Today’s editorial cartoon illustrates a tough question: When is it all right in wartime intentionally to kill civilians, and when is it murder?

Eight Marines including four officers have been charged in connection with the killings of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha last year.

The mass bombings of civilians during World War II have been justified as breaking the will of the enemy. Could the soldiers who did the shooting at Haditha (though not the officers accused of failing to report or investigate the incident) claim they wanted to break the will of the insurgents? Not likely, since the killing of individual civilians in order to make some kind of point, such as in retaliation for attacks on one’s unit, are roundly condemned as barbaric and clearly against the law.

But that still leaves unresolved the bigger question,which goes to the morality of war itself. Why is nobody punished for wartime actions that intentionally or as a foreseeable result kill hundreds of thousands of unarmed people, and why do we throw the book at soldiers in the field who, under tremendous pressure, make a terrible mistake? (hh)