What do we tell the Iraqi people now? What reason do we give to the Iraqi people for our continued occupation? How do we explain the occasional errant bomb that tears apart a family? How do we explain the lack of security? How do we explain the dead bodies with holes drilled into their skulls? How do we explain to a 9-year-old orphan why her parents are dead? How do we explain what happened at Haditha?

On the morning of November 19, 2005, one United States Marine was killed by a roadside bomb in the farm town of Haditha. Shortly afterwards 24 Iraqi civilians were gunned down by the Marines in retaliation. The dead Iraqis included members of 3 families and 4 college students. The oldest victim was a 76-year old diabetic who used a wheelchair and the youngest victim was a 1-year-old girl. The Washington Post details the killings:

In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children — 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia.

Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots — in Ali’s house and two others — were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha’s hospital said.

A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died.

Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate.

The Marines moved to the house next door, Fahmi said.

Inside were 43-year-old Khafif, 41-year-old Aeda Yasin Ahmed, an 8-year-old son, five young daughters and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family, according to death certificates and neighbors.

The Marines shot them at close range and hurled grenades into the kitchen and bathroom, survivors and neighbors said later. Khafif’s pleas could be heard across the neighborhood. Four of the girls died screaming.

Only 13-year-old Safa Younis lived — saved, she said, by her mother’s blood spilling onto her, making her look dead when she fell, limp, in a faint.

…

Moving to a third house in the row, Marines burst in on four brothers, Marwan, Qahtan, Chasib and Jamal Ahmed. Neighbors said the Marines killed them together.

Marine officials said later that one of the brothers had the only gun found among the three families, although there has been no known allegation that the weapon was fired.

Meanwhile, a separate group of Marines found at least one other house full of young men. The Marines led the men in that house outside, some still in their underwear, and away to detention.

The final victims of the day happened upon the scene inadvertently, witnesses said. Four male college students — Khalid Ayada al-Zawi, Wajdi Ayada al-Zawi, Mohammed Battal Mahmoud and Akram Hamid Flayeh — had left the Technical Institute in Saqlawiyah for the weekend to stay with one of their families on the street, said Fahmi, a friend of the young men.

A Haditha taxi driver, Ahmed Khidher, was bringing them home, Fahmi said.

According to Fahmi, the young men and their driver turned onto the street and saw the wrecked Humvee and the Marines. Khidher threw the car into reverse, trying to back away at full speed, Fahmi said, and the Marines opened fire from about 30 yards away, killing all the men inside the taxi.

What happened at Haditha was not war. It was not a war crime. It was murder. It was murder in an environment established by the words of our leaders. The gloves have come off. You are either with us or against us. The evildoers must be punished. Wanted dead or alive. Bring it on!

Iraqi lives do not count. They are animals that populate the landscape that must be cleansed of terrorists. Our President does not see the countless bodies piling up at the morgues of Iraq every day. Instead he sees only "suiciders" on the one side and Iraqi politicians on the other who are making "progress" toward a "free" and "liberated" Iraq. The Iraqi people see it differently:

"They are waiting for the sentence — although they are convinced that the sentence will be like one for someone who killed a dog in the United States," said Waleed Mohammed, a lawyer preparing a file for Iraqi courts and the United Nations, if the U.S. trial disappoints. "Because Iraqis have become like dogs in the eyes of Americans."

What is the United States doing in Iraq? Where are the weapons of mass destruction? Why are we killing the Iraqis in order to set them free? Is this what Donald Rumsfeld meant when he said that democracy was messy?

The United States cannot write off Haditha and Abu Ghraib as isolated acts carried out by a handful of rogue soldiers. These acts cannot be written off using the "war is hell" argument either. If the reason we are in Iraq is not because of weapons of mass destruction, if the reason we are in Iraq is to liberate the Iraqi people, then we must have moral authority. But the United States does not have moral authority in Iraq. It never did. The cassis belli for this war was that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and was an imminent threat to the security of the United States. Once the WMD argument evaporated the United States lost any moral authority that it may have claimed in waging this war. You cannot in hindsight change your reasons for starting a war. Once your reason for launching a war is proved false the entire war becomes illegitimate. It is in the context of this illegitimate war that these acts of torture and murder are being carried out. Whether the Administration likes it or not, these acts are being carried out in the name of the United States of America.

It is time to end this folly and bring the troops home. Iraq is already plunging into civil war and the United States cannot be a party to it. The continued presence of the United States military will not prevent the daily killings that have now become part of the background noise of the Iraq war. It is time to end this illegitimate war.

It is time for the United States and Iraq to heal from this terrible upheaval that has been visited upon our times. The healing cannot begin until the United States ends its occupation of Iraq. It is time for the United States to regain its moral authority in the world. It is a long climb back from here but there is no other alternative. No more orphans. No more slaughter. No More.