Haditha is Just the Tip of the Iceberg, As My Lai Was in Vietnam [View All]

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/06/05/edi06041.html

Alas, the massacre at Haditha -- in which women, children and men -- were executed by U.S. Marines will be the My Lai for Iraq.

That means war hawks will argue that the Marines were under intense pressure -- which they were -- and these "sort of things" are to be expected in war. They will excuse the horrific actions as an inevitable outgrowth of a war without rules.

And they are right, you know.

Not that these GIs should be excused from accountability, but the real people who should be tried and sentenced are Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and Rice. They, like Kissinger, Nixon and Johnson, put the Marines in this modern version of Dante's inferno for reasons that defy logic and honesty.

With Vietnam, My Lai was a real event that became a symbolic battle over whether U.S. soldiers should be held accountable for atrocities. They should, but, more importantly, the people who put them in an untenable position should be legally charged for war crimes -- and for misleading the men and women of the U.S. armed forces and the American people.

My Lai was only the tip of the iceberg in Vietnam. It was one atrocity among many, but it was the one where the soldiers got caught.