posted July 11, 2006 02:30 PM              

By Andrew J. Bacevich
Sunday, July 9, 2006; B01

In Iraq, lives differ in value -- and so do deaths. In this disparity lies an important reason why the United States has botched this war.

Last November in Haditha , a squad of Marines, outraged at the loss of a comrade, is said to have run amok, avenging his death by killing two dozen innocent bystanders. And in March, U.S. soldiers in Mahmudiyah allegedly raped a young Iraqi woman and killed her along with three of her relatives -- an apparently premeditated crime for which one former U.S. soldier has been charged . These incidents are among at least five recent cases of Iraqi civilian deaths that have triggered investigations of U.S. military personnel. If the allegations prove true, Haditha and Mahmudiyah will deservedly take their place alongside Sand Creek, Samar and My Lai in the unhappy catalogue of atrocities committed by American troops.

But recall a more recent incident, in Samarra . On May 30, U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint there opened fire on a speeding vehicle that either did not see or failed to heed their command to stop. Two women in the vehicle were shot dead. One of them, Nahiba Husayif Jassim, 35, was pregnant. The baby was also killed. The driver, Jassim's brother, had been rushing her to a hospital to give birth. No one tried to cover up the incident: U.S. military representatives issued expressions of regret.

In all likelihood, we will be learning more about Haditha and Mahmudiyah for months to come, whereas the Samarra story has already been filed away and largely forgotten. And that's the problem.

The killing at the Samarra checkpoint was not an atrocity; most likely it was an accident, a mistake. Yet plenty of evidence suggests that in Iraq such mistakes have occurred routinely, with moral and political consequences that have been too long ignored. Indeed, conscious motivation is beside the point: Any action resulting in Iraqi civilian deaths, however inadvertent, undermines the Bush administration's narrative of liberation, and swells the ranks of those resisting the U.S. presence.

Gen. Tommy Franks, who commanded U.S. forces when they entered Iraq more than three years ago, famously declared: "We don't do body counts." Franks was speaking in code. What he meant was this: The U.S. military has learned the lessons of Vietnam -- where body counts became a principal, and much derided, public measure of success -- and it has no intention of repeating that experience. Franks was not going to be one of those generals re-fighting the last war.

Unfortunately, Franks and other senior commanders had not so much learned from Vietnam as forgotten it. This disdain for counting bodies, especially those of Iraqi civilians killed in the course of U.S. operations, is among the reasons why U.S. forces find themselves in another quagmire. It's not that the United States has an aversion to all body counts. We tally every U.S. service member who falls in Iraq, and rightly so. But only in recent months have military leaders finally begun to count -- for internal use only -- some of the very large number of Iraqi noncombatants whom American bullets and bombs have killed.

Through the war's first three years, any Iraqi venturing too close to an American convoy or checkpoint was likely to come under fire. Thousands of these "escalation of force" episodes occurred. Now, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, has begun to recognize the hidden cost of such an approach."People who were on the fence or supported us" in the past "have in fact decided to strike out against us," he recently acknowledged.

In the early days of the insurgency, some U.S. commanders appeared oblivious to the possibility that excessive force might produce a backlash. They counted on the iron fist to create an atmosphere conducive to good behavior. The idea was not to distinguish between "good" and "bad" Iraqis, but to induce compliance through intimidation.

"You have to understand the Arab mind," one company commander told the New York Times, displaying all the self-assurance of Douglas MacArthur discoursing on Orientals in 1945. "The only thing they understand is force -- force, pride and saving face." Far from representing the views of a few underlings, such notions penetrated into the upper echelons of the American command. In their book "Cobra II," Michael R. Gordon and Gen. Bernard E. Trainor offer this ugly comment from a senior officer: "The only thing these sand niggers understand is force and I'm about to introduce them to it."

Such crass language, redolent with racist, ethnocentric connotations, speaks volumes. These characterizations, like the use of "gooks" during the Vietnam War, dehumanize the Iraqis and in doing so tacitly permit the otherwise impermissible. Thus, Abu Ghraib and Haditha -- and too many regretted deaths, such as that of Nahiba Husayif Jassim.

