Posted on 06/20/2006 9:19:26 PM PDT by Jedi Master Pikachu
The lawyer for one of the marines accused of the massacre has told the BBC that criminal charges will probably be brought soon.
And we have found that the marines were operating under some very disturbing conditions.
The accusation is that after a US marine lance corporal died in a roadside bombing in Haditha last November, his fellow marines went on a killing spree.
Twenty-four people died in the attack, including seven women and three children.
A 12-year-old girl who survived says the Americans killed them indiscriminately.
The marines said they had came under fire from the houses where the people died.
The lawyer representing one marine told us he believed they would face charges, but said they were following their rules of engagement.
"I don't think the facts will show they intentionally killed those civilians," Paul Hackett said. "It was in the heat of battle, in the heat of clearing the houses.
"That is, like it or not, that is what those marines are required to do. They are required to close with the enemy, and kill the enemy."
'Feral' conditions
But Haditha is not the only massacre that has been alleged against the US forces.
A US inquiry has cleared them of blame for the deaths of civilians in Ishaqi in March - yet leading figures in the Iraqi government are unhappy, and want a wider investigation.
Kilo company soldiers in Haditha in October 2005 Members of Kilo Company were operating in deteriorating conditions
But what happened at Haditha seems more clear-cut.
It is an intensely dangerous place for the Americans, and the battle-weary men of Kilo Company - the unit which included the marines accused of the massacre - had lost a lot of men there.
And they were operating under disturbing circumstances.
Kilo Company's headquarters were three miles north of Haditha, at a vast dam across the Euphrates. It is a big target, because it supplies power to much of southern Iraq.
Four hundred men of the First Marine regiment were based in this decaying rabbit-warren. Conditions were so disgusting, many just moved out.
They set up these unofficial shacks alongside it. Conditions at the dam have been described as "feral".
Oliver Poole is one of the few reporters to have been there, shortly after the alleged massacre. He was shocked by these strange, primitive huts, which lacked even basic hygiene.
"You walked in and the first words were 'F off', and they were ripping pieces of wood apart to feed the fire," he said. "You could see the conditions in which they lived. And they were filthy. It was disgusting."
There seemed to him to be no real discipline.
"The fact that the officers had let conditions deteriorate to the level in which where people living in such basic environment, that says something," he said. "Where were the officers keeping the standards that the US military keeps in the field?"
Blame game
The marines of Kilo Company are now back at Camp Pendleton, in California. But that question of keeping the men under proper control is essential.
The main gate at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base in California The investigation into the alleged massacre is still ongoing
"The hardest thing is not necessarily killing someone or shooting someone; it's not killing someone or shooting someone when you're angry," said Paul Rieckhoff of the Iraqi Veterans Campaign.
"When someone in your unit is killed or wounded it's like someone attacked your family. The responsibility then is on one of the squad leaders, platoon leaders, team leaders to hold those guys back."
Up to now in the US, those against the war have blamed the people at the very top for what is happening in Iraq.
But the news that three American soldiers have been charged in connection with the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq last month - and the probable charges over Haditha - may mean that Americans will now start blaming those who are actually fighting the war as well.
Just as they did in Vietnam.
Baathist Broadcasting Corp
What a friggin load of Shiite
Should have stopped sooner, stopped reading after this. They were cleared, but let's smear them anyway.
What is your take newbie?
Also, why is there a consistent attempt to compare the iraq war to the Vietnam War (rhetorical)? iraq seems to be stabilizing, and the Americans (and other coalition forces) seem generally in control.
Now that I read the last part, I would like to kick this guy's butt. That would be the best way to hit his head. The American people never blamed their soldiers as this creep says, except for a few scumbags like John Kerry and his stoned out hippie ilk.
This article from the BBC is pure Bull Sh--! Marines do not just move out
I hate those Bast---s at the BBC.
