Home > LEFT LETTERS: The Good News From Haditha
Wars and conflicts USA History
by David McReynolds
Good news? Yes, of a sort. It is good news that Time magazine, which of late has taken a Wall Street Journal turn with its choice of columnists, broke the story. Strange, of course, that a massacre that took place last November only made the big news here in May. But not so strange. My Lai, which involved the slaughter of hundreds of Vietnamese, took place in 1968 but wasn’t revealed until 1969.
It is good news that Americans have been forced, at last, to see the Iraq war for what it is - a US violation of international law which opened the gates of hell. It is good news that a decorated Marine veteran, Congressman John Murtha, had the courage to say the events in Haditha were worse than first reported, that there had been a coverup, and to note that this is what happens when you plunge young men into situations they do not understand. (In reading the current Newsweek account of Haditha one sees again the "old line" laid down after Vietnam - that veterans returning from that war were spit upon and called baby killers. This kind of invented history is similar to the old German myth after World War I that the war was lost because it "was betrayed from within". The US peace movement worked with Vietnam veterans - it didn’t spit on them).
To note the pressures which drove Marines to murder is not to excuse what happened - a crime is a crime. This was not a case where one man went berserk and can plead temporary insanity. No, civilians were rounded up over a period of hours, by a number of Marines, and shot point blank. Then the massacre was covered up.
But when the trial takes place it must, this time, reach higher than at the time of My Lai, when one low ranking officer, Lt. Calley, was convicted. The crimes of Haditha flowed from a pattern of crimes thus far obscured from the public. We have never seen (except on the internet) an investigation of the siege of Fallujah last November, when, according to the New York Times, 36,000 of the existing 50,000 homes were destroyed. Can one believe that most of the housing of Fallujah was leveled but the civilians escaped unscathed?
Who gave the orders for the siege of Fallujah? Who sent the Marines into Haditha? It is not enough to suggest Donald Rumsfeld resign his post. He needs to head the list of those facing trial for crimes of war. I have watched that man on TV, lying with a straight face, broken by the occasional grin, denying there have been any violations of human rights in Guantanamo. Let the trials for crimes of war start at the top.
In some ways the "good news" focuses my mind on the observation of the late Hannah Arendt - that there is always a witness. The question the resister asks, when facing death for refusing orders, is "who will ever know?" Arendt pointed out there is always a witness, even if that witness is the person who pulled the trigger. Christians should remember that the great organizer of Christianity was Saul, who killed Jews converting to Christianity, only to suffer a nervous breakdown on the Road to Damascus and become the Paul of Christian history. After the end of World War II there were Germans who came forward to bear witness to crimes in which they had been involved. This was also true of our men and women who fought in Vietnam. Now it is true of Iraq, where the information (and photos) we get is often leaked by troops who know what has happened is wrong. Let those leaks continue.
There are two final points to make about Haditha. One is that no war is clean. Not World War II, which so many refer to as "the good war". It was that war in which the barbarism of the Nazis, in the beginning, demonstrated by their bombing of Rotterdam, which had been declared an open city by the Dutch, was, by the end, matched by Dresden, and of course the fire bombing of Tokyo, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One may disagree with those of us who are pacifists, one may insist some wars are necessary. I leave that debate to one side to note that even "the necessary war" will always have its Dresden, My Lai, Haditha. Brothers and sisters, we are all on the same side - it is war which is the enemy.
Finally, most tragically, Haditha forces us to look at what has become of Iraq. One reason there hasn’t been a great outcry from within Iraq over news of Haditha is that every day the civilians of Iraq now face terror from other Iraqis.George Bush threw open the gates of hell. Who knows how or when those gates can be closed. But when John Murtha insists the US must leave now, he is speaking an obvious truth - there is nothing the US can do now, except deepen the violence. It must leave Iraq immediately.
