Daniel Henninger ledes his Wall Street Journal column: "You knew it had to happen. Haditha, an 'incident' involving American troops in Iraq, is now part of the erosion of support for the war in Iraq. The Iraq Syndrome has finally arrived."
The headline: "The Indictment of U.S. Troops Was Inevitable."
He argues that the support-the-troops-but-not-the-war logic is breaking down. He does it by minimizing the importance of alleged atrocities.
"Haditha is indeed the new Abu Ghraib. What this most importantly means is that any U.S. military action overseas now, no matter its level of justification, can be taken down by the significance assigned to events by the modern machinery of publicity." (emphasis added)
In the kicker, he adds, "One suspects that U.S. troops were party to some awful events in the Pacific and European theaters of World War II, all gone in the mists of history and the enemy's defeat. Not now. "
Three grafs from the bottom, he throws in the obligatory nod to the fact that, y'know, something awful may actually have been done in Haditha, and if so, "no one will gainsay justice if that is required."
Arguing about Haditha does keep people from focusing on the larger picture in Iraq, which is not looking pretty.
Perhaps the following quote from the WSJ artical captures best the source of the current problems in Iraq, "The missions in Iraq and Afghanistan grew from the moral outrage of September 11. U.S. troops, the best this country has yet produced, went overseas to defend us against repeating that day."
The fact is Saddam Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. The distortion, deceipt and deception by Bush and his cronies to tie the Iraq war of choice to September 11th and the failure to adequately execute, plan and commit adequate resources has led us to where we are today.
Our military is being broken by the failure of leadership starting with the commnader in chief.
Is there no end to this President's madness?
Posted by: pfknc | Jun 02, 2006 at 10:42 AM
Looks like there is no illegal action - Drudge just announced the findings.
Posted by: chip atkinson | Jun 02, 2006 at 05:12 PM
From the editors of The Nation, "Whatever the responsibility of the unit commanders in Haditha, it is George W. Bush as Commander in Chief who has sent the clear message that human rights abuses and violations of international law are justified in the "war on terror.""
Posted by: pfknc | Jun 02, 2006 at 09:55 PM
Clarification for Chip
GIs at Ishaqi Cleared; Haditha Probe Open
Posted by: pfknc | Jun 02, 2006 at 09:57 PM