Comments on: Missing the point about atrocities

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 04:04:58 +0000

Michael,
I ask in all serious whether you think this is likely to be the first case like this or only the first we’ve heard of. Isn’t it quite obvious, from all of history, that this sort of thing _always_ happens _a lot_ in _all_ wars, and that only a fool would think that for some reason it would not happens with americans? (It happens all the time in Chechnya- while I hope the US troops are better trained and disciplined than the Russian ones, I don’t think they are _that_ much better, all of them being human beings, after all.) This is in no way an excuess, and of course everyone should be punished who has done wrong. But surely this isn’t the first and isn’t the last case, and this sort of thing, that it surely will happen, has to be taken in to account in deciding to go to war, and is one very great reason why we should not go to war unless it’s absolutely necessary, which obviously it wasn’t in this case.

By: Wataru Tenga

Wataru Tenga — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:03:18 +0000

You are looking at it mainly from the cover-up angle, but what about the bigger issue, that of how the climate was created, from the President on down, that made this kind of atrocity inevitable?
When you send people to fight a war on “terror” without defining the enemy, all the while appealing to their patriotism as well as fanning hatred for that undefined “enemy,” you have planted all the seeds that are needed. What else did Bush and Rumsfeld expect?

By: Sarah

Sarah — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 23:21:11 +0000

Yes, yes and yes. But the obfuscatory prowess of this administration has been demonstrated time and again and I expect this will be much the same: a few leathernecks will get it in the neck and maybe an officer and management/command will carry on with the broken system.