As the war enters its fourth year, how many innocent Iraqis have died at American hands, not as a result of Haditha-like massacres but because of accidents and errors? The military doesn't know and, until recently, has publicly professed no interest in knowing. Estimates range considerably, but the number almost certainly runs in the tens of thousands. Even granting the common antiwar bias of those who track the Iraqi death toll -- and granting, too, that the insurgents have far more blood on their hands -- there is no question that the number of Iraqi noncombatants killed by U.S. forces exceeds by an order of magnitude the number of U.S. troops killed in hostile action, which is now more than 2,000.

Who bears responsibility for these Iraqi deaths? The young soldiers pulling the triggers? The commanders who establish rules of engagement that privilege "force protection" over any obligation to protect innocent life? The intellectually bankrupt policymakers who sent U.S. forces into Iraq in the first place and now see no choice but to press on? The culture that, to put it mildly, has sought neither to understand nor to empathize with people in the Arab or Islamic worlds?

There are no easy answers, but one at least ought to acknowledge that in launching a war advertised as a high-minded expression of U.S. idealism, we have waded into a swamp of moral ambiguity. To assert that "stuff happens," as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is wont to do whenever events go awry, simply does not suffice.

Moral questions aside, the toll of Iraqi noncombatant casualties has widespread political implications. Misdirected violence alienates those we are claiming to protect. It plays into the hands of the insurgents, advancing their cause and undercutting our own. It fatally undermines the campaign to win hearts and minds, suggesting to Iraqis and Americans alike that Iraqi civilians -- and perhaps Arabs and Muslims more generally -- are expendable. Certainly, Nahiba Husayif Jassim's death helped clarify her brother's perspective on the war. "God take revenge on the Americans and those who brought them here," he declared after the incident. "They have no regard for our lives."

He was being unfair, of course. It's not that we have no regard for Iraqi lives; it's just that we have much less regard for them. The current reparations policy -- the payment offered in those instances in which U.S. forces do own up to killing an Iraq civilian -- makes the point. The insurance payout to the beneficiaries of an American soldier who dies in the line of duty is $400,000, while in the eyes of the U.S. government, a dead Iraqi civilian is reportedly worth up to $2,500 in condolence payments -- about the price of a decent plasma-screen TV.

For all the talk of Iraq being a sovereign nation, foreign occupiers are the ones deciding what an Iraqi life is worth. And although President Bush has remarked in a different context that "every human life is a precious gift of matchless value," our actions in Iraq continue to convey the impression that civilian lives aren't worth all that much.

That impression urgently needs to change. To start, the Pentagon must get over its aversion to counting all bodies. It needs to measure in painstaking detail -- and publicly -- the mayhem we are causing as a byproduct of what we call liberation. To do otherwise, to shrug off the death of Nahiba Husayif Jassim as just one of those things that happens in war, only reinforces the impression that Americans view Iraqis as less than fully human. Unless we demonstrate by our actions that we value their lives as much as the lives of our own troops, our failure is certain.

bacevich@bu.edu

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University.

posted July 11, 2006 02:38 PM              

2,500 is a joke.

------------------
"WHATEVER the soul longs for, WILL be attained by the spirit"

"Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation"

posted July 11, 2006 02:46 PM              

"Unless we demonstrate by our actions that we value their lives as much as the lives of our own troops, our failure is certain"

posted July 11, 2006 03:08 PM              

But, I wonder - is he suggesting that $400,000 should be paid out to all Iraqi families who lose a loved one?

How much is paid out to the families of beheaded telecommunications technicians by Iraqis? Blown to bits foreign oilfield technicians? Iraqi mothers and children in the market blown to bits by mortor shells & suicide bombers?

I didn't know that the U.S. paid out anything at all to the families of civilians killed by coalition forces. You have to admit, and least it's a gesture showing regret. Is anything offered as compensation from Iraq's purse when non Iraqi civilians are killed? Of course $2500 isn't enough. So would $400,000 be enough then?

