So it wasn't quite like Murtha said…

…it was worse.

At first it sounded like the Marines in Haditha went into a sudden blind fury over the death of a comrade and blew a bunch of folks up before they got a grip. Not, apparently, so. The slaughter was, according to one informed official, "methodological in nature."

Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said.

Now the the wingnuts are left to decide whether to apologize to Jack Murtha or to declare that even Republican Marines are liars and traitors…

Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican who is a retired Marine colonel, said that the allegations indicated that "this was not an accident. This was direct fire by marines at civilians." He added, "This was not an immediate response to an attack. This would be an atrocity."

It happened, folks. In war, such things usually happen eventually, and, I'm afraid, given enough time, they happen repeatedly. It's completely predictable, and perversely understandable and there's still absolutely no excuse. Reasons? Plenty. Excuses? Zero.

But there's blame to share with people far from the battle zone. Glenn Greenwald says it with damning eloquence...

It is certainly true, as many pro-war advocates today have noted, that incidents of this type are inevitable in every war. And it is also true that the mere existence of incidents of this sort does not prove that the war is unjustified, since even the most justified wars have included soldiers engaging in gratuitously cruel, violent and outright criminal behavior. The killings are morally reprehensible but do not constitute direct evidence as to whether the war itself was, from the beginning, a justified war. That's all true enough.

But what incidents of this type do underscore is that wars are not something that are to be routine or casual tools in foreign policy. The outright eagerness and excitement for more and more wars that we see so frequently from some circles is not only unseemly and ugly unto itself -- although it is that -- but it is also so reckless and unfathomably foolish. Every war spawns countless enemies, entails incidents which severely undermine a nation's credibility and moral standing, ensures that the ugliest and most violent actions will be undertaken in the country's name, and, even in the best of cases, wreaks unimaginable human suffering and destruction.

Every Marine who participated in the massacre at Haditha must be called to account, as must anyone in the chain of command who participated in what appears to be an attempted cover=up. This one can't top out with a Staff Sergeant.

And those who sent them? The ones at the top of the chain? Their hands, too, are red with the blood of innocents. They, too, must be held to account for the lives lost that day.

And regardless of the judgment of men, may God damn them all to hell.