War Brings Out the Worst

Trey Smith

More than six years after Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich led a squad of Marines into two Haditha, Iraq homes and massacred two dozen civilians, the American serviceman in charge has reached a plea deal.

For nine counts of manslaughter, Wuterich will get three months of confinement.

Wuterich is the last of eight men tied to the November 2005 killing that left 24 Iraqis dead, including women, children and the elderly. It was announced on Monday this week that he had reached a plea with prosecutors during his military tribunal and is now expected to be sentenced as early as Tuesday. According to the Associated Press, Wuterich will face a maximum of three months of confinement, the forfeiture of two-thirds of his pay and a rank demotion.

Of the other seven Marines charged with the now-notorious massacre, one was acquitted and six had their charges dismissed. Wuterich’s attorneys have been confident throughout the ordeal that he would see a similar outcome. "He's going to be glad to have it over because he knows that he'll be exonerated," lawyer Neal Puckett told National Public Radio earlier this month.

On November 19, 2005, Wuterich led a squad of men into two separate homes in the town of Haditha and opened fire on everyone in sight. Prosecutors say that a roadside bomb exploded moments before the Marines stormed the home, and were brought into hysterics by seeing a fellow soldier die in the attack. In response, they went on a rampage and for 45 minutes raided the two homes and were never faced with gunfire. Wuterich later said he instructed his team to “shoot first and ask questions later.”

“My Marines responded to the threats they faced in the manner that we all had been trained,” he explained to CBS’ 60 Minutes in 2007. After the roadside bomb was detonated, Wuterich said that, "My responsibility as a squad leader is to make sure that none of the rest of my guys died. And at that point, we were still on the assault."

Lt. Col. Joseph Kloppel, spokesman of the Camp Pendleton marine Corps base near San Diego, California, told the media on Monday that "By pleading guilty to this charge, Staff Sergeant Wuterich has accepted responsibility for his actions.”
~ Marine Gets Three Months in Jail for Massacring Two Dozen Civilians ~

One might expect a bleeding heart leftist like me to decry this sentence as little more than a slap on the wrist for the wanton slaughter of innocent civilians in Iraq. To be candid, this does frame part of my reaction. I know that if the circumstances had been turned around -- an Iraqi husband and father had gone berserk after a bomb detonated near his house and he then gunned down a number of US civilian contractors -- he would be facing life imprisonment, at best, and the death penalty, at worst (presuming that he wasn't killed on the spot).

But I also realize that war brings out the worst in even the most honorable individuals.

Some of the soldiers involved may be men who are violently aggressive, by nature, and thrill to the idea of combat. "Shoot first and ask questions later" may be their mantra for life, in general. The majority of people aren't that way at all. Most people I know are thoughtful, compassionate, friendly and kind to a certain degree -- the degree depends on their immediate environment. Put them in an ideal environment and many people can be saints. Put them in a hellish environment and many of us become devils.

War (or whatever else it is called these days) is a hellish environment. It is a place in which fear, suspicion, self-doubt, horror, repentance, bravado, machismo and group identification are melded into an odd shaped ball.

Fear and suspicion alone can drive the best of us to behave in ways we might not normally behave. When the strong possibility exists (or the belief of such exists) that any breath may be your last, one can become desperate and irrational. Anything and anyone not identified as comrade becomes a threat and the military trains soldiers to eliminate threats!

While it might be easy to sit here far from a theater of war to criticize and condemn the actions of those who live and work in that theater, I realize the situation is more complicated because of the factors mentioned above. In a vacuum, the actions of Wuterich and his squad are reprehensible, but life isn't lived in a vacuum.

There is no question in my mind that Wuterich should be held accountable to some degree because he was the leader of the squad. I don't understand how the squad members were able to evade being held accountable because we each bear responsibility for carrying out unjust laws, precepts or commands.

But the people I hold most responsible are those who are rarely at trial and even more rarely held accountable unless, of course, they happen to be on the losing side. It is the leaders who fomented war that I hold most accountable. In most cases, they willfully choose to cast aside diplomatic or peaceful solutions and instead thrust countless men (and women) into an environment that drives many sane people mad and compromises the morals of most.