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Well it’s easy enough to pull the trigger on a sniper rifle, drop a bomb from an airplane, or even launch artillery into a house full of Iraqi insurgents, but it’s not so easy to live with what you see when you enter the house to survey the results and find out you’ve made a terrible mistake.  So writes Army lieutenant Shannon Meehan for The New York Times:

I thought we had struck enemy fighters, but I was wrong. A father, mother and their children had been huddled inside.

The feelings of disbelief that initially filled me quickly transformed into feelings of rage and self-loathing.  The following weeks, months and years would prove that my life was forever changed.

In fact, it’s been nearly three years, and I still cannot remove from my mind the image of that family gathered together in the final moments of their lives.  I can’t shake it.  It simply lingers.

While reading this column today, I was thinking about the conversation I had with my ten-year-old son during a battle scene in The Sand Pebbles.  The movie stars  Steve McQueen who plays Jake Holman, a Navy engineer assigned to a gunboat cruising China’s Yangtze River in 1926 as the Nationalist revolution led by Chiang Kai-shek  breaks out.  The battle scene takes place near the end of the film when the Navy boat must get past a blockade of junks set up by the Chinese revolutionaries.  After much shooting and hand-to-hand combat to clear the center junk, Holman uses an axe to the cut the thick ropes that string the boats together.  While he’s chopping at the ropes, a Chinese fighter sneaks up on him with a machete and raises it for the killing blow.  Holman catches a glimpse of  him approaching and moves just in time for the machete weilder to miss his mark.  The blade hits Holman’s helmet and glances away from him.  He then swings his axe head right into the gut of the Chinese man who doubles over and dies.  

Holman stands there with his axe hanging by his side staring at the dying man while his boat, just a few yards behind him, begins to advance past the blockade.  At that point, my son said, “What’s he doing?  Why is he just standing there?”  All I could say was something like, “Well, it’s not easy to kill a man.  It’s a terrible thing to take another man’s life.  That’s what he’s feeling, and it doesn’t feel good to him.”  As I’m saying this, Holman shake his head, shoulders his axe, and gets on board the gun boat.

Meehan wrote about that feeling in his column. 

Killing enemy combatants comes with its own emotional costs.  On the surface, we feel as soldiers that killing the enemy should not affect us — it is our job, after all.  But it is still killing, and on a subconscious level, it changes you.  You’ve killed.  You’ve taken life. What I found, though, is that you feel the shock and weight of it only when you kill an enemy for the first time, when you move from zero to one.  Once you’ve crossed that line, there is little difference in killing 10 or 20 or 30 more after that.

…The deaths that I caused also killed any regard I had for my own life.  I felt that I did not deserve something that I had taken from them. I fell into a downward spiral, doubting if I even deserved to be alive.  The value, or regard, I once had for my own life dissipated.

My son plays a series of computer war games that are mostly based on historical events.  In these games, he builds villages and farms to supply them with food and materials, and he must also build armies to protect them from enemies that want to take what he’s built.  Battles ensue, and one side or the other ultimately wins.  The games do teach a bit of history, but they doesn’t delve into the morality of war and allow for contemplation about the victims.

I’ll share this piece with him and hope that it makes him think a little about what might be going on in the minds of the tiny little warriors on his computer screen.

Here’s another section of Obama’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech that reveals a little something about Obama’s thoughts on another war he inherited.

To begin with, I believe that all nations – strong and weak alike – must adhere to standards that govern the use of force.  I – like any head of state – reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation.  Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards strengthens those who do, and isolates – and weakens – those who don’t.

The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense.  Likewise, the world recognized the need to confront Saddam Hussein when he invaded Kuwait – a consensus that sent a clear message to all about the cost of aggression.

Furthermore, America cannot insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves.  For when we don’t, our action can appear arbitrary, and undercut the legitimacy of future intervention – no matter how justified.

This becomes particularly important when the purpose of military action extends beyond self defense or the defense of one nation against an aggressor.  More and more, we all confront difficult questions about how to prevent the slaughter of civilians by their own government, or to stop a civil war whose violence and suffering can engulf an entire region.

