Posted on 06/14/2006 6:28:30 AM PDT by conservativecorner
That famous line from the 1967 Paul Newman classic, "Cool Hand Luke," might well apply to Iraq today, and specifically, to Haditha, where U.S. Marines are alleged to have massacred innocent Iraqi civilians last November.
Not only do we not know what happened in Haditha, but we've failed to communicate effectively to the rest of the world what we do know: that our Marines always deserve the benefit of the doubt. And that if something did go terribly wrong in Haditha, it was a rare exception to the rule.
Instead of launching an aggressive PR campaign to debunk the growing impression that such incidents, if true, are par for American forces, we get a presumption of guilt and an ethics course to fix a problem that isn't a problem. The failure to communicate responsibly and strategically in this case, coupled with the rush to judgment in the international court of public opinion, has hurt not only the Marines under investigation, but also all our military men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
This whole Hidatha story stinks of "Mi Lai" all over again, only this time it's a Fake.
bttt
1) Whatever happened in Haditha has yet to be determined. THe facts are not in, so any judgement at this point is premature, if not prejudicial.
2) The Marines deserve at least the same consideration the Left rushes to give to child molestors, crack whores, and Michael Jackson.
3) Even if it turns out the Marines went around the bend in Haditha, it is an exception that magnifies the rule.
4) Not one single ponce writing this inculpatory gibberish could withstand the rigors of combat deployment, let alone a firefight, so we have a classic case of armchair generalship.
I don't know for sure, but it seems possible that both a false report was filed and the Marines in custody did their jobs as they described. It may be the false report that got the officers dismissed, not the incident itself.
Ronald Spiers: You wanna know if they're true or not. The stories about me? Did you ever notice with stories like that, everyone says they heard it from someone who was there. Then when you ask that person, they say they heard it from someone who was there. It's nothing new really. I bet if you went back two thousand years, you'd hear a couple centurions standing around yakking about how Tertius lopped off the heads of some Carthaginian prisoners.
Carwood Lipton: Well, maybe they kept talking about it because they never heard Tertius deny it.
Ronald Spiers: Maybe that's because Tertius knew there was some value to the men thinking he was the meanest, toughest sonofab*tch in the whole Roman Legion.
Ms. Parker....Marines is spelled with a capital M
It should be Marines, not marines......
Well said, Kathleen.
Our Marines have been framed by our mortal enemy, the Drive-by Media, and there are, apparently, wicked men in The Marine Corp who have put them in shackles.
I guess they would have treated these prisoners better if they had been Muslim prisoners.
Your beef is with the headline editor at JWR, not Parker, who correctly capitalized Marines/Marine throughout her op-ed.
BTTT
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