Karen Kwiatkowski looks for a positive:

Haditha is the story of what happens in war. It’s cruel, unjust, ugly, and criminal. Babies get shot, old women massacred. Get used to it. It’s going to get worse before it gets better.

And yet, the Haditha horror is a golden opportunity. The American people and the American military brass might use it to ask why American soldiers and Marines are even in Iraq, and what is our mission there? Is it policing? Is it Chapter 7 peacekeeping? Is it nation-building? Is it to provide security for American civilians and politicos in the Green Zone? Is it to occupy and secure the world’s largest (and clearly least needed) embassy, or perhaps the world’s biggest and nicest new military bases? If so, why? Are we there to win? What are we winning? How can we tell? Is there really a prize at the bottom of this Cracker Jack box called Iraq, or just a sticky crumbly mess? Does anyone perceive the prize may actually be the continued destruction, chaos and hate in the region? If this is true, can that be in any way defensible or moral?

Every American needs to really think about each of these questions. We are living with someone’s agenda in Iraq – but is it truly our agenda? Can we say we own it?

A few months after the invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush landed on the USS Lincoln and said, "Mission accomplished!" Upon this Bush command, every U.S. general in Iraq should have packed up his troops and sent them home.

Instead, we are building mega-bases, monstrous embassies, forcing false unity governments, and killing children in their homes. We are not picking up garbage, pumping oil, hiring Iraqis, repairing water systems or electric grids, or roads, bridges, and factories.