Notice how he singles out the war to take back Kuwait, but makes no mention of the Iraq War that’s been going on since 2003.  That war is not one that adheres to “standards that govern the use of force.”  It was a war of choice (a very poor choice), not a war of necessity.

I searched the entire text of the speech and the word “Iraq” was never mentioned.  I guess it’s kind of like “Voldemort” to him.  If only we could make it go away for real with such ease.

Oh, and another phrase I did not find is “War on Terror.”  This guy is way different than the fool that started these wars he has to finish.  I was not to thrilled about his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, but if he abides by the moral code he outlined in his speech today and he does not waiver in his role as the leader of the free world, we might actually not just win the battle, but also the war of ideas that is key to defeating the religious fanatics that seek to undermine centuries of human progress and freedom.

Robert Novak died today at age 78 after losing a battle with Brain Cancer.  It is not known how long he suffered from brain cancer, but I would speculate that this was a long term condition that was undiagnosed until last year when his diagnosis became public.

May he RIP…

The Washington Post has confirmed that the United States has used torture at Guantanamo Bay. 

From the Reuters article:

The Pentagon official overseeing the tribunals for Guantanamo Bay detainees has concluded that the U.S. military tortured a Saudi national who allegedly planned to participate in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

“We tortured [Mohammed al-] Qahtani,” Susan Crawford said in an interview with the newspaper. “His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that’s why I did not refer the case” for prosecution.

I can only hope that once Obama gets into office he will look into the activities and punish all who were involved, up to and including George W. Bush.

But, we will need to hold Obama accountable for investigating the former administration.  I am concerned about the possibility that he will attempt to downplay the crimes of the past administration.

From his recent TV interview, Think Progress reports:

Q: The most popular question on your own website is related to this. On change.gov it comes from Bob Fertik of New York City and he asks, ‘Will you appoint a special prosecutor ideally Patrick Fitzgerald to independently investigate the greatest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping.’

OBAMA:We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions, and so forth. And obviously we’re going to be looking at past practices and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards. … My orientation is going to be moving foward.

As a nation, we need to watch this closely over the next year and let our representatives in Congress know how we feel about the United States committing War Crimes.

It’s called “A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq,” and here are it’s two key points as outlined in an opinion piece in today’s Seattle Post Intelligencer:

First, the United States must find a way to sensibly end its military mission in Iraq — and use the political, diplomatic, humanitarian and economic tools at its disposal to mitigate the negative consequences of the war. Second, the Iraq War has done irreparable damage not just to Iraq but to our country, and the time has come to reform our institutions and put the checks and balances in place to ensure that these mistakes are not repeated.

What about the details?  Here’s how they plan to exert the power of Congress on the executive branch to prevent future colossal failures like Bush’s Iraq War:

It calls for incorporating war funding into the regular defense budget instead of using “emergency supplementals”; eliminating the president’s use of signing statements to alter the substantive meaning of a law passed by Congress; repealing parts of the Military Commissions Act that suspended habeas corpus; and ending the use of wiretapping without a FISA warrant.

Great!  Come on Democrats, let’s put this plan into action! 

Oh wait, there’s a problem… the forty Democratic sponsors of this plan aren’t in congress yet.  They are all running for office.  The group is led by Darcy Burner, who is running against Dave Reichert in Washington’s 8th district.

You can show your support by endorsing the plan here. 

But to put the plan into action, we’ve got to get these people elected.  So come November, vote for these candidates!

This edition of Frontline is incredible. It’s causing me to reconsider my opinion of Bush and his administration’s handling of the Iraq War. It’s not an unstoppable freight train of bad decision making, with Bush at the helm, it’s several unstoppable freight trains helmed by the megalomaniacal power brokers Bush unwittingly empowered. And they’re all racing for the Iraq War Central junction, at which Bush is the signalman.

It’s his weak leadership that has led to this train wreck. It seems there may have been good intentions on several fronts that I had never guessed were there. But the infighting, the egos, and the political positioning, among other forces, are directly at odds with the occasional demonstration of competence and thoughtful concern for the consequences of their pursuits.

