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Evidence of massacre by Marines caught on film
The Courier Mail ^ | May 29, 2006 | AP

Posted on 05/29/2006 8:36:31 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican

PHOTOGRAPHS taken by US military intelligence have provided crucial evidence that up to 24 Iraqis were massacred by marines in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha.

One photograph shows an Iraqi mother and young child, kneeling on the floor as if in prayer. They have both been shot dead at close range.

The pictures also show other Iraqi victims, shot execution-style in the head and chest in their ownhomes.

A US government official said the marines involved had "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership".

The killings are emerging as the worst known US atrocity of the Iraq war.

At least seven women and three children were among those killed in the massacre.

Witness accounts obtained by The Sunday Times suggest the number of children killed may be as high as six.

"This one is ugly," a US military official said.

In Britain, the chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup, said at the weekend the "appalling" reports of the massacre could undermine British support for the war.

"This sort of accusation does make that harder to achieve," Air Chief Marshal said.

The pictures of the dead, which are being closely guarded by the US military criminal investigation service, were taken by a military photographer who is believed to have arrived on the scene moments after the shootings.

Many US forces are accompanied by photographers to gather intelligence and to shield soldiers from accusations of torture, intimidation and violence.

But the evidence in this case points to a murder rampage by the US marines.

The stain on the US military could prove harder to erase than the photographs of sadistic abuse and torture by US guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.

Comparisons are being made to the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968, in which US troops slaughtered 500 villagers.

Up to a dozen marines may face criminal charges -- including murder, which carries the death penalty -- dereliction of duty and filing false reports.

Three marine commanders were suspended last month.

With a political storm brewing, the top US marine, General Michael Hagee, flew to Baghdad on Friday to tell his troops they must kill "only when justified".

The naval inquiry is focusing on the actions of a sergeant who may have been the leader of a four-man fire team.

Miguel Terrazas, 20, a lance-corporal from El Paso, Texas, was travelling in a convoy of four Humvees in Haditha just after 7am on November 19 last year when a roadside bomb struck his vehicle, killing him and wounding two others.

The events that followed are the subject of two military inquiries due to report soon: one into the facts of the case, the other into a cover-up.

One witness, Aws Fahmi, heard his neighbour, Yunis Salim Khafif, plead for his life in English, shouting: "I am a friend, I am good."

"But they killed him, his wife and daughters," Fahmi said.

Haditha, about 225km northwest of Baghdad, has long been considered a rebel stronghold. It is among a string of Euphrates Valley towns used by insurgents and foreign fighters to infiltrate from Syria to reach Baghdad and the Sunni heartland.

The Sunday Times, AP


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: awsfahmi; drivebymedia; fahmi; haditha; iraq; khafif; salimkhafif; yuniskhafif; yunissalimkhafif
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Comment #201 Removed by Moderator

Comment #202 Removed by Moderator

To: Brian Allen
I can't nor would I take issue with any of what you stated.

I fought in the one where 55,000 brave comrades in arms gave their lives for nothing. Viet Nam!

203 posted on 05/30/2006 11:38:21 AM PDT by ImpBill ("America ... Where are you now?")
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To: keats5

I find it odd he was told to use his own personal camera to film a suspected crime scene. Then, he flushes the pictures without talking to anybody about it because the "camera had been moved." This boy and his mommy got involved with the "media" to help him with is current civil legal problems. (Auto theft, resisting arrest...) This does not make the Marines any more innocent or guilty of the crimes Murtha and the "media" have convicted them of but it does show that this bozo doesn't have any credibility and should not be yakking away to the press about something he knows absolutely nothing about. In short, he's trying to lie his way off the hook at the expense of a group of U.S. Marines. He's a sellout. Semper Fi my ....


204 posted on 05/30/2006 11:44:48 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Dat you Jesse?)
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To: Beagle8U; Dr. Nobel Dynamite
Retreads are discouraged on FR. Maybe the good doctor has invented a way to blind the mods.

That said, I find it rather telling that someone who claims to be a conservative is so quick to believe these Marines are guilty as hell, when they haven't even been charged yet. I'm against the death penalty too, like the good doctor, but to listen to him, one would think that anyone who's in the military should be presumed guilty, even when charges haven't been brought.

Doc, you might want to wait until an actual verdict has been rendered against these men, before you accuse them of "pissing on the Constitution".

205 posted on 05/30/2006 11:50:43 AM PDT by FourtySeven (47)
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To: Tarkus2040

I will never believe in a million years that US Marines would kill women and children. No way. The terrorists did it. People hate Bush and this war so much - that they will do and say anything.

So what there are pictures? Do they show the US Marines actually killing the innocents?


206 posted on 05/30/2006 11:54:39 AM PDT by mandingo republican (Libs are Moloch worshipers I tell ya! - FREE HK, CUBA & IRAN - SATAN was the first liberal!)
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To: MinorityRepublican

"Even George Washington had to shoot his troops when they weren't behaving properly.
It happens in war, I suppose."

Private Eddie D. Slovik's execution helped slow down the high numbers of desertions occuring during The Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge).


207 posted on 05/30/2006 11:57:37 AM PDT by TET1968 (SI MINOR PLUS EST ERGO NIHIL SUNT OMNIA)
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To: MinorityRepublican

"Even George Washington had to shoot his troops when they weren't behaving properly.
It happens in war, I suppose."

Private Eddie D. Slovik's execution helped slow down the high numbers of desertions occurring during The Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge).


208 posted on 05/30/2006 11:59:26 AM PDT by TET1968 (SI MINOR PLUS EST ERGO NIHIL SUNT OMNIA)
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To: FourtySeven
And you might want to actually read the posts to which you're responding.

