My Lai Revisited

Suddenly, we are inundated by reports of US military personnel intentionally shooting Iraqi civilians. First there are the cover up attempts. This is followed by the expected defenses from the pro-war side:

1. It didn't happen. It was a bomb. It was self inflicted. Etc. They never give up on the cover up attempts.
2. It might not be an accurate report. Wait for the facts.
3. In war you do not know who the enemy is. Even women and children can carry bombs.
4. They had it coming. Don't they know we are only there to help.

Well, all that might be true. Historically, everything suggested has happened. Terrible things happen in war all the time. You take nice American kids who grew up amongst us in a remarkably peaceful society and you place them in an outrageous situation where they must kill or be killed and they are scared out of their wits. They see their friends dying and they want revenge. Between revenge and fear, a person can be pressed to do some horrible things that he would never have dreamed of at home.

This is not unique to Iraq. This is how war is. The generals know this. The president certainly should know this. That is why war is to be avoided at all costs. There should never be a war for economic benefit or vague imperialist ambitions. The horrors of war should be reserved for actual self defense, not the kind of shifting rationales that we have been getting for Iraq.

When an administration starts a war for no valid self defense reason but some cow manure about spreading democracy, that administration is responsible for EVERY death that occurs. The blood of every American soldier, every Iraqi civilian, every Iraqi insurgent, every reporter is on the hands of George W. Bush and his small group of co-conspirators in this monstrous war.

Has anyone learned anything at all by this experience? Apparently not! They are preparing the groundwork for a similar war with Iran. They are using the same arguments, the same rumor generation methods, the same demonization process. The difference is that this time we do not have the manpower to do an invasion. We have too many soldiers bogged down in Iraq and Iran is a much larger country. They must have either a nuclear war or a draft in mind, or maybe both.

Of course, to minimize debate, we are keeping everyone busy debating immigration reform, a gay marriage amendment and other trivia. Both will end with little or no action when the Iranian war starts.

This is just one more very big reason to impeach Bush now.