Shameful reactions to Haditha 'atrocity' (Whines Incessantly About Free Republic!)

Gulf News ^ | 5/29/06 | Linda S. Heard (grab your tissues)

[Peach]

From Hugh Hewitt's web site, look at how the press has mis-reported this story:
(NOTE TO ALL: Someone is reporting on this story in the first person singular and that person is not me.

The Post has been unable to get anyone from the Pentagon on the record on the investigation, using mostly anonymous sources.

The one man they did get on the record on Friday was retired Brig. Gen. David H. Brahms, a long-time lawyer with the Marine Corps who has experience with these types of cases. His quote is in the third paragraph. See if you can guess why the prominent first-quote placement:

"When these investigations come out, there's going to be a firestorm," said retired Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, formerly a top lawyer for the Marine Corps. "It will be worse than Abu Ghraib -- nobody was killed at Abu Ghraib." I have a feeling someone was lying in wait for an Abu Ghraib reference.

I read the quote and was taken aback because I spoke to the same Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms about the case this week, and his sentiments were very different from those presented in the Post. Which explains why he sent me this statement yesterday:

"Recent reporting on the events in Haditha, Iraq have included significant factual errors and/or misleading statements. This includes a quote attributed to me in the Washington Post this morning that was taken completely out of context and its meaning distorted. Many facts that are favorable to the Marines involved have not yet been disclosed."

When Brahms and I spoke, he made it clear that his concern is that the Marine Corps do a thorough investigation and punish severely those who did wrong, if in fact it is found that they did. He feels confident that will happen. His other concern is that the Marines involved get a fair trial in a highly politicized environment:

"The worst thing that can happen in a case of this kind is to have it politicized...that's exactly what has happened here. They're leaking a story which is yet unwritten." "It's not normal to have a Member of Congress to decide to have hearings, at least while this whole business is in flux."

"I think there has been (a rush to judgement)...This has got to impact the fairness of the procedure."

"We'll get more precise information. Let's kind of step back, let's try to realize that there's another side of this story...People accused may be guys like my son and your brothers."

"The problem is, of course, that everybody's got a political agenda...in the middle are a group of American Marines."

[silver charm]

"Linda! You are a disservice to America and journalism"

Ms. Heard is Eurotrash, based in Cairo and writing for an arab rag with a small readership. This latest piddling screed of hers has probably the best thing that has happened to it as far as readership goes.

She says in her profile that her dream is to see a Palestinian State with Jerusalem as its capital.

[veronica]

A sad commentary on websites CP, that they will reflexively defend even the most vile America-haters and Jew-haters, if the haters take their side against FR.

[concretebob]

Wow. According to Ms. Heard, I've been hanging with some pretty disreputable types

You lucky scoundrel, you.
I only get to hang out with FReepers and Protest Warriors, and Wounded Warriors, and Coop

..... oh wait a minute....Never Mind...

[Coop]

I only get to hang out with FReepers and Protest Warriors, and Wounded Warriors, and Coop

Well! See if I ever hoist you up by the buttocks again, you ingrate!

[avacado]

--- From what I've heard, she's Eurotrash. ---

Oh yes, Europe! The very same Western Europeans who sat around sipping fine wines in outdoor cafes and brewing good beer and enjoying the affluent life while their Eastern European brothers endured decades of genocide and jack-boot totalitarianism.

That lady needs to clean her own kitchen before even thinking about the USA!

[Eighth Square]

Wonder what Mzzzz Heard's view would be of General George S. Patton's actions following his troop's discovery in WW 2 of one of Germany's notorious concentration camps (I believe it was Belsen), where he ordered the immediate execution of a dozen or so guards (including females) who were still hanging around the camp at the time of liberation? He had them lined them up against a fence and gunned down.

[SJackson]

A read of the article, link in post 325, yields only 2 comments remotely "supportive" of the "barbarity" of our military.

