Too many deaths - too much violence

There are rules about killing in war - I refer to the current widespread strife in the Middle East and the unintended consequences of these wars or "conflicts." The fact is, in the Middle East right now, far too many innocent people are losing their lives in the midst of military operations.

This post is about murder by soldiers. It is a difficult challenge to write and heart-breaking. It is difficult because it raises the possibility of someone charging me with a lack of patriotism, despite my absolute support for our soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world. By and large, they are doing the best they can in an impossible situation. This is not a wholesale indictment of the military. And the wording of the post is challenging because the current murder charges are not convictions; the accused are rightly presumed innocent at this point. It is heart-breaking because of the tragedy for all the victims, soldiers, family, friends and others in both the U.S. and Iraq.

It begins with the news.* I recently came across a headline in Reuters about whether four soldiers in Iraq, previously charged with murder, will face court martial. I thought that it must be an old story; but it was datelined August 1. Quoting the Reuters paragraph that caught my eye,

It comes at a sensitive time when the military is investigating other cases of alleged abuses -- including the killings of up to 24 unarmed civilians in the town of Haditha last year by U.S. Marines -- which have infuriated Iraqis.

A number of incidents - The military will do further investigationinto the events in Haditha. At first I felt disconcerted and was thrown off, because I have actually lost track of the number of these kinds of stories about soldiers in Iraq. However, a 6/28/06 article at nwfdailynews.com site gives a very good summary of the larger story about outside-of-bounds soldier violence in Iraq. It begins,

A string of alleged atrocities by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is testing the military justice system and raising the possibility that American soldiers may face the death penalty for acts in countries where every street can be a battlefield.
Not since World War II have members of the U.S. military faced murder charges for killing prisoners. Not since the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War have U.S. soldiers formally been accused of indiscriminately slaughtering innocent civilians.
Several new cases have emerged from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that could bring up a punishment the military seldom imposes and rarely carries out.

What could lead to murders? Let me begin by stating that my speculation about antecedents and possible causes of this kind of violence in no way excuse it. There are no excuses, but there may be systemic factors that could tend to set up the wrong dynamics for soldiers. For example,

1. The "war on terror" was cast as a"war against terrorists and evil nations who harbor them." Many boys grew up playing video games with "wars against evil."
2. The preemptive war in Iraq was first of its kind for the U.S. The size of the force has been too small from the beginning, as was the number of nations in the "coalition of the willing."
3. The original commitment did not include nation building, for which the troops were never trained. Something could also be missing from officer leadership training.
4. The Geneva Conventions were initially discounted by the Bush administration. And the whole issue is still a "moving target."
5. The Iraq war evolved into an insurgency with similarities to the guerilla war in Vietnam - where it was hard to pick out the enemy. Conventional warfare fares poorly under such circumstances.
6. The United States has not been very culturally sensitive to Iraqi values of dignity and honor. Sectarian violence is characterized by cycles of retribution killings. Is it possible that soldiers have gotten into the same kind of retribution cycle with Iraqis?
7. There have been undue pressures to recruit - resulting in the enlistment of men/boys who are inappropriate for military service. Who is responsible for screening out these folks ahead of time?
8. Soldiers get completely stressed out by multiple deployments. Families at home are breaking down, affecting the soldiers abroad.
9. Our forces have not been given a clear idea about the nature of their mission, nor when it will end.

Military options - The leaders in the military must think about the possible systemic problems I have listed. These are smart folks. And each problem has an obvious, though perhaps very difficult solution. But problems can only be solved by first admitting that the hard issues exist. And that is what this post has been about.
*The string of incidents - More U.S. soldiers charged in Iraq rape, murder, US Soldiers in Iraq Murder Probe, U.S Soldiers charged with murder in Iraq, U.S. Soldiers Charged with Iraqi Death, UK Soldiers on Iraq murder charge, In Haditha, memories of a massacre, Sergeant convicted of attack on fellow soldiers.
Tags: Bush administration current events foreign policy Iraq war leadership Middle-East military opinion terrorism war violence war on terror
P.S. - South by Southwest changes - There are a few recent changes on my website:

• I have been accepted into the Progressive Women Bloggers Ring. Click on the box at the end of the left column.
• I have included a Dogpile search box at the top of this column. Once you try it you will like it, I think.
• I now sometimes use ipings, rather than pingomatic (which is often not working). It is under "links" on the left.
• My blogroll has been cleaned up a bit.
• I have added the Technorati Blog Directory, in a box in the nest of little boxes in the left column.
• I decreased the size of the typeface in the del.icio.us tag list, though it didn't help the "over-boldness" of it very much.
• I added "links to this post" next to "comments" at the end of each post.