Why we should get out of Iraq

Now that the Democrats are in power, it's worth heeding the words of a soldier and the stories of two kids that should tell us it's time for the U.S. to get out of Iraq.

The soldier is among the marines under investigation in the deaths in Haditha of "24 Iraqi civilians, including 10 women and children and an elderly man in a wheelchair", as the Times wrote in an article headlined Contradictions Cloud Inquiry Into 24 Iraqi Deaths

The marines have said they believed they were coming under small-arms fire from a house on the south side of the road. A four-man "stack" of marines, led by Sergeant Wuterich, who up to that point had no combat experience but was the senior enlisted man on the scene, broke into the house.

They found no one in the first room, but heard noises behind a door. A marine with experience in the deadly house-to-house fighting in Falluja a year earlier rolled in a grenade and another marine fired blind "clearing rounds" into the room, Mr. Puckett, Sergeant Wuterich's lawyer, said.

The technique is known as "clearing by fire," said a marine who was with a nearby squad that day but who asked not to be identified because his role in the events is under investigation. "You stick the weapon around and spray the room," he said. "It's called prepping the room."

He added: "You've got to do whatever it takes to get home. If it takes clearing by fire where there's civilians, that's it."

If American soldiers are at the point where they think the only way they can live is by killing Iraqi civilians, we need to get out of Iraq.

The marine's wrong; you don't ever do whatever it takes to get home, that's not the way Americans fight wars. That's not even the way the Nazis fought wars.

People who think otherwise are profoundly ignorant; anyone who adopts a cynical 'yeah dude, that's war for you attitude' knows nothing of military history and is spitting on the graves of literally millions of soldiers who have died over the course of human history because militaries go out of their way to seek out and kill other armed men rather than women, children and the elderly.

The few places and times in modern history where armed men have gone berzerk and deliberately killed civilians are shorn into our memories, generally because people confess--the names are infamous, spanning the gamut from My Lai to Rwanda to Nuremberg.

Anyone who's ever read Michael Walzer Just and Unjust Wars--or anyone with even a shred of moral understanding--knows that no culture holds the life of an armed soldier as being equivalent to the life of a little kid. The one with the gun always takes the risk of war upon himself, in order to spare the helpless.

And by and large, this code is enforced not by a fear of media investigations, the threat of court martial or even the drills of basic training--but from basic humanity. Soldiers are moms and dads too; being in a foreign land loaded down with heavy weaponry doesn't strip them of their decency.

They're not going to shoot an unarmed child running across the street, or a woman on her way to get water. Given a choice, I have no doubt most of the men and women in our military would take a bullet and trust to their flak jackets and helmets and medical evacuation to save their life, rather than have that same bullet fired at a defenseless Iraqi.

The problem increasingly in Iraq is that the nature of urban warfare makes clear-cut moral choices rare. Instead of seeing kids running around, you've got gunfire coming at you out of dark buildings. One building and Iraqi looks the same as another; and it's so much easier to roll a grenade in or poke the nose of your gun around the corner and hold down the trigger, then to step through a doorway into god knows what.

Add to the chaos of urban warfare the element of racism--the Bush administration's conflation of Muslim with terrorist, the growing attitude of many Americans of a pox on all their houses, a centuries-old view of Middle Easterners as barbaric savages, a thousands-year-old hatred of the dark, the dusty, the poor.

Throw in the distance and ease that technology can afford, add the egging on, bullying and lack of accountability of group dynamics among young, empowered, testosterone-fueled males, mix in some truly bad soldiers and their lusts, and it becomes a certainty that the murder of Iraqis by Americans didn't begin in Abu Ghraib and won't end in Haditha.

Indeed: G.I.'s Investigated in Slayings of 4 and Rape in Iraq

Edward Wong in the Times: The American military is investigating accusations that soldiers raped an Iraqi woman in her home and killed her and three family members, including a child, American officials said Friday.

The investigation is the fourth into suspected killings of unarmed Iraqis by American soldiers announced by the military in June. In May, it was disclosed that the military was conducting an inquiry into the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha last November. ...

In June, the Army charged four American soldiers suspected of killing three detainees in Iraq and then threatening another American soldier with death if he reported the shootings.

