{"id":7525,"date":"2006-05-26T14:07:32","date_gmt":"2006-05-26T18:07:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7525"},"modified":"2006-05-26T14:07:32","modified_gmt":"2006-05-26T18:07:32","slug":"haditha-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/haditha-revisited\/","title":{"rendered":"Haditha revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a week ago, Rep. [tag]Jack Murtha[\/tag] (D-Pa.) alerted the nation<\/a> to a Pentagon investigation into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of [tag]Haditha[\/tag]. The probe was reportedly brutal; Murtha said U.S. [tag]Marines[\/tag] “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.”<\/p>\n

Conservatives were incensed, not at the incident or at the military for offering a false initial account of the shootings, but at Murtha for telling the truth. Some called him “dishonorable<\/a>.” Others labeled him a “traitor<\/a>” and recommended that he literally be sent to “jail.” Another added<\/a>, “Murtha has no honor left, no dignity, and will never be considered as a Marine except by his liberal buddies who would hate him for wearing that uniform in the first place.”<\/p>\n

One of the suggestions was that Murtha was just stating his opinion. He wasn’t; Americans appear to have methodically murdered<\/a> two dozen Iraqi civilians during the incident.<\/p>\n

A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and [tag]Pentagon[\/tag] officials said Thursday.<\/p>\n

Two lawyers involved in discussions about individual marines’ defenses said they thought the investigation could result in charges of murder, a capital offense. That possibility and the emerging details of the killings have raised fears that the incident could be the gravest case involving misconduct by American ground forces in Iraq.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind, these were tragic [tag]killings[\/tag] … followed by an intentional [tag]cover-up[\/tag].
\n
\nThe [tag]Pentagon[\/tag] initially issued a statement last fall explaining that the civilians were killed by a roadside bomb, which officials knew wasn’t true. In fact, the Defense Department wasn’t even going to look into the incident until Time magazine started reporting<\/a> on the shootings four months later.<\/p>\n

At this point, there’s a very real possibility that the Haditha story is going to blow up<\/a> in a dangerous way.<\/p>\n

“When these investigations come out, there’s going to be a firestorm,” said retired Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, formerly a top lawyer for the Marine Corps. “It will be worse than Abu Ghraib — nobody was killed at Abu Ghraib.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As for all the conservatives who bashed<\/a> [tag]Murtha[\/tag]<\/a> viciously<\/a> and<\/a> relentlessly<\/a> for having the audacity to tell the truth, I’m sure the apologies will be forthcoming. Any minute now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a week ago, Rep. [tag]Jack Murtha[\/tag] (D-Pa.) alerted the nation to a Pentagon investigation into the death of Iraqi civilians last November in the Iraqi city of [tag]Haditha[\/tag]. The probe was reportedly brutal; Murtha said U.S. [tag]Marines[\/tag] “killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” Conservatives were incensed, not at the incident or at the military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7525\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}