Posted on 07/05/2006 3:33:11 PM PDT by pissant
First off, the information in the Affidavit and the MSM regarding this incident in Muhmudiyah does not look good for Steven Green or his alleged conspirators. If he or they are guilty of this crime, then I pray that the Military comes down on them like a ton bricks. The description of what happened is beyond disgusting and evil.
Having said that, I will continue to give the benefit of the doubt to Steven Green and the others, until they confess in a military court or are found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
So in the interim, I will try to do my best, like on the Haditha case, to poke holes in allegations, and to publicize the work of others doing the same thing.
In regards to the affidavit (AD) used to charge Steven Green, I have a couple of questions/observations. You can click on the URL above to see the affidavit.
Questions:
In Item #5 in the AD, the CID investigation states that 3 men approached checkpoint 1 (TCP#1) on 3/12/2006 at 5:30 PM and reported that a family had been killed in their house and that it was believed to have been done by Anti Iraq forces or "others".
In Item #12, SOI5 (source of information) says that on 3/11/2006 an Iraqi approached him and told him the house had been burned. The Iraqi said four were dead and one had been raped. An HOUR later, Iraqi army personnel and four US soldiers, including SOI5, went to the scene and presumably took the photos.
So did the event happen on 3/11 or 3/12? If SOI5 is correct, then the bodies would have been in the morgue by 3/12 and a 3/11 report would have been discovered by the CID.
Item #6 says that during a combat stress debriefing on 6/20/06 it was determined that these members of the 4th Infantry division commited this crime. Yet all the previous reports say that two guys were debriefed, neither an eyewitness. One said that he overheard guys talking about it, and another said that he heard that the guys burned their clothes. And it was not until 6/24/06 that the invistigation from CIS started. Therefore Item 6 is factually wrong to say it was "determined" on 6/20/06 that our men did this.
In Item #8, SOI1 says SOI2 and KP1 (known participant) changed clothes before heading to the house. Then he says that SOI2, SOI3, SG and KP1 all burned their clothes when they got back. First, SOI3 supposedly stayed guard at the door fo the house, so why would he burn his clothes? And if he was in uniform, would he really burn his uniform at a checkpoint and stand there in his skivvies? 2nd, was SOI1 really dumb enough to man the checkpoint by himself while these guys went raping and pillaging, especially since one of the M4s they took belonged to SOI1?
In Item #10, SOI2 states "Green went into the bedroom to keep the rest of the family there" and that "KP1 threw a woman to the floor". After Green killed the family, SOI2 states that he witnessed "Green and KP1 rape the woamn that SOI3 had thrown to the floor". So who threw the rape victim to the floor?? SOI3 was supposedly standing guard outside the house.
In Item #11, SOI3 says that SOI2 ordered him to toss the AK-47 used by Green into the canal. SOI2 does not mention (items #9 and #10) that he asked SOI3 to get rid of AK-47.
Item #13 is the photo evidence. If this photo evidence was taken 3/11/06 by the Iraqi and US soldiers that went to investigate per item #12 (SOI5's version) then something is terribly amiss about the timing of this story.
There was a theory posted yesterday that SOI1, SOI2, SOI3 and SOI4 had been threatened by Iraqi terrorists with death unless they penned the murders on some US soldier. </sarcasem>
The first wave, which lasted 3 months, was that the Iraqis did it.
A strong, disturbed mind only can lead weak and timid minds. I'd like to think any random sample of 6 men in the US military would find at least 2 or 3 that were not weak and timid. I know far too many of them to think differently.
Agreed. But the blogosphere, and FR, have been a bulwark against the MSM. That is the purpose of this and many threads on FR.
One soldier tossed his weapon, an AK-47, in a nearby canal. Federal prosecutors said investigators took photographs of what appears to be a burned body of a woman with blankets thrown over her torso.
http://www.belleville.com/mld/belleville/news/nation/14960620.htm
According to the criminal complaint, Iraqis notified the U.S. soldiers of the slayings and reported the house was on fire on the afternoon of March 12. A soldier who allegedly was in the house during the crime was one of those who later responded to the scene. Army investigators have a series of 15 photographs of the bodies, taken to record what was believed at the time to be an insurgent attack.
http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/184889/3/
Photographs taken at the crime scene after a family member reported the murders to U.S. troops corroborate the details given by the witnesses, the documents state. The photos also show “the burned body of what appears to be a woman with blankets thrown over her upper torso,” the documents state.
http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1926872.php
I am sorry. I thought we were after the truth. My bad.
Five men.
TexKat, NONE of those tell me who it was or when it was.
It just says investigators. Was it SOI5's group or someone they called in when they got there on 3/11?
Was it a separate group on 3/12 that was called in from checkpoint 1, after the 3 men approached the checkpoint at 5:30 pm on March 12th?
In the AD, there are 2 documented cases of iraqis telling the checkpoint soldiers about the deaths. Which one called the investigators in?
>>But the blogosphere, and FR, have been a bulwark against the MSM. That is the purpose of this and many threads on FR.<<
Please. You opened with the SOLE purpose of tearing holes in the affidavit. At least be honest.
Please. You opened with your stated purpose to put holes in the affidavit. And a lot of your posts quote MSM in that effort.
There was no wave in the MSM. It went basically unreported or given marginal coverage.
The waves I'm referring to are ones that accuse the US of atrocities. If it is not US soldiers in the crosshairs, it may make a 1 paragraph blurb in the Army Times or Reuters. Period.
Yes, that is true. And I did the same thing to the initial AP report from Ryan Lenz which started the avalanche of coverage int he MSM. This is a continuation.
And the holes are there.
Green is lucky we passed that law. Otherwise, he may have been turned over to the Iraqis for trial.
That is also true. Hang around FR long enough and you'll see how threads morph. Info from the MSM has been used on this thread by just about everyone, including me. If nothing else, it shows how "witnesses" can have vastly different interpretations of events.
At least we have clarified that the MAIN purpose of this thread is to poke holes in the affidavit which was not written to convict him but to hurriedly get an arrest while they still knew where he was, by some guy in Kentucky.
I don't care where he is tried. A good argument can be made for either venue, I think.
In other news:
Tearful Filipina tags US marine in rape trial
MANILA (AFP) - A 22 year-old Filipina broke down in tears in the witness stand as she identified a US Marine seated across from her in a Philippines courtroom as her attacker in a high-profile rape case.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, took the stand to accuse Lance Corporal Daniel Smith of raping her after he and three other US Marine defendants allegedly carried her out of a nightclub during a night of partying.
But the MAIN purpose for this thread was YOUR posted statement to put holes in the affidavit. You linked to the affidavit. Nothing about the MSM.
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