clarifying words

General David Petraeus, writing the words that so many people have ached to hear, makes it plain what is expected of American military personnel—namely, honor:

10 May 2007

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and Coast Guardsmen serving in Multi-National Force—Iraq:

Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy. This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we—not our enemies—occupy the moral high ground. …

I fully appreciate the emotions that one experiences in Iraq. I also know firsthand the bonds between members of the “brotherhood of the close fight.” Seeing a fellow trooper killed by a barbaric enemy can spark frustration, anger, and a desire for immediate revenge. As hard as it might be, however, we must not let these emotions lead us—or our comrades in arms—to commit hasty, illegal actions. In the event that we witness or hear of such actions, we must not let our bonds prevent us from speaking up.

Some may argue that we would be more effective if we sanctioned torture or other expedient methods to obtain information from the enemy. They would be wrong. Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary.

We are, indeed, warriors. We train to kill our enemies. We are engaged in combat, we must pursue the enemy relentlessly, and we must be violent at times. What sets us apart from our enemies in this fight, however, is how we behave. In everything we do, we must observe the standards and values that dictate that we treat noncombatants and detainees with dignity and respect. While we are warriors, we are also all human beings.

Read the whole thing (at Balkanization, where Marty Lederman, thinking conspiratorially—and probably correctly—says he detects the hand of Cheney in Petraeus’s use of the qualifying adverb “frequently.” [ you have to follow the link and read the whole letter, because it's not in the passage I copied and pasted .]

 Whatever. What’s important about the letter is that, finally, it’s out there in black and white: “While we are warriors, we are also human beings.”

Soldiers kill. They’re engaged in combat. They pursue enemies relentlessly. They must be violent. They are warriors. They are also human beings.

Via Andrew Sullivan, who missed the parts of the letter about the warrior ethos and skipped right to the part about torture, and ludicrously and pompously titled his post “Petraeus Comes Through,” as if the honor of the American military and the American people had gone missing until Petraeus wrote and published these important and valuable words. (Does he believe that—abracadabra!—said lost honor will just as magically be restored?) Two hours later, a very impatient Sullivan, having seen no reaction from certain quarters in the blogosphere to Petraeus’s letter, uses it as a cudgel with which to bash his real enemies—his former pals on the right. So juvenile and so tiresome.

But Sullivan is now among those who are paid to provoke (at least I’m assuming he’s being paid, since his new Atlantic Online colleague Matthew Yglesias, who is also quite the provocateur, says he’s being paid).