Good, Bad & Ugly: Disturbing Events in Military Affairs

Jim Wright is a cantankerous veteran who lives up in the Mat-Su, making fine wooden bowls in an awesome workshop while simultaneously meditating on the state of affairs worldwide. When he disgorges his opinion on his blog, Stonekettle Station, it's always a exercise in thought provocation.  Be forewarned, the man is former Navy, a fact discernible in his choice of words. His discourse on the case involving the Westboro Baptist Church and its members' protests at the funeral of a fallen Marine is not what you'd expect from a source such as he. I post it here because he says it better than I can, and he said it first.

Thought provoking falls short of the impact this video has had, or should have, on anyone who's seen it. Be forewarned, again, that it's not for the squeamish. This is the video shot by an Apache helicopter crew in Iraq in 2007 that shows them mowing down a crowd of suspected insurgents. Unfortunately a Reuters photographer and driver were on scene and killed. The photographer's camera, slung over his shoulder, was mistaken for a weapon and he was targeted specifically.

Commentary on this disclosure ranges from outrage to so what. I'd he interested in what Jim Wright has to say about it, in fact. In this corner, however, don't expect a judgment. As a former Marine (who never saw combat) and a former journalist (who never covered a war) and as a citizen, watching this thing play out raised a number of questions. First among them: What are the rules of engagement? The most troubling thing about this, for me, is the final minutes, in which the gunship targets a wounded man and then a van that pulls up and attempts to remove that man and other bodies from the scene.

What is really taking place here? Are we witnessing a simple bit of coldblooded warfare of the variety that's taken place nearly every day on behalf of Americans for the past nine years? Business as usual? Or is this an aberration? Should we expect someone to be held to account? Or offer our sympathy and attribute the collateral to the fog of war?

As a journalist, I'd want to know the before and afters, the rules guiding conduct and to hear from the parties involved before I put out a story. Unfortunately, lots of that information would not be made available without a long, protracted and expensive legal fight of the type newspapers and other media are not much inclined to fight these days. Wikileaks takes up that role. It bills itself as an advocacy organization first and a journalistic enterprise second, but at least it's up front with you.

It's puzzling, in a way. Monday night Sky TV over here premiered "The Pacific," the World War II-based drama about the Pacific Theater produced by the same bunch that brought us "Band of Brothers." Steven Spielberg, one of the series producers, of course also delivered "Saving Private Ryan" and "Schindler's List." All of these dramas hit the audience in the gut with raw, unvarnished depictions of combat and the Holocaust. They showed it just like it was, supposedly; they unlocked the box where the Greatest Generation kept all its silent suffering. This supposedly is a revelation, a peek behind the curtain that patriotism draws to obscure the fact that warfare is bloody business.

What's the reaction when we're suddenly confronted with the real thing? Are we as reverent, horrified, deliberative? Do we gone on about our busy day without a thought to the events that take place half a world away? Or do we fall to squabbling, name calling and legalistic parsing in order to either condemn or justify it according to our particular predilections. I'll bet that Apache crew thinks about that day often enough, but not in any way anyone else is doing today.