Support the Troops; Bring them Home

When I posted on the events in Haditha, Iraq ( Mai Lai, Iraq ) in May, I concluded with the following:

“Is it fair to place these incidents side by side? Certainly the scale places them miles apart. The claims of self-defense in Haditha are still officially under investigation and therefore, left standing; separating the incidents even further. However it is not the outcome that brings these places together; rather it is the harsh reality of war’s potential to fundamentally change – if only for a moment – the humanity of good people.”

In an Associated Press article dated June 30th, comes the following:

“GIs eyed in alleged rape, murders in Iraq
By RYAN LENZ
Associated Press Writer
BEIJI, Iraq — A group of American soldiers in an insurgent-riddled town allegedly noticed a young Iraqi woman when on patrol and later returned to rape her, according to U.S. officials Friday. In an apparent cover-up attempt, she and three members of her family then were killed and her body was set on fire. Five U.S. troops are being investigated, a U.S. military official told The Associated Press. It is the fifth pending case involving alleged slayings of Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops….

… The case is among the most serious against U.S. soldiers allegedly involved in the deaths of Iraqi civilians. At least 14 U.S. troops have been convicted. Last week, seven Marines and one Navy medic were charged with premeditated murder in the shooting death of an Iraqi man near Fallujah west of Baghdad….

… Other cases involve the deaths of three male detainees in Salahuddin province in May, the shooting death of unarmed Iraqi man near Ramadi in February, and the death of an Iraqi soldier after an interrogation in 2003 at a detention camp in Qaim….”
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Again, I do not post here to accuse, condemn, or judge the actions of these individual soldiers, sailors, or Marines. Rather, I hold those who have chosen to send (and keep) our military into this ill conceived and badly managed mission ultimately responsible for these actions. By placing these young men and women in the continuing circumstance of never knowing who or where the next random assault will come from, they are left vulnerable to a stress that only they and their comrades in arms can know. How they handle this stress is, to a large degree, dependent upon the training and leadership they are provided with.

Leadership starts at the top. With the stated mission of separating Saddam Hussein from his (imaginary) WMD and liberating the Iraqi people from his rule having been accomplished, those who have chosen to leave our troops in that country -in the untrained for role of “nation builders”- have basically cut and run in their support for the troops. The toll of deaths and wounding continues to mount at an uninterrupted pace while the numbers of Iraqis considered capable of “standing up” remains in dispute. While the “leaders” in Washington DC “debate” an exit strategy (finally deciding there will not be one), the stress of uncertainty hangs over the heads of these young people. Some of the results of that uncertainty are reported on above, perhaps inflicting some of the greatest wounds of this conflict upon those who have been involved in these incidents.

It is long past time to thank our troops for performing the mission they were asked to perform and bring them home.


Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue