CPJ member Dan O'Rourke is a regular contributor to the Dunkirk Observer.  The following, "The War Dead and Those Who Grieve Them," was published on May 24, 2007. 

George Bernard Shaw told us, “Nations are like bees: they cannot kill except at the cost of their own lives.” That stark, unpopular truth is evident not only in the over 3,400 American military dead, our 26,000 maimed and wounded, but also in the near fatal losses to our nation’s moral character –- not to mention the over 100,000 Iraqis killed.

A blood-chilling Pentagon survey earlier this month found that over a third of the military in Iraq supported torture to obtain information that might save the lives of American troops.  The Pentagon survey reported further that 40 percent of marines and 55 percent of soldiers in Iraq said they would not report a fellow serviceman for killing or injuring innocent Iraqis.

That report led General David Petreaus, upset but sensitive to frustrated troops caught in Iraq’s civil war to say that while seeing a "fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger and a desire for immediate revenge, our troops must observe the standards and values that dictate we treat non-combatants and detainees with dignity and respect."

The General went on to say, "This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we -- not our enemies -- occupy the moral high ground."  He then recommended the troops receive additional training in military ethics.

With all due respect, General Petreaus, the brightest, most knowledgeable General we’ve had in Iraq stumbled in his practical recommendations to right this scandal. Ethical training may help at the margins. If the General, however, really intended to address adequately these horrific lapses in military ethics, he should have stated unequivocally that he would begin court martial proceeding against any member of the military accused of torturing or deliberately killing civilians. Furthermore, he should have said that he personally would initiate a court martial against any officer covering-up such war crimes.  That would get the military’s attention and would have rendered further corrosion of our national character as happened in Abu Ghraib and Hadithah less likely.

I guess it’s the approaching Memorial Day weekend, but what I write now will surprise many and be ridiculed by some. The Pentagon’s report and Petreaus’ response led me to prayer -- prayer for believers and non-believers. For believers the response in the petitions that follows is, “We pray to the Lord.” For non-believers the petitions’ contents are personal moral imperatives. After all it is more important that we hear these petitions than that God does. “He” already knows what’s needed. And it’s more significant that these sentiments reverberate in
our hearts and homes rather than in our churches -- where frankly too often they remain unspoken. Anyway, here’s a prayer for the dead in all the Mid-East wars.

For the war dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, we pray to the Lord.