A Curious (And Increasingly Dubious) Story

The story of what happened (or didn't) at Haditha gets more convoluted as we go, but let me make a couple observations on the WaPo version of events:

Even before the final report is delivered, Army Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, today ordered that all U.S. and allied troops in Iraq undergo new "core values" training in how to operate professionally and humanely. Not only will leaders discuss how to treat civilians under the rules of engagement, but small units also will be ordered to go through training scenarios to gauge their understanding of those rules.

The training, to include slide-shows, would highlight ''the importance of adhering to legal, moral and ethical standards on the battlefield,'' said Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Multi-National Corps-Iraq commander in a statement today. "As military professionals," he said, "it is important that we take time to reflect on the values that separate us from our enemies."

"New"?  The Marines get regular training on all these things, even in the field, from a JAG officer.  This appears to be nothing new.  This is just political ass-covering.  (spit)  And not very well-calibrated, either, given that the WaPo managed to report it as "new," as if Marines are flying off the handle for lack of proper indoctrination.

One of Bargewell's conclusions is that the training of troops for Iraq has been flawed, the official said, with too much emphasis on traditional war-fighting skills and insufficient focus on how to wage a counterinsurgency campaign. Currently the director of operations for a top headquarters in Iraq, Bargewell is a career Special Operations officer and therefore more familiar than most regular Army officers with the precepts of counterinsurgency, such as using the minimum amount of force necessary to succeed. Also, as an Army staff sergeant in Vietnam in 1971, Bargewell received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army's second-highest honor, for actions in combat while a member of long-range reconnaissance team operating deep behind enemy lines.

Excuse me?  Now that complaint is that the military isn't enough like special forces?  I thought the complaint against Rumsfeld was that he was focusing too much on a special forces-like arrangement for the military!  Huh.

A second and more troubling failure occurred later in the day, this official said, when a Marine human exploitation team, which helped collect the dead, should have observed that the Iraqis were killed by gunshot, not by a bomb. The team's reporting chain lay outside that of the other Marines -- who were members of the 3rd Battalion of the 1st Marines -- and went up through military intelligence channels directly to the 1st Marine Division's intelligence director, he said. Had this second unit reported accurately what it witnessed, he indicated, that would have set off alarms and prodded commanders to investigate, he explained.

Is the complaint here that the "Marines human exploitation team" didn't accurately report what they saw, or that they reported it through a separate chain-of-command?  That paragraph is a complete muddle, which makes one wonder about the accuracy of anything this "official" said, or how accurately it was transcribed by the reporter.

From other stories, it appears that the Marines involved in the battle reported that the civilians were mostly killed by a bomb, but the death certificates say gunshot.  So let's take that on for a minute: Marines are warfighters, not medical examiners, so it would be no surprise if they honestly misinterpreted the aftermath.  Secondly, the Marines reported a firefight, and that the civilians were used as human shields.  That means cross-fire.  This seems inconsistent with the story that they reported that the civilians were killed by a bomb, which makes all of the stories we're hearing at least a bit dubious.  Thirdly, the reports don't say what caliber the wounds came from.  Americans generally use 5.56 mm, 55grain or 62grain bullets, whereas the enemy tends to use a much-heavier 7.62mm bullet.  So which was it?  Were ballistics tests performed to determine whose gun was involved?  Are we going to draw conclusions without checking that out?  (If the "official, Rep. Murtha, and the Washington Post have their way, then yes.)

Hot Air has some helpful video.

Update: A few more questions: 4) Did the investigation find any evidence of the "insurgents" on the other side of the firefight?  If not, where did they go?  (Did, perhaps, other insurgents drag them off?) 5) If no evidence of these insurgents, how was the IED detonated?  6) This was, apparently, a joint Iraqi and Marine operation.  What was the Iraqi involvement in the firefight?  7) Are we taking the Iraqi civilians' word for it on this?  Does anyone remember Jenin?  (Palestinians lied blatantly about what happened there, calling it a "massacre," and news organizations everywhere took that as fact.  It was later determined by several independent human-rights organizations that the "innocent civilians" were in fact armed militants.)  In Islam, lying to defeat the infidel is righteous.  For that matter, are we even sure the civilians are, um, speaking freely?  Let's go back to those insurgents for a minute....

Update II: According to the latest version of the story, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service has decided to exhume the bodies to check into, e.g., those bullet calibers.  (I swear I have no "inside" at NCIS!)  It turns out the "doctor" who signed those death certificates is, um, "not entirely reliable."  That's a nice way to put it....

But let me reply to the "former Naval Academy professor" who is simply assuming that all the worst is true: Fuck you.  (She deserves no better reply, nor any more respect.  Such naked assumptions are inexcusable in America or anywhere else, and especially from a professor of "ethics.")

Update III, 6/11/2006: I ordinarily assume that readers here will actually read the source link (!) to an article, but a comment below suggests that I may be expecting too much.  So, from the above-referenced Washington Post story:

Aine Donovan, director of the Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College and a former Naval Academy professor, said Marines have more ethics training than most troops and that there is no excuse for what happened.

"If you look at what happened in Haditha, you had soldiers stressed to the point of no return, and they snapped," Donovan said. "This will be remembered as the worst episode of this war. This will damage the entire profession. You're never going to restore peace by killing civilians."

What, the "Ethics Institute at Dartmouth College" doesn't recognize the moral requirement to get one's facts straight before making such accusations, nor even the basic standard of innocent-until-proven-guilty?  Again: Fuck You, Aine Donovan. 

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For those who may protest the use of the word "moral" in this context, spare me.  Ethics is defined as "moral philosophy."  In other words, "Ethics" is about moral (or "right") behavior.  In practice, I use the words "ethics" and "morals" interchangably, unless I'm talking about "Ethics" (the field) or "ethics" as in "business ethics."  I am not particularly interested in any religious connotation of the word.

Comments

[sf2]

Where was the "former Naval academy professor" quoted?