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John McCain, who claims he is the most qualified candidate for Commander and Chief, made some “misstatements” about who was supposedly training Al Qaeda in Iraq:

Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”

It was not until he got a quiet word of correction in his ear from Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was traveling with Mr. McCain as part of a Congressional delegation on a nearly weeklong trip, that Mr. McCain corrected himself.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. McCain said, “the Iranians are training extremists, not Al Qaeda.”

And it wasn’t the only time he “misspoke.”  He made the same mistake earlier in a radio interview with The Hugh Hewitt Show.

Yes, the Republican candidate for president who in January admitted to not knowing much about how the economy works now shows that he doesn’t know much about what’s going on in Iraq either.  Sounds like the perfect replacement for our current president.

Their story of lawlessness, mayhem and murder in Iraq.

U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries.

“The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it,” said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. “That’s left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like.”

Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicised incidents of U.S. brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples”, as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of “an increasingly bloody occupation”.

“The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don’t abide by the rule of law, we don’t respect international treaties, so when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity,” argues former U.S. Army Sergeant Logan Laituri, who served a tour in Iraq from 2004 to 2005 before being discharged as a conscientious objector.

Laituri told IPS that precedent of lawlessness makes itself felt in the rules of engagement handed down by commanders to soldiers on the front lines. When he was stationed in Samarra, for example, he said one of his fellow soldiers shot an unarmed man while he walked down the street.

“The problem is that that soldier was not committing a crime as you might call it because the rules of engagement were very clear that no one was supposed to be walking down the street,” he said. “But I have a problem with that. You can’t tell a family to leave everything they know so you can bomb the shit out of their house or their city. So while he definitely has protection under the law, I don’t think that legitimates that type of violence.”

Read the whole article here.

Last Thursday the Washington Post published a column by Michael Kinsley about The Surge titled “Defining Victory Downward.”  Here are a few excerpts:

It was also, implicitly, part of a deal between Bush and the majority of Americans, who want out. The deal was: just let me have a few more soldiers to get Baghdad under control, and then everybody, or almost everybody, can pack up and come home.

In other words: you have to increase the troops in order to reduce them. This is so perverse on its face that it begins to sound zen-like and brilliant, like something out of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.” And in General David Petraeus, the administration conjured up its own Sun Tzu, a brilliant military strategist.

… the best that we can hope for, in terms of American troops risking their lives in Iraq, is that there will be just as many in July — and probably in January, when Bush leaves office — as there were a year ago. The surge will have surged in and surged out, leaving us back where we started.

…

Imagine that you had been told in 2003 that when George W. Bush finished his second term, dozens of American soldiers and hundreds of Iraqis would be dying violently every month; that a major American goal would be getting the Iraqi government to temper its “debaathification” campaign so that Saddam Hussein’s former henchmen could start running things again (because they know how); and that “only” 100,000 American troops would be needed to sustain this equilibrium.

You might have several words to describe this situation, but “success” would not be one of them.

I had the column fresh in my mind while I watched the Obama/Clinton debate that evening.  I thought maybe some of these ideas would make it into their responses to questions about whether or not they thought the surge has been successful.  They both danced around the perimeter a bit, but never really challenged the notion that the surge has been a success.

I emailed N.J. Barnes, a contributor to this site, to see what his thoughts were, and he had this to say:

That’s because they’re each afraid of being tagged as a naysayer.  But the generals themselves would admit, if pressed, that the Sunni “Awakening” and Sadr’s decision to tell his people to back off have more to do with quelling the violence than the so-called “surge” which started after the Awakening awoke.  None of that is to to disparage the American military effort which has been much more effective under Patraeus, no question. Their task has been made infinitely less difficult by the fact that they could afford to concentrate their efforts on al-Qaida-in-Iraq and with the help of local Sunni tribesmen who were previously shooting at us and blowing us up.
 
But what Bush and Patraeus and Gates really are saying is that there is no end in sight; that if we draw down, the thing will fall apart.  So with no real satisfactory end in sight, how is that success?
 
Best to tell the Iraqis we’ve done our bit and we plan to withdraw one year from the date the new Pres (hopefully not McCain) takes office.  The Iraqis in the final analysis must be prepared to take responsibility for their own country.  And if it falls apart so be it.  A lesson for us, hard learned, for the future.