6-"IF YOU CAN'T STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS, THEN PLEASE STAND IN FRONT OF THEM..."

and

49 IMHO one Marine is worth more than any Iraqi, dead or alive.

Not much to characterize as Shameful reactions to Haditha 'atrocity' . Of course you'd have to read the thread to know that.

Lots of criticism of Murtha and Heard though, which is the real issue.

[SJackson]

Of course Linda would consicer Freerepublic as part of the Israeli Propaganda Network

[Coop]

Good synopsis. And let's not forget that she tried to attribute three statements to me (or some other random FReeper using the word "Dishonorable"), yet a simple review of the thread showed three different posters for those three posts. Quite the impressive "journalist" we have here! ROTFL!

[concrete is my business]

Right on Coop.

I have been reading the Arab news and islamonline and jihadunspun etc. etc. since going on line in 2000.

It has been a real education for me in the effective use of propaganda.

I mean, who knew that cartoons could justify murder and mayhem and that justification would be widely accepted?

IMO, "writers" like Ms. Heard play a big part in the WOT.

The ME propaganda machine nicknamed "Paliwood", concoct and promote endlessly and I think the American people need to know more about who they are and what they do.

IIRC, the second intifada was started with a faked film of a Palestinian boy being cradled by his father while shot and killed by soldiers

Also FYI, Al Gore had an article that was featured on the website jihadunspun for quite some time. -lol-

[Huber]

Not surprisingly, the "thinkers" cited by the author are all socialists...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Adler

Felix Adler
Felix Adler (August_13, 1851–April_24, 1933) was a Jewish rationalist intellectual who founded the Society for Ethical Culture in New York City.


Chronology
Adler's family immigrated to the United States when he was six years of age on the occasion of his father Samuel Adler receiving an appointment as head rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New York.

Felix Adler graduated from Columbia University in 1870 and moved to Germany where he received a doctorate from Heidelberg University. Starting in 1874 he spent two years at Cornell University before his "dangerous attitude" caused him to leave.

He returned to New York and preached some sermons at the Temple Emanu-El in New York City where his father was still the head rabbi. He was noted for omitting reference to God in any of his Sermons, an unorthodox approach which made him suspect by many in the New York Jewish community and ended any thought of him succeeding his father.

Then, at the age of twenty-four, Adler founded the New York Society for Ethical Culture in 1876. Adler's belief in deed rather than creed led his society to foster two innovative projects. In 1877 the NYSEC sponsored Visiting Nursing, where nurses, and doctors if necessary, visited the homebound sick in poor districts. This service was eventually incorporated into the New York City health system. A year later, in 1878, a Free Kindergarten was established as a tuition-free school for working people's children. It evolved over time into the Ethical Culture Fieldston School.

In 1902 Adler was given the chair of political and social ethics at Columbia University, which he held until his death in 1933.

Well known as a lecturer and writer, Adler served as rector for the Ethical Culture School until his death in 1933. Throughout his life he always looked beyond the immediate concerns of family, labor, and race to the long-term challenge of reconstructing institutions like schools and government to promote greater justice in human relations. Within Adler's ethical philosophy, cooperation rather than competition remained the higher social value.

Adler became the founding chairman of the National Child Labor Committee in 1904. Lewis Hine became the committee's photographer in 1908.

In 1917 Adler served on the Civil Liberties Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Bureau and then the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

In 1928 Adler became president of the Eastern division of the American Philosophical Association.

Adler served on the first Executive Board of the National Urban League.


Tenement house reform
As a member of the New York State Tenement House Commission, Adler was concerned not only with overcrowding but also by the increase in contagious disease caused by overcrowding. Though not a proponent of free public housing, Adler spoke out about tenant reform and the rents which he considered exorbitant. Jacob Riis wrote that Adler had "clear incisive questions that went through all subterfuges to the root of things."

In 1885 Adler and others created the Tenement House Building Company in order to build "model" tenements that rented for $8–$14/month. By 1887 six model buildings had actually been erected on the Lower East Side of Manhattan for the sum of $155,000. Even though critics favored restrictive legislation for improving tenement living, the model tenement was a progressive step forward.


