New revelations!: The Case Against the Haditha Defendants is Coming Unglued

Defend Our Marines ^ | July 25, 2007 | Nathaniel R. Helms

[RedRover]

Nat Helms served three tours in Vietnam and, most recently, is the author of My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story (Meredith Books, 2007)

________________________

Nat Helms is now confirming what he first reported here. There was a Predator in the sky above Haditha that morning, and the scale of the battle was known up and down the chain of command.

We'll also stay on this story about LCpl Mendoza. I'd hate to think that NCIS did something at odds with US law, wouldn't you? This should get very interesting so stay tuned!

[bmwcyle]

AMEN

[RedRover]

[lilycicero]

1.) If Mendoza lied about his citizenship status and fraudulently enlisted in the Marine Corps; 2.) If Mendoza had already been convicted of two or more crimes.

I'd like to place 20 down on #2 please.

[RedRover]

The Article 32 hearing for LCpl Stephen Tatum concluded today with closing statements. The case is now in the hands of the Investigating Officer. LtCol Paul Ware.

For more about the LCpl Humberto Mendoza testimony at the LCpl Tatum hearing, see this thread.

Marine Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, right, arrives with his civilian defense attorneys Jack Zimmerman, left, and Kyle Sampson, center, for his Article 32 Investigation Hearing at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base in San Diego County Monday, July 16, 2007. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

[Lancey Howard]

Great post!

[freeangel]

Can murtha be prosecuted for making false alllegations?

[jazusamo]

If you would like to help with the civilian lawyer’s legal fees for the
Haditha Marines you can do so by going to these sites.

Defend Our Marines

Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt

SSgt. Frank Wuterich

Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum

Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani

Military Combat Defense Fund

[Marine_Uncle]

Thanks for the ping. The truth of what went on continues to show the Marines did nothing more then carry out routine missions with no britches in the ROE.
The NCIS had better pay for this travesty big time.

[RedRover]

Mendoza went from being part of a combat stack of Marines attacking a hostile objective to a lone Marine apparently wandering around in a smoke-filled house...

Funny how a story can change when you think you'll be deported back to the land of Hugo Chavez!

[Fred Nerks]

Someday the truth will be available for everybody to see for themselves. The continuous video should be 8-10 hours, and includes the entire fight, one Marine said. “[It]… finishes with the insurgent holding a child in order to avoid getting bombed again,” he added, “before we swarmed in to capture him.”

Lock Murtha in a cell and make him watch it over and over again...

[jazusamo]

Another good piece by Nat Helms.

I believe we’ll hear a lot more about LCpl Mendoza should any of these Marines go to court-martial and he testifies for the prosecution but we’ll hear it from defense attorneys.

[caisson71]

All of this makes me sick. It is hard enough, in the fog of battle and house to house fighting to distinguish civilian from combatant especially when the combatants shied themselves behind women and children.
If NCIS, or any other government agency, is somehow cooking the facts for the sake of politics, I say we are in deep shit.
I think I would be in jail today if we have video cameras and picture cell phones in Nam.
The PC war appears is impossible.

[RedRover]

Yes indeed.

There hasn't been any indication yet that the IO, LtCol Paul Ware, took Mendoza's testimony seriously. The recommendation in the LCpl Sharratt hearing took three weeks from the close of the hearing. We may not know until mid-August just what LtCol Ware thinks about all this. He did not go easy on NCIS and the prosecution in the Sharratt case and doubt he will here either.

BTW, for people trying to follow what happened in the LCpl Tatum case, here's a handy diagram...

[Girlene]

Excellent investigation to find the truth and another outstanding article by Nat Helms. So who are all these division level folks who knew this was a major engagement? Why did everybody try to act like the Haditha "incident" was an isolated event in these 4 houses? Why the silence from division level?

An officer who was there said so many people were watching the fight go down that a faraway Public Affairs Officer wrote 3/1 to suggest it was time to “maximize the coalition coverage of this, pointing out to the locals that insurgents don't care about their children."

Ummmmmmm.....has he been called to the witness stand in any of these hearings?

[RedRover]

Only if there's a ruling that Murtha was acting outside his duties as a congressman. At the moment, Murtha is being protected by the Department of Justice. They denied a request by SSgt Wuterich's attorneys for a deposition. The decision is currently being appealed.

There have been cases of congressmen being sued. Sen. Proxmire, most famously.

An interesting wrinkle in the Murtha case is that he made all those false allegations from his campaign headquarters in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. That's part of the argument that Murtha was acting outside his role as a congressman.

I would think that it'd be clear enough that no elected representative has the right to falsely accuse citizens of being cold-blooded murderers. But President Bush's DOJ apparently thinks otherwise.

[dynachrome]

Why so long for this to come out?
I don’t want to go down the tinfoil hat road, but WTF?

[brityank]

I don't know where, but I firmly recall Conlin stating that "in his opinion" that Chessani should have been out in the field instead of "looking at grainy images at the CP".

Seems we now have confirmation that they were anything but "grainy images" and gave him and the rest of his chain of command a far better tactical vision than could be had by radio riding around from hot-spot to hot-spot. And if everyone up to and including Mathis could have monitored real-time, and I'm sure watched replays -- WHY THE HELL ARE THESE MEN ON TRIAL? Winter and Walker both deserve to walk the plank.

[RedRover]

Could it be why Col. R. Gary Sokoloski, Gen Huck's aide, refused to testify in the Haditha hearings? He's certainly afraid to own up to something (while letting Marines down the chain be hung out to dry).

[Lancey Howard]

Regardless of what happens, and regardless of which version of the story is true, it’s a shame that Mendoza turned out to be a weasel. “Semper fidelis” obviously has no meaning for that scumbag. A real ‘stand up guy’, that Mendoza.