Leaders need war course, too
Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli is right. Every servicemember could use a refresher course in the legal, moral and ethical conduct of war.
But most Americans graduate from high school with a pretty good idea that murdering noncombatants — women, children and old people — is wrong, whatever the provocation. U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan need to be taught the universal truth that nations dislike being invaded and occupied — and that some people will resist to the point of attacking and killing the occupiers. This is the same spirit that made Revolutionary-era Americans violently resist the British.
The root causes of alleged and actual atrocities, such as Haditha, are serial failures in the American command structure, starting at the very top. American volunteers were told that they were in Iraq to spread democracy. What they should have been told is that they would probably receive the same reception that has greeted occupying forces throughout history and how to react as soldiers, not as deliverers of vengeance.
It is the soldier on the front line who is suffering for the political, military and moral ineptitude of the people who had the responsibility to prepare them for a dirty war that can only get dirtier.
Charles Alverson
Kindsbach, Germany
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=125&article=37877
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