Billmon: In Cold Blood

When the Abu Ghraib horror show first aired on 60 Minutes, I remember wondering whether it would prove to be the Iraq War's version of the My Lai Massacre -- with the photo of the hooded man on his box, arms spread in a crucifix, as the enduring image of a military machine run amok, just as a photo of murdered Vietnamese women and children, sprawled in the middle of a muddy road, became the Americal Division's permanent badge of shame.

To a degree, that's what happened -- with the hapless sadists of the 184th Infantry Regiment serving as the collective stand-ins for Lt. William Calley, and Colin Powell reprising his earlier role as the bullshit artist telling everybody what they want to hear.

But now it appears that instead of a symbolic My Lai, we have the genuine article:

A Pentagon probe into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of Haditha will show that U.S. Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood," a U.S. lawmaker said Wednesday.