US Marines expected to be charged with Haditha war atrocities

Pat McCrotch wrote: Kill 'em all...

Let God sort 'em out....

hmmm...where have I seen that before?

Simon de Monfort, 1209, Béziers.

Somehow I've actually not read the news about Hadiitha, until last night. They shot babies in the head? Babies? It's beyond the pale.

Comrade Shampanyov, Gentleman wrote: Somehow I've actually not read the news about Hadiitha, until last night. They shot babies in the head? Babies? It's beyond the pale.

Yeah Comrade.. But apparently its ok., cos as Pontiac said, its now an occupation. This is because Bush declared the war was over, cos suddenly he can apparently do that, with or without the UN involved. Apparently, the Geneva Convention doesnt apply to occupations etc etc.

Al Jarvis wrote:

|| | ||| 6217|| 8 || 3 wrote: You're right. Actually to be "right", in short and sometimes long historical perspective, you have to win. That's why we must win the new war by any means, since we got stuck in that war.

Bless.

Enola Gay perhaps?

Yeah!.. Why not!.. would be fantastic irony when ya think of the reasons as to how it all started.

Burt Reynolds wrote:

Al Jarvis wrote:

|| | ||| 6217|| 8 || 3 wrote: You're right. Actually to be "right", in short and sometimes long historical perspective, you have to win. That's why we must win the new war by any means, since we got stuck in that war.

Bless.

Enola Gay perhaps?

Yeah!.. Why not!.. would be fantastic irony when ya think of the reasons as to how it all started.

We won't go there.

There is no excuse.

You don't go shooting / raping non-combatants and CHILDREN just because some of your mates got killed.

Where is everyone getting this information that theywere raped? I have watched and read countless items on this, including a whole 30 minute explination on CNN about what both sides are saying, and not once have I seen or heard of this raping, people here are talking about.

Everyone is out to crucify these guys right now, but this is information the IRAQI press is giving us. . .let the court system work to find out if these guys truly are guilty. There might be information that we are not recieving.

JHC

68Pontiac wrote: Where is everyone getting this information that they were raped?

In this post:

Al Jarvis wrote: The BBC appears to have left out details the Standard had earlier in the week about one of the murdered being gang-raped. One of the nastiest weapons of war in the modern age: rape.

Still, she was probably asking for it.

Dunno what offends me more really. Bunch of US squaddies going gung-ho (sad to say, as despicable a crime as they've committed you have to sit back and say, well you can kind of see why they did it and by saying that I'm by no way condoning their actions), er, or a select few hijacking this thread to talk about, um, cars. Is there a relevance with the car, I'm missing, or is this somehow supposed to be funny?!

Fcuking stomach-churning crimes though, whether committed by the US, by our boys (god forbid), insurgents or whatever.

I have watched and read countless items on this, including a whole 30 minute explination on CNN about what both sides are saying, and not once have I seen or heard of this raping, people here are talking about.

Everyone is out to crucify these guys right now, but this is information the IRAQI press is giving us. . .let the court system work to find out if these guys truly are guilty. There might be information that we are not recieving.

JHC

Not sure what you mean by "both sides" or "The Iraqi Press." The facts are, Marines killed civilians, including babies. They shot babies, 68. We know this as a result of the investigation conducted by the U.S. Military, not by reading Iraqi press accounts. The story was broken in the U.S. by Rep. John Murtha, not by the Iraqi press. What we know about Haditha comes from the investigation conducted first by the Marines, and subsequently, by the Army. Despite your efforts to disparage the news as Iraqi lies, we know what happened at Haditha. We know that the Iraqi journalism student who videotaped the bodies told the truth about Haditha; We know that the initial Marine response was lies and coverup. Marine Capt. Jeffrey Pool, who first announced

"A U.S. Marine and 15 Iraqis were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bombin Haditha. Immediately after the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wonding another."

responded to press questions about what really happened at Haditha with this email to the press corps: "I cannot believe that you're buying any of this."

If you can't find accounts of what people in Europe are reading, think about the possibility that the news we're reading has been sanitized for U.S. consumption.

They shot babies, 68. There's no "Two sides" when it comes to that. They shot babies. They're war criminals, and they've dragged the United States through the mud with their war crimes.

And yes, they're still innocent until proven guilty.

Comrade Shampanyov, Gentleman wrote:

Burt Reynolds wrote: Ok Woody. Guantanamo Bay is not actually 'sovereign US territory'; it is effectively leased from Cuba. The prisoners therefore have no constitutional rights, as per the Geneva Convention. This was the final verdict in a trial brought in 2003 by lawyers representing some of the detainees.

