Marines May Face Courts-martial For Alleged Iraq Massacre

May 24, 2006

[kellynla]

I cannot post the article. Here is the link http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1823925.php

[Chena]

Well, I hope when FReepers hit their knees tonight they will say a prayer for these Marines and keep them in their prayers. I would have bet my house that this incident didn't happen as reported. I hope & pray when the facts come out that these Marines will be exonerated.

Our Marines and their families are in my heart and prayers tonight, kellynla. Your hopes and prayers are mine as well.

[xzins]

I would withhold judgment until I hear the story of the accused. There honestly are things on the battlefield that defy human ability to dream them up

[Dick Vomer]

As far as the JAGS and other remf commenters, they should be issued a rifle and have to experiece a few fire fights where you're actually desperately fighting for your life before they make any descisions regarding combat Marines.

.........may I respectfully add that they also need to have their best friend's guts spread out over a road and have to go home and talk to his wife and kids.... or hold your friend and watch him die, get so p#ssed off and look at the people who did NOTHING to WARN you....

I wasn't there... but the officer in charge and the senior NCO had to absolutely get the men under control.

I'm not condeming anybody. The men that killed the civilians know what they did and why. They will live with it. They will ask themselves and pray a thousand times for God's forgiveness..... I don't know how the Lord will answer and neither do any of us.

However JAG and the UCMJ have their own plans for these Marines. I do pray for them. I also pray that no other Marines are put in that position, but they will be. I pray that no other Marine will be senslessly killed, but one will..... and I pray that the men find the spirit and grace that God gives to warriors in order for them to survive and come home to their family and friends.

God Bless the Marine Corp.... God Bless these young men that we've asked to fight a faceless enemy..... Semper Fi.

[MNJohnnie]

Or maybe the "News reports" you heard were in error. On 9-11 I listened to ABC News claim there was an airplane on the Cleveland Tarmac with arm hijackers aboard. No such plan existed. This Spring we were told the Miners were all alive. They were NOT. This is my point. YOU PEOPLE have no facts. NONE. Yet you are all ready to hang these Marines out to dry because they have been accused.

An Accusation is NOT proof and it would be well if you people stopped acting as if it is. But I know. This habit of "Well if they weren't guilty they wouldn't be accused" is just so ingrained into your thought process you cannot possible fathom a situation where the ACCUSATIONS are fraudulent or the REPORTS you have hear are in error.

Excuse me if I do not share your faith in the Junk Media nor the utter purity of the Military legal system. They are human too. And as the Wes Clark/Zinni et al group have shown, some of them more then a little corrupted by the politics of the Clinton years.

Here is a for instance. Marine team takes fire from the roof top of a building. A Marine launches a grenade from an M-203 into the lower window of the building brining it down. Civilians are the lower level and killed. Is that a "War crime"?

Sure sounds like it would be in the moral absolutest world of the Never Seen Combat Freeper Judge team. Hopefully most Americans are smart enough to grasp the fact that that is WAR. War is like that. It is NOT the fantasy played out on your Movie screens were the good guys never make mistakes and only the bad guys die. Our enemies know this high minded moralizing and try to use it against us. They claim "torture" and "atrocity" so all the self righteous types will fall all over themselves screaming at OUR side to "Be better then them".

We always are. We did not start this. Saddam did in Kuwait in 1991. And YES there is complete and total linkage between Iraq, Afghanistan and the WOT. Just because Left wing Pols scream there "is no linkage" does not make it so. There is one real simple linkage. We are busy killing terrorists THERE so we do not have to kill them in your local elementary school like the Russians had to in Beslan.

[ansel12]

You're fighting the good fight.

If I had the energy today to handle all the BS I would join you.

Let's just hope that the investigation finds out this isn't as bad as it sounds.

No matter what, like Duncan Hunter says "This is not good, but let the chips fall where they will"

[spunkets]

That's a lot of writing.

Did they, or did they not file false reports?

[Steve Van Doorn]

"If this travisty goes forward, I will join the anti-war ranks and demand that the troops be brought home immediatly. How can these men be charged when the surviving crew members of the Enola Gay who A-bombed Hiroshima and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians are walking around free. Its PC gone totally insane."

I have to agree with you. Even if they did snap the 'punishment' shouldn't be more then time to rest and check there mental state. Anything more then that we should get everyone home.

These guys are at war. I been shot at but never in war, I can see how someone could snap. It's got be hard to see a friend go down

[pawdoggie]

What concerns me about this is that there will be a massive flood of negative (i.e. anti-Marine) pre-trial publicity with the intent of turning this (isolated) incident into another "My Lai" for Leftist propaganda purposes. When that happens, there will be tremendous pressure on the entire Corps to drop the hammer on the Marines in question. This might turn a possible violation of "Rules of Engagement" into a "massacre".

[Steve Van Doorn]

Marines in war are not cops.

[BnBlFlag]

Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

[spunkets]

"The right answer: You must return fire to protect your own life. You must. To do otherwise is to advocate suicide."

Hmmm, a moral dilema. I think you're simple answer is the appropriate one for the case given. I wouldn't cap the guy until I had a clear shot though. Just takes a little longer, that's all.

[xzins]

until I had a clear shot though.

Depends on what kind of cover and concealment you have. It both are lousy, then you fire to suppress fire.

[catroina54]

That's a lot of writing.
Did they, or did they not file false reports?

---

obviously we don't know.
or
if the media did
or did not.

[bray]

Innocent until proven otherwise.

Pray for W and Our Brave Marines

[Thunder 6]

Chaplain,
You nailed it. UCMJ, Code of Conduct, ROE and discipline exist for a reason. And it is what separates us from the barbarians we are fighting. Officers and (especially) NCO's have a duty to teach this, and enforce it if the line is crossed.

regards,

[spunkets]

" Depends on what kind of cover and concealment you have."

None.

"It both are lousy, then you fire to suppress fire."

My object would be to read his aim, cause it to move out of my way while getting cover all at once. I'll take the shot whenever the feints, or the cover access provides.

[spunkets]

"obviously we don't know."

Maybe you don't know.

[P-Marlowe]

I'm not entirely convinced. Death may be preferable to killing a civilian...

Perhaps that would be the way you felt, but if the civilian was shielding a guy who was killing your buddies and who has vowed to kill you and your country, and the only way to stop him is to cut through that shield, then what are you going to do? Let your buddies die? Let the enemy win? Or do what is necessary to save your buddies and prevail in the war?

Perhaps you should not be a soldier. Bomber pilots often kill as many "civilians" as they do bad guys. But collateral damage is often a necessary evil.

BTW when the Israelites were ordered by God to kill all the Amalekites, if you had been there would you have shirked your duty, or would you have followed orders? They did what was necessary under the circumstances. The fact that they disobeyed God and did not finish the job came back to haunt them.

[pterional]

I say in a war zone you shoot until the threat is neutralized. The Marines are not police and this war is not a police action. I am sure these "innocent civilians" would have danced and chanted on the bodies of our brave soldiers if they were all killed by the IED. If those "innocent citizens" knew there was an IED then they got what they deserved.