’)We must not cover up this incident, those responsible must be punished and we must make it clear to the world that this behavior is the exception to the admirable work our Marines and the rest of the Armed Services do. This is not the time to reprise the brush-off of Abu Ghraib as “harmless fraternity pranks”.
The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif’s house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates.
Two U.S. military boards are investigating the incident as potentially the gravest violation of the law of war by U.S. forces in the three-year-old conflict in Iraq. The U.S. military ordered the probes after Time magazine presented military officials in Baghdad this year with the findings of its own investigation, based on accounts of survivors and on a videotape shot by an Iraqi journalism student at Haditha’s hospital and inside victims’ houses.
When our armed services are out in the world, their reactions – and our reactions to that – represent our face to the world. It is far past time we began acting like it again.
One of my favorite books as a child was Up Front by Bill Mauldin. I read it cover to cover many times.
There is a passage where he talks about how German soldiers would prefer to surrender to Americans rather than French or British troops because they knew they would be treated well by the American Soldiers.
That passage made my 10-year-old-son-of-a-sergeant chest swell with pride. It pointed out to me that even in the horrors of war Americans acted with decency and honor.
How far have we fallen?
Do people who claim to be patriotic really want to defend or dismiss these atrocities?
I know Willie and Joe wouldn’t.
That is not the America I grew up to love. I just hope the America I grew up to love wasn’t a fantasy like Santa.
You, of course, mean they should be punished if they are found to be guilty of crimes and/or violated service regualtions. Now, I know a good progressive would not want to rush to judgement on this and start iniosting on punishment based on third-hand anti-military newspaper accounts. Right?
Colorado Dave,
Some of your knowledge is lacking. War is a horrible brutal business. In WWII I have talked to ex Thunderbolt and Mustang pilots who talked about returning from escort or other missions over Germany looking for civilians, farmers and workers, to strafe, if they had the fuel and ammo to do so.
Dugger, Nothing like a good ‘ol progressive lynch mob and who better to lynch than American servicemen (don’t like it, don’t rush to judgment on these troops)
Harlan Ellison tells the story of a relative of his — an uncle, I think — who was a Ranger in World War II. He, and his squad came across a platoon of German soldiers sleeping. They were so cold, they were sleeping in pairs, sharing sleeping bags. The Rangers snuck into their encampment, and killed one of each pair, so they would each wake up next to a dead fellow soldier.
I’m sure that story didn’t make it into Up Front.
War isn’t just hell, it’s fucking horrible.
How about not smeering the good name of a Congressman who brings it to light?
…I’m skeptical, Frank_D. Harlan’s had a a lot of words put into his mouth by other people. A few quick searches haven’t revealed any supporting evidence for your contention that Ellison tells this story of a relative. Do you have any sources?
From the article:
What else would you like to happen?
I see, Colorado, don’t deliver any bad news, especially when it overturns your thesis.
I don’t care if you’re skeptical, mucker, I was recalling a story told by Ellison, not a story told about Ellison.
As Colorado Dave noted, I had some details wrong. For some reason, this leads him to suggest that I “Shut my piehole.”
This is exactly what has been suggested for Rep. Murtha.
Actually Frank in another form it did. He talks of a soldier from Brooklyn who was famous for such tactics as finding two German soldiers in a fox hole and slitting the throat of one to instill fear.
Maybe it happened maybe it didn’t but unlike you Frank, Willie and Joe could tell the difference between combatants and non-combatants.
So Frank I think I speak for many when I say. “Shut your pie hole”
jesus ollie.
You just aren’t going to be satisfied until al qaeda starts linking to your website are you?
I have always been a believer in free speech, and not a big fan of the folks that scream “treason” whenever someone disagrees. But it is clear that you really aren’t all that fond of this place are you?
The incident is being throughly investigated by a number of federal authorities, and has been since it was alleged. That pinhead Murtha didn’t “bring it to light” he simply gave our enemies aid in their efforts to smear the United States. And the leftists here are happy to do the same, all while claiming it is for our own good.
Feh…
Actually, drpedro, you are the one who is encouraging these evil acts which are giving Americans a bad name. Perhaps you are the real traitor.
“I have always been a believer in free speech, and not a big fan of the folks that scream treason whenever someone disagrees.”
ROFL
UH Pedro- This is one of those times where I just have to say to you- Shut the F%#& up.
