There's a lot of press coverage at the moment of the alleged massacre at
Haditha. If substantiated it is, of course, an appalling war crime of the worst sort.

I don't want to discuss Haditha directly but rather the wider issue. Why are we so
surprised that atrocities happen in war? Or, more precisely, why are we so surprised that "our" troops commit them?

War is about killing. It's legalised murder. We take young men and women and train them to be killers. Sure, we also try to teach them rules of engagement and the Geneva Convention - the "laws and customs" of war. But they're just weak leashes on the taunted Rottweiler. When the leash slips, the killer we've created is let loose.

Yes, there are a few soldiers who enjoy violence and are filled with hate. But most of them are good kids, often extremely brave, sent to a foreign country to kill or be killed.

How do you get good kids to kill people? By dehumanising the enemy. That's the first step in waging any war. Stop the soldiers from thinking of the enemy as people, think of them instead as a faceless evil. Call them names and avoid seeing the body count as individuals. Rusky, Jerry, Yankee, infidel - not people with families and lives.

Of course this is only meant to apply to enemy soldiers. But it's not that simple. Once you start dehumanising a whole group, country or race then the poison is bound to spread.

So from time to time atrocities will happen as pumped up, scared and angry young soldiers take out their emotions on those they have been conditioned to consider as less than human. If the enemy soldiers are subhuman and the enemy civilians support the enemy soldiers, what signal does that send about the civilians?

Am I saying that soldiers shouldn't be punished for their part in atrocities? Of course not. They are responsible for their actions. There may be explanations but no excuse.

What I'm saying is that responsibility for any atrocity goes right up the chain of command, even if there is no direct involvement.

The moral responsibility for each and every atrocity is shared by the people who initiated, supported and planned the war. I'm sure they're genuinely horrified by reports such as those out of Haditha. However they have to face the fact that by starting the war they set in motion a chain of events that would inevitably lead to the deaths of civilians and, occasionally, major atrocities.

There is no such thing as a noble war.

Which is one reason why I support the Peace Pledge:

"I renounce war and will never support or sanction another"


Tags: haditha peace war