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Tuesday, June 6, 2006
 
Rush to Judgement

 I had a distinct disinclination to doing a post on the incident at Haditha. the Defense department, the Navy (NCIS is leading this investigation) is looking into it and depending how well that is done, a course of action can then be charted from that. If any lingering attempts to obscure what happened are pursued, this will remain unresolved for a very long time. I've written posts on the dynamics of insurgencies. There is nothing about Haditha that deviates from that. To prevail in asymmetric conflict requires offensive speed and firm reaction. But savagery returns savagery. An ugly bloody conflict produces only horror, and death. Blood broken out of its vessel draining away into the ground. Our marines, soldiers, young men and women cannot exist in the midst of such a struggle and not be changed; wracked by emotional trauma. Hatreds and loves, enemies and friends, displacement of innocence. They are not autonomous agents of a strategy that turn themselves off after a patrol.

  Rush Limbaugh; though, has decided he knows just what it means: "this is the final big push on behalf of the Democratic Party, the American left, and the Drive-By Media to destroy our effort to win the war in Iraq. That[base ']s what Haditha represents." And what it does not mean: "this Haditha incident, whatever..." [via Think Progress  Limbaugh: Liberals Are Ecstatic About Haditha, Planning Gang Rape of War Supporters]

You can also get a glimpse on how this by how Rep Murtha, who has been instrumental in ensuring that this receives its just examination  Marines' Families Discuss Haditha Deaths, has been treated in the commentariat, He is hated more than violent deaths of civilians, the messenger is cast in the dock, the message let go Timing and Tragedy.  What Think Progress (Judd) said in that post is more to the point than any three monkey defense:  "[T]aking the allegations seriously is essential to our success in creating a secure and democratic Iraq. The Iraqi people need to know the truth, which is that the alleged conduct is not tolerated in the United States military or in American society."

 A few of other thoughts came to mind while I was thinking this over. I'm always a little sensitive when the US Navy gets into the news. I always want the Navy to have done the right thing, the honorable thing. I don't wish for the public face of the Navy to be the public spectacle of low-lifes covering their asses. In the late eighties and early nineties there there a series of incidents that raised alarms and not just with me. The guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner USS Vincennes (CG-49) - Wikipedia that was flying in a routine traffic pattern. Initially the line was that this was an unavoidable mistake, that was not the right answer. When there was an explosion in a turret aboard the fifty year old battleship USS Iowa  USS Iowa (BB-61) - Wikipedia, The Navy first tried to deploy the idea that a spurned homosexual had done this deliberately killing 47 men in the process (Gay sailors; that's why ships explode, that's what happened to the Hood, and Yamato too). The apogee of this inability to come to terms with a challenging and changing world was a minor cheating scandal at US Naval Academy in the early nineties. This was because the Midshipmen involved made the decision to place the seat of their honor in a pact among themselves to hold with a lie rather than open themselves to the "mainstream-media", the general public, outsiders.  This band of brothers attitude is commendable in many respects critically neccesary in others, it is a high thing, it can be a noble thing, but it is not the highest thing. The good, the truth is the highest thing. That is where duty actually resides. Institutionally as well as individually. The USNA scandal fell open when one midshipmen decided his religious faith required that he break rank and come forward:  Amazon.com: A Question of Honor: The Cheating Scandal That Rocked Annapolis and a Midshipman Who Decided to Tell the Truth.

 The bottom line is that civilization, honor, democracy, freedom only begin where tribalism leaves off. It becomes progressively difficult for a nation, for an armed service to win wars when these highest and strongest values are passed on. To the extent they do, they will not have won victory for them.


11:55:07 PM    comment [];trackback [];


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2006 Paul Bushmiller.
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