This is one of those rare times Oliver has written a politically neutral and very correct response to something in the world which could have been written by anyone in the blogosphere, left or right (with the exception of perhaps the Abu Ghraib reference- for which people have already been proscecuted, convicted, and are serving time for.)
If this incident is found to be true, then everyone invloved in this particular incident, including the faulty reporting of it, should be investigated, tried, and if found guilty, punished to the maximum extent the law allows. I have yet to find anyone in the ’sphere who disagrees with this sentiment.
O.K. just re-read that last line Oliver wrote. While I disagree with the inference that we haven’t taken such incidents seriously, I still stand by the rest of the post- as most everyone I have read would.
Jesus……
I have never read anything more brutal in my life… My God, if the investigation proves these accussations true, these men deserve death, and just as important, our Military leaders need to understand what caused our young men to break……
We’re murdering babies now? We’re MURDERING babies!! God have mercy on America, because I doubt He is blessing us.
The next time you’re driving down the road in an “energy – efficient” Datsun or Toyota, think about this.
And, by the way, sooperedd, you may have murdered babies, but I didn’t.
Yes.
Man’s inhumanity towards himself is well documented. We’ve been using our God-given free will to kill each other for long, long time.
More’s the pity that the commander-in-chief has left our kids baking in the desert with an ill-defined mission in a distant, foreign adventure.
So Frank… your point is… what? Its ok ’cause the Japanese did it? War is bad? Shit happens? What?
What Frank didn’t point out, curiously enough, is that Ford and GM helped build and supply the German war machine during WWII. So what, indeed, is the effing point of his link?
Anyway, we don’t live in WWII-era Japan. We live in a country whose leadership claimed to invade and occupy Iraq in order to protect and export democracy (at least that was the last lie they held to). In other words, the Bushies carried out a violation of international law because they claimed they were pursuing a loftier set of goals. All along, though (counting Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, etc.), the ‘facts on the ground’ have proven to be anything but lofty.
Now some cowards want to try and hide behind the fact that other empires have done worse in the past. Well, lah-dee-dah. The whole point is that we’re supposed to be better than that, you a–holes. And when we fail to be better than that, we’re supposed to hold those responsible accountable.
So now maybe we’ll the marines who participated get punished, and rightfully so. But you’ll also see all these ’support the troops’ sycophants pile on ‘a few bad apples’ while failing to spare so much as a word of doubt for the ostensible Commander-in-Chief (you know, the one who said ‘the buck stops here’).
What a bunch of immoral cowards.
My comment is awaiting Oliver’s blessing.
Save all that self – righteousness, OK?
And, Alex, I don’t where you get all that revisionist history, but I read it, and the historians’ debunking of it years ago.
What’s the point? With war, comes a handful of tragedies. We don’t try to “Stop the world and get off.” We try the suspects and punish the guilty. All this hand wringing is nauseating. Hussein was tossing people into industrial chippers, while his execrable sons were grabbing pre – teen girls off the streets, and raping them. But he wasn’t worth deposing, according to you “Holy Joes.”
And, Alex, like the other sputtering, non – participating fools around here, want something to happen to George Bush, because he wasn’t pravticing oversight about 16 levels down the chain of command. I’d laugh if you weren’t so pathetic.
Spend a “night on the wire”, and then come back and talk to me.
Yes, Frank, war is “fucking horrible.” So why did we start one in Iraq?
My comment is awaiting Oliver s blessing.
I hear the world’s smallest violin playing in the background.
What the righties are missing is the cover-up.
The military originally claimed the civilians killed were the victims of an insurgents’ IED. That was a lie. It was not standing up and doing the right thing.
When photos surfaced showing the dead had gunshot wounds, the military claimed the civilians were killed in the crossfire of a firefight with insurgents and the right howled human shield. Only when Time magazine showed up did the military backstep and start its lengthy on-going investigation.
We now learn of a second incident in April.
The military’s actions in lying and covering up virtually everything in these wars – Chemical Ali, Jessica Lynch, the Afghanistan wedding bombing, Pat Tillman, Abu Ghraib, the al-Zawahiri bombing in Pakistan – has undecut our credibility in Iraq and internationally and is putting our troops in greater danger.
Please have the courage and decency to condemn the military’s coverup so that this practice will cease.
