How much is a life worth?

On November 19, 2005, in the Iraqi city of Haditha, a bomb went off and killed an American soldier, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas. In the aftermath of the explosion, an Iraqi cabdriver and four teenagers were shot and killed by US troops under orders of Sgt. Frank Wuterich.

Upon arriving at the scene, Lt. William T. Kallop ordered the troops to seize a house from which he believed shots were being fired. The marines stormed the house and killed 19 unarmed civilians, including seven women and children, through the use of rifles and grenades.



The original story was that the dead were part of a group of Iraqis who opened fire on the Americans. But questions were asked when the dead were found wearing their nightclothes.

But when witnesses were asked to recount the events of that day, a startlingly different picture emerged. Tim McGirk of Time Magazine broke the story in March 2006. The account of 9-year-old Eman Waleed is harrowing:

 "We heard a big noise that woke us all up," she recalls two months later. "Then we did what we always do when there's an explosion: my father goes into his room with the Koran and prays that the family will be spared any harm." Eman says the rest of the family—her mother, grandfather, grandmother, two brothers, two aunts and two uncles—gathered in the living room. According to military officials familiar with the investigation, the Marines say they came under fire from the direction of the Waleed house immediately after being hit by the ied. A group of Marines headed toward the house. Eman says she "heard a lot of shooting, so none of us went outside. Besides, it was very early, and we were all wearing our nightclothes." When the Marines entered the house, they were shouting in English. "First, they went into my father's room, where he was reading the Koran," she claims, "and we heard shots." According to Eman, the Marines then entered the living room. "I couldn't see their faces very well—only their guns sticking into the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny." She claims the troops started firing toward the corner of the room where she and her younger brother Abdul Rahman, 8, were hiding; the other adults shielded the children from the bullets but died in the process. Eman says her leg was hit by a piece of metal and Abdul Rahman was shot near his shoulder. "We were lying there, bleeding, and it hurt so much. Afterward, some Iraqi soldiers came. They carried us in their arms. I was crying, shouting 'Why did you do this to our family?' And one Iraqi soldier tells me, 'We didn't do it. The Americans did.'"

Eight marines, including Sgt. Wuterich, were charged with murder and dereliction of duty. The cases almost immediately began to fall apart with military investigators recommending that charges against the soldiers be dismissed or reduced to just dereliction of duty. The investigation uncovered instances that the defendants had destroyed or withheld evidence.

Of the eight, one was acquitted and charges against six others were dismissed. In the last case, Sgt. Wuterich pled guilty to negligent dereliction of duty. The manslaughter and assault charges were dismissed. As punishment, Sgt. Wuterich was demoted to private.

And so the question remains, what's an Iraqi life worth? According to the military court, one American life was worth the lives of 24 Iraqis; but the lives of those Iraqis was only worth a loss of rank.

I do think Sgt. Wuterich was being made something of a scapegoat in this affair. He, after all, wasn't the one who ordered the marines to storm the houses. But no one ever went after Lt. Kallop. As a result we have 24 dead civilians who were killed as the result of a war without purpose entered into by President Bush.

War isn't about fighter jets and targeted bombs. It isn't about smart bombs and surgical strikes. War is about death and destruction. Collateral damage is just a sanitized why of saying "We fucked up."

For more background, see:

"Investigating the Haditha Killings," NPR

Letting go doesn't mean forgetting

The constant clamor for a guilty verdict before the evidence has even been presented. The call for someone to pay for what happened. A verdict that stuns the folks expecting to celebrate a conviction. The inevitable cries that the jury didn't know what it was doing.

The Casey Anthony trial in Florida?

No.

The Sandor Kepiro trial in Budapest.

But who is Sandor Kepiro, you might ask.

Mr. Kepiro was accused of being a Nazi war criminal responsible for the deaths of 36 Jews and Serbs in Novi Sad in 1942. He was acquitted this week.

In 1944, Mr. Kepiro was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison, but that conviction was overturned  after a coup d'etat put the fascists in power in Hungary. Mr. Kepiro fled the country and eventually found himself in Argentina. In 1946 the newly installed Communist government tried Mr. Kepiro in absentia and, surprise, convicted him.

Mr. Kepiro returned to Hungary in 1996 and was charged for his alleged role in the massacre in 2009. Those charges were later dropped. He was charged once again earlier this year. 


Mr. Kepiro's chief accuser, Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, wasn't particularly happy with the verdict.

As he left the courtroom, Mr Zuroff said he found the verdict "outrageous, absurd" and that the Simon Wiesenthal Center would do "everything possible to see that it's overturned".

He said Mr Kepiro had "devoted all his energy to the murder of innocent men, women and children" and that the Wiesenthal Center found it "absolutely outrageous that a person like this was never punished for his crimes".

"We'll continue to do whatever we can so that Sandor Kepiro doesn't end his life sitting in peace and tranquillity... but ends his life where he belongs, in a Hungarian jail. This is a joke."

For true believers, the thought that a rational thinking person could come to a contrary conclusion is heresy. The only possible explanation is that the judge or jury hadn't the foggiest clue as to what they were doing.

We are talking about an incident that took place almost 70 years ago. There can't be many witnesses left - Mr. Kepiro is 97. The case must be built on documents - documents that may not even exist anymore. Maybe Mr. Kepiro escaped justice -- and just as likely he did not.

The larger issue, however, is at what point does it end? I have no doubt that there are Nazi war criminals that have escaped justice. I'm equally certain that, at some point, we just have to call it a day. Whose interest is served in putting a 97 year-old man on trial for a crime that occurred in 1942?

The genocide that took place at the hands of the Nazis cannot be excused and must never be forgotten. But we must also acknowledge that, there is no purpose served in hunting down men in their 80's and 90's and trying them for crimes committed during the 1930's and 40's. These men are old - and, more importantly, they aren't the same men who presided over the killings of millions of people.

At this point in time our children and their children are better served by documenting the atrocities that took place and examining how and why they were allowed to occur.

Always remember that history is written by the victors. No one prosecuted President Truman or any of the soldiers involved in dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and killing thousands who had no role in the war. No one prosecuted Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon, or their military commanders, for the slaughter of innocents in Southeast Asia. No one will prosecute Presidents Bush or Obama or their minions for the torture inflicted upon detainees in the witch hunt after 9/11.

Closure is an illusion. Sometimes you just have to move on.