American foreign policy
By the late 1890s, with the increase in international conflicts, Adler switched his concern from domestic issues to the question of American foreign policy. While some contemporaries viewed the 1898 Spanish American War as an act to liberate the Cubans from Spanish rule, others perceived the U.S. victories in the Caribbean and the Philippines as the beginning of an expansionist empire. Adler at first supported the war but later expressed anxiety about American sovereignty over the Philippines and Puerto Rico, concluding that an imperialistic rather than a democratic goal was guiding U.S. foreign policy. Ethical Culture affirms "the supreme worth of the person" and Adler superimposed this tenet on international relations, believing that no single group could lay claim to superior institutions and lifestyle.

Unlike many of his contemporaries during World War I, Adler didn't feel that the defeat of Germany alone would make the world safe for democracy. Peace could only be achieved, he thought, if the representative democratic governments remained non-imperialistic and if the arms race was curbed. As a result, Adler opposed the Versailles Treaty and the League of Nations. As an alternative, Adler proposed a "Parliament of Parliaments" elected by the legislative bodies of the different nations and filled with different classes of people, rather than special interests, so that common and not national differences would prevail.


Philosophy
Adler came to promote a philosophy which he termed Ethical Culture, an essentially Kantian moral philosophy which prized public work and the use of reason to develop ultimate ethical standards. Adler published such works as Creed and Deed (1878), Moral Instruction of Children (1892), Life and Destiny (1905), The Religion of Duty (1906), Essentials of Spirituality (1908), An Ethical Philosophy of Life (1918), The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal (1925), and Our Part in this World. He made use of the ideas from his religion, the philosophy of Kant & Ralph Waldo Emerson, mixed with certain socialistic ideas of his time. He believed that the concept of a personal god was unnecessary and that the human personality is the central force of religion, that different people's interpretations of religions were to be respected as religious things in themselves.

---

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Thurman

Howard Thurman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Howard ThurmanHoward Thurman (born 1900 in Daytona Beach, Florida - April 10, 1981 in Daytona Beach, Florida) was an author, philosopher, theologian, educator and civil rights leader.

In 1923, Howard Thurman graduated from Morehouse College as valedictorian. After he was ordained a Baptist minister in 1925, he became the first black dean at Boston University and then the first dean of Rankin Chapel at Howard University in the District of Columbia.

In the latter position, he traveled broadly, heading Christian missions and meeting with world figures like Mahatma Gandhi. When Thurman asked Gandhi what message he should take back to America, Gandhi said he regretted not having made nonviolence more visible worldwide and suggested some American black men would succeed where he had failed.

Thurman was the author of 20 books of ethical and cultural criticism. The most famous of his works, Jesus and the Disinherited (1949), deeply influenced Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the modern Civil Rights Movement. In 1944 Thurman left his prestigious tenured position at Howard to help the Fellowship of Reconciliation establish the first racially integrated, intercultural church in the United States, the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples in San Francisco, California.

Ebony magazine called Thurman one of the 50 most important figures in African American history, and Life rated him among the 12 best preachers in the nation.



