Had enough of Jon Benet Ramsey's killer's most irregular confession to an egregious, and sensational crime? Well then, consider this: Marines Lt. Colonel Jeffrey A. Chessari saw nothing irregular, or out of the ordinary, in the murder, last November, of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children in the village of Haditha. To the lieutenant, this wholesale act of slaughter can be seen only as "a large combat action that had been staged by the enemy." (WaPo)
It boggles the mind to think that any key commander, whether it be in the marines, the army, or the air force, can be so audaciously complacent, and nonplussed, about any operation, under his auspices, that involves the gunning down of civilian "enemy." That there is no sense of responsibility, or desire to pursue at least the prospect of culpability, for what is clearly a shameful act that falls outside of the Geneva Conventions, as well as any civilized notion of battle, makes the notion that any country to whom we claim to export democracy, and/or respect for law and order, patently and grossly absurd. Such open, and provincial, acceptance of "collateral damage" constitutes blatant conceptual butchery, and far surpasses anything that can be accomplished by a mere bullet.
While testifying, in Iraq, in preparation for a larger military trial in the Haditha matter, it appears that the good lieutenant didn't even bat an eyelash. According to the statement made, under oath, last spring, Chessari said that he did not think what happened in Haditha was in way, shape, or form out of the ordinary nor that it warranted an investigation on his part. Instead, he suggested that the killing of these 24 civilians in late November, in Iraq, was nothing more than a routine combat action. (WaPo)
It will be interesting to see who will walk away from the inquiry into Haditha with a slap on the wrist, what the Lt. Colonel's peers think, and the penalty, if any, this commander, and his subordinates, will face for what can only be seen as criminal acts. Moreover, what price will society at large pay for training, arming, and rewarding the kind of mindset that unilaterally, and universally, abnegates responsibility both as a critically-thinking commanding officer, and as a moral human being. What example can our military hope to set for an evolving Iraqi military?
Arguably, the larger question is what kind of skewered logic finds value in a preemptive military action that comes about from leadership that demonstrates no knowledge whatsoever of what the word "proactive" means. Is that what the enemy is to be used for, to cover our collective ass? Or, better still, has the truth itself become our biggest enemy?
More importantly, why is it that the press, in this country, as well as those born again neo-con artists aren't asking the hard questions about over the top, behavior routinely practiced, ignored, and/or sanctioned by commissioned officers in our armed forces? If we don't ask these questions, you can rest assured history will ask them for us as, indeed, with regard to Haditha, Abu Ghraib, and other travesties, we have met the enemy, and it is not terror, it is passive acceptance, blind compliance, and noxious insensitivity to the collective, and unequivocal, value of human life.
http://ladyjaynestahl.blogspot.com
Widely published, poet, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter; member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA. Jayne Lyn Stahl is a Huffington Post blogger.
Thanks, Ardee, and I agree that every war contains the possibility that atrocities like the one at Haditha might happen. But we, as a society, cannot afford a complacent response to the level of desensitization that has occurred, and is occurring daily, among our troops. When a commanding officer is told of the shooting of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children, and he doesn't order an inquiry, something is very wrong. When an "ex-soldier" of 21, and his infantrymen cohorts, rape and murder a 14 year old girl, kill her family, and try to cover it up, something is wrong. Video game murder, America, and JonBenet Ramsey obsessive news coverage which glorifies, and sensationalizes pathology is to blame. We're living in changed times--not to recognize this is to be a collaborator in disaster, plain and simple. If you don't like the content, it's not about changing channels anymore, it's about changing values.
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Jayne Lyn Stahl (168 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 64 comments)
on Sunday, August 20, 2006 at 11:32:14 AM
and at the highest levels. I remember when the My Lai massacre first became public knowledge, first among the troops on the ground in 'Nam, then, because we still had a free press, back in the USA. General William Westmoreland demanded of his liason to the Joint Chiefs, one Major Colin Powell (Yeah that one), that he spare no effort getting to the bottom of this and arresting and prosecuting the perpetrators. After agreeing to do so Powell used every resource to cover up the event.
My comments above did not mean to intimate that I felt desensitised, just expectant that we should find such occurences taking place. The worst fighting in Viet Nam took place in cities and large villages. House to house fighting is scary stuff, believe me. Troops who expect to be shot in the back at any moment are far from rational or sensitive to guilt or innocence, being wholly consumed with simple survival. Couple this with an administration fighting for secrecy and trying desperately to hide the enmormous failures of its policies and you will get such whitewashing. Better we fight no wars, better we get the hell out of Iraq, and the sooner the better.
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ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2388 comments)
on Sunday, August 20, 2006 at 7:19:15 PM
When I first encountered the "Holocaust" as a fifteen year old seeing the liberation of one of the Death Camps by the American Army, I was, I believe the word is, mesmerized for the rest of my life. I ended up having well over five hundred books just on the Holocaust in my office. One of the questions that continually plagued my mind and still does, how could sane men and women in a Christian country (Lutheran and Roman Catholic state religion), the most literate country, the most advanced industrialized country in the world do such a thing so openly and so unashamedly? Not only did they systematically put to death over 6 million Jews, they put to death 4 million Poles, 4 million Russians, 500,000 Gypsies, and about one million Germans.
How about the keepers and executioners of the camps? Where they not, too, family men and women with little daughters, sons and grandparents? It goes beyond conscience, pity and sympathy into a deeper realm of empathy or maybe lack of. I reasoned that German people were no different than red-bloodied American people. If the Holocaust could happen in Germany, it could just as well happen in the United States.
Since this pilgrimage for me began in that 1954 grade school film room, I am no closer to the answer today than I was back then. This Lt. Colonel Chessari is not much different than the Auschlitz or Bergen-Belsen Commandants, nor much different than the Muslim who walks into a crowded store or on a school bus to work murder. Lt. Colonel Chessari is the same guard and is the same Ramsey murderer or the same suicide bomber. There is something missing, something pervasively grotesque and evil that separates the good, not from the merely bad, but from the evil. I do not have the answers, but I still know the evil when I see it.
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pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 948 comments)
on Tuesday, August 22, 2006 at 3:40:23 PM
