m gonna shoot him.”

I was lucky enough to have an American passport in my pocket, which I promptly took out and waved, shouting: “Don’t shoot! I’m an American!” It was my first encounter with hostile American checkpoints but hardly my last, and I grew to fear the unpredictable American military, which could kill me for looking like an Iraqi male of fighting age. Countless Iraqis were not lucky enough to speak American English or carry a U.S. passport, and often entire families were killed in their cars when they approached American checkpoints.

Read his entire article and then let’s have a dialogue about how we are winning hearts and minds in Iraq and how we are bringing the Iraqis the gift of freedom.

In Vietnam, the United States Military carried out many missions in what the military calls "Free-Fire Zones" . These "zones" where areas where, according to the military’s "rules of engagement", an unidentified person was considered an enemy and the soldiers could shoot anyone they considered hostile. Activities in "free-fire zones" have led to massive civilian casualties and would have been violations of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.

The sergeant who led the raid in Haditha has indicated through his lawyer that he and his squad did not violate the "rules of engagement" and did not intentionally kill innocent civilians. He conceded that "collateral damage" had occurred but it was not intentional:

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, told his attorney that several civilians were killed Nov. 19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from inside a house. The Marine said there was no vengeful massacre, but he described a house-to-house hunt that went tragically awry in the middle of a chaotic battlefield.

"It will forever be his position that everything they did that day was following their rules of engagement and to protect the lives of Marines," said Neal A. Puckett, who represents Wuterich in the ongoing investigations into the incident. "He’s really upset that people believe that he and his Marines are even capable of intentionally killing innocent civilians."

The Marines’ defense strategy for the Haditha massacre is beginning to emerge. According to the lawyer, the Marines received AK-47 fire from the direction of the houses where the civilians were later killed by the Marines. After receiving fire, the Marines attacked the houses:

A four-man team of Marines, including Wuterich, kicked in the door and found a series of empty rooms, noticing quickly that there was one room with a closed door and people rustling behind it, Puckett said. They then kicked in that door, tossed a fragmentation grenade into the room, and one Marine fired a series of "clearing rounds" through the dust and smoke, killing several people, Puckett said.

The Marine who fired the rounds — Puckett said it was not Wuterich — had experience clearing numerous houses on a deployment in Fallujah, where Marines had aggressive rules of engagement.

Although it was almost immediately apparent to the Marines that the people dead in the room were men, women and children — most likely civilians – they also noticed a back door ajar and believed that insurgents had slipped through to a house nearby, Puckett said. The Marines stealthily moved to the second house, kicking in the door, killing one man inside and then using a frag grenade and more gunfire to clear another room full of people, he said.

Wuterich, not having found the insurgents, told the team to stop and headed back to the platoon leader to reassess the situation, Puckett said, adding that his client knew a number of civilians had just been killed. [Emphasis added by me.]

The sergeant is claiming that the "rules or engagement" allowed them to enter and fire indiscriminately inside civilian homes without confirmation that there were enemy elements inside. They also entered a second house on a hunch that someone may have left the first house and gone to the second house. They proceeded to kill the occupants of the second house based on their hunch. The door that was left ajar apparently was by the woman fleeing the massacre with the surviving infant.

The sergeant’s explanation of the killings in the third house is as follows:

After going through the houses, Wuterich moved a small group of Marines to the roof of a nearby building to watch the area, Puckett said. At one point, they saw a man in all-black clothing running from one of the houses they had searched. The Marines killed him, Puckett said.

They then noticed another man in all black scurrying between two houses across the street. When they went to investigate, the Marines found a courtyard filled with women and children and asked where the man was, Puckett said.

When the civilians pointed to a third house, the Marines attempted to enter and found a man with an AK-47 inside, flanked by three other men; the first Marine to enter tried to fire his weapon, but it jammed, Puckett said. The Marines then killed those four men.

It is worth noting that this explanation differs from the Iraqi version of events. The apparent point blank gunshot wounds also contradicts the sergeant’s version of events. This explanation also directly contradicts the two versions of events offered by the Marine Corps to the press. The sergeant’s lawyer believes that those versions were the result of "miscommunication".

The irony here is that if the Marine sergeant is successful in his defense, then the Marines who committed the killings will be innocent but the United States Military will be guilty. Either these killings were perpetrated in cold blood by rogue Marines or these killings were a result of very loose "rules of engagement".