http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/1777/for.htm

Fellowship of Reconciliation
National Religion and Labor Foundation

Workers Defense League

Church Peace Mission

National Council Against Conscription

Turn Toward Peace

---

In 1955, California's Senate Investigating Committee on Education investigated the Fellowship of Reconciliation(FOR). The Committee's Chairman received a letter from John M. Swomley, Jr., FOR's Secretary, in which Swomley said: "This letter is to point out that our fellowship has had a long and consistent record of not collaborating with Communist or Communist front groups. We are a non-partisan religious pacifist organization." (When the Committee found evidence contrary to Swomley's assertion, the Fellowship distributed Alfred Hassler's "The Anatomy of a Smear", an alleged expose, according to FOR, of "A California legislative committee's attempt to link pacifism with subversion."
On November 24, 1915 at Garden City, Long Island sixty-eight persons established an American Fellowship of Reconciliation. Early Fellowship members included Harry F. Ward, Norman Thomas, Abraham J. Muste, Jane Addams, and Emily Greene Balch. Ward, if he never joined the Communist Party, at least became one of the Party's most active and influential fellow travelers. Thomas, who became the six-time presidential candidate on the Socialist Party ticket, spent a lifetime collaborating with the Communists. Muste spent more than thirty years supporting Communist fronts and causes and, at one time, he was national chairman of the now-defunct Workers Party, a Communist party.

When the Fellowship was founded in 1915, its initial activity was directed toward opposing the entry of the United States into World War I. Out of the Fellowship's conscientious objectors program, there developed, in 1916, the National Civil Liberties Bureau which was reorganized in 1920 as the American Civil Liberties Union(ACLU). At one time or another, nearly every leading radical in America was an official of the ACLU including: Harry Ward, Roger Baldwin, Louis Budenz, Eugene V. Debs, Felix Frankfurter, Alexander Meiklejohn, Elmer Davis, Roy Wilkins, Norman Cousins, Freda Kirchway, Archibald MacLeish, Henry S. Commager, Corliss Lamont, Francis Biddle, John Dewey, Max Lerner, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and William Z. Foster.

In 1918, the Fellowship established its second enterprise: Brookwood Labor College of Katonah, New York. Brookwood was Communistic and was heavily subsidized by the Garland Fund which was a major source for the financing of Communist Party enterprises.

In its literature, the Fellowship of Reconciliation also takes credit for the creation of the Workers Defense League(WDL). The House Special Committee on Un-American Activities(75th Congress) reported: "Just as the Communist Party has its defense movement, the International Labor defense, so also has the Socialist Party, the Workers Defense League. The latter organization was formed in May, 1936, by leading members of the Socialist Party.....The national committee of the Workers Defense League is composed of...Socialists and extreme left-wingers...The executive committee of the league is likewise composed of Socialists and extreme left-wingers...Norman Thomas, Socialist Party candidate for the President of the United States, is the real head of the league...". The Workers Defense League describes itself as an "anti-Communist and pro-democratic" legal aid society, concerned with political cases and the protection of minority rights. It is true that periodically the WDL has gone through futile motions by protesting against well-publicized and undeniable acts of barbarism perpetrated by Communist regimes. But the real energies of the WDL have been expended on the protection of labor agitators working among sharecroppers, migratory agricultural workers, and merchant seamen. The defense of political undesirables, subject to deportation proceedings, and individuals charged with security/loyalty violations have been a major concern of the WDL.

In 1948, the California Senate's Un-American Activities Committee devoted its entire annual report to an analysis and enumeration of Communist front organizations. Of the National Council against Conscription(a FOR appendage), the report said:

"Pamphlets of this Communist front are being distributed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Los Angeles.

The current Communist Party line is presently directed against military preparedness, and the Communist Party of the United States(CPUSA) is doing everything within its power to keep the United States militarily weak, while it demands that American armed forces abroad be returned to the United States....

The committee points out that this type of Communist front is organized for the purpose of attracting many good American citizens, who, because of religious convictions, are against war at any time. There are many pacifists and members of religious groups who are not disloyal in any sense of the word. This same statement applies with equal validity to many good citizens who were attracted to the American Peace Mobilization and other Communist fronts organized for the purpose of assisting Hitler during his partnership with Stalin for the conquest of Europe. Undoubtedly many of these good people will be innocently attracted to a Communist front such as the National Council against Conscription.

The distinction the committee wishes to make is that the record of a substantial number of the members of the National Council against Conscription have indicated in the past their close affiliation with Communist-front organizations operating for Communist purposes and causes.

There are no humane or religious purposes being served by Communist organizations in the field. Soviet Russia and its imperialist expansionist policies alone are served while the United States is kept weak and impotent, and, of course, that is the purpose behind the National Council against Conscription."

