But this is nothing new to say.

There are many, many war crimes such as Malmedy done thruout war. Yes, there are criminals such as Peiper, who should be called for their actions, but the real lesson is that because these things happen, it should only remind those that war is not something to blindly rush into which is exactly what happened in Iraq. Iraq is not another World War II for the US as it is not a great liberation - Saddam represented no threat to hearth, home or civilization which is what the war on Fascism represented. Any historian could have predicted Haditha, maybe not the time or place, but the fact such an event would occur given the very real nature of war. The sad fact is that this is also not the first time, several attacks in Afghanistan appear to have been done without proper need as well as crimes at Abu Ghraib.

Given that the Bush Administration took this as the sole option when the evidence at the time decisively indicated that a military intervention would destabilize the region and require long term committment of US troops the blame rests squarely on them. It becomes not only tragic, but an ongoing crime against humanity because they conspired to lie to the US public about the need to go to war and because they did so for reasons which had nothing to do with the best interests of the US, but with the interests of a monied few.