Let us assume for a moment that the sergeant is telling the truth and the "rules of engagement" allow American soldiers to go into Iraqi civilians’ homes and shoot everyone inside without establishing that they are the enemy. Let us assume that it is good enough for American soldiers in a civilian populated urban area to establish that gunfire originated from the general direction of some houses and then to enter those houses and kill everyone inside. The obvious question is how many more massacres have taken place under these "rules of engagement"?

These "rules of engagement" are a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. If in fact, the United States is an "occupying power" in Iraq, which it certainly is, it has the obligation to protect the civilian population. Iraqi urban areas with civilian populations are not enemy territory. This is a counter-insurgency, not a war on a battlefield. You cannot indiscriminately shoot women and children. You cannot assume that someone is the enemy first. If you are doing that, you are committing war crimes. If the United States Military "rules of engagement" in Iraq allow for the killing of persons in their homes indiscriminately, those "rules of engagement" are designed to lead to war crimes.

For those who might be tempted to answer that this is a "different" kind of war and the enemy has no regard for human life and hides within the civilian population, I say to you learn some history. This is not the first counter-insurgency operation in the history of the world. All insurgents have hidden within the civilian population. If the Bush Administration has decided that it must kill civilians in order to stop the insurgency than it should say so. Instead of hiding behind the nonsense of how we have "freed" the Iraqis, we should just admit that we consider them the "enemy" and we are ready to kill them without provocation. Let the chips fall where they may and let the world cry war crimes! After all, who will try the United States? We have not ratified the International Criminal Court.

So, here is the ugly reality then. Either the Marine squad is guilty of war crimes, or the United States is guilty of war crimes. Take your pick. The outcome is not pretty. Either way, the people of Iraq are losing their lives as freedom continues to march over their corpses.

Can we agree on a few basic things? Can we agree that unprovoked premeditated murder is a criminal act? Can we agree that there is no excuse for murdering toddlers in cold blood? Can we agree that we must punish capital crimes?

There is a dangerous argument that is emerging over the revelations of massacre at Haditha. Adding to the chorus coming from the right is an op-ed in today’s Washington Post by Frank Schaeffer. The op-ed is titled "What’s Lost in the Hue and Cry Over Haditha" and the "hue and cry" in the title should give you an indication of what the op-ed will argue.

Schaeffer trots out the "War is Hell" argument in excusing the Haditha massacre. He appeals to our respect for the veterans of World War II to argue that even in that war atrocities were committed. He cites a passage from Norman Lewis’ memoir "Naples ‘44" to illustrate that atrocities were committed in World War II:

"I saw an ugly sight: a British officer interrogating a civilian, and repeatedly hitting him about the head with the chair; treatment which the [civilian], his face a mask of blood, suffered with stoicism. At the end of the interrogation, which had not been considered successful, the officer called on a private and asked him in a pleasant, conversational sort of manner, ‘Would you like to take this man away, and shoot him?’ The private’s reply was to spit on his hands, and say, ‘I don’t mind if I do, sir.’

"I received confirmation . . . that American combat units were ordered by their officers to beat to death [those] who attempted to surrender to them. These men seem very naive and childlike, but some of them are beginning to question the ethics of this order.

"We liberated them from the Fascist Monster. And what is the prize? The rebirth of democracy. The glorious prospect of being able one day to choose their rulers from a list of powerful men, most of whose corruptions are generally known and accepted with weary resignation. The days of Mussolini must seem like a lost paradise compared to us."

No doubt that Bill O’Reilly will pick up on this excuse next week on the heels of his false accusation that Americans, and not the Germans, committed murder at Malmedy.

Schaeffer follows his retelling of Lewis’s account with the meat of the matter:

If Lewis’s account were the only surviving document from World War II, we might assume that allied nation-building ended in catastrophe. We would wonder why a morally outraged peace movement didn’t stop our troops from carrying out their failed and brutal campaigns.

Sixty years later and caught up in another war, we are confronted by the massacre in Haditha. And we are also caught up in the anguish of another generation of young men and women asked to kill but to keep killing within "civilized" bounds, to take insults, be fired upon by men hiding behind women and children, yet not respond in kind. [Emphasis added by me.]

