I took some time to survey the blogosphere regarding the ongoing investigation into the incident at Haditha. It seems the right is taking a rather consistent tone: these things happen in wars, human beings put under stress perform imperfectly and immorally. The argument, I suspect serves the purpose of making the murder of civilians mundane, and painting liberals as weak stomached, naive, and unwilling to "get 'er done."

Whatever the rhetorical strategy, I could not agree more, however, with the premise. Once you unleash the dogs of war, you are subject to their appetites. Its a bit like saying that once you mix alcohol and automobiles you will get fatalities. That is why you avoid discretionary wars and avoid drunken driving : both have an unacceptable and totally foreseeable consequence. That is why Pope John Paul II warned the US of the "unintended consequences" of this war. He was no fool. He remembered the Axis' mistreatment of civilians, he remembered Hiroshima. Maybe he even remembered Mi Lai.

It is more than disappointing that the generation that witnessed Mi Lai did not see a Haditha barreling down the highway ten miles a way. What is more troubling is that there is a column who want the murder of civilians to be somehow a routine part of war that no longer raises our objections. As our sensitivities become dull, each atrocity becomes more tolerable.

Isn't history supposed to be going the other way?