Unfortunate

It’s always nice to have the moral high-ground, isn’t it? Condi Rice was asked by a reporter about the possibility of exchanging Haleh Esfandiari and the other Iranian-Americans arrested by Iran for the 5 Iranians seized in Iraq in January. She said, “the two are simply not linked,” calling the arrests of the former “a perversion of the rule of law.” Whereas the latter, of course, have been held according to no rule or law, so there can hardly be a perversion of the rule of law, now can there?

Some testimony from the Haditha Massacre hearings was just released. Lt. Alexander Martin looked on the bright side: after the massacre, he said, Haditha residents became more cooperative, offering tips about IEDs. That’ll happen when you slaughter 24 innocent civilians in response to an IED. And Lt. Max Frank testified that when he arrived on the scene, he thought it was “unfortunate” but hadn’t been done on purpose. He was told by Lt. Adam Mathes, who we have seen before talking about the enemy’s disregard for human life, wanted the Marines not to issue an apology, arguing that “the best way to explain this to the Iraqi people” would be to tell them, “It’s an unfortunate thing that happens when you let terrorists use your house to attack our troops.” Let’s make this very plain: he wanted to tell Iraqis that what happened in Haditha, a lethal mass reprisal against civilians in response to an attack on American soldiers, is American policy.