A Bad War Gone Worse

The U.S .military is in deep trouble. There are now three separate murder cases in Iraq involving American servicemen, the most notorious being the Haditha incident in November. Yesterday, seven Marines and a Navy sailor were charged in the murder of an Iraqi civilian in the village of Hamdinaiyah. If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

Meanwhile, European polls show the United States to be an even greater threat to peace than Iran, due to Yankee meddling in the Middle East. Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel defended the U.S., reminding people that Americans saved the European continent from desperation after the Second World War ended and containing communism. Sadly, American benevolence doesn't extend to Middle Eastern and Latin American countries, as anyone familar with CIA overthrows of democratically chosen leftist governments in favor of right-wing totalitarian governments (Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1954; Chile, 1973) will tell you.

The United States will get no boost of favorability abroad for dealing swiftly with these murder cases, even though they're doing the right thing. The simple fact is, we should never have gone into Iraq in the first place.