William Neikirk expresses frustration that the American public has kept a saddened but sober perspective on reports of GI abuses at Mahmoudiya, Haditha and Abu Ghraib. He seems to feel that a furious public outcry against our military, supported by nonstop JonBenet-style TV coverage, would be in order.
And yet he gives a rather good account of the reasons why the public has not opted for hysterical overreaction. Most Americans recognize that these are not the actions of the typical GI, that they are not a reflection of American policy, that every war produces its atrocity stories, and that the unrelenting stresses placed on our troops can drive some over the edge.
But Neikirk misses what is perhaps the biggest reason to take a measured perspective on these sad events, and that is the astonishing atrocities that Iraqis themselves are committing against their fellow countrymen every single day. While our troops risk their lives to enforce order, each day brings a new report of 30 or 50 or 75 ordinary Iraqis blown up or gunned down at a market, a mosque, or a roadside by their fellow Iraqis (with some help from Iranians and Syrians, to be sure). As the victims of these Iraqi mass murders mount from the hundreds to the thousands, does it really make sense to treat alleged GI abuses of a handful as the bigger story?
Americans are properly grieved and concerned if any of our troops have betrayed American values on the battlefield. We want fair and thorough inquiries and justified penalties. But Neikirk’s fretting that the public hasn’t used the charges against a few troops as a reason to rise in massive outrage against our entire military seems more than a little unbalanced.
