"Collateral damage" is neither

As if the Haditha debacle wasn't bad enough, now we have another accusation of outright murder (which is systemically ironic in a warzone, anyway) by U.S. troops in the city of Ishaqi. Accusers say the "coalition" troops executed a whole family, eleven people, including women and children. The U.S. military says it killed four people, including a possible insurgent, in a firefight near the house, and when an air strike was called in, as many as nine "collateral deaths" occurred.

Now it's time to whip out those thinking caps kids. Get out your calculators. The accusers (including extremist groups in possession of photographic evidence and video footage that contradict the military's story, and the BBC) have said "Eleven deaths occurred, and it was wrong." The pentagon has said "Actually, we may have killed thirteen people, and it's fine." Is this not the funniest shit ever? It's like living inside a black comedy. Oh, and Vietnam comparisons are becoming more and more precise. And what is the administration's quick-fix solution to the problem of our "boys in green" slaughtering civilians? An ethics class. That's right. Read it again if the severity of this has not registered yet. Our country is so bad at instilling values in our children that, after arming them heavily, we have to go back and teach them values after the fact. After we've trained them to use billion-dollar death machines. After we've put them through hell making them fit enough to travel around the world and pull the trigger. After we've indoctrinated them with phrases like "collateral damage." Tell me again, why is it we don't expect this to fuck up their heads? We fill them with violence throughout their childhoods, teach them to kill other human beings efficiently in basic training, pay them to do so, and then expect them to keep it reigned in. That assumption is obscene. Taking another person's life changes you. It can never be just a job. And for all their pro-war, bellicose, pompous hollering, the religious right seems to have a little problem with consistency. I know it's an old argument, but how fucking hard can it be to grasp and apply the meaning of four simple little fucking syllables that are a cornerstone of your faith!?

In case you are a complete idiot, I'm talking about commandment VI: "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

I understand the counterpoint, the "need" for war, blah blah blah. The fact is our current "engagement" in Iraq is not justified, not needed, and therefore completely and totally wrong. We are the aggressor nation, and by so severely destabilizing a huge country in the middle east, we have only empowered the boogeymen (or "terrorists" as Jr. the boy prince likes to call them) and given them even more reasons to hate us. I'm not blaming the U.S. entirely for what's happened, but it does seem a little odd that our heads of state are so eager to throw logs on the fire instead of putting it out. The terrorists are a fire that will burn itself out. What they do, what they preach, is evil in any culture on every continent. The U.S. is not this lone bastion of virtue we've been led to believe. I promise. There are other good, competent nations in the world besides our own. I promise.

And when Christ does return, he will NOT come here first.

I promise.