I expressed absolutely NO opinion about whether the incident actually occurred. I expressed an opinion about a poster reacting to the possibility of this crime with a whine about ACLU and the AP.

And at NO point did I EVER suggest Marines were pissing on the Constitution. I was referring (in response to Beagle's reference to another thread) to those that would casually disregard the very Constitutional principles for which we have troops fighting and dying.

Perhaps, if you were intellectually honest, you would go back, reread the posts in this thread, and see that for yourself. I'm not holding my breath, however.
209 posted on 05/30/2006 12:03:50 PM PDT by Dr. Nobel Dynamite
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To: FReepaholic
The one news report I've seen on this (ABC News, sorry, I don't have cable) reported that "twenty of the twenty-six people in the house were unarmed".

But, but, but...under the rules of engagement as promulgated by the liberal media the Marines must, when confronted with such a situation, immediately stop and poll the occupants of the house: "How many of you are unarmed? Please show by a raise of hands, and then please step into the next room so we can conduct the remainder of our business with only those who are armed. Sergeant Smith please make a count of our armed adversaries, then we must proceed with only an equal amount of Marines."

Don't laugh, this is tantamount to what the scumbag left wants.

210 posted on 05/30/2006 12:22:01 PM PDT by Auntie Dem (Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! Terrorist lovers gotta go!)
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To: MinorityRepublican
I don't want to seem to be justifying this in any sense of the word. But the duplicity should be evident to anyone with eyes. Remember that the vermin we're fighting routinely BEHEAD innocent civilian contractors. They casually TORTURE anyone they perceive as an "enemy." They hijacked four jet airplanes and crashed them into office buildings on 9/11. They detonate bombs aboard commuter buses, trains, and subways. They brag about wanting to explode "dirty" nuclear weapons in American cities, malls, or schools.

These wretches have ABSOLUTELY NO MORAL HIGH GROUND from which to claim umbrage! If a handful of US Marines went beserk and murdered innocents, they will be dealt with -- as they should. But this in no way makes the US the bad guys, and the poor towelheads innocent victims. In fact, if we were following the rules of engagement THEY laid down, the concept of "atrocity" would be obsolete.

211 posted on 05/30/2006 12:39:09 PM PDT by IronJack
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To: MinorityRepublican

You don't shoot an unarmed child!


212 posted on 05/30/2006 12:41:51 PM PDT by CWW (GOP 2008 Dream Ticket -- George Allen (Pres) and Mark Sanford (V.P.))
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To: CWW
I am trying to follow the thread:

post 2:
"If it is verified that the events occurred as described, then the perpetrators should hang."

post 11:
I agree.


Post 13:
Even George Washington had to shoot his troops when they weren't behaving properly.

It happens in war, I suppose.


post 212:
You don't shoot an unarmed child!

The last posting in this thread does not follow logically from the preceding post or posts. In fact, I think all the preceding posters might agree with you. Perhaps you are in violent agreement.
213 posted on 05/30/2006 1:51:03 PM PDT by ChessExpert (MSM: America's one party press)
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To: Androcles

IF it is true, the perpetrators should be appropriately dealt with - but we have recently seen at Duke University -the gap between the perception and the reality.


214 posted on 05/30/2006 1:56:32 PM PDT by ZULU (Non nobis, non nobis, Domine, sed nomini tuo da gloriam. God, guts, and guns made America great.)
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To: All
not to make light of the article but two things jumped out at me: In Britain, the chief of the defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Jock Stirrup
Come on...........

and this could be read in a strange way:
Witness accounts obtained by The Sunday Times suggest the number of children killed may be as high as six. "This one is ugly," a US military official said.
as he passed by one of the children?????
Maybe now i'll try to post something intelligent
215 posted on 05/30/2006 2:07:15 PM PDT by freedom moose (has de cultivar el que sembres)
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To: Dr. Nobel Dynamite
And at NO point did I EVER suggest Marines were pissing on the Constitution.

LOL!

I guess if you think its worth sending troops to fight and die oversees while pissing on the Constitution they were sent to defend, that's your business.

And you want to lecture me about intellectual honesty? LOL Please. Go ahead, get the last word in that you desperately want. I don't care. I'll leave it to any lurker/reader to decide for themselves who's saying what on this thread.

216 posted on 05/30/2006 2:25:02 PM PDT by FourtySeven (47)
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To: usmcobra

I watched Hardball for as long as husband could not find remote, LOL!

It is sickening. They are salivating. I loathe them all.


217 posted on 05/30/2006 2:31:45 PM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Jeff Head
innocent until proven guilty

I fear these young men will be tried and found guilty in the court of public opinion way before they have a chance to give their side of the story in any public forum. The MSM has absolutely no credibility.

218 posted on 05/30/2006 2:50:57 PM PDT by SLB (Wyoming's Alan Simpson on the Washington press - "all you get is controversy, crap and confusion")
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To: FourtySeven

I was referring to the irony of sending troops oversees to fight and die for freedom while Constitutional principles were being whittled away at home. If you had bothered to read the post to which I was responding, you would have seen that this was referring to a 1st Amendment issue unrelated to the alleged incident at Haditha.

But you didn't bother. You misread a post, and instead of having the honesty to admit it, you chose to proudly reassert your ignorance. That puzzles me.


219 posted on 05/30/2006 3:45:23 PM PDT by Dr. Nobel Dynamite
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To: Reactionary

It won't matter one iota if the pictures can be verified as to the location and time or not.


220 posted on 05/30/2006 4:55:12 PM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (G-d is not a Republican. But Satan is definitely a Democrat.)
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