That is really the crux of his argument. How can our troops be expected to not "respond in kind" when the enemy behaves so badly? Ok, I’ll bite on the moral argument. Especially since Schaeffer tugs at our heartstrings by recounting his son’s distress at being deployed in Afghanistan and challenges our moral standing to dare criticize actions on the battlefield:

It’s time for the critics of our military to also earn a little moral authority by volunteering themselves or encouraging their children to do so. Anything less is nothing more than arm’s-length moralizing. [Emphasis added by me.]

Well, sir, let me do some "arm’s-length moralizing" before I get to the real meat of the matter. No American is criticizing the American Military for the Haditha massacre, but rather, we are defending the American Military when we demand that these acts are not tolerated. If you want to condone or advocate the killing of innocent toddlers because you can’t take the heat of battle there are countless terrorist organizations that I recommend that you join. They will be glad to accept your application and agree with your rationalization. The American military is not the place for your kind of rationalization. There is a difference between a civilized and disciplined military and a terrorist organization. The American military does not target nor does it condone the deliberate killing of innocent civilians. The way to maintain discipline in an organized military is to quickly isolate and punish acts of barbarism.  For a final word on this, allow me to quote United States Army Major General William Caldwell from a recent press conference (as replayed on CNN’s Late Edition today):

The coalition does not and it will not tolerate any unethical or criminal behavior.

That is a rather clear and forceful statement from the United States Military. The American public should expect and demand no less from our military.

After the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, the only person ever punished for murdering 504 innocent old men, women and children was Lt. William Calley. He received 3 and a half years of house arrest for his crimes. The American public was overwhelmingly sympathetic to Calley because after all it was "gooks" he had killed and anyone knows that the only good "gook" is a dead "gook". On the other hand, the hero of My Lai, Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thomson was vilified as a traitor because he dared save the lives of 10 women and babies from the murderous guns of Calley and his cohorts. In condoning the massacre at My Lai, the American public collectively bore the responsibility for those killings. It disgraced this nation and it disgraced the military.

The American people and the American Military have come a long way since My Lai. We have learned that premeditated murder cannot be excused. Excusing such crimes tarnished the entire military and the American people. Vigorously prosecuting these crimes does not tar the military, as Mr. Schaeffer suggests, but rather shows that the military will not tolerate these crimes. It protects the military from being overrun by this kind of barbarism. It sets a civilized and disciplined fighting force apart from terrorists and murderers. It honors our military to not tolerate criminal behavior. It recognizes that when bad things happen in war, civilized nations and militaries do not condone it but aggressively fight against it. After all, that is what the Geneva Conventions were adopted to recognize - that even in war, there is right and wrong, there is morality.

Haditha will not become My Lai as long as the American Military and the American people do not allow it to happen. These acts, whenever they occur, must be condemned. We need to appeal to the honor and discipline of our men and women in our military, not to baser instincts that Mr. Schaeffer appeals to when he condones "respond[ing] in kind". There is a reason why there is a "hue and a cry" over Haditha, Mr. Schaeffer. To remind you of the reasons, I recommend that you repeat after me: "There is no excuse for murdering babies." Here endeth the "arm’s length moralizing."

What is the appropriate punishment for murdering 504 innocent men, women and children? Death penalty? Life in prison? House arrest? If you answered house arrest than you win a cookie. Only one man received punishment for the slaughter of innocents at My Lai village in Vietnam on the morning of March 16, 1968. His punishment was 3 and a half years of house arrest. Many are now comparing the Haditha killings in Iraq with the massacre at My Lai. If the comparison holds then once again war criminals will escape unpunished. I for one hope that in the case of Haditha there will be justice where there was none in My Lai.

Now let me tell you the story of what happened one morning in a village in Vietnam…

On the evening of March 15, 1968, Captain Ernest Medina informed the men of Charlie Company that their orders were to destroy the village of My Lai the next morning. Medina said that there would be no women and children in the village at the time and they were likely to find the 48th Battalion of the Viet Cong in the village. Their mission would be to destroy the enemy, kill the livestock, poison the wells and set fire to My Lai.

