Brian Palmer reports on this statement [1] of a USMC training officer, a captain:
“Over the last 12 months or so we killed about 1000 Iraqis at blocking positions and checkpoints,” the captain told the grunts. “About 60 — six zero — we could demonstrate that, yeah, he was a bad guy. He was an insurgent. Six zero out of about 1000. So all we’re doing — if we don’t communicate what we want them to do, all we’re doing is creating more enemies.”
His words didn’t faze the grunts, but they startled the hell out of me. Innocent Iraqis are killed at checkpoints frequently. I knew that, but I’d never heard anyone of rank admit it categorically. When I was in country in 2004, 2005, and 2006 I often heard grunts talk about “lighting up” cars that didn’t stop at the trigger line. Why did the drivers keep going? Bad brakes, a misunderstanding of Marines’ hand signals, darkness, stupidity, grunts ventured. But who could say? I had also read USMC investigation reports of checkpoint shootings. No Marines were charged in any of these incidents because they had followed the Rules of Engagement and their commanders’ directives: shoot to kill the moment a vehicle crosses the trigger line.
I’m not suggesting that it’s easy to run a checkpoint. It’s not. I couldn’t imagine anything more difficult or nerve frazzling. What I would suggest is that the Bush administration’s deceitful invasion of Iraq has forced our military into these impossible assignments. One other thing: how many candy bars will we need to pass out to Iraqi children to undo the damage of the 940 innocent Iraqis we’ve accidentally gunned down this year?
I suppose the mainstream media was too busy to cover this catastrophe. If a small commercial airplane went down in the U.S. killing a couple dozen American people, though, we wouldn’t hear the end of it.
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