Haditha shows U.S. is “bad guys” too

I’ve always been repulsed by the talk of good guys and bad guys in Iraq. The Bush administration, along with conservative pundits, loves to paint the United States as being on the side of the angels.

The “bad guys” are the Iraqi insurgents, Baathists, Al Qaeda fighters, militias—any and all who are resisting the Snow White pure intentions of the “good guys” to bring peace, democracy, and the American way to the middle east.

Abu Ghraib’s torture and prisoner abuse should have put to rest this ridiculous dualism. But it didn’t. Too many Americans have an unfortunate ability to downplay our nation’s faults and exaggerate its virtues.

Hopefully Haditha will open the eyes of head-in-the-sanders. Reading about the atrocities committed by Marines in 2005, these clearly were “bad guys.”

U.S. Marines gunned down five unarmed Iraqis who stumbled onto the scene of a 2005 roadside bombing in Haditha, Iraq, according to eyewitness accounts that are part of a Naval Criminal Investigative Service report obtained by The Washington Post.

Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, the squad leader, shot the men one by one after Marines ordered them out of a white taxi in the moments following the explosion, which killed one Marine and injured two others, witnesses told investigators. Another Marine fired into their bodies as they lay on the ground.

…The shootings were the first in a series of violent reactions by Marines on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, that left 24 civilians - many of them women and children - dead, in what some human rights groups and Iraqis have called a massacre.

I’d like it if “good guy” and “bad guy” disappeared from public discourse. But if these terms are still going to be used, they need to be applied with specificity. Why exactly is this guy good or bad?

American soldiers are on both sides of the good-bad fence. So are Iraqi insurgents, many of whom surely consider that they’re patriots fighting for their country. (To the British, George Washington was a “bad guy.”)

George Bush himself was recently voted the top bad guy. And, good guy.

Diane Christian reminds us that if you think you’re good, you’re probably not, just as those who believe they can do no wrong generally commit a lot of it.

Most religious and moral teachings warn against thinking you're good. Call no man good is the counsel. The wisdom is that if you think you're good you're dangerous because you won't acknowledge where you're bad. Contrary to popular appetite, it's not all or nothing, good or bad forever fixed, but separate actions in time. You can be good today and bad tomorrow, bad yesterday and good today. If you're free it's an open option.

The Tao Te Ching tells it like it is:

A truly good man is not aware of his goodness,
And is therefore good.
A foolish man tries to be good,
And is therefore not good.

Comments

[Idler]

Allied troops committed war crimes in WWII also. Does that mean we ought to draw equivalence between the U.S. and Nazi forces?

Do you really see no difference between isolated crimes by U.S. personnel that get punished by the U.S. and actions by forces who deliberately kill large numbers of civilians (among other atrocities) as a matter of policy?

One needn't endorse an absolutely Manichean account of any particular conflict without noticing glaring differences in the standards of the belligerents.

Exaggerating faults is as bad as exaggerating virtues.

[Brian]

Idler, did I say that atrocities committed by Americans and insurgents were equivalent? Did I say that I saw no differences between the two?

No, I didn't. What I said is that U.S. combatants can be "bad guys," just as anti-U.S. combatants can. Neither side is all good or all bad.

I called for specificity in using those terms. Sometimes the U.S. acts like a good guy in Iraq, sometimes like a bad guy. My objection is to unthinkingly calling American soldiers the "good guys."

[Idler]

Brian,

You don’t explicitly equate U.S. and Iraqi insurgent atrocities are equivalent, but you make a comparison of parity where you make no meaningful distinction between them. In fact, everything you write is calculated to draw equivalence and you make the case that any such distinctions are a matter of subjective opinion (after all, you argue, George Washington was “bad” to the British).

There are stark objective differences between the ways the two forces operate. In answer to your call for “specificity,” that is what makes American soldiers far and away good guys, despite the occasional criminal. And that is what makes the insurgents cruel, habitual war criminals and, yes, bad guys, if such a thing can exist in your conceptual lexicon. What you wrote serves to blur that crucial distinction, not to illuminate it; it special pleads to the advantage of a grossly inhumane force and to the disadvantage of what is an exemplarily restrained and humane force.

