Iraq's Liberators in Year Four

Riverbend's latest post at Baghdad Burning:

...The pity I once had for foreign troops in Iraq is gone. It's been eradicated by the atrocities in Abu Ghraib, the deaths in Haditha and the latest news of rapes and killings. I look at them in their armored vehicles and to be honest- I can't bring myself to care whether they are 19 or 39. I can't bring myself to care if they make it back home alive. I can't bring myself to care anymore about the wife or parents or children they left behind. I can't bring myself to care because it's difficult to see beyond the horrors. I look at them and wonder just how many innocents they killed and how many more they'll kill before they go home. How many more young Iraqi girls will they rape?

Why don't the Americans just go home? They've done enough damage and we hear talk of how things will fall apart in Iraq if they 'cut and run', but the fact is that they aren't doing anything right now. How much worse can it get? People are being killed in the streets and in their own homes- what's being done about it? Nothing. It's convenient for them- Iraqis can kill each other and they can sit by and watch the bloodshed- unless they want to join in with murder and rape.

This from a woman who initially welcomed America's toppling of Saddam Hussein. It saddens me that she views Americans in this manner. As an American I want to believe that she is wrong but her view doesn't surprise me, given her situation.

Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, goes the other way, insisting that "...coalition forces are performing in a highly professional and a courageous and skillful way." Maybe so, but the failures of command that contribute to atrocities will destroy American credibility.

Just ask Riverbend.