by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, May 18, 2006 5:00 P.M. EDT

'In Cold Blood'
The Pentagon is investigating whether U.S. Marines committed war crimes in a November incident in which 15 Iraqi civilians were killed in Haditha, Iraq. NBC News reports that Rep. John Murtha, who voted for the war in Iraq, claims to have advance knowledge of the investigation's outcome:

Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

What happened in Haditha we know not, but we can tell you that Murtha's description is false, for the simple reason that it is self-contradictory. If the Marines "overreacted," then the killings were not premeditated. They could not have killed both in the heat of the moment and in cold blood. Murtha therefore either is slandering the Marines by exaggerating their guilt or making excuses for horrific war crimes.

Why would he do such a thing? The key is that phrase "because of the pressure on them." They're depraved on account of they're deployed: Murtha seeks to maximize the evil of the alleged crimes while simultaneously deflecting blame from the actual perpetrators to those who have applied "pressure" to them--i.e., civilian leaders in the executive branch.

Sound familiar? This was just what John Kerry did back in 1971, when he told tales (many of them false) of war crimes in Vietnam. Yet in his own mind, he wasn't accusing troops of anything, as he explained in a 2004 CNN interview:

I was accusing American leaders of abandoning the troops. And if you read what I said, it is very clearly an indictment of leadership. I said to the Senate, where is the leadership of our country? And it's the leaders who are responsible, not the soldiers. I never said that. I've always fought for the soldiers.

War crimes do, of course, exist, even if Kerry told fabricated stories. To excuse war criminals by denying that soldiers are responsible for their actions is an insult to everyone who has ever worn a military uniform and conducted himself honorably and lawfully.

How Does Iraq Rate?
In her New York Sun column, Alicia Colon cites some interesting figures about Iraq, offered by Rep. Steve King of Iowa:

According to Mr. King, the violent death rate in Iraq is 25.71 per 100,000. That may sound high, but not when you compare it to places like Colombia (61.7), South Africa (49.6), Jamaica (32.4), and Venezuela (31.6). How about the violent death rates in American cities? New Orleans before Hurricane Katrina was 53.1. FBI statistics for 2004-05 have Washington at 45.9, Baltimore at 37.7, and Atlanta at 34.9.

Rush Limbaugh also picked this up, though the item on his Web site has gone behind the subscription wall. We thought it sounded too good to be true, and we were right. We called Rep. King's office and asked for the sources of the figures. Here they are:

• The Iraq rate is a ratio of civilian death figures, taken from this site, to population, taken from this site. According to King aide Summer Johnson, the number is 27.51; two digits were transposed in Colon's column. (We used the figure of 8,745 civilian deaths since April 28, 2005, given on this page, annualized it to 8,312, and came up with 31.03 per 100,000 per year--a higher rate but within the same general range.)
  
  
• The figures for other countries are homicide rates, taken from this page, which is based on U.N. reports that can be found here.
  
  
• The figures for U.S. cities also are homicide rates, taken from this chart.

The figure for Iraq, then, is not the "violent death rate"; it is only the rate of violent death from war. (The equivalent figure for the other countries and cities presumably would be zero.) To arrive at a "violent death rate" for Iraq, we would to add in the civil homicide rate.

The most recent such figures we could find from Iraq are on page 777 of this PDF document, which says that between 1990 and 1994, the annual homicide rate was between 5.66 and 7.28 per 100,000. These figures don't tell us much, though, since (a) in those days Iraq had a criminal regime, and criminal regimes are not in the habit of accounting for their own crimes, and (b) the greater freedom in Iraq since 2003 might well have affected the rate of civil homicide.

Furthermore, even if war deaths in Iraq vs. civil homicides elsewhere were a valid comparison, the King figures are a lowball estimate of the former. That's because the numerator--the number of Iraqi "civilian" deaths--excludes soldiers and policemen. But civil homicide rates do include policemen and soldiers murdered in the line of duty--as several hundred of them were on 9/11.

In addition, the comparison with U.S. cities poses a problem of scale. Just as some municipalities here have high concentrations of crime, Baghdad and some other Iraqi cities have high concentrations of military, guerrilla and terrorist activity. A comparison of Baghdad with Los Angeles or a similarly sprawling U.S. city would be more enlightening than a comparison of Iraq as a whole with cities of well under a million people.

We of course sympathize with the broader point King and Colon are making. But it's important to be careful with numbers. Without meaning to, they have painted a misleadingly Pollyannaish picture of Iraq, and that's the wrong way to counter the liberal media's misleadingly Cassandrian one.

Barking Moonbats
"Most foreign language courses teach French or Spanish to prospective tourists keen to learn the local lingo before their holiday," begins a report in London's Times:

But one council has taken translation to a new level by offering lessons in how to understand the barking of dogs.

Dog lovers not satisfied with simply resembling their pets can now learn how to sound like them as well.

For an example, let's turn to Jackie Hai in the Daily Collegian, student newspaper of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst:

Everything is connected. This is a big one. When I first started looking at the current events scene, there seemed to be a bewildering array of special interests and single issues jumbled into one big mess. After all, what do taxes, education, poverty and the war in Iraq have to do with each other?

