Haditha: What Massacre? On the Media gets it wrong.

[Warren Stupidity]

In a stunningly obtuse radio essay that aired Sunday on the NPR show On The Media Arun Roth becomes the latest journalist to participate in the cover up of the massacre at Haditha.

Podcast here: http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2008/02/15/02

Mr. Roth's argument seems to boil down to 'sure the marines went door to door executing civilians in cold blood, but since the military courts have dismissed or reduced all charges in this case it wasn't technically a massacre.' His subtheme is that executing civilians in cold blood as was done in Haditha is permitted under the 'rules of engagement'. It seems that Mr. Roth has also decided that our rules of engagement cannot encompass a massacre, consequently no massacre occurred. Interesting logic that doesn't quite explain why the rules of engagement allowed marines to go door to door through a neighborhood shooting everyone they found inside, a fact not in dispute, or what exactly we should call such an act.

[meegbear]

1. Frontline is showing a story on it this Tuesday ...

Rules Of Engagement

A U.S. Marine and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha,” read a U.S. military press release in November 2005. Four months later, Time magazine would report that it was U.S. Marines—not a roadside bomb—who were responsible for the deaths of unarmed Iraqi civilians. Soon after, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) would claim the Marines killed the Iraqis “in cold blood,” igniting a media firestorm which labeled Haditha a “massacre” and one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq war. But what really happened that day reveals a far more complex story that gets to the heart of the war troops are fighting.

Through interviews with the highest levels of the U.S. military, personal accounts from Marines involved, documents obtained by FRONTLINE, never-before-seen unmanned drone footage of the actual day’s events, and an exclusive television interview with an intelligence officer who watched the day unfold, FRONTLINE investigates what occurred in Haditha.

In Rules of Engagement, airing Tuesday, February 19, 2008, at 9 P.M. ET on PBS (check local listings), FRONTLINE examines how the rules of war are interpreted in theory and in battle and what that says about the war in Iraq.

<snip>

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/

[Warren Stupidity]

4. This is the story by Arun Roth and is the basis for the OTM report.

If the frontline piece is the same as the OTM - it is dismayingly bad journalism.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. Why do you hate the troops?

:sarcasm:

Recommended.

[Warren Stupidity]

7. Basically.

The poor Marines and their families have been dragged through the dirt over this. Of course they can discuss how bad they feel about that whereas the Iraqi families from this Haditha who were literally dragged dead and bleeding through the dirt have no feelings at all anymore.

[gratuitous]

3. When is a massacre not a massacre?

When it's our star-spangled, freckle-faced, all-American fightin' men and women doing the shooting. And as always, when the incident under scrutiny is an American war crime, the situation is "very complicated" with lots of "factors" to be considered. Sure, there's that inconvenient fact of those bullet-riddled bodies, but you have to take into consideration so much more than that.

Now, when we're talking about flying planes into the World Trade Center towers or the decapitation of a journalist, there's no discussion at all. It's just bloodthirsty killers executing innocents.

But back to Haditha. Did you know that one of the deceased once had an overdue library book? And that one of the Marines on the mission went into a library once? So it's pretty obvious why two dozen people had to die, if you think about it.

[alarimer]

5. I heard that too and I was astonished

I don't really think the military courts are as objective as they need to be. I smell a cover-up.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. Roth's comments were what got to me.

In particular, he described the Iraqis reaction to the dismissal and reduction of charges as 'cynical', as if there were no merit at all to the idea that Marines judging Marines is not likely to result in justice. And again, he simply had nothing to say about the facts 'on the ground': there was a massacre. Nor did he bother with the context: over 1,000,000 dead Iraqis so far. It was maddening.

[alarimer]

8. Maybe that documentary will shed some light on it

Yes, no one ever mentions all the dead Iraqis, most of whom would still be alive if we hadn't gone in there.