If this debate is to be fought with quotes, then have at it.
Here are a couple from Mr. Mill, since he seems to be the current fountain of wisdom where war is concerned:
Well, I’m sure he didn’t mean foreign wars of choice that purport to be about bringing democracy to the huddled brown masses at gunpoint.
Hey, what God conversing, mandate claiming chimp does that sound like?
Macswain, I pointed out in the thread about Murtha and Haditha that the military has a history of first covering up (or flat out ignoring, as with Abu Ghraib)and then attempting to mitigate damage from such incidents and was summarily ignored. Inconvenient facts, even by the truck load, are apparantly easily ignored by the lumps.
Frank, I don’t think Mill was saying what you think he was saying. He wasn’t saying that people should start phony wars just because they think they can get away with it. In fact, I’d go so far as to say he could have been talking about Dubya and all his chickenhawk keyboard kommando supporters when he wrote the second sentence.
Regardless, I much prefer this other quote from Mill, which is quite appropriate for OW’s tenacious band of winger trolls:
Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
–John Stuart Mill
Plus what Macswain said. Oh, and Frank, while Hussein was at the height of all that brutal behavior, he was being toasted by the Reaganites (many of whom now populate the Bushie camp). Were you advocating his overthrow back then, or did you just leap onto the bandwagon when your masters blew the appropriate dog whistles?
Rummy and Saddam: The Early Years
‘Yes, Frank, war is fucking horrible. So why did we start one in Iraq?’
Actually, a good comment. War is horrible. Every war will have ‘X’ number of bad incidents. Can’t put young soldiers in harm’s way, out their lives at daily risk, engage them in deadly carnage and then expect same young soldiers to draw nice distinct lines so easily drawable to bloggers and MSM bigwigs who only have to worry the if the AC setting is cooling the latte too quickly.
Don’t go to war if you are expecting something other than how war truly is.
AND QUIT PREJUDGING THE TROOPS!
Dugger
Yeah, right, Alex, Mill wasn’t referring to modern conservatives.
And he wouldn’t recognize modern statist, “Nanny State” liberals like you as “real liberals”, either.
I’d love to hear what you thought of Hussein in 1983, Alex. What were you, about 20?
Why don’t all you lefties read this:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=042704I
Glassman, now there’s a credible source.
How does linking to a predictible anti-liberal rant prove anything?
I love the leftist “argument”. Immediately attack the source, without even dealing with the issue that “source” brings up.
If the source is such an idiot, it should be nothing for a guy like you Bill, to bring his argument down around his ears eh?
Why? Because his arguement was based on a sterotype. Glassman claims to have formerly been liberal, and he assumes that everyone out there who identifies themselves as such share the exact same beliefs as he did. From there he just postulates endlessly.
As Bill said, it proves nothing!
All Conservatives are fascist monsters who eat the children of the poor. Conservatives will deny this, of course, but look at their beliefs and policy prescriptions (which I won’t bother to identify or discuss myself).
Idiots.
Don t go to war if you are expecting something other than how war truly is.
Forward this to Mr. Rumseld immediately.
Speaking of quotes:
“I don’t think our troops ought to be used for what’s called nation building. I think our troops ought to be used to fight and win war.”
The subject then was not Iraq, but someone should have remembered their own words. Then maybe we wouldn’t be talking about this three years later, long after the “war” is supposed to be over.
Didn’t anyone notice that Mr. Glassman wasn’t the author?
Oh, well…
“Murtha is a hack politician who curries favor with the party s elite excluisve power structure by using his past military experience to cheap shot with a credential US service people. He is now in Ramsey Clark-Cindy Sheehan territory.”
BTW, Murtha is not the only one talking about this. Apparently some republicans are not enamored with what they have seen from the same briefings. Might not be a bad idea to keep what’s left your powder dry on this one.
“This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them,” Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and former marine who was briefed by Marine Corps officials, told Time magazine, which first reported details of the killings in March. “This is going to be an ugly story.”
Actually that’s right, sorry about the mistake.
Still, to copy what I just said with the right person this time, Burgess-Jackson claims to have formerly been liberal, and he assumes that everyone out there who identifies themselves as such share the exact same beliefs as he did. From there he just postulates endlessly.
