Implicated officer's hometown comments on Haditha Massacre

[donco6]

These are comments from residents of Rangely, CO, home of Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, 42, a career Marine officer who graduated from Rangely High School in 1982. Chessani was recently relieved of his command, presumably in relation to his actions at Haditha.

"Jeff's going to wind up getting more time than that guy who killed 3,000 people on 9/11," said a disgusted Lee "Roper" Collier, who went to high school with Chessani, referring to Zacarias Moussaoui."

"He's going to take the fall, just like Oliver North," said Dale Lane.

Red Honeycutt quickly grew tired of the conversation and left the table agitated, wearing a T-shirt that honored the National Guard. He has known Chessani since he was a boy. "He's a hell of man," Honeycutt said, slipping past without another word.

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_3876234

[SpiralHawk]

1. Message to Rangly, CO - JUST DEAL WITH THE TRUTH

As the facts come out, not your wishful thinking...

Ollie North was a traitor to the United States of America, give our Hawk Missiles to Iran, and did not take the fall for anyone. He had his treasonous and felonious ass covered by a corrupt cabal of republicans. He will get his Just Deserts when he meets JEHOVAH.

[donco6]

8. Yeah, the Ollie thing really got me.

Can't believe people are still defending HIM.

[donsu]

14. agree North is a criminal - but faux news pushes North as a patriot

its strange how faux new's kool aide is so affective. when you talk to faux viewers its as if they go la la la when hearing anything other then faux. they won't listen, refuse to listen to anything not faux.

[Waya]

2. Oh, Gawd.........

:banghead:

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Riddle me batman

how can somebody do more time than oh LIFE?

I will be surprised (assuming the Lt Col IS Guilty, let the courts go through the process) is given more than ten years.

[Hubert Flottz]

6. The little kids they killed didn't get anymore years, but that's okay...

because they were just "Iraqi Terrorist's" kids! Better we showed them, then and there, so we didn't have to show them again when they grew up and came over here! Forget about the possibility, that one of those kids may have grown up one day and been the one human being on Earth, who could have developed a cure for cancer, or the bird flu!

When a rogue(outlaw)country invades and occupies another country these things are BOUND to happen. Ask the people in the countries the Axis Powers invaded. When America adopted the neocon's preemptive warfare, we bought this turkey, because Gawd told us,(through a lying Bush) that it was the righteous and proper thing to do!

Remember, you helped pay for all of this, just like I did and get pissed off until it is stopped! The lies that caused ALL this in Iraq, have long ago been exposed, to all but the total fools! The guilt will increase by the minute, until the killing stops. I will not vote for ANYONE who agrees to keep on killing women and children in my name.

It's time to give PEACE a chance.

[flamin lib]

4. Col. Chessani meet Lt. Calley.

Calley served a few days at Leavenworth, was transfered to Benning, placed under house arrest and his sentence commuted by Nixon to time served after 4 years. All for being convicted of killing 200 civilians.

[donco6]

9. The RW spin machine has yet to fire up.

He may come out of this a hero after all. I mean, we all KNOW there were insurgents hiding in those houses. They were a fungus spreading through Haditha - we had to destroy the village to save it!

[OldLeftieLawyer]

5. Like one has anything to do with the other

I love these asshole comparisons people make when they're trying to excuse bed behavior (that's an understatement) or shore up their already-shaky defense of someone they know personally.

Someone should tell the guy that the men who killed all those people on 9/11 are dead. They're not doing time anywhere.

Like Oliver North took a fall.

OK, now I'm pissed. The guy's a moran.

Yeah, it takes a hell of a man to kill unarmed civilians because his buddy was blown up. That's real admirable.

Visit him in prison. Take him cookies.

[donco6]

10. Wonder how long Guantanamo would stay open . . .

. . . if we imprisoned our own war criminals there? I doubt anyone's bringing those Iraqis any cookies! They wouldn't eat them anyway, seeing as how they're all on a hunger strike out of desperation.

[gratuitous]

7. Of course Mr. Chessani is a hell of a man

And so are all his buddies, and all their comrades, and every man jack of them in the military. Not a one of them is a killer, not a one of them has been driven to extremity by the situation they're in. But these things happen in war. Every time. And good guys like Mr. Chessani wind up committing heinous acts. They're trained to commit heinous acts. They're told from childhood that it's okay to commit heinous acts, as long as you're wearing a uniform and being paid with tax dollars to commit those heinous acts.

That's why we ought not go to war except in the most dire circumstances. And in all my days, I've never seen the United States in those circumstances. And as long as the United States is bristling with nuclear armaments and is spending more than a billion dollars every day (Saturdays, Sundays and holidays included), we won't find ourselves in those dire circumstances.

Because war takes a hell of a man like Jeff Chessani and turns him into a criminal. Whatever Jeff Chessani was in Rangely, Colorado, he isn't that anymore. War has fucked him up. I don't know if he's irretrievably fucked up, but he's fucked up right now. And if for nothing else, my good friends in Rangely, this is why we need to change our culture and get over our infantile addiction to violence as a redemptive force.

[Avalux]

11. Facing the truth can be difficult

And it's hard to imagine someone you've known personally committing such acts. What these men need to understand - in Rangley CO, Chessani probably was a hell of a man. But in Haditha Iraq, pushed to the breaking point, he did things he never would have done otherwise.

[donco6]

13. Randi made a good point about that yesterday.

That if you want to point fingers, you point them at the men and women who demanded this bloodbath in the first place. War is hell; has always been hell; will always be hell. The decision to enter into war is a decision to allow a Haditha to take place, because it always does.

[ContraBass Black]

12. It's been a long time since I last nearly vomited

At quotations in a paper.

[mmonk]

15. Ideologues cannot recognize dishonor.