I heard some retired General or such on NPR on the drive home giving the Pentagon spin on why "Haditha isn't Mai Lai" He claims that we learned from Vietnam. Hardly.
If we had learned from Vietnam, there would have been mass resignations at the command level at the hint of invading Iraq.
With a few brave exceptions, there weren't.
From the very beginning, hell from before the beginning, it was clear that although comparisons to Vietnam were being roundly rejected by the planners and pundits, one dynamic would be identical.
We were about to interject American service personnel halfway around the world, into a foreign culture, where they didn't know the language or the culture, where they were hopelessly outnumbered, where there would be large numbers of people who would want to kill them, and where it would be impossible to tell friend from foe.
This was true in Vietnam, and it is true in Iraq. It was clearly destined to be true in Iraq under any circumstances, as long as we stayed there. There was always going to be a sizable fraction of the population that would want us dead, and they would always be more welcome in the general population than we are. Understanding this simple point would seem to be so elementary, that the fact that it wasn't talked about at the time mystified me then, and continues to amaze me.
Since it was clear to any idiot that we were sending our men and women into this sort of hell, a situation where you could be killed by anyone at anytime, a situation where you will never be able to tell friend from foe and since it was a matter of choice, it would seem to me that all of those who made that choice share in the responsibility for the consequences.
And as surely as the sun comes up in the morning, one of the consequences of human beings living under those circumstances for extended periods of time is that they lose their humanity. They begin to view all the "other" as something subhuman. Something that could just snuff you out if you turn your back on it. Oh, you might tell yourself, 'but I am a man of character. Regardless of the circumstances, I would never descend to that level'. You know what? The sorry little truth about human nature is that we all possess that capacity. And regardless of your upbringing and your values and your habits and all your virtue until you are really in a life threatening situation, you don't actually know how you will react. Until you see the elephant you're just bullshitting yourself.
If we want to attach blame for the atrocities sure, there is blame for the fingers that pulled the trigger, but in a much larger sense lets put it where it really belongs. Let's give it to George Bush and Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and all the other liars who sent us on this fool's errand. Let's blame it on all the blood thirsty cheer-leaders and their fucking flag lapel pins pimping the war on their cable news and talk radio shows. And let's blame it on ourselves for not trying harder to stop it when any fucking idiot could see where it was leading. I say we blame it on the whole damn nation.