On the morning of March 16, 1968 shortly before 8 a.m. helicopters carrying the men of Charlie Company landed just outside the village of My Lai. By 8 a.m. the first platoon of Charlie Company commanded by 24-year-old Lt. William Calley entered My Lai. The platoon began their search and destroy mission and found that the only people left in the village were old men, women and children. No one of fighting age was left in the village. The orgy of killing began. A man was stabbed in the back with a bayonet. Another man was thrown down a well and a grenade followed. Fifteen to twenty older women were gathered together and shot in the back of their heads. Eighty people were herded together in the village plaza and mowed down by Lt. Calley and a soldier named Paul Meadlo. Young children and babies were shot. Little girls’ breasts were fondled. An army photographer named Ronald Haeberle arrived in My Lai as the third platoon of Charlie Company moved in. He photographed and witnessed about 30 GIs kill about 100 civilians.

Lt. William Calley gathered about 80 civilians near a drainage ditch on the edge of the village. Calley ordered his platoon to throw the old men, women and children into the ditch. Most of his men refused but 3 or 4 obeyed. Calley ordered his men to shoot the civilians in the ditch. Some refused and some obeyed. Calley joined the soldiers in slaughtering the civilians in the ditch. One 2-year-old child tried to escape and ran toward the village. Calley grabbed the child, threw him into the ditch, and shot him.

Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thomson was piloting a helicopter above My Lai and saw the horror unfolding below. He landed his helicopter near the ditch and put himself between Calley and the civilians. He instructed his crew chief to gun down the Americans if they opened fire on the civilians again. Thomson managed to evacuate 10 civilians, including 5 children and a baby who was still clinging to her dead mother.

By noon the carnage was over.

Hugh Thomson filed a complaint alleging numerous war crimes at My Lai. The complaint went nowhere. The official Army version was that 128 enemy were killed and 20 civilians were inadvertently killed. However, word started to spread about the massacre from the GIs of Charlie Company. Some GIs of Charlie Company talked to a soldier named Ronald Ridenhour. Ridenhour decided to send a letter about the My Lai massacre to President Nixon, the Pentagon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the State Department and some members of Congress. Almost all of his letters were ignored. One recipient of the letter, Representative Morris Udall, urged a full investigation of Ridenhour’s allegations.

Eventually the Army charged 26 enlisted men and officers, including Lt. Calley and Captain Medina, with crimes related to the My Lai massacre. The charges against 25 enlisted men and officers would eventually be dropped. In March 1971 Lt. Calley was convicted by a military court martial of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison. Two days later, however, President Richard Nixon ordered Calley released from prison and confined to house arrest instead. On November 9, 1974 the Secretary of the Army paroled Calley and he was released from house arrest. In total, Lt. William Calley, the only man ever punished for the My Lai massacre, spent 3 and one half years under house arrest.

The oldest human being murdered at My Lai was 82 years old and the youngest was 1 year old. Lt. Calley spent a little under 3 days under house arrest for each civilian murdered at My Lai. President Nixon called the My Lai massacre "an isolated incident."

The public sentiment in the United States was overwhelmingly against the conviction of Lt. Calley. According to an opinion poll conducted for President Nixon on April 1, 1971, 79% said that the sentence of life imprisonment for Lt. Calley was "too harsh".

However, the My Lai massacre eventually caused the public to sour on the Vietnam War. Support for the war rapidly dissipated after the horrors of My Lai seeped into the American consciousness.

The lessons of My Lai are still relevant today. We learned at My Lai that soldiers are capable of and sometime do commit atrocities during war. We learned that even in the bleakest of times, and perhaps because of them, heroes emerge. We learned that war crimes sometimes go unpunished even when the evidence is overwhelming. We learned that political expediency can trump justice when a President wishes it.

After My Lai the expectation is not great that if the soldiers involved in the Haditha killings are found guilty that they will be given anything more than a slap on the wrist. There was plenty of public outrage and international outrage after My Lai, but the punishment did not come close to matching the magnitude of the crime. There is likely to be public outrage over Haditha, but public outrage is not enough.

This time justice must be served. For the victims, for the American people, and for the sake of humanity. Otherwise massacres like My Lai and Haditha will continue to occur and the guilty will continue to go unpunished. The lesson will continue to be that our ideals state that we do not do these things but our actions tolerate these atrocities with a wink and a nod.

[Via AMERICABlog] The new Iraqi Ambassador to the United States, Samir Sumaidaie, presented his credentials to President Bush yesterday. With him however he brought more than his credentials, he also brought with him a personal story of the quagmire the United States finds itself in Iraq. Mr. Sumaidaie brought with him the story of his cousin’s death at the hands of American Marines.