Mental.Midgets
Again, so says Pedrolito. Pot, kettle, and all that.
sundown, you’re an idiot.
argue the authors points, not his history. You lefties are so intellectually challenged you can’t even drum up an argument…just slam the guy who wrote it.
Mental.Midgets
Interesting thought from (the good) Roger Ailles;
“Update: A rhetorical question. How many of those invoking
the presumption of innocence with respect to the November 2005 events in Haditha — which allegedly involved the shooting of girls aged 1, 3 and 5, among others — are the same douchebags who feigned outrage in response to the bullshit claim that Senator Kerry shot a fleeing, half-naked Vietnamese teenage boy in the back?”
drpedro Says:
May 28th, 2006 at 7:03 pm
sundown, you re an idiot. argue the authors points, not his history. You lefties are so intellectually challenged you can t even drum up an argument& just slam the guy who wrote it.Mental.Midgets
I thought you were bored, bored, bored of the unintelligent comments on this blog and were poised to leave what, days, weeks ago …?
I am, and your witless comment simply reinforces it.
Sigh. There is no debating the lumps. Looking at just the recent threads concerning Haditha, there have been multiple links to articles detailing the military’s history of “image control” (to put a kind spin on it) when confronted with events that could have particularly negative consequences at home and abroad. To refute this, we are presented with a link to what is essentially a tired rant by a “former liberal” (bullshit) that purports to illustrate why liberals are nasty, condescending, and most of all, wrong. Hilariously, there is the contention that liberals can’t support their arguments very well. I’ll even buy the idea that liberals can be condescending when continuously confronted by those who would seemingly defend their cause even when faced with inhuman butchery. Can liberals be long winded and fact heavy? Sure, I’ll buy that. If he meant that modern conservatives tend to bypass honest debate by appealing to baser instincts through jingoism/nationalism/xenophobia/faux patriotism/FEAR to craft a “superior” argument, then I’ll buy that too.
As for Mr. Glassman and his website, Tech Central Station might put up the odd story with actual merit, but the man himself has long been known to curry corporate favor and has published many an article that reads more like a company press release than honest science. This has been particularly notable in his stance against global warming. To find a pro conservative/anti-liberal tirade that amounts to little more than hot air on this tool’s web site proves essentially nothing.
I do admire the attempt to short circuit the discussion about Haditha, Murtha, and rumors of a cover-up by once again trying to go down the well-worn route of “Liberals suck..Conservatives RULE!”
Just keep shoving and eventually your head will pop back out of your neck.
drpedro Says:
May 28th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
I am, and your witless comment simply reinforces it.
Then why not get on with fucking off?
drpedro,
Coming from a hater of America such as yourself, I’ll take your words as a complement.
SUX0R!
repack.
“Forward this to Mr. Rumseld immediately.”
Why not forward it to every politician who made the war possible, including the Democrats?
Why not forward it toa ll of the Clinton Admin who went into the Balkans and before that Mogadishu etc. And before Lebanon and before that Desert One.
Idiots like Murtha and other partisan pre-judgers are hurting ther troops, not particularly Rummy.
Dugger
For all you waraholics out there, I’ve got breaking news. Incidents like the one on 11/19 would have been “brought to light” if not by Murtha than by someone else. But that would make no difference to the keep-it-swept-under-the carpet types. For this group will alway find more appalling the messenger’s act and not the actions of the crime doers.
Another reason why war sucks. We have to listen this garbage.
For all you morons who want to rewrite history on a daily basis…..Murtha didn’t “bring this to light”…..Murtha simply prejudged the results of an ongoing military investigation to further his own political ends.
In doing so he broke the faith with his fellow Marines, and has heaped even more ignominy on his own bloated pinhead
Murtha didn’t pre-judge anything. He said that the investigation would find that some marines had deliberately executed innocent Iraqi civilians, including children as young as 1 year of age. That would be exactly correct and is no more “pre-judging” than someone saying “someone killed Nicole Brown Simpson in cold blood.” Murtha didn’t name anyone specifically, so there is no chance he has contaminated any “jury pool” (absurd). The crime is not in doubt, simply those involved and whatever excuses they will offer for savagely murdering children. Cue slavering jingoistic dogs to come running to their keyboards to defend the Corps over the lives of faceless foreigners. For the hard Right, the crime is not the murders, but the increased public awareness and the damage that will do to the whole ill-conceived Iraq fiasco. So shut up Murtha, they’re just war crimes you hack.
