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The stories coming out of Iraq keep getting worse and worse. Now there are reports of atrocities committed by American troops against civilians:

• Two weeks ago, in the village of Abu Sifa, Harat Khalaf saw American soldiers storming his brother's house, firing machine guns as they entered. Khalaf heard more firing inside the house, and women and children screaming. Then silence.

Immediately after the soliders left, the house exploded:

According to Iraqi police, 11 bodies were pulled from the wreckage of the house, among them four women and five children aged between six months and five years. An official police report obtained by a US reporter for Knight Ridder newspapers said: "The American forces gathered the family members in one room and executed 11 people."

• Last November, in Haditha, the US military reported than one Marine and 15 civilians were killed by a roadside bomb. But the police and townspeople said the civilians were actually killed by Marines on a rampage to avenge the death of their comrade. According to witnesses:

  [T]he 15 civilians, including seven women and three children still in their nightclothes, had been killed in their homes in the wake of the bombing.

These atrocities may be just the tip of the iceburg:

The Pentagon claims to have investigated at least 600 cases of alleged abuse by American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to have disciplined or punished 230 soldiers for improper behaviour. But a study by three New York-based human rights groups, due to be published next month, will claim that most soldiers found guilty of abuse received only "administrative" discipline such as loss of rank or pay, confinement to base or periods of extra duty.

...

Most other cases ended with sentences of two, three or four months. "That's not punishment, and that's the problem," said John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, which is compiling the study with two other groups.

"Our concern is that abuses in the field are not being robustly investigated and prosecuted, and that they are not setting an example with people who cross the line," said Sifton. "There is a clear preference by the military for discipline with administrative and non-judicial punishments instead of courts martial. That sends the message that you can commit abuse and get away with it."

Apparently it's true — the fish rots from the head.