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How Haditha Came to Light
Time ^ | Sunday, June 4, 2006 | JEFFREY KLUGER

Posted on 06/04/2006 8:08:05 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican

The Haditha killings occurred last November, but it wasn't until January that TIME first heard whispers about them. The initial account of the incident was published in March in the magazine and on TIME.com The manner in which TIME got the story and the painstaking way the facts revealed themselves illustrate the challenges of trying to cover a dangerous, deadly conflict where the truth isn't always what it appears to be.

If the Marines are indeed guilty of an atrocity, they had the ill fortune to have committed their crime in the worst possible place: outside the front door of a budding Iraqi journalist and human-rights activist. Taher Thabet, 43, was at home in Haditha on the morning of Nov. 19 when around 7:15 he heard the detonation of the roadside bomb that struck a Marine humvee, killing the driver, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, 20. The blast shattered Thabet's windows. He ran outside in time to see Marines from three other humvees springing from their vehicles and heading for four homes on either side of the road. "They went into one house. I heard gunfire, explosions and screams," he told TIME in an interview in Baghdad last month. "Then they came out and went into another. I could only stand and watch."

The next morning, Thabet--who last year co-founded a small outfit called the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring--went into the houses where the killings had taken place and videotaped what he saw, as well as the wrenching scenes later at the local morgue, where friends and family collected the bodies of the victims. "I didn't know what I was recording," he says. "I just felt I had to record everything I could see."

(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: haditha; iraq
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1 posted on 06/04/2006 8:08:09 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican

Oh yeah, thats the guy who arrested and jailed for links to terrorists.... human right sactivist sure....


2 posted on 06/04/2006 8:12:02 PM PDT by observer5 ("Better violate the rights of a few, than of all!)
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To: MinorityRepublican
If the Marines are indeed guilty of an atrocity, they had the ill fortune to have committed their crime in the worst possible place: outside the front door of a budding Iraqi journalist and human-rights activist.

It goes without saying that our MSM will inherently believe one of their own before they would consider our armed forces as being truthful.
3 posted on 06/04/2006 8:12:29 PM PDT by Pox
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To: Pox

It goes without saying that our MSM will inherently believe one of their own before they would consider our armed forces as being truthful.




That's what pisses me off the most...they believe any Iraqi over our Marines.....


4 posted on 06/04/2006 8:14:33 PM PDT by mystery-ak (Army Wife and Army Mother.....toughest job in the military)
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To: Smartass; potlatch

I am too disgusted to comment...


5 posted on 06/04/2006 8:14:43 PM PDT by bitt
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To: MinorityRepublican; Coop; smoothsailing; freema; Just A Nobody

Ping for the Slime Time Magazine report, disgusting.


6 posted on 06/04/2006 8:17:19 PM PDT by jazusamo (DIANA IREY for Congress, PA 12th District: Retire murtha.)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Now, on the lighter side of the news, Masked gunmen stopped two minivans carrying students north of Baghdad Sunday, ordered the passengers off, separated Shiites from Sunni Arabs, and killed the 21 Shiites "in the name of Islam".(Patrick Quinn, AP)

Those wascally "masked gunmen" are always playing jokes on Shiite students. Where's the outrage?

7 posted on 06/04/2006 8:20:05 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (DemocRATS! America's Lynch Mob.)
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To: MinorityRepublican
Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring

In other words, liberal code words for a Terrorist Propaganda Machine.

8 posted on 06/04/2006 8:21:07 PM PDT by Always Right
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To: MinorityRepublican
Didn't they recently announce that the investigation found no wrongdoing? The Marines were under fire and returned fire; eventually having to call in air support, which is what caused the civilian casualties. Where did I hear that?
9 posted on 06/04/2006 8:22:19 PM PDT by Jaysun (In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.)
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To: bitt; devolve; PhilDragoo; ntnychik; Smartass; Seadog Bytes
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

10 posted on 06/04/2006 8:23:32 PM PDT by potlatch (Does a clean house indicate that there is a broken computer in it?)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Mr. Thabet's lying. The Marines took fire from the first house and didn't move to that house until they did.


11 posted on 06/04/2006 8:24:39 PM PDT by spunkets
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To: FlingWingFlyer; Chieftain

It is very silent...isn't it?

Masked gunmen? Could it be the same masked gunmen who shot up the Iraqi's and then called the Iraqi Human rights journalist?

No, that would be a story that is way too complex for our MSM to figure out. They work on a Paint by Numbers concept.
I hate them. I hate the MSM. I hate them. ( there now I feel better)


12 posted on 06/04/2006 8:26:17 PM PDT by Recovering Ex-hippie (Moderate Mooslims.....what's that?)
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To: MinorityRepublican
The manner in which TIME got the story and the painstaking way the facts revealed themselves illustrate the challenges of trying to cover a dangerous, deadly conflict where the truth isn't always what it appears to be.

Is it just me, or does it sound like they're already hedging their bet on this?

13 posted on 06/04/2006 8:27:58 PM PDT by neodad (USS Vincennes (CG-49) Freedom's Fortress)
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To: Jaysun

to answer your question, Marines were found innocent of wrong doing in another incident, in another city, not Haditha (sp)


but back to this event, I wonder why this budding journalist didn't get shot by the Marines? I mean, if they were shooting everyone in sight, you'd think they would get this guy too.


14 posted on 06/04/2006 8:31:08 PM PDT by YaYa123
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To: neodad
The manner in which TIME got the story and the painstaking way the facts revealed themselves

Ah yes. You notice in the article that they conducted their interviews by email because of the danger going to Haditha from Baghdad. I wonder how reliable an interview is that's conducted by email.

15 posted on 06/04/2006 8:34:13 PM PDT by jazusamo (DIANA IREY for Congress, PA 12th District: Retire murtha.)
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To: Recovering Ex-hippie

It's almost as though the MSM and their DemocRAT comrades are trying to turn Iraq into "another Vietnam," isn't it?


16 posted on 06/04/2006 8:36:21 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (DemocRATS! America's Lynch Mob.)
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To: MinorityRepublican

CYA. Time solicited this story. Face the Nation this morning glorified this budding Iraqi journalist all the while saying he never could have had this opportunity before. Time still can't vet their fiction from facts, as this story says there were no shrapnel wounds.


17 posted on 06/04/2006 8:36:26 PM PDT by freema (Proud Marine FRiend, Mom, Aunt, Sister, Friend, Wife, Daughter, Niece)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Did someone at TIME find a Koran in the toilet?


18 posted on 06/04/2006 8:37:01 PM PDT by TNdandelion
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To: MinorityRepublican

Too many MSM editors can't get the drug induced flashbacks to Vietnam out of their heads. Iraq isn't Vietnam, and no matter how many lies and exaggerations they make, reality (victory over an evil dictator) trumps their fantasy nightmare (50,000 dead, the glorious insurgents have us in a quagmire).


19 posted on 06/04/2006 8:37:38 PM PDT by HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath (Jesus always reads His knee-mail. (Hall of Fame Hit-N-Run poster))
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To: MinorityRepublican

Just wondering why this guy waited untill last year to start his organization (Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy). Surely there were human rights abuses going on inside Iraq befor last year? Werent there???


20 posted on 06/04/2006 8:40:54 PM PDT by Delta 21 ( MKC USCG - ret)
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