Then, in 1962, the Fellowship established Turn Toward Peace, an "umbrella organizationof national peace, labor, public affairs and religious groups." Through TTP, scores of leftist organizations were coordinated on a national level, ostensibly to promote "peaceful non-violence", but in reality their activities agitated and propagandized for world communism.

In 1963, Turn Toward Peace listed fifty "initial steps to provide for the establishment of a world government controlled by the United nations." Among the "initial steps" suggested by TTP were: Recognition of Red China and repeal of the McCarran Immigration Act to allow up to one million people from Red China to move to America each year; placement of all U.S. long-range missiles under UN control by 1964; amend the United States Constitution to allow the UN to levy a direct tax on the American people; establish a national security police force under UN control to harass all anti-UN American citizens; and, repeal of the Connally Amendment to permit the World Court to try American citizens if they engage in anti-United Nations activities.

The Fellowship's pro-Communist position on foreign policy became very much in evidence, about a year after Fidel Castro had seized Cuba and placed it under his tyrannical, Communist regime. The Fellowship urged that the United States display a generous and sympathetic attitude toward Cuba by:


Immediately rescinding all economic sanctions against Cuba
Offering long-term, low-interest loans to Cuba
Withdrawing from the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo
Acknowledging that the United States has no right to impose its will on Cuba in the matter of political, economic or military ties with the Soviet bloc even though such adherence might pose a "serious threat to world peace."
The Fellowship also distributes publications of the American Friends Service Committee and the World Council of Churches. Under such headings as The Bomb - Civil Defense - Disarmament - and, War and Militarism, the classified catalog recommends the extremely leftward slanted writings of a wide assortment of communists, socialists and fellow travelers.

It must be remarked that despite the Fellowship's flowery protestations of idealism and assumed mantle of religiosity, its entire history since 1915 to the present has demonstrated a remarkable consistency in its repeated sympathizing with tyrannical and anti-religious regimes. The Fellowship has worked for the identical goals of international Socialism: a radical reorganization of society and the replacement - wherever it exists - of individual capitalism by collective worship. The United Nations, commensurate with a world "peace tax" on American citizens are the conduits by which the Fellowship can best realize their vision for a better world.

The shibboleth of "nonviolence" flaunted so ubiquitously by the Fellowship is belied by the violence engendered by Fellowship-sponsored demonstrations against war and defense preparations and in labor and "civil rights" disputes. And the Fellowship makes a mockery of "nonviolence" by its persistent advocacy of disarmament programs for the Unites States which is precisely what the ever-arming, violence-ridden Communist regimes and United Nations have been promoting through diplomatic channels and especially through private pacifist groups such as the Fellowship.


Extracted from The Biographical Dictionary of the Left , by Francis X. Gannon

[GOPJ]

I'm a "decorated combat Marine." I think that EX-Marine Jack Murtha is a disgraceful piece of trash, as are you. Neither of you bothers with the slightest presumption of innocence, as both of your articles drive home again and again.

If this representative of the liberal MSM, were writing about a child rapist, she would offer the benefit of the doubt. Words like "presumed" would modify "guilt". Questions about societies role in forming the rapist would be examined... Is the rapist also a victim?

If it was a Kennedy involved, the "benefit of the doubt" would be raised to an art form - with those who dared to question the rape or murder being cast as ignorant mouth breathers.

The press has it's standards -- and here they are: if you're a liberal on the Kennedy or Clinton level, you get a pass. If you're a common criminal, you get a pass. If you break into this country, you get a pass. If you're a conservative, a Christian, or a member of the military, you don't -- you're assumed guilty until proven innocent. There is no pass.

Here's the difference between them and us. I believe all atrocities are wrong. Those committed by our guys, and those committed by them... We don't have a double standard. Journalist do. And yeah, we react to that double standard -- and sometimes overreact, but we know who gets the pass, and who doesn't. And that our side never "gets the pass." Never.