Why do they compare Iraq and Vietnam? Because we won militarily in Vietnam as well, and the left destroyed Nixon and then abandoned our ally to the communists. They want to repeat that history in Iraq. They are insane and despicable and they want to see our allies slaughtered.
The lawyer for one of the marines..
No more needs to be read. Pathetic.
It's MARINES you BBC mindless twits.
Don't know why they bothered to print the rest of the article - this is the theme right here. And it's total crap.
In point of fact Haditha will have little or no effect on anything, whether this fleabag of trumped-up charges is made to resound throught the international media or not. Should the whole thing be shown to be a fake tomorrow - and that isn't at all unlikely - the BBC will bury that news as deeply as it can while it continues to the next story that makes the case that Iraq is Vietnam. And that's all that matters, not truth, but the theme.
Unleash the Devil Dogs - let's get this Sh*t over with.
I hope they bring in the fact that two of our best was just slaudered by these guys. I hope when they do that this just goes away.
Haditha was a haven for the enemy!!
They LIE.
They would sell the souls of their children for the death of one American.
They lie
When we give them equal credibility of the USMC,We do ourselves a grave dishonor.
They LIE!!
God have mercy on the soul of Murtha and those who feed this BS, for I have none.
A 12 year old girl who told 3 different stories about the event. A Reuters "reporter" who is actually an Iraqi related to the mysterious head of the "Iraqi Civil Rights Group" who is the SOLE source of these accusations. Both Al-Masdarini which just happens to be the SAME family name as the high ranking Al Qeda terrorist killed in Iraq this week AND the High Rank Bathists was listed as #46 on the Most Wanted list after the Liberation.
Seems the BBC has given up any sort of Journalistic Ethics or obligations and is just reporting Terrorist propaganda here.
The BBC eats ----.
This article is full of crap.
Camp Pendleton is here in San Diego and we have more of a clue what is going on than the BBC.
I have relatives currently in the 1st Marine Div. who have done tours in Iraq and for the BBC, wishing doesn't make it so.
We dropped two nukes in Japan and fire bombed Dresden. Many civilians were killed. But it prevented twice as many from being killed due to fanatics. What is happening in Iraq doesn't even rate a bloody nose and it pisses me off that those risking there lives are being taking to task for doing a dirty job.
Two professional military investigations are under way. These investigators have one agenda... THE TRUTH!!! Murtha and the rest don't care about the truth, their agenda is political. Murtha is a disgrace to to the Corps and to the country. I cannot print what I really think about him.
And in this reverse Vietnam scenario, I hope spitting makes a come back,...but with the public spitting on mainstream media reporters.
I'm with you. I would, for once, like to see a real groundswell of anger towards Murtha, Kerry, Clinton, Kennedy, all the cowards, traitors and defeatist. I would like to see them slapped down hard and made examples of. That's not too much to ask what with the damage they are inflicting upon our military and country in general.
At this point in time there is no "even if" or "bad apples." This piece is a hack job in the BBC. This attorney said his client and the other Marines were following the rules of engagement. They are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
If that didn't happen to that reporter, it should have.
As an inactive Marine once I read this "There seemed to him to be no real discipline." I knew the story was nothing but Bull Sh*t. This is very simple, you take fire from a house, you take out the house. Don't blames these Marines blame the cowards that hide behind women, children and the elderly.
Remember, the BBC Style Guide has it that you must call Saddam "the deposed President of Iraq", not former dictator. Guess the BBC swallowed that 100% of the votes in the last election BS.
This isn't a war, this is a sad joke.
Give these guys some squirt guns and let's get busy!
BUMP!
Look at it this way. If Marines were in there to kill kill every one they saw, why did she survive to tell the story? I smell a rat.
The BBC isn't much different from main stream media here.
England disgusts me...From the Marxist Oxford pukes who backed the "internationalist" socialists (soviets) over the "National" socialists (nazi) to the Philby / MacDonald moles in the cold war to the Islamophile socialist Blair who sacrifices a few Brits in Iraq so he can shield Britain behind the USA, like a coward hiding behind his mother's skirts to the celebrated Galloway and the developed world's highest violent crime rate through "progressive" social policy---let em go Sharia...let em all bow to their Islamosadist pet loves....F England and Europe (except Poland)!