As it turns out, everything. And it's not that hard to pick up one strand and follow it to all the others, like pulling up a net from under the sand. To go back to our example, look at the way the Bush administration continually cuts taxes for big business and the wealthy, while the lower class and a dwindling middle class must shoulder the burden of ever-increased spending. What's the biggest sinkhole for money spent by the government today? The war in Iraq. What doesn't get enough funding, among countless other causes? Education. It's common knowledge that a good education helps reduce poverty, but far too many Americans don't have access to one. Who is the most likely to end up joining the military? The poor.

Arf arf! Fellow Minuteman Kevin Dooley barks away too:

Even though Saddam may have all the time in the world now to write poetry (at least until he is publicly hanged), Saddam is needed somewhere else. And it's not as a writing instructor in a creative writing class here at the University of Massachusetts. Instead, Saddam Hussein needs to be put back in power as president/dictator of Iraq immediately.

That's ruff stuff! In the Oregonian, Mary McDonald-Lewis of Northeast Portland offers this howler (second letter):

At President Bush's command, our borders to the north and south bristle with arms and men. This is ostensibly to keep immigrants out of the United States, but do not be fooled for a moment: It is equally to keep Americans in.

An outrageous notion? A democracy untended is always vulnerable to the slide toward fascism, which holds as its principle [sic] tenet the separation, persecution and denial of equality of a specifically targeted class of people, based on manufactured belief systems.

This allows the government to act at will upon the least powerful, while at the same time laying the groundwork for the oppression of the entire population.

So, as we turn our backs on the weakest among us, we will have only ourselves to blame when the men at the borders aim their arms at us, and there is no one left to speak or act in our defense. If this idea is yet beyond imagining, turn to any history book--the past lies just before us.

One wonders if these people have ever thought about getting cats.

A New Day Dawns?
Several readers wondered why the "Vox Day" article we cited yesterday, did not include the passage we quoted about the Nazis. It seems WorldNetDaily had a belated attack of editorial judgment and decided to edit the piece. "Day," however, stands by his story, which he has posted here.

Hix Deep-Six Chix Pix Nix
"Once again the wire services and international news agencies got it wrong by misquoting Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. . . . King Abdullah was referring to pictures which are used for the sake of sensationalism. At no point during his meeting with the editors did the king warn local media against publishing pictures of Saudi women, as reported by the news agencies. The wire agencies completely misinterpreted and misrepresented the king's views."--Arab News, May 18

Unlike Muhammad, Methuselah Didn't Wait

"Scientists Study Moving Mountain"--headline, United Press International, May 17

"Oldest Man Ever Reportedly Scales Everest"--headline, Associated Press, May 17

What Does 'Insidious' Look Like?
"Some of the photos on badjocks.com look less insidious than others, and appear to show students at parties. But Susan Lipkins, a psychologist and expert on hazing who has talked about its effects with Reno, said that hazing was humiliating and degrading, even if it appeared to be fun."--New York Times, May 18

Groovy, We Hope They Find Him, Man!
"FBI Digs Michigan Field for Hoffa Remains"--headline, United Press International, May 18

Almost as Fun as Watching Paint Dry
"New Englanders Watch Water Recede"--headline, CNN.com, May 18

Doctors Boycott Study
"Scientists Study the 'Apple a Day' Theory"--headline, United Press International, May 17

Let's Hope They Decide Against It
"Scientists Debate Possible Cancer Cluster at Local School"--headline, KESQ-TV Web site (Palm Springs, Calif.), no date shown

Bottom Story of the Day

• "Raccoon Survives Massive Electric Shock"--headline, Reuters, May 18
  
  
• "Americans Recycled More Aluminum Cans Last Year"--headline, Reuters, May 17
  
  
• "Bill Clinton to Write Book on Public Service"--headline, Associated Press, May 18

Veni, Vinci, Vici
Generally we don't read reviews of movies we haven't seen, but we made an exception with "The Da Vinci Code," as from everything we've heard it is so dreadful we don't want to see it. A.O. Scott's review in the New York Times is a classic. Some excerpts:

The arguments about the movie and the book that inspired it have not been going on for millennia--it only feels that way. . . . Vexed, urgent questions have been raised: Is Christianity a conspiracy? Is "The Da Vinci Code" a dangerous, anti-Christian hoax? What's up with Tom Hanks's hair?

Luckily I lack the learning to address the first two questions. As for the third, well, it's long, and so is the movie. "The Da Vinci Code," which opened the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday, is one of the few screen versions of a book that may take longer to watch than to read. (Curiously enough Mr. Howard accomplished a similar feat with "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" a few years back.)

Not only Christians and reviewers are unhappy about the film, reports the Associated Press:

Albinos are bothered that one of their own has yet again been depicted as a villain. . . .

Michael McGowan, an albino who heads the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation, said "The Da Vinci Code" will be the 68th movie since 1960 to feature an evil albino.

"Silas is just the latest in a long string," McGowan said. "The problem is there has been no balance. There are no realistic, sympathetic or heroic characters with albinism that you can find in movies or popular culture."

The endless demands for political correctness are so leaden and oppressive, we wish people could just lighten up.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Google and Microsoft team up with MoveOn.org.
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