Posted on 06/20/2006 9:19:26 PM PDT by Jedi Master Pikachu
The lawyer for one of the marines accused of the massacre has told the BBC that criminal charges will probably be brought soon.
And we have found that the marines were operating under some very disturbing conditions.
The accusation is that after a US marine lance corporal died in a roadside bombing in Haditha last November, his fellow marines went on a killing spree.
Twenty-four people died in the attack, including seven women and three children.
A 12-year-old girl who survived says the Americans killed them indiscriminately.
The marines said they had came under fire from the houses where the people died.
The lawyer representing one marine told us he believed they would face charges, but said they were following their rules of engagement.
"I don't think the facts will show they intentionally killed those civilians," Paul Hackett said. "It was in the heat of battle, in the heat of clearing the houses.
"That is, like it or not, that is what those marines are required to do. They are required to close with the enemy, and kill the enemy."
'Feral' conditions
But Haditha is not the only massacre that has been alleged against the US forces.
A US inquiry has cleared them of blame for the deaths of civilians in Ishaqi in March - yet leading figures in the Iraqi government are unhappy, and want a wider investigation.
Kilo company soldiers in Haditha in October 2005 Members of Kilo Company were operating in deteriorating conditions
But what happened at Haditha seems more clear-cut.
It is an intensely dangerous place for the Americans, and the battle-weary men of Kilo Company - the unit which included the marines accused of the massacre - had lost a lot of men there.
And they were operating under disturbing circumstances.
Kilo Company's headquarters were three miles north of Haditha, at a vast dam across the Euphrates. It is a big target, because it supplies power to much of southern Iraq.
Four hundred men of the First Marine regiment were based in this decaying rabbit-warren. Conditions were so disgusting, many just moved out.
They set up these unofficial shacks alongside it. Conditions at the dam have been described as "feral".
Oliver Poole is one of the few reporters to have been there, shortly after the alleged massacre. He was shocked by these strange, primitive huts, which lacked even basic hygiene.
"You walked in and the first words were 'F off', and they were ripping pieces of wood apart to feed the fire," he said. "You could see the conditions in which they lived. And they were filthy. It was disgusting."
There seemed to him to be no real discipline.
"The fact that the officers had let conditions deteriorate to the level in which where people living in such basic environment, that says something," he said. "Where were the officers keeping the standards that the US military keeps in the field?"
Blame game
The marines of Kilo Company are now back at Camp Pendleton, in California. But that question of keeping the men under proper control is essential.
The main gate at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base in California The investigation into the alleged massacre is still ongoing
"The hardest thing is not necessarily killing someone or shooting someone; it's not killing someone or shooting someone when you're angry," said Paul Rieckhoff of the Iraqi Veterans Campaign.
"When someone in your unit is killed or wounded it's like someone attacked your family. The responsibility then is on one of the squad leaders, platoon leaders, team leaders to hold those guys back."
Up to now in the US, those against the war have blamed the people at the very top for what is happening in Iraq.
But the news that three American soldiers have been charged in connection with the deaths of three prisoners in Iraq last month - and the probable charges over Haditha - may mean that Americans will now start blaming those who are actually fighting the war as well.
Just as they did in Vietnam.
A 12 year old girl who told 3 different stories about the event. A Reuters "reporter" who is actually an Iraqi related to the mysterious head of the "Iraqi Civil Rights Group" who is the SOLE source of these accusations. Both Al-Masdarini which just happens to be the SAME family name as the high ranking Al Qeda terrorist killed in Iraq this week AND the High Rank Bathists was listed as #46 on the Most Wanted list after the Liberation.
Seems the BBC has given up any sort of Journalistic Ethics or obligations and is just reporting Terrorist propaganda here.
The BBC eats ----.
This article is full of crap.
Camp Pendleton is here in San Diego and we have more of a clue what is going on than the BBC.
I have relatives currently in the 1st Marine Div. who have done tours in Iraq and for the BBC, wishing doesn't make it so.
We dropped two nukes in Japan and fire bombed Dresden. Many civilians were killed. But it prevented twice as many from being killed due to fanatics. What is happening in Iraq doesn't even rate a bloody nose and it pisses me off that those risking there lives are being taking to task for doing a dirty job.
Two professional military investigations are under way. These investigators have one agenda... THE TRUTH!!! Murtha and the rest don't care about the truth, their agenda is political. Murtha is a disgrace to to the Corps and to the country. I cannot print what I really think about him.
And in this reverse Vietnam scenario, I hope spitting makes a come back,...but with the public spitting on mainstream media reporters.
I'm with you. I would, for once, like to see a real groundswell of anger towards Murtha, Kerry, Clinton, Kennedy, all the cowards, traitors and defeatist. I would like to see them slapped down hard and made examples of. That's not too much to ask what with the damage they are inflicting upon our military and country in general.
At this point in time there is no "even if" or "bad apples." This piece is a hack job in the BBC. This attorney said his client and the other Marines were following the rules of engagement. They are entitled to the presumption of innocence.
If that didn't happen to that reporter, it should have.
As an inactive Marine once I read this "There seemed to him to be no real discipline." I knew the story was nothing but Bull Sh*t. This is very simple, you take fire from a house, you take out the house. Don't blames these Marines blame the cowards that hide behind women, children and the elderly.
Remember, the BBC Style Guide has it that you must call Saddam "the deposed President of Iraq", not former dictator. Guess the BBC swallowed that 100% of the votes in the last election BS.
This isn't a war, this is a sad joke.
Give these guys some squirt guns and let's get busy!
BUMP!
Look at it this way. If Marines were in there to kill kill every one they saw, why did she survive to tell the story? I smell a rat.
The BBC isn't much different from main stream media here.
England disgusts me...From the Marxist Oxford pukes who backed the "internationalist" socialists (soviets) over the "National" socialists (nazi) to the Philby / MacDonald moles in the cold war to the Islamophile socialist Blair who sacrifices a few Brits in Iraq so he can shield Britain behind the USA, like a coward hiding behind his mother's skirts to the celebrated Galloway and the developed world's highest violent crime rate through "progressive" social policy---let em go Sharia...let em all bow to their Islamosadist pet loves....F England and Europe (except Poland)!
Masdarini is the town the men come from. You don't believe "George Steinbrenner al New York" has the same family name as "Donald Trump al New York" do you? ;-)
See Charles Krauthammer's expose on the overdramatic Palestinian kabuki dance that tried to smear the Israelis:
http://www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/columnists/story/5821949p-5192448c.html
I wonder if the Haditha girl is the same actress they used in Gaza.
But Krauthammer's second point is the strongest: whatever happened, the deaths are due entirely to the enemy's strategy of concealing himself in the supposed noncombatant population. No one should be charged with murder except the terrorist bastards who assured that somewhere, sometime, something like this would happen.
Cousin Vinnie
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