Nancy A. Youssef writes for Knight Ridder about the gratitude of liberated Iraqis:

In the middle of methodically recalling the day his brother’s family was killed, Yaseen’s monotone voice and stream of tears suddenly stopped. He looked up, paused and pleaded: “Please don’t let me say anything that will get me killed by the Americans. My family can’t handle any more.”

Oh, wait …

The story of what happened to Yaseen and his brother Younes’ family has redefined Haditha’s relationship with the Marines who patrol it. On Nov. 19, a roadside bomb struck a Humvee on Haditha’s main road, killing one Marine and injuring two others.

The Marines say they took heavy gunfire afterwards and thought it was coming from the area around Younes’ house. They went to investigate, and 23 people were killed.

The Marines initially reported that 15 people died in the explosion and that 8 insurgents were killed in subsequent combat. The Navy began an investigation only because a Time magazine reporter spoke up. On Friday three officers of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment were relieved of duty, but the Navy won’t admit this was because of the incident at Haditha.

The events of last November have clearly taken their toll on Yaseen and his niece, Safa, who trembles visibly as she listens to Yaseen recount what she told him of the attack. She cannot bring herself to tell the tale herself.

She fainted after the Marines burst through the door and began firing. When she regained consciousness, only her 3-year-old brother was still alive, but bleeding heavily. She comforted him in a room filled with dead family members until he died, too. And then she went to her Uncle Yaseen’s house next door.

Neither Yaseen nor Safa have returned home since.

Haditha is an insurgent stronghold, and the Marines there frequently come under attack. It’s not hard to imagine the Marines were stressed beyond comprehension and acted in the conviction they were shooting at insurgents. The real criminals are the politicians in Washington whose incompetence and hubris put those Marines in Haditha, IMO.

Indeed, many in this town, whose residents are stuck in the battle between extremists and the Americans, said now it is the U.S. military they fear most.

“The mujahadeen (holy warriors) will kill you if you stand against them or say anything against them. And the Americans will kill you if the mujahadeen attack them several kilometers away,” said Mohammed al-Hadithi, 32, a barber who lives in neighboring Haqlania. With a cigarette between his fingers, he pointed at a Marine patrol as it passed in front of his shop. “I look at each of them, and I see killers.”

Generations of Iraqis will hate us, I suspect.

Over at Thomas Paine’s Corner, Jason Miller writes about “America’s ‘Noble’ Cause“:

“Why are we over there in Iraq?”

“To protect our freedoms.”

“How are the Iraqis threatening our freedoms?”

“They attacked us on 9/11.”

“If that is true, why are so many Americans against the war?”

“I don’t know, but I think Cindy Sheehan and all the other war protesters should be rounded up and shot.”

Sounds familiar, huh? And, of course, the only reason anyone would be opposed to the Iraq War is hatred of President Bush.

Miller’s article — a diatribe against the American Empire — seems a tad harsh even to me, but there’s little in it I can argue with. One of his points is that “Americans” (I wish he would distinguish Bush supporters from the rest of us) believe that the U.S. has an inalienable right “to murder an unlimited number of innocent civilians so long as our military machine does the killing and we label the victims as ‘collateral damage.’”

I ’spect if any rightie bloggers comment on Nancy A. Youssef’s article today, it will be to claim that Yaseen’s family must have deserved to be shot. And if not they should still thank us. We’re bringing them freedom, after all.

Sorta related: “Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate“; “Democracy in the Arab World, a U.S. Goal, Falters“