Rooster's Perch: Casualties of War By Brian House, London, KY Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed last week by an American aviator who dropped two bombs on his hideout. The celebration that followed in Washington among leaders of both parties has continued nonstop since the announcement was made. President Bush even swooped into Baghdad in Air Force One to claim his share of the battle prize. The aviator who dropped the bombs did his job well by killing someone who was a continuing and annoying threat to U.S. interests in Iraq. The pilot will likely receive a commendation for his flight, as well he should. While all of this was going on American Marines stood accused of murdering Iraqis in an alleged act of reprisal in the town of Haditha. A young Marine gunner had been killed by an attack the Marines had reason to believe emanated from the houses along the roadside. The Marines allegedly responded to the attack and killed the insurgents in the house along with women and children. In a separate incident seven Marines and a Navy corpsman are imprisoned after charges of murdering an Iraqi man in Hamdaniya were brought against them after the Haditha incident was publicized. The dead man's family asked for money to compensate them for his death. The Marines and corpsman have not been charged with any crime and have been given no hearing. They sit rotting in a brig while the political wheels turn ever onward. Overlooked in the bombing of al-Zarqawi were the deaths of a woman and at least one child in the building along with other men who have not been named. The woman and child have not been accused of anything other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So why has our government lauded the attack of a pilot that without a doubt killed innocents who were not firing on anyone and at the same time imprisoned and accused Marines who were fighting on the ground to survive and may not have killed anyone or at worst acted on a threat under fire after seeing one of their own killed? What has happened to our view of warfare that brings us to imprison those who fight and die for us? The killing of human beings is the grist of war. Cities may be captured but it is in the killing of ones enemies and the enemy's perception that much more killing will follow that motivates a weaker, less motivated adversary to surrender. When an army convinces the enemy of its willingness to kill then that army's nation possesses a strong position from which to govern and negotiate. No nation has ever doubted the resolve of American fighting personnel in the field. The support the American media and public have given our military is another matter altogether. Soldiers do for us ordinary people that which we cannot or choose not to do. They accept the burden and responsibility of willingly killing our enemies to protect us. When people become soldiers there is a social contract between them and us. They will fight, kill and die for us and we in turn will give them our support in the field, never turning our backs on them for the best equipment, food, medical care and moral support. Disagree with the issue of a particular war but never condemn the soldier who fights for you for the next war may be one where you agree you need him or her to fight. There is no army that could possibly be fielded in Iraq that could defeat our troops. So, terrorists have done what terrorists do, putting a face on war that shocks and repels the soft side of American media and our public. We are supposed to be shocked that our Marines would kill women and children. Terrorists want us to be shocked. They want us to prosecute our Marines. Not because of justice for the dead, rather to destroy the morale of our troops in the field. They want to take from our troops in a military court that which they could never do on a battlefield and that is their willingness to fight. Make a soldier hesitate the next time he sees a furtive movement in a darkened alleyway or the room of a house he has just entered looking for the bad guys and the terrorist in the other room will have the time to fire and kill our Marine. Losses will mount for American troops and they will lose the incentive to fight and the American public will lose its stomach for the war. The terrorists will have won the war having never won a battle on the field. There was no crime committed by our troops in either Haditha or Hamdaniya, just horrible, brutal war where people die. War cannot be understood in the context of our comfortable, Middle American lives. These Marines and the Navy corpsman deserve our support and should be released immediately and no charges brought against them. To do otherwise will be to give al-Zarqawi a last victory in death of further dividing the American people and dispiriting the American military. Any complaints about the war rightly belong in the lap of President Bush who gave the orders to launch a preemptive attack on Iraq for weapons of mass destruction that never existed. The young men and women of our military should not become his or anyone else's scapegoat for an unpopular war. Getting down from my perch now…….