So they are basically stuffed then.

The Bush regime argues that the Geneva convention doesn't apply to the prisoners because they're illegal combatants. The Bush regime has also argued somewhat less successfully that the prisoners have no constitutional rights.

Yep, they're stuffed, just like democracy in the United States.

United States of America, 1776-2001, R.I.P.

Comrade, as I remember, you stood for W and the war in 2001-03. What happened?

|| | ||| 6217|| 8 || 3 wrote:

Comrade Shampanyov, Gentleman wrote:

Burt Reynolds wrote: Ok Woody. Guantanamo Bay is not actually 'sovereign US territory'; it is effectively leased from Cuba. The prisoners therefore have no constitutional rights, as per the Geneva Convention. This was the final verdict in a trial brought in 2003 by lawyers representing some of the detainees.

So they are basically stuffed then.

The Bush regime argues that the Geneva convention doesn't apply to the prisoners because they're illegal combatants. The Bush regime has also argued somewhat less successfully that the prisoners have no constitutional rights.

Yep, they're stuffed, just like democracy in the United States.

United States of America, 1776-2001, R.I.P.

Comrade, as I remember, you stood for W and the war in 2001-03. What happened?

I've never been for W. I was neither "against the war" nor "for the war" leading up to it. Saddam Hussein had played too many games with the U.N. inspectors for too long for me to care (not to mention he was a an evil, brutal dictator). His cat-and-mouse games with the U.N. inspectors made it seem plausible that he was hiding WMDs.

However, W's ever-shifting justifications for the impending war, coupled with his refusal to consider any other alternatives, and the shifting goalposts he set for avoiding a U.S. invasion convinced me that W was lying through his teeth about the real reason we were invading Iraq.

By the time the invasion began, I had mixed feelings about it-- I knew W was lying, but didn't give a rat's arse about Saddam Hussein. I never once believed W's nonsense that Iraq is a part of our eternal "war on terror," and it's apparent now that W-- a classic Republican chickenhawk, right up there with Dick Cheney-- has no idea how to get us out of Iraq, and he doesn't give a damn, because he'll be out of office (assuming he allows democratic elections to go forward in 2008) and it won't be his problem.

So W is not fighting a "war on terror," because he went to Iraq instead, but he has been subverting the Constitution and "interpreting" international law to exclude P.O.W.s and to allow torture. The real war W has been fighting, it turns out, has been against America, and that is why I hold him in such contempt.

Just a quick point to throw in re: the 'Iraqi Press' as described by Pontiac.

Recently various news agencies, notably Reuters, have employed a number of young English-speaking Iraqis to gather information for news reports. They are fully equipped and well paid, but ultimately the job has a 50% mortality rate.

The reason for employing them is to get a grip on news reality from the Red Zone, somewhere which is basically a no-go area to Western journalists, and ultimately a huge area of Baghdad. The policy was brought in, to get a more accurate picture of the real situation, rather than a sanitized Western version, as has been largely written from the Green Zone. This policy has been supported by the general consensus that stations such as Al-Jazheera have been producing more balanced news, simply due to having people around when the news happens.

A Reuters spokesman recently praised the young journalists efforts as 'invaluable, in giving an impressively accurate balanced view of the horrors of war, from both sides'.

Comrade,

A couple things.

1. Still didn't answer where you got the "raping" from. I haven't heard anything about this.

2. There are two stories going on right now about this. The first is the afteraction report as written by the Marines. The second is from the Iraqi journalist.

I am not siding with either side right now as both could be doing some sort of cover-up.

The Marine side could be a cover up because they killed civilians and don't want to be punished for it. (This is the immediate one everyone is believing). In this story there was a firefight on both sides of the street.

The journalist could be doing his own slanted story as well. First he took pictures and had interveiws with the people. At first this sounds reasonable, but there is the culture factor not added in. Iraqis embelish stories to let the person understand the emotional aspects of thier experience. The way they embelish so elborately is different than Western culture, as a small incident will sound like a national escapade. Their words can not be taken at face value. Also in this story, there was no firefight.

3. There are parts of this story that are not lining up with experience I have.

The main motive given is that the Marines went on a murdering rampage because they were angry after one of their Marines were killed. My problem with this is:

• These Marines were new in country. Their first deployment, and this was their first firefight. Anger for losing a comrade (no pun intended) usually takes time. . .a couple days, weeks, maybe even months to surface. The immediate reaction is being unbelievably scared. You mind goes into shock, and your training more or less takes over. There are no real emotions happening other than being scared shitless. Every door you walk up to could have the enemy behind it, in which the enemy is already prepared for you. It could be booby-trapped or insurgents ready to kill you. Every step you take could be your last if you aren't careful. The first firefight usually has the person more interested in self preservation, than any other emotion.

