Civilian Massacres: From Vietnam to Iraq Evil in the Valley

BRIAN DOWNING

For several months now, there have been troubling reports of a number of Iraqi civilians murdered over the past year by American troops. The military has recently indicted several soldiers and marines. Not all the evidence is at hand and no one has been convicted. However, the enormity of the incident and its ramifications for the war as well as for what's left of our standing in the Middle East (and the world as a whole) call for reflection, however preliminary it might be. How do massacres of civilians happen? What forces are at work? What will the impact be on the war?...

continua / continued