Al Qaida Just a Crime Wave?

Well, concerning Haditha, if we had actual facts to pass judgment, I would make a lot more of it. If the Marines involved did respond recklessly, as indicated by some, the penalty should be severe. And I think its in the best interest of the Corps to flesh it out thoroughly. However, on two accounts there is great idiocy. One, Murtha is a monster. He not only pandered politically in the most disgusting manner, but he jeopardized the fairness of the Military Justice system in this case. Doubly an idiot, he is as former of a Marine as you can get and still be breathing. On the other popular charge, of systematic abuses, which is fair game on the rhetoric side, though clearly untrue, I found some of the statistics interesting. If we have seen around 800,000 personnel in country or rotate through in three years, what should we expect? Look to per capita murder rates. Lets take the worst case, peaceful Columbia. If one third of the total deployed represent a years population, we should expect 165 murders, if it was a Colombian army. How about for the U.S.? Around eleven. Big difference! But what about within the U.S., say a peaceful place like our nations capital? Get the firearms death rate for Washington D.C. and we should expect in one year, among the military in Iraq approximately 81 fatal shootings. Even in Hawaii, which has the most repressive gun laws, you would still expect five or six shootings a year.

Of course this is just a relative observation, and we should expect our military to have a higher standard. Yet, they do have more stress, and easy access to lethal force. Whatever your take on the statistics, for any claim of systematic problems to even begin to express reality, there would need to be around ten incidences like the claims in Haditha. Now the Moonbats Cook Leftists claim such all the time, but that is their stock in trade. Realistically, there are probably a few incidences not known publicly, and a few accidents, but given the environment, and the nature of the combatants, it is very surprising how few of these situations have occurred. It is still a black mark, if true, and as stated before, we must have higher expectations of our enlisted men. Conversely, it is clearly specious and treacherous to impugn the whole military, or any branch, of systematically perpetrating such abuses. As a final thought, the per capital total for Iraq puts it squarely between Jamaica at 0.324 per thousand and South Africa at 0.496, numbers three and two on the list. So, who is screaming about civil war in South Africa? And why is there no cry for peace in Jamaica? Let alone the superior effectiveness of Colombian drug gangs (#1 on the list) versus the insurgents in Iraq. Could we now claim that Al Qaida is just a mediocre crime syndicate?