Posted on 05/30/2008 4:19:30 PM PDT by freema
AMP PENDLETON – Seeing the corpses of 24 Iraqi men, women and children – all killed in a short span Nov. 19, 2005, in the city of Haditha – made a powerful impression on Marine Sgt. Justin Laughner.
A squad of fellow Marines had done the killing. Laughner, an intelligence analyst, took pictures of the bodies and stored them on his personal laptop computer.
Then one day in February 2006, he said, an intelligence officer told him to get rid of the images. In a Camp Pendleton courtroom yesterday, Laughner identified that officer at 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson.
“He told me I needed to delete them,” said Laughner, now a staff sergeant. “I knew I had done something wrong with those photographs.”
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
The Marines didn't scrutinize the incident until a reporter from Time magazine started asking about it several months later. The military has since conducted three investigations into the case.
Laughner said Grayson then asked him to dictate an account of his actions on Nov. 19 and told him to delete the photos. He said he didn't fully trust Grayson afterward.
Under cross-examination, Laughner acknowledged lying to multiple investigators about the disposition of the pictures. He said he came clean after learning that his computer would be seized
Ping
Even if he deleted them, they would have been easy to retrieve using any number of software programs. Not sure why an intelligence officer would say something that dumb.
Seems like the military has been following a 100% disclosure policy in everything I’ve seen. They’ve realized that concealment, even if unintentional or routine, leads to bigger stories down the line as news orgs try to scoop each other with negative stories.
Sometimes its the women or children(and terrorists) -OR- the guys guarding your BACK... Only a sentimental FOOL would make the WRONG choice.. -or- someone not cut out for combat.. like most all women..
It’s worse than that, there has been cases of kiddie porn planted on some computers to solicit confessions in these cases
Army investigator testifies in Marine’s court-martial http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/military/20080530-1448-bn30grayson.html
During cross-examination, defense attorney Joseph Casas questioned Watt about allegations that he had threatened the lives and careers of Army officers investigating whether he had fraternized with a staff sergeant in violation of military regulations.
“While this has nothing to do with Haditha, this clearly goes to his truthfulness,” Casas said.
Watt acknowledged that he had been relieved of his command earlier this year, but he denied threatening other soldiers. He also said he did not have a personal relationship with the staff sergeant.
see the post above.
Please welcome Scott McCellen illegimate son...fathered Karl Rove and Goerge Bush of course!
Race, are you serious about this?!?
Laughner is an admitted liar and this Watt is dancing like Fred Astaire.
Watt acknowledged that he had been relieved of his command earlier this year, but he denied threatening other soldiers. He also said he did not have a personal relationship with the staff sergeant.
If Watt didn't threaten any soldiers or have a relationship with a SSGT then why was he relieved, there's got to be a reason and it reflects on his character.
I would never aim for women and children under any circumstance and I would expect my comrades to die with me as true MEN OF HONOR, nothing less. I would pray to God to guide my aim and then blast the terrorist bastards out between the innocent shoulders. If I miss, there is no excuse, there is no justifying this failure. A man should stand for courage and victory and die with courage and victory. A man should not stand for the petty number of years in his fleeting mortal life. I would rather die then go home to my wife and children and look them in the face and know that I have tainted their dignity with the spilled blood of innocents. They are worth more than that.
Oh, most noble Soothesayer. My sympathies.
How about it, jaz. Did you have any inkling? I’d heard nary a word...
Clearly — you are either naive or a fool.
In combat - it would make no difference..
Your positions are clearly those of one who has never had to make those decisions of life over death.....to fire or not to fire in the presence of “innocents”..
Our ROE are CLEAR in the care that MUST be exercised in the presence of “innocent non-combatants”.... But then you introduce a few hundred 19 year olds - wound up in a fire fight with adrenalin roaring through their veins, their hearts beating in their ears and the blood and brains of his buddy splattered across his face — and Shit happens.
Warriors suffer enough, when it is apparent they have unintentionally killed the innocent. But I would not want one to hesitate long enough to lose his own life to avoid the horrible consequence of killing the innocent.
Also clear - is that you should avoid military service by any means possible. You would be a hazard to those around you.
It has NEVER been satisfactorily explained to me, why a warrior on the ground - face to face with death, is considered guilty of “intentional homicide” when he kills an innocent during the heat of a firefight —— yet pilots who destroy entire villages or cities from 20,000 feet are not held to the same standards????
Care to take a shot at that one?
Should every pilot during WWII have returned with a full bomb load, rather that totally destroy the cities they were sent to destroy?
No Ma, I hadn’t heard a thing about Watt. I’m anxious to hear from someone in that courtroom that is going to report on what’s taking place instead of giving us the prosecution side of the case.
War is not quite like the movies where one guy slaps the other across the face with a glove and they face off at twenty paces with dueling pistols.
fna
Me, too! I have thousand pound eyelids and I’m sitting on pins and needles.
Ummmm.... no. War is never neat and clean. It’s hell. Especially in this case...when you don’t know who the enemy is (the cowards hide behind their civilians)...or if they’ve rigged the women and children to blow you up. You do what you have to do to survive and complete the mission.
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