After meeting with President Bush, the Iraqi Ambassador discussed his cousin’s killing with Wolf Blitzer on CNN:

BLITZER: But even months before the incident in November, you lost a cousin at Haditha in a separate battle involving United States Marines.

SUMAIDAIE: Well, that was not a battle at all. Marines were doing house-to-house searches, and they went into the house of my cousin. He opened the door for them.

His mother, his siblings were there. He led them into the bedroom of his father. And there he was shot.

BLITZER: Who shot him?

SUMAIDAIE: A member of the Marines.

BLITZER: Why did they shoot him?

SUMAIDAIE: Well, they said that they shot him in self-defense. I find that hard to believe because, A, he is not at all a violent — I mean, I know the boy. He was [in] a second-year engineering course in the university. Nothing to do with violence. All his life has been studies and intellectual work.

Totally unbelievable. And, in fact, they had no weapon in the house. They had one weapon which belonged to the school where his father was a headmaster. And it had no ammunition in it. And he led them into the room to show it to them.

BLITZER: So what you’re suggesting, your cousin was killed in cold blood, is that what you’re saying, by United States Marines?

SUMAIDAIE: I believe he was killed intentionally. I believe that he was killed unnecessarily. And unfortunately, the investigations that took place after that sort of took a different course and concluded that there was no unlawful killing.

I would like further investigation. I have, in fact, asked for the report of the last investigation, which was a criminal investigation, by the way.

[Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq] is aware of all the details, because he’s kept on top of it. And it was he who rejected the conclusions of the first investigation. I have since asked formally for the report, but it’s been nearly two months, and I have not received it.

This is a serious charge and you may be tempted to believe that the Ambassador is simply jumping on the Haditha bandwagon to score some political and decidedly undiplomatic points. However, Sumaidaie raised this incident with the United States military nearly a year ago while he was the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations. In addition to raising the issue with the US military the Ambassador also sent a letter to his colleagues. According to the BBC:

In a letter to colleagues, Mr Sumaidaie explained in detail what happened to his cousin Mohammed al-Sumaidaie on 25 June in the village of al-Sheikh Hadid.

He said Mohammed, an engineering student, was visiting his family home when some 10 marines with an Egyptian interpreter knocked on the door at 1000 local time.

He opened the door to them and was "happy to exercise some of his English", said the ambassador.

When asked if there were any weapons in the house, Mohammed took the marines to a room where there was a rifle with no live ammunition.

It was the last the family saw him alive. Shortly after, another brother was dragged out and beaten and the family was ordered to wait outside.

As the marines left "smiling at each other" an hour later, the interpreter told the mother they had killed Mohammed, said Mr Sumaidaie.

"In the bedroom, Mohammed was found dead and laying in a clotted pool of his blood. A single bullet had penetrated his neck."

The Ambassador’s own story highlights the confused and tragic situation of the United States military in Iraq. The Ambassador is no insurgent sympathizer. He is Western educated and is a supporter of the US military intervention. The killing of the Ambassador’s cousin, the killings in Haditha, and another killing that is also under investigation in Iraq just add to an emerging pattern of civilian killings and intimidation occurring in Iraq.

We have placed a heavily armed fighting force in the middle of a large civilian population who have been declared friendly by our Government. Our military is fighting a largely unseen insurgent force whose weapon of choice is the IED. In this circumstance the easiest target of revenge is the civilian population. It is tempting to kick down doors and interrogate and harass the population to try to gain intelligence about the insurgency. It is the way of heavy-handed counter-insurgency campaigns. It is also the surest way to lose the battle for hearts and minds. We have to ask ourselves if we are doing more harm than good in Iraq. We cannot destroy the village to save it.

The Bush Administration needs to step back and take a good look at its Iraq policy. Instead of writing off Abu Ghraib, Haditha and other atrocities as isolated incidents, it needs to ask itself if our policy in Iraq is leading to these atrocities. Upon examination I think the answer is likely to be yes. Then the question really is, "Are we as a nation willing to accept the loss of our moral authority to further our policy in Iraq?" I know what my answer to that question is; what is yours? Our collective answer as a nation will determine whether the United States withdraws from Iraq or continues down its current path.