Haditha has an eerie similarity to My Lai, but the story is playing out in a totally different way within the American psyche. My Lai shocked America. It galvanized the public conscience and became the great turning point of the Vietnam war.
But Haditha has come and gone without leaving much of a trace. Nobody seems to give a damn. The atrocity is buried under heaps of more compelling news such as sports and celebrity weddings. The release of information about Haditha was carefully choregraphed by the Bush Administration. Orchestrated leaks by prominent spokespeople neutralized the horror of the murdered children. The brutal rape and murder of an Iraqi woman and her family by Private Steven Green was similarly neutralized. And Abu Gharib is now largely forgotten.
Perhaps the biggest casualty in Iraq is our ability to feel. The spectacle of dead babies, tortured prisoners and raped women, washes over us like the latest fashion trend. We don't feel the pain of thers anymore - small wonder why others have started refusing to feel ours.
*ethical training*
In an effort to prevent the occurrence of another grisly Haditha-style massacre, the US military is providing grunts stationed in Iraq with ethics training. But what about the people whose decision it was to wage this war that has killed and maimed tens of thousands? Maybe Bush and his cohorts - who neatly adopted the idea of a "culture of life" in their opposition to abortion and euthanasia - should take a moment to sit in on one of these ethics lessons as well.
But Haditha has come and gone without leaving much of a trace. Nobody seems to give a damn. The atrocity is buried under heaps of more compelling news such as sports and celebrity weddings. The release of information about Haditha was carefully choregraphed by the Bush Administration. Orchestrated leaks by prominent spokespeople neutralized the horror of the murdered children. The brutal rape and murder of an Iraqi woman and her family by Private Steven Green was similarly neutralized. And Abu Gharib is now largely forgotten.
Perhaps the biggest casualty in Iraq is our ability to feel. The spectacle of dead babies, tortured prisoners and raped women, washes over us like the latest fashion trend. We don't feel the pain of thers anymore - small wonder why others have started refusing to feel ours.
*ethical training*
In an effort to prevent the occurrence of another grisly Haditha-style massacre, the US military is providing grunts stationed in Iraq with ethics training. But what about the people whose decision it was to wage this war that has killed and maimed tens of thousands? Maybe Bush and his cohorts - who neatly adopted the idea of a "culture of life" in their opposition to abortion and euthanasia - should take a moment to sit in on one of these ethics lessons as well.
I'll be back someday.