Iraq didn’t attack the US. Iraq didn’t threaten the US. The Iraqi civilians murdered at Haditha died because George W. Bush needlessly put them in harm’s way.

Bush didn’t pull the triggers. John Gotti probably didn’t pull many triggers either.

Wars beget war crimes. This war is a particularly stupid one. The Marines who murdered Iraqi civilians in Haditha may well spend a decade or two in jail and are eligible for execution. George W. Bush put them in Haditha. He should keep them company, spend some time at the courts martial, go over the evidence with the defense attorneys.

Study the photos.

Everyone else will. The hooded man became the icon of Abu Ghraib. Who would have thought he’d be proved lucky?

Perhaps the icon for Haditha will be “a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead.”

Bush won’t go to jail. He won’t go to the trials. He won’t study the photos. He won’t even be made to do lines.

Wars beget war crimes. I will not start a stupid war.
Wars beget war crimes. I will not start a stupid war.

He won’t be made to do lines because there are no grownups in the White House to make him do lines. There are no grownups in the Congress to make him do lines. What can we do to get this man some adult supervision?

Very few Americans become murderers. It’s unlikely that any of the Marines who murdered Iraqi civilians in Haditha would have murdered anyone back home. The war in Iraq created a window of opportunity that would otherwise not exist. The Marines who murdered Iraqi civilians in Haditha didn’t start the war in Iraq.

That was Bush.

In a way it’s silly to make too much of this. War crimes were inevitable. This isn’t the first and it’s likely not even the worst; it’s just the worst we’ll have seen so far.

We don’t get to see much of the war. And in a way we don’t need to, because we knew this would happen.

Because wars beget war crimes. Sometimes it’s a man in a hood on a box with electrodes clipped to his balls. Sometimes it’s a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead.

They probably were praying; it would be the natural thing in the circumstance.

No harm in trying, anyway.

So we have this man who started this war and sent young men off to fight it, and some of them fucked up in the very worst way, as we knew some of them would. And we can send them to jail, maybe kill them, but we can’t even make him do lines.

Does that seem right?

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