Okay - I'm cold and harsh - but in any other war (or any other nation) that town would have been carpet bombed as they were harboring terrorists.
All the same, this story stinks to high heaven. But if the Marine's did go in without provocation - that's a different story.
Murtha is still a seditionist.
As in any organization there are some bad apples (i.e. Abu Graib), but to paint all of the military with that brush is horrendous.
I agree with Beth. The military is much too "polite" these days because of the liberal peaceniks. In WWII, they would have been toast for aiding and abetting!
Beth, I know. Also, in terms of whether or not there was provocation, some papers are still writing that there was an IED, some are writing that there was gunfire on the Marines.
But -- kind of like Abu Gharib -- it's mostly being reported that it happened in a vacuum. Nobody reported exactly what the prisoners were jailed for, and nobody's reporting whether or not Haditha was part of an offensive, or what.
Anna, the precise intention is to pain all of the military with the same brush. It sickens me.
Enough with the liberal/conservative stuff. It really does no-one any good to speak about those terms since they've been butchered so badly by both streams of thought.
As to the facts of this "case": I, too, Googled "Hammurabi Human Rights Association" and came up with nothing. Which is not to say that the group doesn't exist. After all, how many Iraqis even have computers, not to mention web access? Even assuming they have computers, who's to say they have a website? I don't pretend to think that any of the foregoing is within my knowledge at this point, but let's not make judgments without facts. And at this point, all we have are allegations against the Marines, backed up by a video. THe video, as far as I know, is not backed up by shots of the Marines in the act of shooting. From the bit that I saw, there were apparently shot-up bodies and wailing Arab women. Thus, we are left with the choice to believe (or not) the people who said it was Marines that shot up 24 people. What is their motivation for this if it were not the truth? I will leave it to your imaginations all the potential motivations assuming that the video is as represented. In addition to its potential veracity, it's part of the larger PR war waged against the US by anti-US forces in Iraq and its interests in the larger Mid-East region. In that sense, it's not so weird to me that they would have a 10 year old make the pitch for THIS act to the Beeb. Let us not forget that this is the same bunch (culturally, religiously) that sends kids to blow up Israelis in restaurants and the like, too. And the Beeb? This is a shadow of its former self - they are more interested in sensational stories than with objective reporting. This has been true for a long time, so please take what they are reporting with several large grains of salt. And Time magazine? What?
The sad reality is that the Iraq war has become very, very unpopular because it was entered into on the basis of some blatant lies told by this adminstration to justify it.
And the media can smell the blood in the water. This time the Marines are hemmoraghing. I hope this didn't happen. Let us hope that it didn't. If you thought Abu Ghraib was bad, this will call for far worse sanctions on the US military and the administration. And, if true, deservedly so. But that's a BIG if.
BTW, how did THIS blog get to the head of the search for Hammurabi Human Rights Association? For whatever it's worth, congrats. Well done.
Be well,
Randy
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