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.
I'd back off a bit on that. I'm no fan of Tony Blair's social policices but he has stuck to his guns on Iraq and the war on terror despite the political problems it may cause him.
Oh yes, forgot that one, deposed prez of Iraq my foot.
Just an example what our Marines do
From the Indepundit blog & who is also a Navy reserv. officer.
On November 15, 2004, the Marines were busy clearing houses in the Battle for Fallujah. Peralta, as scout team leader, was responsible for locating the enemy and directly ground forces to destroy them. He was not supposed join in the assaults inside the homes.
However, Rafael Peralta was not the kind of guy to stand around watching things happen. He wanted to make things happen. He routinely requested to join the assault teams entering the insurgent filled houses.
During the fateful assault on the 15th, after clearing three houses, Peralta lead the charge into the fourth house, finding two rooms empty on the ground floor. Upon opening a third door, Peralta was hit multiple times with AK-47 fire - severely wounded, he dropped to the floor and moved away in order to give the Marines behind him an opportunity to fire on the insurgents.
As the battle continued, the insurgents lobbed a grenade at the Marines. Two Marines were trapped in the room with Peralta. When they saw the grenade, they tried to get out of the blast area but were trapped.
Peralta, bleeding out on the floor, reached for the grenade and pulled it to his midsection, cradling the grenade before it cooked off.
The grenaded exploded, killing Peralta and critically wounding another Marine, the others all survived because Peralta absorbed the majority of the lethal blast.
England is over as the mother country...our old mom is in bed with the man who beat us......
Caught the start of Bill O'Reilly tonight, he singled out the ACLU and BBC as two of the most bereft of any impartiality when it comes to the WOT.
Obviously, the group that is to be included with them is a veritable viper's den of media outlets and talking heads.. all working to undercut the efforts underway to bring those who do evil indiscrimnately or otherwise to justice in the GWOT.
'They' collectively have not had a good month yet are not ready to yield their obstinate and ill-advised positions.
So be it, they must be stopped as surely as those who seek the death of western civilization must be stopped. I have faith that 'They' will be.
It has never been clearer for me that liberalism is a mindset (I should know. I, like many here, have been cured) than the arguments I have had with some otherwise intelligent liberals when it comes to the 9/11 conspiracy theories.
You can show hundreds of quotes from eyewitnesses of the Pentagon attack and they will still say it was a missle. Ask them where the passengers, crew of the plane went they either change the course of the discussion (Lib-"Look what I am saying is we don't have all of the facts") or delve further with mass execution claims ("...because the cause was more important.") Cell phone calls? - just another part of the charade.
Another Freeper referenced a brilliant quote that I will never forget and plan to employ often: You can't reason a person out of a position that they were not reasoned into.
That is the 9/11 conspiracy fanatics in a nutshell.
Excellent!
At what point did I call it that?
I bleed American.
I just said Blair is sticking in at great politcal risk.
Does anyone think that if this was a Russian or Chinese incident that anyone would give a Rats butt?
Frankly, I don't see how the USA can fight a war with the traitors called reporters now working in the MSM.
What a remarkably poorly written article.
Thanks. I wish I could identify the Freeper that posted that quote but unfortunately I can't remember who it was.
There are plenty of "Rat Bastards" running around in "The Press". That includes Rat Bastards in The U.S. press.
Think Dan Rather.
But of course! It's much more civil to cool off first -- and then drop a couple of A-bombs and fire-bomb an entire city. You know, like we did to end WWII.
/s
If we were justified on a macro scale in Japan and Germany, then we are just as justified in Haditha or any other terrorist-infested area on the micro scale. I see no difference except in the numbers. The goal is the same. Demoralize the enemy, end the war as quickly as possible and save lives -- especially the lives of our troops.
Warn the residents, then level the battlefield -- literally.
Blair and Bush have invested everything in creating a stable democratic Iraq....I would like to see that happen....I fear that for it to happen would take a real miracle.....this is still just the "phoney war" period...The so called rogue states, Iraq , Iran and N Korea are really proxy/clients doing the old communist bloc's bidding...China/Russia are happy to watch us bleed in our Iraq endevour while they both pile up the cash from oil/cheap exports, waiting for the moment when we are over extended, hoping for a break, and dependant on them for credit, TO MAKE THEIR MOVE. They'll use the Jihadis til then and when they are no longer useful will wipe them out like we should have on 9-12-01. We are being played.
Reporters don't win wars. Brave men with weapons do. All the yellow ink in the world won't change that.
The BBC isn't American. To them, the proper-noun capital-letter Marines would be the Royal Marines. In reverse, a member of the U.S. Marines is a Marine in the American media, and a member of the Royal Marines is a British marine. Theirs is an army, while ours is an Army. It's an old usage convention.
BINGO!!
You don't think we bled even deeper in the previous world wars? You are not looking at the big picture in Iraq because you bought in to the bullshit painted by defeatists. Look at a map of the middle east and get back me to when you figure it out.
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