Posted on 06/02/2006 10:13:00 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
God, our Muslim brothers remind us, is the merciful and the compassionate. There- fore, we do not make moral judgments on morality of others. It is up to God to make such judgments. So the moral guilt of the American Marines who apparently murdered perhaps two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, last November must be left to heaven. Yet, in the objective order these murders of men, women and children are a disgrace to the United States and to the Corps and to all the dead we honored last Monday. Their actions are likely to lead to the murder of many Americans by Islamic terrorists who are not quite as compassionate and merciful as God.
Yet questions must be asked. What are the Marines doing in Iraq, much less riding in patrols down isolated, dusty desert roads? The Marines are an elite unit. They charge through Belleau Woods, they land on beaches at Tarawa, they climb Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima and raise the American flag, they push toward the Yalu River in North Korea in the depth of winter cold and then, cut off from main American forces, "redeploy" from the Chosun Reservoir and out of the trap.
During this epic retreat, Curtis Kiesling, one of my seminary classmates, only a few months out of Notre Dame, volunteered to storm a Chinese machine gun above his platoon of the 11th Marines. He silenced the gun and fell back among his comrades, dead.
That's what Marines are trained to do. They are not trained to be bait for terrorists. They do what they're told to do, of course, and try to live up to the ideals of the Corps. Yet, without excusing what happened, one must ask what in the world they were doing on patrol in western Iraq, where they would be an excellent target for an ambuscade, many of them on their third deployment to Iraq? Indeed, what are any Americans doing dodging roadside bombs in that country?
It will be said that they were defending American freedom. Doubtless they believed that they were. Yet there is no evidence that Iraq was ever a threat to American freedom. Or, it will be contended, they were fighting in the cause of democracy in Iraq. Anyone familiar with the disasters of the early 1920s when the English tried to civilize the new and artificial country (using poison gas, as Saddam Hussein did) will understand that democracy in that tribal society is a pipe dream.
In fact, they were there because the president of the United States "decided" that God wanted him to invade Iraq, and the defense secretary declared such an invasion would require only a small force -- less than half the size his military leaders said would be necessary -- and that there was no reason to provide an elaborate plan for the time after the war was over. So reservists, national guards and elite groups like the 11th Marines were deployed and redeployed and redeployed again, and 2,400 Americans (so far) died in a war that has turned out to be folly. We sank into the Big Muddy again.
I will leave to God the most merciful, the most compassionate, to decide about the moral guilt of Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld. Doubtless they acted with good intentions and confidence that God was on their side. In the objective order, however, the only one we can know, they are in part responsible for the murders at Haditha. I doubt that they will be troubled by the TV clip of the young girl who hid under the bed while the Marines executed her family.
They will never be held to this responsibility. The buck no longer stops in the Oval Office, as it did in President Truman's day, or at the Pentagon. It stops with the young men who cracked under strain and their superiors who tried to cover it up. They will be punished and the leadership of the country will proclaim their own great virtue for serving justice. They will not ask themselves, nor will the country ask them, if they might be in part responsible for war crimes.
As for the cover-up, I am part of a group of men who covered up for abusive brother priests. In great part we deny responsibility for what our colleagues did, even though we knew about it or should have known about it. And our leaders, our commanding officers, if you will, still exercise their offices and still presume to prescribe proper morality for the laity.
No one is responsible anymore. For anything.
mailto:agreel@aol.com
You're just a dhimmi to them, Andrew.
Which is absolutely fine with Greeley.
2,400 Americans died in a war?! Oh, my gawd! 2400! This is unprecedented! If an American dies, it's time to surrender. But 2,400?! This is the most horrendous, deadly war we have ever lost.
Marines do a lot of things, Greeley you commie fool.
What an incoherent statement.
Apparently Mr. Greeley's view of Marine Corps history only encompasses major wars. The Marines have been involved in many insurrections, notably in the Caribbean in the twenties & thirties (Haiti, Nicaragua, etc). They performed duties much like the ones that Mr. Greeley finds distasteful.
The Marine Corps publishes a book called "The Small Wars Manual" which is recommended reading for all officers heading to Iraq.
"I will leave to God the most merciful, the most compassionate, to decide about the moral guilt of Messrs. Bush and Rumsfeld."
Very generous of His Holy Bag of Hot Air.
This guy is an asshat. Lets try a little reality. One, civilian casualties are a common biproduct of war. This war and all the popular wars we won and just read about too. The question is can the American public grow up enough to realize that no one in history ever fought and won the perfct war. There are a lot of tragedies in war, planned and unintentional. I will not judge my Marines until I have heard the evidence. But I will say this, even if these Marines did go crazy and shoot up the joint, is that I understand their mindset and can forgive them. I know this has happened in every war we, or anyone else has fought since recorded history. To the lefties who now believe WWII was the best war, for the right reasons, and the Americans who fought it were special (note: 25 years ago the lefties did not like even WWII vets) I know that there were many instances of prisoners being shot while attempting to surrender, there were rapes, and there were a whole lot of looting going on in Germany. My point is it is time that the American public grow up, realize this can and probably will happen again. Punish them if found guilty, but don't lie to me and yourself that it should never happen, it will happen. Also, if this is the standard that the left will hold an 18 year old Marine to, I want the same standard for our lovely misunderstood youth at home. The Marine provides me and you a value, the misunderstood youth is a cost.
And I will leave to God the most merciful, the most compassionate, to decide the mental stupidity of Mr. Greely.
Nah! Why bother God with such an obvious fact. The guy's a jerk. There!
How many Americans were murdered on 9/11?? The MSM and whining Liberals don't remember or are chosing to forget.
What I find most tiresome is the continual reference to these deaths as "murders" by Marines when there is not even a whisper of a rumor of credible evidence to that effect.
I agree. If it did happen that way it is what is know as a hot blooded crime. Remember, all Marine infantry training is to develop cold blooded killers (i.e., those that discriminate and purposely kill). This is after all our mission.
If you assume that the Marines are innocent of wrongdoing and that they in fact have been set up by the citizens of Haditha and the insurgents, then why in God's name were they placed in a position where they could be so abused both by the Iraqis and then by our investigatory process? If you assume that the Marines in fact did what the media are accusing them of doing, then you must also ask yourself why they would have behaved in such a fashion. Haditha is not My Lai. The Marines of 2006 are not the conscript army of the 60's. They are not led by William Calley. They are highly trained volunteers. They are among America's best soldiers. If they did commit war crimes, did our tactics contribute to a breakdown in their discipline and honor?
These questions go to the heart of our mission in Iraq.
Well, yeah, they say that, Father. Unfortunately, a good number of them act as if Allah were more like the Calormen god Tash in C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia: the inexorable and the irresistible.
If only Muslims truly believed and lived this. But their actions show that the majority of them do NOT believe this.
Obviously, Greeley is an idiot.
I cannot help but wonder, even for a moment, if God is waiting for Greeley, or if Greeley has already been judged by Him.
At least 2 were murdered by a muslim traitor in our ranks (Sgt. Akbar).
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