And then the liberal media had to ruin everything.

On November 19, 2005, a roadside bomb was detonated in the city of Haditha, killing a U.S. Marine and 15 civilians. U.S. soldiers came under fire and a battle ensued, in which eight insurgents were killed. That was the official story. A recent Time magazine investigation, however, has shown otherwise. There indeed was a deadly explosion, but beyond that the story diverges remarkably. Interviews with the family members of those slain, as well as a simple look at the victims’ death certificates, describe a bloody reprisal by the U.S. forces against innocent civilians that left two dozen dead. Witnesses describe execution-style killings, wherein men, women and children of all ages were shot point-blank in the head and chest; only one was armed.

Two investigations have been launched by the Pentagon to clarify both what happened that day and if there was a cover-up, but the essential facts cannot be disputed: American troops targeted civilians, and although their commanding officers did not order them to do so, they attempted to downplay it afterwards.

President Bush, in an awkward attempt at fair-mindedness, merely spoke of being “troubled” by the allegations and said that there would be punishments “if any laws were broken.” Regardless of what the pending investigations come up with, there should be no doubt at this point that there was foul play at work. Saying there are 15 dead from the blast when bullet wounds have been found in every single corpse is not a slip of the tongue; it’s outright falsehood.

Now we all know the military brass had everything to lose by divulging this information (except their integrity and honesty, but who cares about that anymore?), and that the Bush administration thinks things like torture and spying on American citizens is wrong only when you get caught (and even then it’s more inconvenient than anything else), so the probability that there was a conscious effort to keep this low-key is not surprising. However, many Americans are shocked, and even refuse to believe, that our troops would engage in such sadistic cruelty as shooting a defenseless 77-year-old man in a wheelchair. However if one looks at the situation the troops have been placed in, it becomes clear that such conditions would foster an eventual breakdown in discipline and order.

As of June 4, the war in Iraq has claimed 2,416 U.S. soldiers. Their deaths are tragic, but must be put in the context that this is far fewer than we lost on, say, D-Day. Even more context is needed, however, and along with dead servicemen and -women, one should know of the thousands more who have come back maimed and scarred for life, both physically and mentally. Some 18,000 soldiers have suffered wounds, and around 18 percent have returned home with post-traumatic stress disorder. The wounded figure is especially telling; while this war has had the best rate of survival from war injuries than any before, the survivors are often left not only missing limbs, but are oftentimes woefully lacking the financial compensation needed to cope with such debilitating injuries.

This is the price of war that we often do not hear about, and one the Bush administration either did not care to tell us of in the days leading up to the invasion, or did not care to find out. Nor, I suspect, were the troops properly prepped for an ongoing battle in which the enemy was indistinguishable from the people they are trying to help, or for the “backdoor drafts” the military has engaged in, extending tours of duty well beyond what the soldiers had expected. When people are put in such a situation for such an extended period of time, nerves fray and things like this become, not excusable, but certainly inevitable.

Coupled with a recent incident in which two women, one of whom was on the verge of childbirth, didn’t stop at a security checkpoint and were shot to death, the Haditha massacre can only further erode support in an already unpopular war, potentially even more so than the Abu Ghraib prison torture story. I myself have been (obviously) very much against the war from the beginning, but think that pulling out now would be catastrophic; on the other hand, when things that can undermine the whole venture, such as this, are happening, I wonder what we are doing there besides inflaming tensions.

Haditha is being compared to the My Lai massacre of the Vietnam War, in which some 500 Vietnamese villagers were wantonly slaughtered by American forces in a similar manner. A quick Internet search (since I had scarcely heard of My Lai before this story broke) tells me that between 300 and 504 villagers were killed and in some cases gang-raped, and that only one person, Lt. William Calley, was punished: after being sentenced to life in prison with hard labor, he was out in three days after being pardoned by Richard Nixon, and out on parole after three and a half years of house arrest. People have received worse sentences for smoking marijuana. <[> The two cases are certainly similar in circumstances, if not in scope; during a guerrilla war against ‘-ists’ (Communists in Vietnam, terrorists in Iraq) in completely alien territory, a group of soldiers snaps and goes on a bloodthirsty rampage against unarmed townspeople, and the higher-ups play it down as much as possible. There are certainly parallels between the two wars and the possibility/reality of ‘the Q word’ (quagmire) in the current one, but don’t take my word for it; I’m but a humble college student. Here’s what Tim O’Brien, famed author of “The Things They Carried” and Vietnam veteran, had to say on the comparison between the two wars in October 2003: “The Iraq thing has the feel of a potential quagmire where we just get deeper and deeper and deeper involved, and when that happens it’s harder and harder and harder to get out . . . . Just the doubletalk of it all reminds me of Vietnam, ‘lights a glow (sic) at the end of tunnels,’ and I’ve heard that same kind of doubletalk as before, vis-à-vis Iraq.”

Of course he doesn’t speak for all such folk, just as Cindy Sheehan doesn’t speak for all mothers of today’s military. But who does? No group will speak with utter unanimity on everything, so what’s the point in leveling such a charge at someone speaking his/her mind? It’s little more than an emotionally charged, knee-jerk reaction to an opposing viewpoint.

The My Lai massacre did not come to public attention until a year after the fact, around the time O’Brien’s unit actually came through that same area. When the story finally broke, the government shamefully allowed those responsible to slip through the cracks. The few people who realized how insane and wrong the whole thing was and managed to save a handful of villagers were honored . . . 30 years later, after one of them was told by a senator that he was the only one in the massacre who deserved to be prosecuted. I hope those in power today do not repeat the same mistakes. However, given that Bush has been more upset with the press for going public about an illegal wiretapping program than he was about breaking the law, I’m not getting my hopes up. This is the kind of thing that puts Americans at risk, Mr. President; now excuse me while I hide behind my duct tape and plastic sheeting.