Unnamed, unknown, unsubstantiated "Govt sources or Pentagon Officials" just like the ones who promised the Leftist "25 Indictment on Fritzmus" or "The Army is bogged down and cut off in Iraq" or "Gitmo Guards flushed a Koran"
Leftist Anti American Activist groups. Like Amnesty International and Anwer.
A self styled "Iraqi Civil Rights" group operating out of Terrorirst stronghold.
A supposed child "survivor" who has told three different tales on how she survived.
Perhaps people better take a deep breath and wait to find out what REALLY happened. Sounds like there is an awful lot of noise but very little light
I liked what Rush said today......Paraphrasing, big tims......EVERYDAY, the terrorists blow up innocent people with IED's and other means......our Marines, it appears, in the heat of battle killed some innocents....which is not how we would like it to be, but sometimes how it is!
The lefty's would rather attack our Marines in this instance, but would do NOTHING to keep Saddam from killing hundreds of thousands of his own citizens!
But is known so far .. it is nothing like My Lai and any one claiming it is .. is trying to rewrite history and use it to paint the entire military as bad and evil
They should be ashamed of themselves
Whatever happened on this day is being investigation and if there was wrong doing .. those involved will be dealt with
In the mean time .. a word of advice to the anti war liberals and Dem Leaders like Murtha
Don't you dare do to our military what you did to the vets from Vietnam
Haditha is one of the locales where Zarqawi was thought to be getting aid and comfort...
ping
I'm sorry, but the word of muslims will never, ever override what our U.S. Marines say. Muslims are trained from infancy to hate Jews, Americans, the West. They are taught that lying is a virtue if that lie is in defense of islam. How can any honest, serious minded person accept the word of these backwards, barbaric, America-hating neanderthals?
The article talks at length about the rules of war, how these rules were designed to 'civilize' warfare and restrict the soldier from becoming overzealous in combat. But when the Geneva Convention and the Hague rules were formed, there was no such enemy as these bloodthirsty devils of islam. These men are cold-blooded murderers and butchers of the human body. They spit on the gift of life that God gave them each time they strap on a suicide vest and mass murder civilians, policemen and Coalition troops who freed them from Saddam. They are animated not by a human soul, but by the Satanic spirit that has perfectly possessed them. They live to hate, they love to hate, they are hate.
Recently one such butcher was captured in Iraq, and he admitted to cutting off the heads of more than a hundred people. In any other context than a muslim carrying out his islamic duties, this man would be considered to be the cruelest serial killer that ever lived. There would be books and movies written about his unspeakable deeds. But he is a muslim, hence nobody bats an eye at the story and it is forgotten.
This is what we fight against, soul-less monsters rather than men. I don't blame our soldiers and Marines for wanting revenge against such monsters, who murder and then hide amongst the women and children like the cowardly pigs they are. Either we open up our rules of engagement and send in more troops, and get tougher with these animals or we lose the war in the long run, period. They will never be appeased, they have to be crushed.
Even if the video from the unarmed drone provides undeniable proof that the Marines did not commit any war crimes, I don't think it will be accepted by those intent on branding the entire U.S. Military as barbarians. Those who hate the Military have a history of ignoring facts.
Ping
"Under the stress of war, unchecked thumos can push a decent man over the threshold. That’s a fact. But to use Haditha to discredit the efforts of hundreds of thousands of American and Coalition servicemen in Iraq, is as wrong as it was to use My Lai to discredit our sacrifices in Vietnam."
this reinforces the case for the removal from office of Murtha for his reckless comments
Dr. Owens is Professor of Strategy and Force Planning at the US Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island where he specializes in the planning of US strategy and forces, especially naval and power projection forces; the political economy of national security; national security organization; strategic geography; and American civil-military relations. He also serves as Director of the Naval War College Electives Program. In addition to the core course, he teaches electives on The American Founding, Strategy and Policy of the American Civil War, The Statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln, Sea Power and Maritime Strategy, Strategy and Geography, and US Civil-Military Relations. From 1990 to 1997, Dr. Owens was Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly defense journal Strategic Review and Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Boston University.
Dr. Owens is a monthly columnist for the Providence Journal, writing primarily on security affairs and the character of American republican government. His articles on national security issues have appeared in such publications as International Security, Orbis, Armed Forces Journal, Joint Force Quarterly, The Public Interest, The Weekly Standard, Defence Analysis, US Naval Institute Proceedings, Marine Corps Gazette, Comparative Strategy, National Review, The New York Times, The Washington Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is co-editor of the textbook, Strategy and Force Planning, now in its third edition, for which he also wrote the chapters entitled "The Political Economy of National Security" and "Thinking About Strategy." He currently is working on a book tentatively entitled Sword of the Republic and Empire: A History of US Civil-Military Relations.
Before joining the faculty of the War College, Dr. Owens served as National Security Adviser to Senator Bob Kasten, Republican of Wisconsin, and Director of Legislative Affairs for the Nuclear Weapons Programs of the Department of Energy during the Reagan administration. Dr. Owens is also a Marine Corps veteran of Vietnam, where as an infantry platoon commander in 1968-1969, he was wounded twice and awarded the Silver Star medal. He retired from the Marine Corps Reserve as a Colonel in 1994.
Dr. Owens earned his Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Dallas, a Master of Arts in Economics from Oklahoma University, and his BA from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has taught at the University of Rhode Island, the University of Dallas, Catholic University, and the Marine Corps School of Advanced Warfighting (SAW). He has been a program officer for the Smith Richardson Foundation, Senior Visiting Fellow at the Center for Naval Analyses and a consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Plans Division, Headquarters Marine Corps; and J-5 Strategy, the Joint Staff.
"Danger is part of the friction of war. Without an accurate conception of danger we cannot understand war." - Karl von Clauswitz, On War, 1832.
And nations?
To make the point, it was okay to drop A-bombs on two cities in addition to obliterating Dresden as long as thumos was in check. And it successfully ended the war and reduced casualties.
But what if thumos was not in check and we made an instant battlefield decision while in a state of anger and frenzy which shortened the war and reduced casualties by dropping A-bombs on two cities in addition to obliterating Dresden?
Would we have still been a 'righteous' victor? Same result. The only difference being that in the case of the former, the decision was in long-making, dispassionate, tactical, and practical.
Make the call.
If you say no difference, that we were justified and righteous either way, then consider how you would judge something similar in nature, but on a much smaller scale, like Haditha (if, what they are saying happened is really the way it went down).
Or must we take the time to make plans and to act objectively, without passion, dropping bombs from the skies to insure it was not personal and close-up, making sure our thumos was in check in order for the act to be righteous?
Just thinking out loud here.