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
I fought in the one where 55,000 brave comrades in arms gave their lives for nothing. Viet Nam!
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 ....
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".
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?
"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).
"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).
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.
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.
You don't shoot an unarmed child!
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.
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.
I watched Hardball for as long as husband could not find remote, LOL!
It is sickening. They are salivating. I loathe them all.
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.
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.
It won't matter one iota if the pictures can be verified as to the location and time or not.
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