In this law-and-order era of George Bush and John Ashcroft, when a majority of Americans still say it's right and proper to have the state execute people for the crime of murder, even if there may be a few mistakes made and innocent people killed, when is murder not murder?

The answer: when it's committed by a guy in uniform against somebody from another country.

Look at the record.

Last January, a group of four U.S. soldiers deliberately pushed two Iraqi civilians who were completely under their control into the river and then allegedly watched as one of them, 19-year-old Fadel Hassoun, drowned. The men lied about what they had done, and subsequently, when that didn’t work, claimed that they'd acted under orders from unspecified higher-ups.

The military charged three of the men not with murder, but with "involuntary manslaughter"--the same charge you might get if you negligently hit and killed someone with your car in an accident. A fourth soldier in the group was charged with assault for pushing the dead man’s cousin, 23-year-old Marwan Fadel Hassoun into the river (he managed to swim to safety and to report the crime, which is the only reason there’s any prosecution at all).

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