Haditha

Was wondering precisely how many women & children have been killed by US aviators over the past 90 years or so. Even excluding Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the number has got to be staggering. How about naval gunfire. Back in the days of Gunboat Diplomacy, bombardment from the sea was a matter of course, and listening to shells from the New Jersey whistle overhead caused something of an epiphany in many of us.

But when grunts do it, the up close and personal aspect shivers a great many timbers, and that's understandable, but the grunt is the one closest to the fray and most in need of assuring a tactical area of responsibility free from enemy intrusion.

My original comment upon Haditha was to wait and see, but the conservative apologists have prompted another reply from these quarters. Everyone is certainly entitled to their opinion, but we run the risk of falling into the trap set by those liberal lunatic traitors, the trap of condemning without even a scintilla of evidence save for what the mainstream media and anti-American, Armed Forces despising politicians are leaking.

Let them revel in their condemnations. They're going to declare these men to be wrong regardless of what the real story happens to be. They NEED to draw and quarter servicemen as we need to breathe, and there will be no genuine apology when they are proven wrong. I am here to defend American troops and nothing I've seen has made much sense with regards to an inappropriate use of force, and I'm sure that the Mil-Blogs are having a field day ripping this to shreds.

Bottom Line Time: If it disregards orders, then it is an enemy. Regardless of age or gender. An enemy can be dealt with in two and only two ways. Capture or death.

We've all heard stories regarding the Iraqi terrorists using kids and women as runners, and lots more. Networks of them can be at work at any given location, gathering information and passing it along in real time. We had the same thing in SE Asia, and many have told me of European collaborators during WWII. Regardless of the war, or the year, the solution to this remains the same.