Haditha update
December 23rd, 2006 by herichon
It’s about time for an update, don’t you think?
We brought the Haditha massacre to your attention back in May, sandwiched in between a couple of forgettable posts about Vaclav Havel and Nate the Nosferatu. (NPR has a nice timeline here for those who need a recap.) Those of you who only get your news from Amphichon will perhaps be interested to hear that yesterday, the Marines filed murder charges against four of their own, and charges of dereliction of duty for failure to investigate against four others above them in the chain of command. It’s a move that’s surprising in some ways – these are harsh charges, unexpectedly so – but perhaps it’s another sign that Washington (and by extension America) is undergoing a sea change.
Seven months ago, as much as we were angered and saddened by the tragedy at Haditha, some held out the hope that the aftershocks of this event might be strong enough to shake the foundations of this administration and dispel some of their fantasies about our noble mission in Iraq. Others (myself included) were so steeped in cynicism that we couldn’t imagine anything making a dent in Bushco’s reality-proof Weltanschauung – it seemed that Marines could have strung up Iraqi children by their entrails on the White House lawn and Republicans would have praised it as “bold” and “festive”.
A lot has changed in seven months. After the dramatic reversals in the midterm elections, the well-earned and long overdue departure of Rumsfeld, the three-ring circus around Mark Foley, and God only knows what other Republican setbacks I’m forgetting to mention, the political climate in America is definitely changing. Is it for the better? (An easier question: could it have gotten much worse?) Either way, time will tell, but for the moment there’s perhaps a bittersweet solace to be found in this latest turn of events.
No American can really be happy to see our soldiers standing trial for the murder of innocent Iraqi women, children and senior citizens. But to see them standing trial and being held accountable—not just enlisted men but their superiors as well—to me, that’s a sign that perhaps we haven’t entirely forgotten who we are. We Americans like to think of ourselves as the good guy, and while most of our soldiers as individuals have acted with bravery and distinction, we as a country haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory during our Iraqi misadventure. Haditha and dozens of similar incidents have made that very clear. Every body at Haditha, every abused prisoner at Abu Gharib, every “unlawful combatant” held without charge at Guantanamo Bay—every one of these is a stain on the soul of this country. With these criminal charges, though, comes a small but significant shot at redemption. For the first time in a long time, it seems clear that we are doing the right thing, for the right reason, and doing it with conviction—and not that fake Bush conviction, that unshakable faith that everything will work out right in the end despite our stupidity, but a conviction based on the things we know are true about right and wrong. You wouldn’t think this trial is what America needs, but in some ways, it’s exactly that. It’s a way of saying to ourselves and to the world, this is not who we are, and by doing that, it can help us remember who we once were, back when we were proud to be American, and we had reason to be.
There’s nothing to be proud about when it comes to Haditha. But as we put the fantasies and delusion about Iraq farther away from us, and we come to terms with the right and wrong of what we did there, and begin to take responsibility and hold ourselves accountable for our actions, both as individuals and as a nation – as we accept Haditha as our mistake, that we owe it to ourselves and to Iraq to put right – then we can start to earn back that self-respect that we’ve lost. We can start to find our way again.