Masdarini is the town the men come from. You don't believe "George Steinbrenner al New York" has the same family name as "Donald Trump al New York" do you? ;-)
See Charles Krauthammer's expose on the overdramatic Palestinian kabuki dance that tried to smear the Israelis:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/columnists/story/5821949p-5192448c.html
I wonder if the Haditha girl is the same actress they used in Gaza.
But Krauthammer's second point is the strongest: whatever happened, the deaths are due entirely to the enemy's strategy of concealing himself in the supposed noncombatant population. No one should be charged with murder except the terrorist bastards who assured that somewhere, sometime, something like this would happen.
Cousin Vinnie
I'd back off a bit on that. I'm no fan of Tony Blair's social policices but he has stuck to his guns on Iraq and the war on terror despite the political problems it may cause him.
Oh yes, forgot that one, deposed prez of Iraq my foot.
Just an example what our Marines do
From the Indepundit blog & who is also a Navy reserv. officer.
On November 15, 2004, the Marines were busy clearing houses in the Battle for Fallujah. Peralta, as scout team leader, was responsible for locating the enemy and directly ground forces to destroy them. He was not supposed join in the assaults inside the homes.
However, Rafael Peralta was not the kind of guy to stand around watching things happen. He wanted to make things happen. He routinely requested to join the assault teams entering the insurgent filled houses.
During the fateful assault on the 15th, after clearing three houses, Peralta lead the charge into the fourth house, finding two rooms empty on the ground floor. Upon opening a third door, Peralta was hit multiple times with AK-47 fire - severely wounded, he dropped to the floor and moved away in order to give the Marines behind him an opportunity to fire on the insurgents.
As the battle continued, the insurgents lobbed a grenade at the Marines. Two Marines were trapped in the room with Peralta. When they saw the grenade, they tried to get out of the blast area but were trapped.
Peralta, bleeding out on the floor, reached for the grenade and pulled it to his midsection, cradling the grenade before it cooked off.
The grenaded exploded, killing Peralta and critically wounding another Marine, the others all survived because Peralta absorbed the majority of the lethal blast.
England is over as the mother country...our old mom is in bed with the man who beat us......
Caught the start of Bill O'Reilly tonight, he singled out the ACLU and BBC as two of the most bereft of any impartiality when it comes to the WOT.
Obviously, the group that is to be included with them is a veritable viper's den of media outlets and talking heads.. all working to undercut the efforts underway to bring those who do evil indiscrimnately or otherwise to justice in the GWOT.
'They' collectively have not had a good month yet are not ready to yield their obstinate and ill-advised positions.
So be it, they must be stopped as surely as those who seek the death of western civilization must be stopped. I have faith that 'They' will be.
It has never been clearer for me that liberalism is a mindset (I should know. I, like many here, have been cured) than the arguments I have had with some otherwise intelligent liberals when it comes to the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
You can show hundreds of quotes from eyewitnesses of the Pentagon attack and they will still say it was a missle. Ask them where the passengers, crew of the plane went they either change the course of the discussion (Lib-"Look what I am saying is we don't have all of the facts") or delve further with mass execution claims ("...because the cause was more important.") Cell phone calls? - just another part of the charade.
Another Freeper referenced a brilliant quote that I will never forget and plan to employ often: You can't reason a person out of a position that they were not reasoned into.
That is the 9/11 conspiracy fanatics in a nutshell.
Excellent!
At what point did I call it that?
I bleed American.
I just said Blair is sticking in at great politcal risk.
Does anyone think that if this was a Russian or Chinese incident that anyone would give a Rats butt?
Frankly, I don't see how the USA can fight a war with the traitors called reporters now working in the MSM.
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