SEMPER FI LUMPS!!!
Frank, no I did not kill any babies, only those that supported Bush at any time during the last six years have blood on their hands; they were the enablers, not I. God knows I did not support him from the get-go, I got my get out of jail free card.
Most people have common sense and this slaughter can not be “spun”.
It is wrong any which way you decide to slice it. Quote this, quote that, bullshit. It is wrong.
War is one thing, killing innocent civilians is another.
Murtha didn t pre-judge anything. He said that the investigation would find that some marines had deliberately executed innocent Iraqi civilians
The romans said it best
Res ipso loquitur
You’re a moron bill, no question about it. Thanks for the confirmation…
Uh, Pedro, I known the air is pretty thin upstairs, but do try to actually make even the barest amount of sense. Just what the hell did your quotation prove? What are you arguing, that there is still doubt about how the civilians died? That ship has sailed, clown. It’s a matter of working out the details at this point. Seriously, stop doing mercury shots and give your withered melon a chance to breath.
I know the lumps are flailing on this one, but holy crap Pedro is really workin’ it. At least Dugger is smart enough to stick to the tired “Murtha is a hack” line and doesn’t try to pretend that the notion there was a deliberate massacre in Haditha is somehow still in doubt. Pedro, on the other hand, is hammering down the kool-aid two fisted.
Pedro, real doctor or bedpan technician?
May we presume, peed’, that your judgment of Rep. John Kline of Minnesota (former Marine) will be just as harsh as your judgment of Rep. Murtha?
Or is your ire reserved only for those with a (D) following their names?
Dugger, Pedro, answer the question. Is Kline a partisan hack? Afterall he said this:
“This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them,” said Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and former Marine who was briefed two weeks ago by Marine Corps officials. “This is going to be an ugly story.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198892,00.html
And let’s not forget, Dugs, that you began this thread attacking “third-hand anti-military newspaper accounts.” Let me ask you something. Do you think Time magazine should have investigated this incident and reported what it found? Second, is the Washington Times part of the anti-military media:
“Defense attorneys expect the Marine Corps to file murder charges against one or more Marines who conducted raids in Haditha in November that resulted in the deaths of more than 20 Iraqi civilians, according to sources close to the investigation.”
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060525-122158-2945r.htm
From Jesus’ General:
What seemed to enrage you the most about Murtha’s comments was that he had made them before it has been established by the Marine Corps that a crime had been committed. I couldn’t agree more. I mean we aren’t talking about a goatherd at Gitmo here, we can’t jump to any conclusions until Our Leader and Sean Hannity tell us it’s acceptable to do so.
Maybe it wasn’t a war crime at all. The final report might show that the victims were all terrorists. Who knows? Perhaps the 6 year old was shouldering an RPG and the 3 and 4 year olds were manning a .50 cal machine gun. We won’t know until the final report is issued.
The silence on Kline is deafening.
Wait a minute Bill. I have no idea if there was a deliberate massacre in Haditha (nor really do you). I do not deny there could have been one and if we run a non-politicized investgation (meaning Ramsey Clark Murtha shuts his obnoxious anti-Marine prejudiced yap) and find GIs have violated the law, they should be punished but with cognizance of the conditonsdthey were operating under. Lets find out what the investigation says first – not preliminary newspaper reports (from any newspaper, frame – prejudgement is simply wrong here).
Dugger
No paul, Kline is NOT a partisan hack, and if you read his statement you would see why.
Kline stated the facts, as currently KNOWN. “It has been established that the Marines fired on civilians and killed them.”
Not “murdered”. Not slaughtered. Not “in cold blood”. Not “innocent”civilians.
We do NOT know the details. We do not know if the marines were taking fire from that room. We just don’t know.
I give the Marines the benefit of innocent until proven guilty that my Bolshie collegues here don’t. We have an active investigation. There is NO evidence of a government coverup.
Let justice take its course
We do NOT know the details. We do not know if the marines were taking fire from that room. We just don t know.
This, from the same clown who likes to repeat the claim that “John Kerry killed an unarmed teenager in a loincloth.”
Somehow you managed to know the details on that one, peed’. Are your powers of divination declining as you grow old?
“There’s no doubt that the Marines allegedly involved in doing this–they lied about it,” says Kline. “They certainly tried to cover it up.”
