Murder charges likely in Iraq raid

[maxrandb]

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20060525-122158-2945r.htm

Sorry it's from the Mooney Times

"Defense attorneys expect the Marine Corps to file murder charges against one or more Marines who conducted raids in Haditha in November that resulted in the deaths of more than 20 Iraqi civilians, according to sources close to the investigation.
The sources said agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS) have been interviewing members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, at Camp Pendleton, Calif. Attorneys there are mobilizing for the possible defense of a dozen Marines"

[babylonsister]

1. Out of Iraq NOW! What have we created? I'm glad those

responsible will be charged, but oh so sad it's come to this.

[atreides1]

8. "What have we created?"

We haven't created anything, the monster was always there it just needed something to bring it out.

Just like Frankenstein was animated with lightning, the troops have been animated by patriotic clap trap and "Support the Troops" propaganda on the backs of cars. They have been led to believe that they are protecting us, when all they are doing is becoming the Werhmacth and Waffen SS of the Bush
administration.

They all swore to "support and defend the Constitution", but have they? The Patriot Act sailed through and the military stood by and failed to keep their word, the President is now claiming
Imperial powers that were never granted by the Constitution, and both the people and the military
sit on their hands and do nothing. I guess we're all waiting for that knock on the door in the
middle of the night, or maybe we're all waiting to see how the concentration camps will be built?

Thomas Jefferson had it right when he said "From time to time the Tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of patriots and tyrants", perhaps the time has come!!!!!

If those in the military continue to follow orders blindly, then I can't feel anything for them, except the pity that one feels for an animal that keeps returning to it's abuser.

[adigal]

15. Sean Hannity and John O'Neill said these poor "boys"

were innocent so stop this liberal nonsense right now!!

[babylonsister]

18. I'm afraid they'll be eating their words. nt

[RebelOne]

34. Can't wait. I'll even provide the salt and pepper.

[INDIA]

46. They did???

Oh man that's great! Do you have a link?

[Nashyra]

2. This will galvanize the righties

Nothing galvanizes the right more when there gung ho marines are brought up on charges for only doing their job in a war. Not knowing the circumstances and not willing to believe the the upper echelon of the military, it pains me to see these soldiers in a situation where they should have never been in the first place. My heart and prayers to the families of the Iraqis that have suffered and the soldiers families. My dad being a Korean Combat War veteran has a good insight.

[jfxgillis]

12. Extremely astute observation. Here's how it will go:

I numbered each step so that as events occur we can simply refer by number to it, saving bandwidth:

(1.1) First, command will deny it. That already happened last November.

(2.1) Then, when CID starts poking around, nobody will say nothing for awhile as everybody just (2.2) hopes it goes away by itself or gets (2.3) paper-shuffled to infinity.

(3.1) Unfortunately, however, the evidence will be strong enough that (3.2) the open-and-shut case will have to go to the prosecutor while (3.4) the Brass tries to figure out if and how they can get this done quietly.

(4.1) Then, the stage we're in now, somebody will realize that settling things quietly will entail a miscarriage of justice and (4.2) there'll be a leak. To Sy Hersh in 1970, to Murtha this time.

(5.1) Next will come the right-wing shrieking, shouting and accusations of treason. Seen that today already. (5.2) Followed by poignant claims of "you hadda be there." Seen that already today, too.

(6.1) Then, as the trial approaches we'll hear cries of scapegoating and, no doubt, (6.2) "They had it coming anyway. (6.3) Why should the lives of our fine young men be ruined over the death of some (insert appropriate ethnic slur)?" (6.4) The accused soldiers will be folk heroes, (6.5) making their case on Sean Hannity's show and (6.6) generally riling up the rubes. (6.7) Toby Keith or Charlie Daniels will dedicate a song to them.

(7.1) Then the trial will start and ....

(7.2) ... the pictures will come out ....

(7.3) ..... and everybody will forget everything that happened before.

(8.1) Oh, and then finally they'll blame the liberals.

[UpInArms]

45. here's the NYTs article that originally reported the Haditha massacre

Widespread Violence Kills Dozens Across Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 20 - The Marine Corps said today that 15 Iraqi civilians and a United States marine were killed on Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded in the town of Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. At least 11 other Iraqis were killed or discovered dead today in various incidents, and military officials reported the deaths of two more Americans and a British soldier.

<snip>

The bombing in Haditha on Saturday was aimed at a convoy of American marines and Iraqi soldiers, a Marine spokesman, Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, said. After the explosion, gunmen opened fire on the convoy. At least eight insurgents were killed in the firefight, the captain said.

