Haditha

31 May, 2006 by John Hawkins

Print this article Font size -16+

At Haditha, some Marines were hit with a roadside bomb and there’s controversy about what happened next. The accusation, that may or may not be true, is that those Marines responded to the attack by deliberately murdering 24 innocent Iraqis in cold blood. Is it true? Is it not true? It’s unknown at this point despite the fact that Democrats like John Murtha have already publicly declared that the Marines involved are guilty.

Whatever the case may be, liberals are already honing in on this case because there is nothing they love better than an orgy of America, military, and Bush bashing and they’re hoping that they can turn this into an even bigger pile-on than Abu Ghraib.

But, the real truth is that even Abu Ghraib didn’t come close to living up to the hype. Despite all the gnashing of teeth and endless column inches spent on the most overcovered story of the last decade, the events at Abu Ghraib didn’t turn out to be representative of Bush policy, the military, or America as a whole. To the contrary, it was just a bunch of bad apples who got of control and were punished for their crimes.

If Haditha turns out to be just as bad as some people are speculating that it is, which incidentally, is still far from certain, it’ll just be the exception that proves the rule: that America’s military is professional, honorable, and will take action against soldiers who fail to live up to this country’s high standards.