So, Haditha becomes another of the names at which we wince, along with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and My Lai. Tell you what: Let’s not use the “stress of combat” excuse this time. According to neighbors, the girls in the family of Younis Khafif—the one who kept pleading in English, “I am a friend. I am good”—were 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1. What are they going to say? “Under stress of combat, we thought the baby was 2”?

“We have a Haditha every day,” said Muhanned Jasim, an Iraqi merchant. “Were [those killed in Haditha] the first Iraqis to be killed for no reason?” asked Ghasan Jayih, a pharmacist. Well no, but we Americans don’t count collateral damage unless we’re forced to. We prefer to ignore collateral damage, especially if they’re under 5.  Read the article

No Comments