And if our guys did wrong, we'll object. As we should. But please, could our guys, the men who protect us get the same MSM consideration given to the average ax murderer, child killer, or criminal? Can the MSM hold back their glee at "getting" some soldiers?

[Scotswife]

"Surely, nobody should pronounce guilt without knowledge of the facts. .....as you and Murtha have done. Let the process play itself out."

I have been waiting for the "full story" to come out.
I don't like to think that American soldiers are capable of such a thing. But we know from isolated incidents in Viet Nam and other wars that sometimes our guys can lose their control.

An American soldier who was called in to photograph the bodies is claiming he saw a young girl killed by a bullet to the forehead.

I'm having a hard time understanding the circumstance where a soldier would deem it necessary to shoot a child in her home.

[veronica]

Not much to characterize as Shameful reactions to Haditha 'atrocity' . Of course you'd have to read the thread to know that.

Yeah, well that won't stop the Linda Heards and those like her from condemning FR as the playground of the Devil himself!

[Riflema]

From her profile at FriendsReunited.co.uk:

Hi guys!

I have spent most of my life outside the UK and worked variously in Cyprus, Algeria, France, Indonesia, Israel, Lebanon and the Gulf. I spent some 17 years in Dubai, 10 of which as the Editor of the Emirates Inflight magazine and the Dubai Airport publication.

I am currently an editor, writer and columnist, specialising in the Middle East and US-Europe relations. I have recently moved from Athens and am now living in the centre of Cairo with my wondeful husband and well-travelled cat Oliver.

I am looking for friends who knew me during my days in Pontypool where I was a pupil of Park Terrace from around 1954 to around 58 when we left Wales to move to London.

In London, I attended William Pattern in Stoke Newington and John Howard in Clapton.

I particularly remember Christine Wash as we spent many an hour in her house at lunchtime practising the twist (God! That's s dating) and I would absolutely love to get back in touch with Marcia Joseph with whom I went on my first trip abroad - to Italy, where we were targeted not only by the local lotharios but also by mosquitoes.

Sadly, my other dear schoolfriend Barbara Standrin died of cancer some years ago.

If anyone thinks they know me, then please do get in touch so that we can catch up on old times.

Linda

Yes folks, the big journo role she mentions was editing an inflight magazine for the Emirates airline.

Looks like she knows that getting hired by the Beeb (BBC) will take something more inflammatory on the resume?

[Coop]

An American soldier who was called in to photograph the bodies is claiming he saw a young girl killed by a bullet to the forehead.

Why do you presume a) that an American Marine shot this innocent victim? and b) that an American Marine deliberately shot her?

Yes, sometimes atrocities are committed by Americans during war. Now ask yourself - which is more like to have occurred? A group of U.S. Marines, over a period of FIVE HOURS, executed women and children, including a 3-year old girl? Or a group of terrorists executed women and children, including a 3-year old girl?

Makes the presumption of innocence pretty important, doesn't it?

I have a colleague serving in Iraq right now. We asked what he wanted in a care package. Anything, anything at all! His response?

"We're fine, but could you send some gently used stuffed animals for the Iraqi children?"

Jack Murtha and Linda Heard, I cordially invite you to rot in Hades.

[Coop]

Very well said!

[proud_yank]

I would read this now, but my stomach is bothering me a bit and rumbling, and so I think I should go take a Murtha before I read further.

ROFLMAO!!!! I 'gotta go take a Murtha', Love it!

Don't forget the Kerry paper!

Kerry paper is good, however I think that this stuff is better. Softer too, if you can believe that!

[lowbridge]

Linda S. Heard, Ignorant Idiot? Posted at 18:59. Linda S. Heard removes all doubt regarding her idiocy by opening her mouth at the Arab News today:

______________

Linda S. Heard, ambiguous as usual. Posted at 14:02. Usually, Linda S. Heard engages in outright falsehoods.

________________________________