Two days later, the Marine Corps said it had charged seven marines and one Navy corpsman with murder and kidnapping in the April killing of an Iraqi man in a village on the western outskirts of Baghdad. In that episode, the assailants are accused of planting a Kalashnikov rifle and shovel by the body of the victim to frame him as an insurgent after shooting him in the face four times.

Last Sunday, the military said two members of the Pennsylvania National Guard had been charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Iraqi man on Feb. 15.

You can argue after the fact whether the Bush administration is at fault on a strategic level for occupying Iraq with too few troops, not having a post-war plan.

Whether the administration is at fault on a moral level for dehumanizing Iraqis and allowing if not at times encouraging soldiers to treat Iraqis with contempt.

Whether the administration is at fault on a universal level for demonizing Muslims all over the world and nefariously using 9/11 to push through their own agenda.

Or you could argue it's just scared young men and women--some of them National Guard 'weekend warriors'--in over their heads and falling back on kill or be killed.

Because it doesn't matter. While well-meaning Americans sit here and argue and split hairs, all the while bending over backwards to not seem unpatriotic, it's our soldiers--yes, our heroic, wonderful men and women in arms--who in documented cases are murdering and torturing Iraqis.

Let's not forget it's thousands of Iraqis themselves, the cut-throat men under the sway of extremist leaders, who are directly responsible for almost all of the butchery and savagery in Iraq today.

But let's also not forget Iraq has no history of this insane behavior. No state does, really--and this brutality today is a direct result of a choice America made, to try and save the lives of American soldiers and minimize opposition on the home front by sending as few as possible to Iraq to fight this war and deal with the aftermath.

Even the Pentagon's own war games saw a need for 400,000 troops, not the 250,000 we actually sent.

In essence, the 'body gap' has been filled by Iraqi civilians.

It's not even just the basic decency of the undersized American force that's kept the number of atrocities low to this point. It's also Pentagon policy that avoids, whenever possible, letting soldiers come in contact with civilians. American troops stay barricaded in well-fortified compounds, venturing out only during daylight hours and only along well-traveled roads.

Hence, to the argument of some that if we pull out of Iraq, we leave the Iraqi women, children and elderly prey to mayehm, I say check out the death toll, which may be as high as 650,000 (the equivalent of 220 9/11s). In most Iraqi cities, it's already hell.

Nobody's seriously arguing for an overnight retreat--even though that's what the patron saint of conservatives, Ronald Reagan, might do were he still alive. After all, it's what in did in Lebanon after the death of 241 American troops (we're at more than 10 times that death toll in Iraq).

But we can at least start pulling out some soldiers immediately, beginning with the least-experienced and most-likely-to-crumble-units. We can replace them with Bush's American-trained Iraqi units, the ones he's been touting for three years. And we can mix in UN troops; I have no doubt John Bolton can bring the same zeal to getting the UN back in Iraq that he's brought to attacking the UN's bureaucracy.

As for the argument that this sends the wrong message to terrorists or whomever, I don't think it's possible to send a right message when our soldiers are murdering Iraqis. Our original reasons for getting into Iraq are all moot--and it's better that terrorists theoretically get emboldened than we continue preserving our 'honor' on the backs of civilians with this mess we're stubbornly perpetuating.

To borrow from Gandhi's philosophy, you cannot justify definite violence today by draping yourself in the cloak of laudable ends tomorrow.

All we know for sure is American troops are committing war crimes in Iraq, and that thousands of Iraqis are dying every month. I don't think it's realistic under this current administration for our troops to stop killing civilians, or to stop Iraqis from going after each other. All we can do is spare the Iraqi people from death at our hands directly or indirectly by getting out.

Even if you don't value the lives of Iraqis, think about all the American soldiers who are dying; and whose families are being ripped apart as a consquence of our out-of-control war in Iraq.

Even if you don't care about the lives of our disproportionately black and Hispanic military, think about yourself and what this war is doing to you.

Is it causing you to stick your head in the sand to avoid the endless depressing news, is it hardening your heart so that you can avoid turning on a president who deep down you fear is wrong wartime or no wartime, is it making you lash out against fellow Americans with words that demean their patriotism and ultimately yourself, does it have you feeling there's no good answer here let's just keep our heads down and hope muddle through?