Haditha sits on the Euphrates River in the Sunni-dominated province of Anbar. Since last spring, marines have conducted offensive sweeps of a dozen or so towns along the river, in hopes of disrupting the smuggling of foreign fighters from the Syrian border into Iraq. In almost all the cases, the insurgents fled from the towns in advance of the Americans. The latest operation began on Nov. 5 in the town of Husayba, right up against the Syrian border, and met more resistance than usual.

...more, but that was all there was on Haditha...

but... interestingly - it appears in that report that we should wonder what happened in Mosul that day also

(from the NYTs article)

In the northern city of Mosul, a senior police officer said a house raided on Saturday by the Iraqi police and American soldiers may have been a base for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The officer, Brig. Gen. Muhammad al-Wagaa, said the Iraqi police surrounded the house after interrogating an insurgent captured on Friday. A fierce gun battle erupted, he said, and the police called for assistance from the American military.

The insurgents then detonated a ready-to-use car bomb in the house, General Wagaa said. The blast killed 11 people inside, he said, and Iraqi and American forces captured four people. One of the dead insurgents, the general added, was a woman wearing an amulet around her neck that proclaimed her a martyr.

something just feels funny (as in not quite right) there

[Toots]

47. You forgot "Outrage at the Outrage"

Damn Hippie Liberals anyway...If it weren't for them we would make everyone in the world behave..

[maxrandb]

3. Will this stop the MSM "Swiftboating" of Murtha

There is no "good news" in any of this. There is nothing to feel good or vindicated about. I'm sure Congressman Murtha weeps for the position we've put our troops in. If convicted, we must hold our folks accountable. This is tragic and sad in every possible way.

We simply must stop the reign of terror being visited upon our country. It's time to clean house this November. In one thing this pretzledent is right. It is a battle between "Good and Evil"

[noel adamson]

4. Published in the Mooney paper is newsworthy in itself and...

... makes me pause to wonder why if not to begin the discrediting of the story.

I also wonder if NCIS actually is able to identify and prosecute the right people without a political motive to protect someone else as in the case of Lyndie England and other low level order followers...

[saigon68]

5. Some thugs are going down

Here are a few of their victims

[MindPilot]

6. There is a line in Apocalypse Now that fits this situation perfectly

"Charging a man with murder in this place is like handing out speeding tickets at Indianapolis."

It's ridiculous to charge the troops with anything. They did exactly what they were trained and ordered to do; kill the enemy. If you want hold somebody accountable, charge the chickenhawks who sent them there. As far as I'm concerned, a man sent into combat should have absolute and complete imunity...if you have a problem with that, don't go to war.

[enigma000]

7. So soldiers are just unthinking killing machines?

The officer corp are lawless murderers beholden to no tradition, rules or statutes?

There have been far worse battlefields than Iraq where the rules of war were adhered to and enforced.

[MindPilot]

14. Of course not.

But put people in an untenable, unworkable, uncontrollable situation and at some point those people are going to reach a level of frustration and rage where they can no longer be held responsible for their actions. I believe those troops reached that point.

The fault lies with the people who put those troops in that situation, not the troops.

Yes there have been far worse battles, but those were very different in that they were not initiated by some evil steaming pile of human garbage in the White House. That make this war different than anything that has come before. Absolutely every failure, every atrocity, every casualty and injury is the direct fault of the BFEE and on one else.

I wish those Marines could take their rage out on a more appropriate target...

[pokercat999]

39. The correct choice was to lay down their arms and

refuse to fight/kill. They could have turned their guns on the ones who sent them. In the field that means fragging your immediate superiors, not much help. They could have killed civilian non-combatants at random or for revenge, which may be what happened. But the real choice was to lay down their arms, refuse to take part in an illegal war or at least this action and face the consequences. True, their are no good choices, but the latter is what a man of honor would do. If found guilty these men had no honor and the USMC has no honor for not teaching them the difference. As a private in the US Army in 1972 I was taught to refuse/disobey illegal orders. That obeying an illegal order was a crime and that I would be punished for whatever the results were.

If they chose to kill civilians at the squad level with only an NCO in charge those that actually pulled the trigger deserve a firing squad. Those that watched and did nothing deserve a dishonorable discharge and 20 years in prison. The war criminals at the top should be tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity.

[saigon68]

32. No this Group of Thugs are "WAR CRIMINALS"

wait until they are 60 and live in back alleys as hopeless drunks with PTSD

And visions and dreams of small animals with sharp teeth, tearing at their flesh

[babylonsister]

9. Baloney. These particular soldiers massacred the Iraqis

at Haditha. I will not lump all the soldiers under one umbrella. The people involved in this atrocity have either cracked, are evil, whatever. They deserve to be punished.

