Tonight, PBS’s Frontline visits the heart of darkness that is Haditha.

From PBS’s website for The Rules of Engagement:

FRONTLINE cuts through the fog of war to reveal the untold story of what happened in Haditha, Iraq—where twenty-four of the town’s residents were killed by U.S. forces in what many in the media branded “Iraq’s My Lai.” With accusations swirling that the Marines massacred Iraqi civilians “in cold blood,” the Haditha incident has led to one of the largest criminal cases against U.S. troops in the Iraq war. But real questions have emerged about what really happened that day, and who is responsible. Through television interviews with Iraqi survivors and Marines accused of war crimes, FRONTLINE investigates this incident and what it can tell us about the harrowing moral and legal landscape the U.S. military faces in Iraq.

Though much of public television has been infected by reactionary politics, I have continued to trust that Frontline producers still take their journalism and news reporting seriously. The story of Haditha deserves no less.

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