From CounterPunch
By Dave Lindorff

This Bush Administration just keeps on topping itself when it comes to outrages. Now, after the press exposed a couple of cases of civilian massacres by U.S. forces–massacres the military tried to cover up–they’re calling for “ethics training” for the troops in Iraq.

Note that we are now more than three years into the slaughter, with our own forces responsible for the needless deaths of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children (the president himself has casually acknowledged “30,000 civilians dead, give or take”).

Note that the administration–including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney and Commander-in-Chief Bush himself–are responsible for the “rules of engagement” that have led to most of those deaths–the aerial “shock and awe” bombardment of populated cities, the leveling of cities like Samarah and especially Fallujah, the use of prohibited incendiary weapons like napalm and white phosphorus, the use of fixed-wing and helicopter gunships that saturate wide areas with lethal machine-gun fire, and not least the deadly tactics of “spray and pray” response to attack, and to shoot-to-kill orders at military roadblocks.

This administration’s talking about teaching ethics to soldiers is something akin to having the Israeli military or Hamas teach non-violent conflict resolution tactics, or having Attorney General Alberto Gonzales teach a course on civil liberties and the Bill of Rights.

This administration’s idea of ethics is to redefine torture to permit waterboarding and the use of 24-hour stress positions.

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