June 3, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

Teaching Remedial Decency
By
MAUREEN DOWD

Before the war, America railed against the Iraqi leader for slaughtering
innocent Iraqis. Now the Iraqi leader is railing against America for
slaughtering
innocent Iraqis.

Iraq is blustering about sending away American troops to make life better
for Iraqis, after American troops were sent in to make life better for
Iraqis.

With fury swirling over the Haditha massacre and the shooting on Wednesday
of two women, one of whom might have been pregnant and on the way to a
hospital,
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki laced into the American military,
accusing it of regular attacks on civilians that were "completely
unacceptable" and
pledging his own inquiry on Haditha.

"They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion," he
said, adding that some in the military "do not respect the Iraqi people,"
and
that assaults on unarmed civilians will help determine how long American
troops are welcome in Iraq.

Bold talk from a tenuous government dependent on U.S. forces to prop it up
during a sectarian bloodfest.

It's a bitter irony. And not even a terribly illuminating irony, since
Saddam truly had a regime of butchery and the American military is not in
the business
of atrocity, even if an undeniable atrocity was committed and even if the
war has become something of an atrocity.

"It's one of those things where we have become the enemy," John Murtha said
ruefully on CNN.

American troops are under spectacular emotional pressure. They go out every
day, not knowing Arabic, not understanding the culture, not knowing who the
insurgents are, not knowing when they can go home or which of their buddies
will be blown up before their eyes by an unseen enemy.

The troops were not trained for a counterinsurgency, because Bush hawks
ignored the intelligence reports that predicted an insurgency and civil war.
These
kids were turned into sitting ducks because the neocon con to sell the war
needed a gauzy prediction of Iraqi gratitude and a quick exit.

It is admirable that the Marine commanders want to morally sensitize the
troops while they are in such a hostile environment, but it also seems a bit
absurd,
sending them to summer school in "core values."

There's no way to teach someone not to shoot an unarmed woman or child. If
somebody doesn't already know why they shouldn't murder a baby, it's not
clear
that a refresher course will help.

The problem with brushing up on core values is that if you don't know them
by a certain point you can't learn them. You can't teach remedial decency,
any
more than you can teach remedial ethics to White House officials who
vindictively leak information about critics of the war after vowing not to
leak.

As Norman Schwarzkopf said, in a quote that is part of the military's slide
show on core warrior values: "The truth of the matter is that you always
know
the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it."

From Reverend Dimmesdale to Bill Bennett to President Bush, people who
righteously preach values and aspire to be moral exemplars often get bitten
in the
end.

The world is now looking askance at American values, even though W. ran on a
platform of restoring values to the Oval Office and was propelled to victory
by "values voters."

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld engineered the invasion of Iraq in part to
revive what they saw as lost American values. They wanted to stiffen the
squishiness
about using force left over from Vietnam and the moral ambivalence left over
from the do-what-feels-good 60's.

In their worry about a spineless America, they made America all spine -
overly vertebrate. They started thinking with their spine.

They wanted everyone to be afraid of us, and now nobody's afraid. Certainly
not the nutty president of Iran, whom the administration is forced to kowtow
to, now that the American military is not a fearsome force in potentia, but
a depleted, demoralized and disparaged force trapped in Iraq trying to
police
a civil war.

The invasion that was supposed to help terrorism has made it worse. The
invasion that was supposed to make America more feared and beloved has made
us more
hated. The invasion that was supposed to banish post-Vietnam syndrome has
revived it.

The virtuecrats of the right thought they would demonstrate American virtue
to the world as they imposed American democracy. But now, with murder
charges
expected against some marines, and a cover-up investigation under way, the
values president is running a war that requires a refresher course on
values.
A bitter irony.

Posted by Miriam V.