After each firefight, the stress of being scared disappears as you get accustomed to the stress. Anger may surface from past events. However, in your first deployment, first firefight, I have strong doubts that the Marines would have had the ability to get angry then purposefully kill and murder civilians for revenge.

• Another thing noted is innocent young college students were murdered as they were driving by. It is unlikely that they were innocent. The neighborhood and townspeople know when something bad is going to happen. When firefights like this happen, everyone will be off the streets, even during rush hour, way before it happens. It will be a ghost town. That this car didn't know is possible, but highly unlikely. They were also all college-aged males, the age of those doing the fighting.

My guess is that the IED exploded, and a firefight ensued. The Marines saw the car approach, seeing that they were college males, they killed them thinking they were insurgents. They then proceeded to the houses the gunfire was coming from, and over reacted by kicking in the door and firing randomly into the room if they saw movement (which at the time they immediately considered dangerous).

In either case the Marines reacted poorly. However, in one they are cold-blooded murderers and the other are those that are trying to defend themselves. One is murder, the other manslaughter.

JHC

68Pontiac wrote:

In either case the Marines reacted poorly. However, in one they are cold-blooded murderers and the other are those that are trying to defend themselves. One is murder, the other manslaughter.

JHC

Looks like murder to me JHC. I believe this is the same case which had VT footage shown in Europe, of US Marines in a room full of corpses and injured civilians, shouting something along the lines of 'He's still moving', followed by a spatter of gunfire and another marine chipping in 'he isn't now'.

As you said, these things happen; but currently the number of Iraqi deaths since 2003 is estimated to be 900,000 (including internal troubles), and the number of Allied deaths is close to 3,000.

Just heard on the hourly news, that three Guantanamo Bay prisoners have successfully committed suicide.

Is it just me, that feels sorry for the poor bastards stuck in there, un-charged?

Apparently after four years of being in a living hell many more want to commit suicide...

What has happened to human rights in America (or Cuba)?

Burt Reynolds wrote: Just heard on the hourly news, that three Guantanamo Bay prisoners have successfully committed suicide.

Is it just me, that feels sorry for the poor bastards stuck in there, un-charged?

Apparently after four years of being in a living hell many more want to commit suicide...

What has happened to human rights in America (or Cuba)?

Sure I'll get a rashion of s*** for this, but good ridance. I don't feel sorry or remorseful for them. They don't go to Cuba for being an acciedental pickup. They go to Cuba when we know damn well that they aren't just insurgents, but they are a very strong source of terrorism.

I've seen many Iraqis picked up, and be returned to the streets because we didn't have enough evidence that they were insurgents. We have to be CSI out there to get anyone locked up. Just to get to Abu Grab we have to have evidence that proves they helped the insurgency, without a shadow of a doubt. For them to get flown all the way to Cuba is only for those that are in charge of terrorst cells, or have strong ties that would increase the insurgency tenfold.

There is no mistake why they are there, and the World is a better place with them gone.

JHC

American Soldiers are just cannon fodder sent by this TWAT

Burt Reynolds wrote: information for news reports. They are fully equipped and well paid, but ultimately the job has a 50% mortality rate.

This policy has been supported by the general consensus that stations such as Al-Jazheera have been producing more balanced news, simply due to having people around when the news happens.

http://english.aljazeera.net is a complete site with Science and Technology, Space, World Cup, etc. and political cartoons. reuters.co.uk is very polished.

the selective stupidity of this war when so much other global disparity is all but getting ignored. Saddam Hussein had to go and al -Zarqawi is dead. But the fundamental Eastern Idealogies and 'Western civilization's way of equating human life don't equate. Basic Ethics are not being respected or practiced very much at all. 1. This war should not have been started. 2. The two sides aren't fighting by the same rules toward any Clear goals. so it looks.

14 -K wrote: But the fundamental Eastern Idealogies and 'Western civilization's way of equating human life don't equate. Basic Ethics are not being respected or practiced very much at all. 1. This war should not have been started. 2. The two sides aren't fighting by the same rules toward any Clear goals. so it looks.

To me, the very idea of "war" is obsolete. It sounds rather barbaric and meaningless (considering that almost all wars are started by a small group of people, if not by a single person's ambition).

I was bemused to see contemporary wars break out in Yugoslavia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, etc.