Haditha massacre...oh,oh.

[HOZ]

When the story on Abu Ghraib broke, the coverage blew the abuses far out of proportion. No one died from wearing panties on their heads, and the pathetic perpetrators of the abuses found themselves tried, convicted, and sentenced to justifiable prison terms. Abu Ghraib was an embarrassment.

Now we are about to learn about Haditha. Marines out od control. Investigation is on going but now leaks are coming. Pentagon priming us for the big break?

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...home-headlines

[HOZ]

Couldn't remember the Vietnam name but now I do. My Lai. Number are of course VERY different. But no excuses

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/stor...C-RSSFeeds0312

[rubecube]

Democracy in action! I know it's just a few bad apples, but get your army under control. This is going to set progress way back.

[Claeren]

It has been around for a while but the press has been reluctant to run with it. There are still enough pro-Bush/pro-Troops/pro-war people out there that the major news carriers don't want to offend. It has to be firmly in the realm of 'news' as opposed to 'rumours' for them to touch it.

Independent Media (those left wing liars!) have been talking about this and other incidents essentially since they happened.

I will be surprised if Fox News (those right-wing god loving, flag waving, truth tellers) ever outright admits that this happened on air - even if they had been there, which someone probably was...


Claeren.

[Hack&Lube]

Look, this is horrible and evil...but you have to realize the root cause is that you are putting soldiers into these kinds of situations where they just break. This was their 3rd deployment and when you get hit and blown up on the road and not having anybody to hit back against is just what soldiers in Vietnam faced when their enemies would shrink back to the jungle or back to villages.

[Claeren]

That is kind of why you don't go starting 'pre-emptive' wars...

I don't think people are really blaming the soldiers, they are blaming the administrators and planners and 'military first' regime in the US in general.


Claeren.

[CaptainCrunch]

Claeren with all due respect this has nothing to do with whether this was a pre-emptive war, or a reactive war.

In WWII it wasn't just the Germans that committed atrocities, Canadian's, American's, British and others on the side of light committed horrible acts.

Same with WWI, or Korea, or any war.

This is going to happen, and its difficult to put the blame on any one act.

Was it the soldiers faults? training? the chain of command? the administration? Who knows, and while an investigation pins blame where it belongs, it never stops this from happening in the future.

You can have the best trained most diciplined trooper in the world, but deep down he or she is only human and you don't know what they're going to do when the crap starts to fly.

[Claeren]

Except that the effects are multiplied when you can make a good argument that the war was not needed.

Then those soldiers lives are being ruined for nothing, the people they killed are dead for nothing, and America's reputation abroad is further tarnished for nothing.

Except maybe (questionable) hedgemony in the middle east, supremecy of the US dollar in the pricing of crude, and to open a new market for the companies that are 'Friends of American'.

All worthwhile causes, obviously!

But the point is that if it was a defensive war at least people could have an excuse for being in that situation. With no excuses (that hold water outside the right-wing and/or 'ardent blind-American' factions) it is that much less excusable.

Claeren.

[oldschoolcalgary]

hard not to feel bad for all parties...

These Marines were just kids, who obviously put in a situation they weren't prepared for...of course, the innocent Iraqis who died is even more tragic...

[FunkMasterFlame]

Theres some pretty disturbing testimony from a 12 year old girl today, describing how she had to hide underneath her mothers bloody corpse and pretend to be dead in order to survive the massacre.

Its going to be hard to argue that these marines didnt commit war crimes.

how US marines killed 24

[Burninator]

From FunkMasterFlame's article:

The marines paid $2,500 (£1,350) in compensation for each of the 15 victims who were shot in their homes. They refused to pay for the four brothers and five occupants of the taxi, claiming they were insurgents. Officials now say those men were innocent.

Okay, so war crimes punishments are now a low one time payment of 2,500 bucks per head. One of the victims was a 78 blind man in a wheelchair with only one leg. Would be surpised to see that article from an american publisher.