Soldiers are not angels, nor gods. They're mere mortals. Even American soldiers. Shocking, I know.

posted July 11, 2006 03:08 PM              

It was something that needed to be said....

It's very sad....

posted July 11, 2006 03:08 PM              

How completely disgusting; what an assanine attitude.

posted July 11, 2006 03:17 PM              

There are some nasty, evil people roaming God's earth arent there....?

Lets hope karma catches up with them.....

And the guy who made the comment and used the "n" word (dont like using that one).....well I wont even begin to describe what I would have done to him..

posted July 11, 2006 03:30 PM            

So, if we transpose one of their beliefs onto the concept of how much their lives are worth compared to ours, would it be fair to say that one of our guys is worth two of theirs?

posted July 11, 2006 06:35 PM              

while on my thread u supported the war as u thought it was to fight terrorism, unlike others u don't try to call people names or bias them in ur mind if they don't support the war.

"Objectively, she did ask about Iraqi's lives, not terrorists lives." is a very good example how different and clear ur thinking is compared to lioneye68 and jwhop and others in the name calling league.

since the time we used to chat on yahoo messenger (when i was Archer in LL) i thought u and futureuncertain (carissa) were the two best people to discuss a topic with as u never loose ur reasoning to anger.

posted July 11, 2006 06:48 PM            

"But recall a more recent incident, in Samarra . On May 30, U.S. soldiers manning a checkpoint there opened fire on a speeding vehicle that either did not see or failed to heed their command to stop."

Hmmmm....so a speeding car FAILS to see or stop at the damn checkpoint (CAR BOMB ANYONE) and because the Soldiers ESP wasn't working that day, they open fire.

Hmmmm..... I guess the Soldiers should have just gambled on the fact that the people blasting through the check point were "friendlies" just out for some fresh air.

posted July 11, 2006 06:59 PM            

If a car is speeding through just about ANY checkpoint without heeding a stop- the passengers will get SHOT.

That is true in most countries. I'd like to see you try that crap when entering RUSSIA or coming from MEXICO into the US. Better yet, let's see how friggen far one gets trying to get across North Korea without stopping.

Women, pretending to be pregnant, can easier have an IED strapped to them. Just because one has a Vagina does not make them helpless...one only has to look at Vietnam and other wars (even our own Indian wars and the Civil war demonstrates a woman's ability to kill) old women and children often carried explosive devices to kill Soldiers.

So please, save your "OMG she was pregnant" or "Maybe they were afraid of being raped" crap for some intellectual midget instead of insinuating our Soldiers few infractions warrant the same treatment as your Muslim terrorists and Taliban torture mongers.

I'd bet those women, if they had a choice, would rather be locked up with a hungry Tiger than any Taliban a-hole.

posted July 11, 2006 07:08 PM              

in these 'most' countries, they are in their home land and not 'smoking out' people of other lands.

posted July 11, 2006 07:20 PM            

Making blanket accusations is too easy and something both YOU and DD do on a daily basis without offering 1 iota of real evidence. Instead you repeat the mantra of unproven allegations (all 3) again and again. When the proof shows that the majority of your allegations are offbase- well, then you will just slink away silently.

Then when you and DD feel it's okay again, you'll pop right out with another allegation "Horrible US Marines killed an innocent man because he had 100 tons of dynamite strapped to his to A$$ and was seen entering a children's playground" Oh the poor poor man..... boo hoo... bad Soldier... Bad.. should have let those Children die!

Pathetic!

posted July 11, 2006 07:23 PM              

Pid, you beat me to it. I wanted to point out that they played a part in this tragedy by not stopping at the check point. How can you not see a check point, with army vehicles parked along the road side and armed soldiers standing on the road?

I also wanted to ask re: the money paid out to families of accidentally or circumstancially killed Iraqi civilians - does any other nation do this? At all? I've never heard of that being done before. So, the U.S. is doing this, and this, like everything else they do, is being used against them now.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't.