Baby on Board

If the Haditha/Marine masacre turns out to be true, that will be bad enough. Summary execution of civilians is pretty much rock bottom in terms of military behaviour of an occupying force. But, despite what appears to be an entirely accidental event, this is about as appalling as things can get:

U.S. forces killed two Iraqi women — one of them about to give birth — when the troops shot at a car that failed to stop at an observation post in a city north of Baghdad [...] Nabiha Nisaif Jassim, 35, was being raced to the maternity hospital in Samarra by her brother when the shooting occurred Tuesday.

Apparently this roadblock was fairly new and, in a panic, the driver simply failed to notice signs. No doubt this was a legimate concern for the guards at the post, but this is certainly something that will not help the American image in that country, whose people are becoming increasingly desperate to see US forces leave. Actually, they're increasingly desperate for all of this to end, though it seems doubtful at this point that the evacuation of US troops is going to help that along. The only people in Iraq US forces seem able to control are the very ones who don't need it. On top of that, they accidentally get shot while having babies. This is just horrific.

Military officials issued their boilerplate response to this horrific event:

The loss of life is regrettable and coalition forces go to great lengths to prevent them.

Encouraging words, I'm sure. I don't why they bother issuing such worthless, empty statements.