If so, you're not alone. ABCNews, in a piece titledAmericans React to Soldiers' Arrests, made explicit what's happening to us.

Dean Reynolds, ABCNews: Several members of the military have been charged this week in connection with the deaths of Iraqi civilians. How are Americans at home responding to the charges?

The military is considered the most trusted institution in the nation; soldiers are repeatedly taught that when they put on their uniform, they represent more than themselves. But some Americans say different rules apply when soldiers are at war.

"War is brutal. It's going to be brutal and you have to expect that," said one Chicago resident.

Near Camp Pendleton in California today, where seven Marines and one sailor were charged with the death of an Iraqi civilian in Hamdaniyah, supporters closed ranks behind the accused soldiers.

One woman said, "These men, in my opinion, are heroes and they should have a parade held in their honor."

It seems that many Americans find reports of U.S. troops' transgressions at Abu Ghraib, Haditha or Hamdaniyah more understandable in a war where our men are kidnapped, tortured and executed.

"We can't win a war with these fanatics by babying them," said Korean War veteran Jerry Lyons in Houston. "Who cares what the rest of the world thinks?"

And in Chicago, another passerby said: "Soldiers in a situation that's untenable, in a war they cannot win, these types of things happen."

But military ethicists say the belief that "war is hell" and anything is permissible can do lasting damage to the nation.

"When you start talking about throwing the book out because we're under stress … You're making a dramatic alteration in … the cornerstone of American identity," said Eugene Fidell of the National Institute of Military Justice.

Seems like you can add Americans to the list of people being dehumanized.

Since when does being under stress, being scared, justify murdering another human? Where are the pro-lifers on this? No cute babies here for them to cling to?

Well, there are. Ultimately like always, it's the kids who suffer our hubris and evil. The documentary Winter in Baghdad lays it all bare.The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival describes it as:

Hitting just the right notes, filmmaker Javier Corcuera brings his gift of storytelling to this beautifully crafted film, allowing the viewer to integrate the political with the personal in the tragedy of Iraq that has unfolded since the war began in spring 2003.

Corcuera spent several months in Baghdad in the winter of 2004 getting to know Iraqi families who were trying to carry on with daily life despite the constant violence, black outs, and lack of basic necessities.

The filmmaker became especially close to a group of young, enterprising, and highly resilient teenage boys who despite the obstacles still managed to make it to school, hold down part-time jobs—which were not always strictly legal jobs due to constantly shifting U.S. regulations—and hang out with their friends in this forbidding environment.

Winter in Baghdad is as beautiful visually as it is deep emotionally—a rich tapestry of life in Baghdad today which counterbalances the simplistic and repetitive images of this once great city that are presented by the vast majority of mainstream news media.

The film makes clear while we pretend we're bringing democracy to the Middle East, the kids are growing up maimed by American bombs, killed by American bullets, terrified of American soldiers.

The kids are living in hell so that we can keep terrorists at arm's length, so, as President Bush keeps boasting, we can fight the terrorists there instead of here.

Well, 'there' isn't a desert--there are people underfoot. Iraqi kids and civilians are forced to scrounge for survival on a battleground so that we can paste bumper stickers and strut around patting ourselves on our back for how much we've helped the dark masses by giving them democracy.

And so we can pretend we're winning the war on terrorism because there hasn't been another attack on American soil.

In essence, we've traded the lives of 650,000 Iraqis to stave off attacks on America. If that's really the price our national policy post-9/11 will exact, I'd argue the terrorists already have won.

Even if it wasn't morally repugnant, surely pretending that it's not reality is costing us something.

Let's at the very least own up to it; tell the world you know, we simply value American life more. And then tell them what our calculus is--we're sorry, but we're willing that 200 die in Baghdad if think it might save 1 in New York.

So if we have to fire into your huddled masses and then withdraw to our isloated bases while marauding bands fill the power vacuum, we're fine with that choice.

That way, history can properly judge us, in the same way that God already is.

President Bush once memorably told the terrorists to 'bring it on.' What he didn't say was he wanted it brung on the backs of Iraqi civilians.

Photo on an Iraqi in Haditha and an American Marine via Voices UK. It's telling what images pop up when you do a Google images search on 'Iraqis'.