Last Monday, the Associated Press reported from Baghdad that 1,170 Iraqi civilians had died in October, the worst month since the agency began keeping track of civilian casualties in May of 2005. The number of American service members killed this month is ~at this moment~ standing at 105 making this the fourth deadliest month since the war began. I’ve written before about my feelings on all this. Somewhere, sometime in history we had rules of engagement, rules of warfare and combat, I just know we did. Civilians were off-limits and certainly there was not the brutalizing of innocent women and children. Or was it just more easily hidden? I don’t know. Perhaps none of us will ever really know.

But I do know that when military combatants and spin-off groups who see themselves as “soldiers for the cause” stoop to attacking weddings, well, what does one even say? I do know it’s been going on since forever over there. But I still wonder at how one can even imagine such sudden horror on the happiest day of one’s life?

First report: Tuesday - A suicide car bomber struck a Shia Muslim wedding party in Baghdad today, killing 10 people, in the latest outbreak of sectarian violence in Iraq. Police said four children were among the dead. Twelve people were wounded. A car packed with explosives was driven into a line of vehicles waiting outside the home of the bride, Lieut. Ahmed Mohamed of the Baghdad police said. Members of the wedding party were getting into the cars as the blast was detonated, preparing to travel to the celebrations.
Second report: today - The number killed in a suicide bomb attack on a Shiite wedding in Baghdad on Tuesday rose overnight to 23, including nine children. Another 19 were still hospitalized. The attack, in which a bomber drove an explosives-rigged car into a crowd outside the bride's home, resembled recent killings aimed at sparking Shiite retaliation and pushing Iraq toward all-out civil war.

From our side: In May 2004, Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist, one of the most influential reporters of our time, published a series of articles describing the treatment of detainees by US military police at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Among a number of allegations of criminal activity, there are also accusations that torture is a usual practice in other US prisons as well, e.g. in Afghanistan and Guantanamo. Hersh went on to publish an article claiming that the abuses were part of a secret interrogations program, known as "Copper Green", expanded to Iraq with the direct approval of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in an attempt to deal with the growing insurgency there. Much of his material is based on the Army's own internal investigations. At a Columbia University speech given by Hersh in June 2004, author Rick Perlstein reported [Hersh] said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children and women prisoners, as the cameras run." At an ACLU convention in July 2004, he further detailed information he had been given about sexual tortures in Abu Ghraib. He claims that there is video footage, being held by the Bush administration, of Iraqi guards raping young boys in the prison. "The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling, and the worst part is the soundtrack, of the boys shrieking. And this is your government at war."

As Robert Burns said, “Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn.”

I get weary wondering if there will ever be an end to any of this. Parts of the world have been fighting for millennia and cannot even stop themselves. Many fringe groups seem to provoke and inflame just to keep things stirred up rather than work to find common ground – life seems to have such little value to them…and all in the name of God. There are a number of countries where terrorists reside and who pose a danger to our country. And judging from the children being trained in so many suicide-bomber-training camps over there right now today, who with big smiles eagerly shout “death to Americans” in evening news press footage, there will be for many years to come. How will we ever get out of there or anywhere else in the muck? Reminds me of when I tried to destroy a large fire ant mound in my old yard in an effort to get rid of those irritating pesky creatures. Actually just sent them, now really angry, scurrying in every direction to create new mounds.

The Law of Armed Conflict from our military system states: “Military necessity requires combat forces to engage in only those acts necessary to accomplish a legitimate military objective. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In applying military necessity to targeting, the rule generally means the United States Military may target those facilities, equipment, and forces which, if destroyed, would lead as quickly as possible to the enemy’s partial or complete submission.” I believe that if fight we must, we should honor the fair and just rules of engagement and combat, not to mention the Geneva Convention. “Prisoners are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour. (Geneva III) No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind. Confinement is illegal (POWs can't be held in prison cells unless it is for their own protection), but internment is allowed -- they may be kept within certain boundaries. However, their location must be as far from the fighting as possible.”

Is it just me or is everyone way off the path?

Help us, Mother/Father, not to return evil for evil. Especially, please, keep us from turning into them.