Posted on 05/31/2006 4:01:53 PM PDT by Types_with_Fist
A preliminary military inquiry found evidence that U.S. Marines killed two dozen Iraqi civilians in an unprovoked attack in November, contradicting the troops account, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
President George W. Bush said he was troubled by news stories on the November 19 killings of men, women and children in the town of Haditha, and a general at the Pentagon said the incident could complicate the job for the 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
Allegations such as this, regardless of how they are borne out by the facts, can have an effect on the ability of U.S. forces to continue to operate, Army Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, deputy director for regional operations for the militarys Joint Staff, told a Pentagon briefing.
These civilians KNEW there was a bomb there
"what do you do in a situation like that?"
I don't know. Nobody knows unless you are there. That's why we need to give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean, we have females martyring themselves. Just because you are female doesn't give you a pass on ROE. We have to take a deep breath, and hope for rationality, rather than hysteria.
we still don't know what happened. No, I don't think we should carpet bomb cities unless we have no intention of sending in ground troops afterwards. Of course they're already in the country.
Exactly....Not much has changed in the Corps -- and the high level attention they're giving this is smelling like the story will not be pretty.
"Carpet Bombing"
I do support laying waste to large areas of "insurgent" sanctuary or support. That is OUR strength....we have withheld it and the enemy is NOT bleeding or dying enough to dissuade him from taking the fight to our forces that are "just down the block"...
But I mentioned Dresden and Hiroshima to make the point that there were mostly INNOCENT CIVILIANS killed -- by the hundreds of thousands, yet we have today's media screaming bloody murder over the Haditha scenario....
What it tells me - is America will accept the large scale murder of the enemy's "innocent" population if that killing is done by "impersonal" pilots at 15,000 feet....rather than the Grunt who is there in the enemy's face -- eyeball to eyeball...
Hell, the same reaction met the bombing of civilian positions in Yugoslavia -- where we killed "innocent CHRISTIANS" to "save Muslims" from an over hyped exaggerated "genocide".
Americans need to decide only one thing about waging war.
Do they wish to survive? To survive, they must not lose.
All else should be confined to a classrooms in "ethics"..
Our enemy is little concerned about the "issues" that torment us.
Semper Fi
I agree that you have the right to speak your mind. I'm not a lock-step person myself, as you might have seen in other threads regarding the border and the budget, so I know it's not right to squash an opinion merely because it differs.
It's certainly your right to bring up a story you may think is true about the President and the First Lady's relationship with each other. But its also our right to tell you that it's not always the best thing to bring up "secrets" if they are about personal dealings (even about famous people) and especially if they are unverified, and really especially if it could be hurtful. To me, that's gossip, I don't do it. That's how I was raised. That's all I'm saying.
Now if we had no intention of invading an enemy and just level their cities... I'm fine with that
Be careful what you say or Reuters might e mail you a death threat as they did to Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.
They're not known as a terrorist supporting website for nothing
Close the borders first!
This has been under investigation for three months. Generally, investigations are either very short--a matter of days (nothing to see here, move along) or very long (which means someone's in a ton of trouble).
There are enough lawyers (prosecution and defense) showing up on the base to start a national government. (The Republic of Pendletonia?)
The final straw for me? When the defense attorney (an anti-war activist, BTW) said that HIS clients weren't the target of the probe. When that happens, it's even money that the client's getting indicted.
Also interesting enough the other poster she was conversing with got banned yesterday during their gossip mongering posts.
I am very sick of the attacks on the President in these anti-war, anti-troops, anti-American threads. But actually this is going on in many threads lately.
BUT to attack the marriage of the President and his lovely wife was just to much. Just where will the posters draw the line? To stay silent is giving consent and I will not stay silent.
Yes, I do respect him AND the job he is doing. Even if and when I disagree on certain issues. But to say that President Bush is not doing the job he was elected to do and to attack his marriage and spread ugly gossip about him and his wife is NOT respecting him and the office of the President of the United States of America.
He is doing the job he was elected to do and doing it very well!!
Hey, loudmouth, I said I'd check back.
When and where?
Since you know so much about my combat experience or lack there of . . .
I will stand by our troops
. . . when was it you stood AS a troop? . . . in combat?
I'm a girl, as you may have guessed by my name. My husband, dad, and both my brothers served in combat.
A girl . . . well that explains your hysterics and big mouth.
Exactly, IMHO if there is doubt as to what happened you always should err on the side of the troops.
What a nasty thing to say. Tsk, tsk.
You're the first person who has ever suggested that supporting our troops is a form of hysteria.
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