David was Socialist Party nominee (write-in) for Congress, 1958. Peace & Freedom Party nominee for Congress, 1968. Socialist Party nominee for President, 1980. National Co-Chair, Socialist Party, two terms. National Committeeman, Socialist Party. Arrested over a dozen times for participation in peace, civil rights, and labor demonstrations.
Forum posts
7 June 2006, 03:32
The Marines have been led into a moral wasteland by their commanders and the thugs in Washington. Falluja already showed what they were capable of. Their name is tarnished beyond redemption. The brainwashed psychokillers have proven that they can’t stand up to their degenerate officers (actually soldiers never can) and have lost their moral bearings.
7 June 2006, 08:50
The marines just showed what they always have been: killers and also cowards. The special forces of America always have been great against civilians especial olde ones or children.
There is no honor in being a marine. In order to sign in, you must be a brain dead bastard.
7 June 2006, 04:51
I disagree with some points of this article, the biggest is that it assumes that the Haditha events were picked up by the Americans. This is simple not true. The American is not at all aware of such things.
That is not to say that a handful became aware of it.
What is being broadcast of this story will have no effect on the continuation of the war.
The other thing is to see that the leaders of America are Americans themselves; that is we are too quick to blame the leadership for the war and too quick to absolve the soldier and the public — when, in fact, it is continum.
We are to blame ourselves, rather than to distance "us" from "them".
7 June 2006, 16:32
Okay, we blame ourselves, then what? How does that begin to solve the problem, or bring about and end to the war?
21 June 2006, 17:46
By the tone of your commentary, you seem to be implying that the burden of solving ’our’ problem is on others, anonymous others at that, and that you have no personal responsibility to come up with an idea on your own. You, dear blogger, are almost anxious to wash your hands of this ’problem’ and be done with it, as if this problem has no direct bearing on you. I’m very much afraid that this problem will escalate into an economic catastrophe and will have a direct bearing on all of us, since this ongoing war will leave this nation bereft of allies, moral authority and even economic strength.
This ’passing the buck’ that you imply is a typical tack used by many who still support this war, that all the anti-war crowd do is bitch and moan. All I can say about that is that if you continue to deny the reality of this war, if you continue to call it a ’War on Terror’, instead of calling it what it is, an act of naked aggression, the abhorrent conquest of a sovereign nation, we as a nation, will never solve this problem.
Let me be specific: the problem lies in our foreign policy and its duplicitous use of the English language. Our foreign policy, which neither dominant party has wavered from since the beginning of the Cold War, has always been one of naked aggression on smaller nations, heavy handed naked aggression barely disguised as ’police’ actions, or even worse, acts of ’mercy’.
These aggressive actions have always been to further American business interests, i.e. ’Globalist’ interests, and never were really about maintaining world peace or, biggest joke of all, making the world safe for ’democracy’. Until the majority of the American people see this obvious truth, until they witness their recent past in the clear,hot light of the truth, without the white washed, convoluted version that is daily hammered by the US mass media, at the behest of the State Department, we will always will fall into the traps they have ensnared for us.
So the first step in solving any problem, dear blogger, is finding out the truth, finding out the facts, FOR YOURSELF, and then see how these facts are tied together; clear analytical thinking is required, connecting all the pertinent dots. But without the truth, without the facts, there will be no problem solving, just another illusion, another mirage, masquerading as a solution.
Our problem as a nation is simply our inability to seek the truth, our inability to see our own flaws as a people, which are CONSIDERABLE. Too many Americans are like yourself, unable, no, UNWILLING to use their own heads, unwilling to think independently, like problem solving isn’t the domain of the human brain. No, my dear blogger. The problem is one we all share, therefore it is one we should all contribute to its solution. Don’t be asking for someone else to do your homework, don’t be asking for someone else to lead the way and hold your hand. That’s been OUR PROBLEM for far too long. And the only way to solve that one is becoming an independent and truly free thinking person. As long as we continue to ask others we consider ’smarter’ or ’stronger’ for leadership and guidance, we will never be the nation our Founding Fathers, all independent thinkers to the man, intended us to be.