Pentagon sources: Civilians likely killed without provocation

This is from CNN.Com:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- An ongoing military investigation supports allegations that U.S. Marines in November killed 24 innocent Iraqi civilians without being provoked, senior Pentagon sources said Friday.

Charges, including murder, could soon be filed against Marines allegedly involved, the sources said.

The killings reportedly occurred while troops from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines were searching for insurgents who planted a roadside bomb that killed a member of the unit.

The Marines originally had reported that 15 civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, a city along the Euphrates River in western Iraq. The Marines later suggested the civilians may have been caught in a firefight.

However, photographs being reviewed by investigators "are inconsistent with how the Marines claim the Iraqis died," according to a military source familiar with the investigation.

An Iraqi human rights group, Hammurabi Human Rights Association, caught the scene on video, which was obtained by Time magazine. A criminal investigation ensued. Time Warner is the parent company of Time magazine and CNN.

I'm not going to say what these Marines did was right or wrong. But I will say that this incident is a major example of our failed U.S. policy in Iraq. The American military was never designed to fight a low tech insurgency. Since the end of the Second World War, the American military was designed and trained to fight big set-piece battles against the Soviet Union. U.S. technological firepower was designed to destroy large numbers of Soviet tanks on the European battlefield. And that technological firepower worked perfectly against Saddam Hussein's forces in both the Gulf War I and the current U.S. invasion of Iraq.

But while the American military can destroy opposing armies, this same military has been a failure in the type of low-tech insurgency that it currently finds itself in Iraq. Technology and superior firepower doesn't work when a convoy is attacked by a roadside bomb. It does not work when American soldiers cannot identify between individuals who are civilians and those individuals who are insurgents. And when you are an occupation force inside a foreign land, fighting this low-tech insurgency where you can't tell the difference between friend and foe, then everyone around you becomes the enemy.

Does anyone remember the Mai Lai Massacre?