Free Republic

July 16, 2007, 8:20 a.m. Guilty Until Proven InnocentRevisting Hadithah. By Mackubin Thomas Owens In May of 2006, the Marine Corps charged a number of Marines from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Division of killing more than 20 Iraqi civilians in the town of Hadithah in retaliation for the death of one of their comrades by a roadside bomb in November, 2005. At the time, I addressed the Hadithah allegations on National Review Online; I observed then that: In Iraq, our opponents have chosen to deny us the ability to fight the sort of conventional war we would prefer...

San Antonio has paid a price in the war on terror. To date, 14 San Antonians have been killed in action and many more wounded. How many of these casualties may have been the result of the constantly changing "Rules of Engagement" is anybody's guess. War is a nasty business. Ask anyone who has ever been in combat and witnessed the death and destruction first hand. The military has a mission to kill the enemy and destroy their potential to wage war. Unfortunately, people, including civilians, get killed. During WWII the US and their allies deliberately bombed cities in Germany...

May 30, 2006, 6:33 p.m. Men@WarHadithah in context. By Mackubin Thomas Owens The basic aim of a nation at war is establishing an image of the enemy in order to distinguish as sharply as possible the act of killing from the act of murder.—Glenn Gray, The Warriors It seems like only yesterday. It was 1991 and a U.S.-led coalition easily expelled Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait, signaling to some the emergence of a “revolution in military affairs” that would “transform the very nature of war.” Americans at home watched their TV screens in awe as precision-guided munitions flawlessly struck...

The recent spike in U.S. casualties in Iraq, although tragic, needs to be placed in strategic context. As usual, the press has not done so, focusing on the loss of life without any apparent effort to understand what the fighting that led to these casualties means. But the answer is there for anyone who wishes to probe beneath the surface. In fact, the intense fighting indicates that Coalition forces have stepped up their campaign in Al Anbar province to destroy the insurgency by depriving it of its base in the Sunni Triangle and its "rat lines" — the infiltration routes...

HIT, Iraq (August 5, 2005) -- Marines with 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment have a new weapon in the war against terrorism and it is simple, effective and voluntary. The tip lines provided by Regimental Combat Team-2 allows citizens here and in surrounding communities to assist in the fight to make their city safe and secure while remaining anonymous and safe from reprisal from insurgents. Since March, a tip line was provided for the Hadithah area, which proved ineffective and unsecure. Two new lines were installed a few weeks ago and are ringing off the hook. “We have been advertising...

<p>The pro-American mayor of Hadithah in western Iraq was shot and killed Wednesday along with one of his nine sons, the U.S. military reported.</p> <p>The military spokesman said he could offer no other details, but the Arab satellite network Al-Jazeera said Mohammed Nayil al-Jurayfi's car was shot up by unidentified attackers as he drove through the city of about 150,000 about 150 miles northwest of Baghdad.</p>