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1198892,00.html
Democrat bad. Republican good.
Re Kline. I’m not taking anybody’s word for what they think happened or heard second hand – right or left or middle. Often the sources for this information are locals with axes to grind or biased interpeters etc. Lets not forget how the ‘evil’ US soldiers were targeting journalists. Am I the only one that remembers that crock of sh*t? It was on CNN so it must have been true, right?
Dugger
Actually, what we know paints an ugly picture. There is no evidence of any firefight, and only one resident was shown to have a weapon, and even that is still in dispute (were they firing on the marines or trying to protect themselves). What is becoming increasingly clear is that the initial report was a cover up. Take special note of the passage where it is made clear that some members of Kilo company have started “rolling over.” That sounds like confession time and, as I predicted before, this investigation has moved, for the most part, beyond the question of whether or not certain deaths were deliberate and onto determining fault.
While on the one hand I can accept the argument that these marines were overly stressed and primed to go off, with the IED simply providing the trigger, I cannot excuse the act. That those involved knew they had done something wrong is only re-inforced by the fact that the initial reports were crafted to paint the civilian deaths as “collateral” damage and therefore acceptable. I can even accept the idea that the military wanted to keep this quiet and to handle it internally without public scrutiny to avoid the negative repurcussions both at home and in Iraq. I don’t agree with that position as I think it fosters mistrust and anger (particularly after Abu Ghraib), but I can accept that people might be inclined to see events from that perspective. What I cannot accept is the apparent belief by some that it is the marines involved are blameless victims, and the Iraqi civilians killed are really to blame (the “bad guys” argument put forth in another thread). Was a marine killed by an IED? Yes. Do his buddies have a right to be furious over his death? Yes. Do they have the right to seek vengeance on Iraqi civilians? Hell no. The pretense that Murtha’s public regurgitation of conclusions from the military investigation constitute “pre-judging” and have put pressure on the military to offer up a sacrifice to appease the public goes hand in hand with this “blame the victim” mentality. Had this event been dealt with openly and without the need for pressure from yet another round of photos and video tapes that were previously suppressed or ignored, there would be no ongoing outcry from Rep. Murtha. How could there be? What would he say? The system works and the guilty have been punished, aren’t you all furious? Don’t we need another pointless investigation into a fully disclosed matter? If the debate is over what long term damge this does to the military’s public image, then the old axiom still holds true, it’s not the crime, it’s the cover up.
Bill, The marines may be innocent completely or heartless killers/executioners or something in between. There are bad service people of all stripes and a boatload of good ones. But undoubtedly the bad ones can do bad things. But we ask these people to risk their lives for us while we sit on our fat *sses and enjoy the world – thanks to them. It would seem we at least owe them a fair, unbiased and unpressured investigation and trial as required. My experience has been that it takes a long time for all of the facts to get out and that initial public reports are often misleading and usually incomplete. I again say let the investigation by the PROPER authorities, not partisan politicians or newspapers, be completed and the results released – before sweeping judgments are made.
Dugger
Dugger you’re a joke. You say you want the truth to come out and that it may take awhile for that to happend. Guess what? There would be no military investigation if not for the original reporting in Time magazine. Have you read the Time piece? Did you catch this part:
“A delegation of angry village elders complained to senior Marines in Haditha about the killings but were rebuffed with the excuse that the raid had been a mistake. TIME learned about the Haditha action in January, when it obtained a copy of Thabet’s videotape from an Iraqi human-rights group. But a Marine spokesman brushed off any inquiries. “To be honest,” Marine Captain Jeff Pool e-mailed McGirk, “I cannot believe you’re buying any of this. This falls into the same category of AQI (al-Qaeda in Iraq) propaganda.” In late January, TIME gave a copy of the videotape to Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. After reviewing it, he recommended a formal investigation. The ensuing probe, conducted by a colonel, concluded that Marines, not a bomb, killed the civilians but that the deaths were the result of “collateral damage,” not deliberate homicide. Nevertheless, after reviewing the initial probe, senior military officials launched a criminal investigation.”
The very media you deride as ideologically biased was instrumental in getting the investigation going and in bringing the truth to light. Do you think that Time magazine should have questioned the marines first official recounting of the incident? Should Time have simply ignored the stories of Iraqi citizens as so much al-Qeada backed propaganda?
Idiot.