[denverbill]

10. No, I disagree.

They aren't trained to kill innocent people. My guess is that this was a crime of passion.

Probably one or more of their buddies was killed or severely wounded in the gun battle, and they saw someone involved (or who they thought was involved) go into the house where this family lived. My guess is they stormed the house, demanded to find out where the guilty party was, got 'I don't know's' from the household members, and started killing people out of frustration/rage.

If that's the case, then I don't even blame the higher ups in this case.

Of course, that's all just speculation on my part, but that's a scenario I can easily envision happening, and it's the only way I can see a reasonably normal human being becoming capable of doing something like this.

[saigon68]

11. They are Winning the Hearts and Minds of the Population

Who at this time are whipping up a few IEDs to kill a few naive followers, who joined for adventure and a chance to see the world

[denverbill]

13. You would know that better than most people.

A young man, doing his duty, believing he is there to protect/help the indigenous people. A populace that generally just wants to be left alone in peace by both sides in a conflict. A sniper kills your buddy. You see a shadowy figure run off towards a house. You storm the house, ready to kill anything that moves. The scared residents don't speak your language as you scream at them. One angry soldier just starts shooting and soon everyone in the house is dead.

Now, instead of a village that wants to be left alone, you have a village full of people who want revenge.

There may be a way to win a war like this, but it would have to be won by an Army that, to a man, was more willing to die than harm an innocent person. Instead, we have soldiers being told to shoot to kill at any car the appears to be defying a roadblock and semi-trained National Guardsmen who just want to survive and get back home to their families.

Our only hope now is to Iraqi-ize the war, and frankly, I think the Iraqi-izing of this war is going far worse than the Vietnamization of your war went.

[saigon68]

16. They lasted for 2 1/2 years before Ford pulled the plug

But that was an invasion by another country essentially.

[primavera]

17. Hey, it's Bill Calley after all these years!

When did they let you out of Leavenworth?

[LizW]

35. Calley never went to prison.

He was initially given a life sentence, but Nixon commuted it to 20 years the next day. Various proceedings eventually chipped away at the sentence, and he ultimately served only 3 1/2 years of house arrest in his quarters at Fort Benning. He has been living as a free man in Columbus, Georgia for many years.

That was what happened to man found guilty of 109 counts of premeditated murder at the height of the upheaval of America against the Viet Nam war. And photographs of the victims ran in Life magazine.

I don't expect anything much to happen to the Haditha Marines.

[primavera]

37. Really? Wow, that's depressing...

The man who oversaw one of the most notorious atrocities in our nation's history and he never served so much as a day. But the minority kid caught selling reefer... now he's going away for some serious hard time. Oh yeah, our priorities are in the right places. :eyes:

[High Plains]

41. I have a problem with that. No impunity; no immunity.

Your position excuses all kinds of war crimes.

Catholic just war doctrine says you only fight wars for a just cause, and even within war you fight justly. I'm no Catholic, but that doctrine sounds pretty good.

[yellowcanine]

42. Only problem with that thinking is it wasn't the enemy they killed. They

deliberately killed civilians, including children as young as 1 year. How is that killing the enemy?

[brooklynite]

19. Military Expected to Report Marines Killed Iraqi Civilians

WASHINGTON, May 25 — A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Two lawyers involved in discussions about individual marines' defenses said they thought the investigation could result in charges of murder, a capital offense. That possibility and the emerging details of the killings have raised fears that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq.

Officials briefed on preliminary results of the inquiry said the civilians killed at Haditha, a lawless, insurgent-plagued city deep in Sunni-dominated Anbar Province, did not die from a makeshift bomb, as the military first reported, or in cross-fire between marines and attackers, as was later announced. A separate inquiry has begun to find whether the events were deliberately covered up.

Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/26/world/middleeast/26haditha.html?hp&ex=1148616000&en=a36b890ecbd52750&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[EFerrari]

20. When this story first broke, the Pentagon tried to discredit

the witnesses. Amy Goodman reported on it, though.

[Newsjock]

21. What will we have to do

... to repair our standing in the global community, once this is all past? How will we have to atone for our misdeeds? And it's not enough to say "I didn't vote for them" -- as Americans, every one of us will be held accountable to some degree for what has happened, and at least some part of the rest of each of our lives will be changed by how we, individually or collectively, have to make amends to the rest of the world.

Good progressive, evil neoconservatives, it doesn't matter -- we are all Americans, and the world will do whatever it must to ensure that this happens never again.

[pokercat999]

40. We will do nothing and be hated world-wide for centuries.

We will survive only as long as we have the most military power. UNLESS we change course 180 degrees our fate is sealed.

