Posted on 06/07/2006 3:56:26 PM PDT by Sam Hill
The man Time Magazine first described as a "budding journalism student" Thaer Thabit al-Hadithi is now portrayed as an "Iraq Investigator" by the DNC's Associated Press.
But excerpts from the AP's article raises some questions about him and his group's only other member, Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani:
Secretary-General of the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring, and also a Haditha resident who witnessed parts of the incident, Thaer al-Hadithi, gives a detailed account of the alleged massacre of 24 Iraqis by U.S. Marines last year, to an Associated Press reporter at the offices of the group in Baghdad, Iraq Tuesday, June 6, 2006.
Iraq Investigator Tells AP About Haditha
June 7, 2006BAGHDAD, Iraq A small group of U.S. Marines alleged to have killed up to two dozen Iraqi civilians conducted a house-to-house hunt that stretched over three hours, while other Marines in Haditha did not intervene, according to an Iraqi human rights investigator.
The Associated Press interview of the activist is the most detailed account yet of Iraqi accusations that Marines went on a rampage after a comrade was killed by a bomb. Two separate U.S. military investigations of the incident are under way.
Thaer al-Hadithi, a member and spokesman for the Hammurabi human rights association, a Sunni Muslim group, recounted with the help of a satellite map when and where Iraqi civilians cowered and sometimes died.
The case, which came to public attention two months ago because of a video released by the Hammurabi group, is threatening to further weaken popular support for the Iraq war in the United States and has tarnished the militarys image in Iraq and around the world...
Hammurabi chairman Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani told the AP on Tuesday that his group was investigating other violations of Iraqi civil rights by Western forces in the mainly Sunni Arab provinces of Anbar and Salaheddin to the west and north of Baghdad. He said the group also was looking into violations by Iraqi security forces, militias and tribal clans.
"We are also against terrorism," he said...
Al-Hadithi did not attend any of the meetings between victims families and the U.S. military, but he based his account of what the Marines officer said on briefings from Hammurabis Haditha representative and conversations with the families.
Al-Mashhadani, Hammurabis chairman, who lectures on economics at Baghdads al-Mustansiriyah University, said the organization was publicizing the Haditha incident to make sure its not repeated...
But back in March when this story first was reported by Time Magazine we were told by Time reporter Ghosh that Thaer Thabit (aka Thabet) al-Hadithi did not want his name known out of concern for his personal safety.
Why start a human rights group if you want to remain anonymous?
But that is just the start of the many questionable aspects of Thabits accounts.
Bear in mind that this "budding journalism student" waited until the next day to videotape this alleged atrocity, which supposedly happened on his very doorstep.
Not that this same "budding journalism student" and self-proclaimed human rights watcher did not bother to turn over his video to a media outlet or a real human rights group from November 2005 until March 2006. A four month delay.
Thats how eager they were to make sure such a crime is never again repeated.
And look at the Thabit's partner at Hammurabi, Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani .
Al-Mashhadani is described in a December 15, 2005 article from the Institute For War And Peace as an election monitor. In fact, he expressed great satisfaction with the turnout in the Iraqi elections:
Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani, an election monitor in Baghdad with the non-governmental organisation Hamurabi, said no major violations occurred in Baghdad. He expected 90 per cent turnout in Sunni Arab areas.
(Which is quite ironic, given that only 150 people out of 90,000 dare to risk their lives to vote in the earlier October referendum in Haditha.)
But if Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani was talking to the media in December about the election turnout, why didn't he tell them then about this alleged atrocity at Haditha that had just occurred three weeks before?
Wasn't that the purpose in starting the Hammurabi group?
It just doesn't make sense.
Kimber was not involved and his talks with the city council are not related.
And in a town the size of Haditha 90,000, no whispering campaign, no demonstrations, no protests to the government? Do you believe that that many would be killed and local leaders wouldn't know about it a few days later?
The mayor and a bunch of chiefs knew about it and discussed the matter with Capt McConnell. McConnell said it was a mistake and the collateral damage money was paid. The famiily in the first house was related to a city councilman.
Another lying movie in the making?
Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani, an election monitor in Baghdad with the non-governmental organisation Hamurabi
http://tinyurl.com/k3eru
"They can't erase what they did simply by moving to other prisons, said Abdul Rahman al-Mashhadani, head of Iraq's Hammurabi rights group, "and I don't think we will be allowed to visit the new prisons and report the violations there."
http://tinyurl.com/jt545
"Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring"
Secretary-General?
Hammurabi is a local group of two (2) Muslims
I myself am the Emperor of the Universe......
Remember "lol, ha, and ho, ho"!!
Ho Ho Ho!
-- Green Giant lingo
Sounds like Santa lingo to me!
"There's only 2 choices, because the Marines involved did kill the 2 families. Either they killed them by mistake, or they killed them deliberately."
No, there is a third choice, someone other than Marines killed the people in question.
Actually, there is a fourth choice, the people in Haditha were not killed, the video is from others that were not in Haditha at the time the event "supposedly" took place. The people in the video were killed somewhere else.
Great post! This is the first I heard that the "Iraq Civil Rights Group" that fed the "massacre" story to the useful idiots at TIME was a new "organization" and had only two members. LOL!
Obviously, the reason they "delayed" breaking the story was because the story hadn't been fully scripted and convincingly choreographed yet, and because they wanted to make sure the story got planted with an especially dull, hate-America-first a-hole like the one they found at TIME.
"Great post! This is the first I heard that the "Iraq Civil Rights Group" that fed the "massacre" story to the useful idiots at TIME was a new "organization" and had only two members."
It's even worse than that.
When time first "broke" this story, in May they claimed that the tape had been given to them by Human Rights Watch. (Which, whatever you might think of them, at least is an established group.)
Then, after the story got traction, Time slipped in a slight retraction (buried way down at the bottom of one of their follow-up pieces). They said that the group was Hammurabi, but that they were involved with Human Rights Watch.
Only now does Time admit (again, in buried corrections) that this two man upstart group has NOTHING to do with Human Rights Group.
But they used that lie long enough to give his highly suspect story additional credibility.
That's how our one party media works.
Nice, I saved that flag too.
Notably, Kimber says he heard nothing about a civilian massacre during weekly meetings with the Haditha City Council and talks with local leaders. "It would have been huge, there would have been no question it would have filtered down to us," he said. "We reported no significant atmospheric change as a result of that day."
---
Important point. A real atrocity would have been highlighted locally. Now we have a media-manufactured atrocity.
That's 'cause it ain't no rat, it's a cat... a polecat that is. (AKA skunk).
Of course they could have been mistaken. They could have fired on the house, and then went in and found the bodies. Doesn't mean they killed them all.
Also, how do we know the Marines involved claimed this? Have we seen their reports? Or the photos that the CoS of the Marine Corps has seen?
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