Before I enlisted in the Army National Guard, I read in one particular fiction book on Vietnam of an incident where soldiers "knew" a local was a VC agent who was responsible for several Americans being killed. Without proof, they could not touch him officially. So in the dead of night, they snuck into the village and killed him. At the time, I thought that I could not possibly judge those soldiers who did what they thought was right to protect their men from death at the hands of an enemy that deliberately violated the laws of war and hid behind civilians. Yes, down this slippery slope lay war crimes, but in this case the soldiers were probably right that the local was Viet Cong.
After I enlisted, I happened to read the book again in grad school. I was surprised that my reaction this time was horror that soldiers would violate their oath and fail to do their duty. There was no excuse for this break down of order.
In basic training, when we received training in the laws of war, we were told things we could not do to prisoners, like using them to walk point just in case he or his buddies planted mines. One of our drill sergeants, an older reservist, walked to the head of the class and told us that he'd seen too many of his friends killed in Vietnam because we did obey the rules of war while the enemy did not. He didn't say that we should ignore the rules of war. But his comments showed that we do pay a price in blood. At least in the short run.
A lot of impressions to consider.
The Soldier's Rules (Army Regulation 350-1) state:
- Soldiers fight only enemy combatants.
- Soldiers do not harm enemies who surrender. They disarm them and turn them over to their superior.
- Soldiers do not kill or torture enemy prisoners of war.
- Soldiers collect and care for the wounded, whether friend or foe.
- Soldiers do not attack medical personnel, facilities or equipment.
- Soldiers destroy no more than the mission requires.
- Soldiers treat civilians humanely.
- Soldiers do not steal. Soldiers respect private property and possessions.
- Soldiers should do their best to prevent violations of the law of war.
- Soldiers report all violations of the law of war to their superior.
The Marine rules, I am sure, are very similar.
So, where do I stand?
We expect soldiers and Marines to charge bunkers even though this risks getting them killed. We can expect them to refrain from killing civilians even if those civilians support the enemy and may even be the enemy once night falls. Failure to do either of these things risks defeat in different ways. And failing to adhere to rules that define honorable fighting risks turning our soldiers into criminals who will feel shame about deciding for themselves what is right and wrong in how they fight. Even if they choose right, they will always know they took on the role of judge when their code said they were not the ones to judge. And they won't even know they were right. Worse, they could be wrong.
So Haditha presumably represents a failure of those particular Marines to perform their duty at its most basic. It seems to be a failure to uphold the honor of our military by killing unarmed civilians even if those civilians are probably guilty of supporting the enemy. And the Marines failed the country they swore to defend by giving our enemies a propaganda victory and encouraging those at home who counsel retreat and defeat.
But these few are not the norm. We must not judge all Marines or soldiers based on these few Marines. We repeatedly call Islam a "religion of peace" after every jihadi beheads an enemy while crying "God is great." We should be able to do the same for our own military.
To sum up: Punish the guilty. Support the rest. Win the war.