[Kagemusha]

22. This is sick stuff. And the right-wing "It's unpatriotic lies!" stuff too.

My experience in studying this stuff simply suggests that there will always be a chance that armed men in a group left poorly supervised and led will be the ones to go on a killing spree like this. That's why militaries must have proper chain of command and leadership. As we've seen with Abu Ghraib, passing the buck is rampant; that fish rots from the head down. This is merely a symptom. I feel bad for all the Marines who *didn't* go on killing sprees who will be tainted by this but, that's how it goes.

[mike_c]

23. the worst part of this is that the Marines worked so hard to cover it up..

How may other massacres have been written off as errant bombs, or unavoidable crossfires, or simply as the killings of insurgents? Once this story came to light, the best way to contain it was to admit it and act like it was an anomaly. That, I think, is why it eventually saw daylight, and why the perps might be charged, and might even be convicted (although if they are, I anticipate a Calleyesque slap on the wrist and a quick discharge for all of them).

[Kagemusha]

24. The cover-up may be the only punishable part of this.

"Lawyers who have been in conversations with the marines under investigation stressed the chaotic situation in Haditha at the time of the killings. And they expect that the defense will stress that insurgents often hide among civilians, that Haditha on the day of the shootings was suffering a wave of fluid insurgent attacks and that the marines responded to high levels of hostile action aimed at them."

In other words, even if these specific civilians hadn't provoked them or were a threat in abstract reality, the Marines had been provoked by other Iraqis and felt that they were under threat. With rules of engagement which are extremely loose, you don't have to be under threat to kill an innocent legally, you just need to FEEL you're under threat. With such a standard, a blatant lie works just as well as the truth. It'd be a nightmare to distinguish THIS incident from so many others in Iraq that have not resulted in charges.

Except for covering it up and being caught. But I'm sure lots of conservatives will step up to the plate to argue why we never needed to know about this and hearing about it only harms the war effort. And what's a few dead civilians anyway.

[Rose Siding]

25. It's a relief that Marines participated in exposing this

"Military investigators have since uncovered a far different set of facts from what was first reported, partly aided by marines who are cooperating with the inquiry and partly guided by reports filed by a separate unit that arrived to gather intelligence and document the attack; those reports contradicted the original version of the marines, Pentagon officials said."

I hadn't heard that mentioned before and and was beginning to wonder whether witnesses in the military were speaking up.

[whoneedstickets]

26. Iraq's My Lai Massacre??

We've pulled out the Vietnam playbook and are working our way through the fucking thing one atrocity at a time.

[Kagemusha]

27. It's still pretty small for a massacre.

Of course the military would have you believe there aren't 10 just like it we don't know about.

[saigon68]

31. Its a WAR CRIME

Rustics gunning down children.

This shit is in every mosque in the area. With the population aroused against the liberators who are also stealing the oil.

The photos are all over the internet

This is bigger than the "FRAT PRANKS" at Abu Ghraib

[Kagemusha]

33. I'm saying that as sad as it is, war crimes of this scale are common

Dime a dozen. Actually a lot more than dozens. Many are accomplished with bombs because somehow western civilian populations don't see bombing a house and killing a dozen people as being the moral equivalent of going in and simply gunning them down (like in this case).

The dead are still dead.

[Canuckistanian]

28. Friday news dump?

I'd be surprised if this amounted to more than the six month "house arrest" that Lt. William Calley of "My Lai" fame had to endure.

Who's the Lieutenant in this "incident"?

[The_Casual_Observer]

29. Didn't you just feel down deep that this was going on?

I doubt that this is an isolated incident.

[Kenergy]

43. Me too n/t

[Roy]

30. Will they now apoligize to Mr. Murtha????

Didn't think so.

[Ganja Ninja]

36. Will Bush, Cheney & Rummy be charged as accomplices?

I'm not going to defend what these Marines did but don't our politicians share the responsibility for sending our troops on repeated deployments regardless of their mental state? These men are forced into these situations repeatedly because Bush and the GOP don't have the political will to draft enough manpower to do the impossible job they have tasked them with. Then when the inevitable happens and they snap, the criminal acts they commit are theirs alone to answer for.

And what's going to happen when soldiers who have served faithfully for 3 tours simply refuse to go back for a 4th? Do we charge them with refusal to obey orders? Are we going to label men as criminals because politicians are asking too much from them in order to protect their own political standing?

[Selatius]

38. Well, Johnson and Nixon walked away from war crimes charges

If history is any guide, I wouldn't expect it to be different this time around, and Nixon was about to be impeached over something other than the escalation of the war into Cambodia and Laos.

[Kenergy]

44. Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should be charged with

war crimes. They started this war, and should be held accountable imo.