Try reading your piece substituting “SS” for “insurgents.”

[Idler]

Canicatti shows U.S. is “bad guys” too

I’ve always been repulsed by the talk of good guys and bad guys in Europe. The Roosevelt administration, along with conservative pundits, loves to paint the United States as being on the side of the angels.

The “bad guys” are the Nazi SS—any and all who are resisting the Snow White pure intentions of the “good guys” to bring peace, democracy, and the American way to Europe.

The Biscari incident should have put to rest this ridiculous dualism. But it didn’t. Too many Americans have an unfortunate ability to downplay our nation’s faults and exaggerate its virtues.

Hopefully Canicatti will open the eyes of head-in-the-sanders. Reading about the Biscari massacre committed by American personnel in 1943, these clearly were “bad guys”…

I’d like it if “good guy” and “bad guy” disappeared from public discourse. But if these terms are still going to be used, they need to be applied with specificity. Why exactly is this guy good or bad?

American soldiers are on both sides of the good-bad fence. So are SS soldiers, many of whom surely consider that they’re patriots fighting for their country. (To the British, George Washington was a “bad guy.”)

[wilo]

The other point that's missing from this discussion is that by the sheer fact that we (i.e. the military)go after our own when things like Abu Ghraib occur DOES make us the "good guys." We do hold ourselves to a much higher standard ... often at our own peril. Accountability is something that we have that these terrorists do not. Anyone who has ever served in uniform to ensure you have the right to your views would take exception to your notion that we are both the "good guys" and the "bad guys." Are there some bad apples in the bunch? Of course, as we recruit from our citizens. Yet you can't claim that the whole "bunch" is all good and all bad.

[A MARINE]

YOU REALY NEED TO LEARN THE DIFERENCE BETWEEN AN INDIVIDUAL DOING BAD THINGS AND THE OVERALL INTENT OF A PEOPLE OR NATION. ANY AMERICAN SERVICE MAN THAT DOES THE THINGS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT WILL BE PUNISHED AND HELD ACOUNTABLE. THESE REGRETABLE THINGS HAPPEN IN WAR ALL WARS NOT JUST AMERICAN ONES.THATS WHY THERE ARE RULES OF CONDUCT,ENGAGEMENT, AND MILITARY JUSTICE. OUR ENEMY ON THE OTHER HAND! THERE WHOLE STRATEGY IS TO DO THINGS WE FIND ABHORENT! ARE THE INSUGENTS WHO BEHEAD CIVILLIANS AND POWS FACING ANY JUSTICE FROM THEY OWN SUPERIORS ? NO THEY GET PRASIE .

IN SHORT SIR , WE AMERICANS DO NOT HAVE A FLAWLESS SOCIETY BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE WE ARE THE GOOD GUYS! WE TRY TO HELP. THE ENEMY WANTS TO DRAG THEIR PEOPLE AND THE REST OF THE WORLD BACK TO THE DARK AGES.

ALSO PERHAPS YOU SHOULD APERCIATE THE SACRIFICES THESE KIDS MAKE FOR YOU. WETHER OR NOT YOU LIKE THE PRESIDENT MATTERS NOT TO A SOLDIER. HE IS FIGHTING AND DYING FOR YOU AND THE FREEDOMS YOU ENJOY EVERY DAY OF YOUR SELF ABSORBED LIFE.

[Brian]

A Marine, I'd feel much more appreciative of our soldiers in Iraq if they really were defending me and my freedoms.

In fact, they're not. At least, not much. The fighting in Iraq is now almost entirely a civil war. So our soldiers are dying for...what?

It's as if France sent soldiers to stand between the "blue" and "gray" in the American Civil War. What would be the point?

Similarly, most of the 3,000 American deaths in Iraq have been pointless. That statement may sound harsh, but it's the truth.

No weapons of mass destruction. No links to Al Qaeda. That was the truth in Iraq before we invaded. We took down a malevolent dictator. Now it's time to leave and let Iraq work out its own problems.