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Bulsajo
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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desultude
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
Location: Dangling my toes in the Persian Gulf
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 Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:11 am Post subject: |
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It is such a fine line between being pumped adequately for war, and turning into a raging machine. This is a nasty tragedy for everyone involved. I am surely not excusing it, but it is not the same as the torture in the prisons.
These guys were scared to death, vengeful, and pumped to the gills with at least adrenalin (and testosterone?).
This is why so many men came home from Viet Nam with their souls destroyed. They knew, saw and participated in the inhumanity and brutality of it, and there was really no one to tell, because they were on some level complicit.
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The US military is now mounting a proper investigation into what happened but the evidence is already tragically clear. On that November night, after a roadside bomb killed one of their unit and injured two of their comrades, a dozen Marines went on a vengeful rampage. They burst into nearby houses and gunned down 15 people, including seven women and three children. They later reported these civilians were also victims of the roadside blast and claimed to have killed eight insurgents. However, video footage taken after the US Marines moved out seems to make it clear that most of the dead civilians were wearing night clothes.
There has been enough evidence of jumpy US soldiers wildly opening fire on targets, as in the Fallujah siege, the slaying of a pregnant woman as her husband rushed her to hospital or the killing of an Italian secret agent accompanying freed kidnapped journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad airport. But not until now have there been cogent allegations that US troops have run amok among civilians. |
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=79590&d=22&m=3&y=2006 |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Wed Mar 22, 2006 1:57 am Post subject: |
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Can anyone find the video?
It's for the time being at least apparently "disappeared".
One of the key issues here regarding this "massacre" is whether US forces were being fired upon ... or not. |
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igotthisguitar
Joined: 08 Apr 2003
Location: South Korea (Permanent Vacation)
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| Posted: Mon Apr 10, 2006 12:46 am Post subject: |
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| igotthisguitar wrote: |
Can anyone find the video?
It's for the time being at least apparently "disappeared".
One of the key issues here regarding this "massacre" is whether US forces were being fired upon ... or not. |
Haditha: 3 U.S. commanders relieved of duty
as Iraqi town mourns its dead
By Nancy A. Youssef, Knight Ridder Newspapers
Full Story at Mercury News
April 9, 2006
HADITHA, Iraq - In the middle of methodically recalling the day his brother's family was killed, Yaseen's monotone voice and stream of tears suddenly stopped. He looked up, paused and pleaded:
"Please don't let me say anything that will get me killed by the Americans. My family can't handle any more."
The story of what happened to Yaseen and his brother Younes' family has redefined Haditha's relationship with the Marines who patrol it. On Nov. 19, a roadside bomb struck a Humvee on Haditha's main road, killing one Marine and injuring two others.
The Marines say they took heavy gunfire afterwards and thought it was coming from the area around Younes' house. They went to investigate, and 23 people were killed 
Eight were from Younes' family. The only survivor, Younes' 13-year-old daughter, said her family wasn't shooting at Marines or harboring extremists that morning. They were sleeping when the bomb exploded. And when the Marines entered their house, she said, they shot at everyone inside.
The Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) began an investigation in February after a Time Magazine reporter passed on accounts he had received about the incident. A second investigation was opened into how the Marines initially reported the killings - the Marines said that 15 people were killed by the roadside explosion and that eight insurgents were killed in subsequent combat.
On Friday, the Marines relieved of duty three leaders of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which had responsibility for Haditha when the shooting occurred.
They are Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, and two of his company commanders, Capt. James S. Kimber and Capt. Lucas M. McConnell. McConnell was commanding Kilo Company of the 3rd Battalion, the unit that struck the roadside bomb on Nov. 19 and led the subsequent search of the area.
The Marines' announcement didn't tie the disciplinary actions directly to Haditha, saying only that Maj. Gen. Richard Natonski, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division, had lost confidence in the officers' ability to command.
They were relieved because of "multiple incidents that occurred throughout their deployment," said Lt. Lawton King, a spokesman at the Marines' home base at Camp Pendleton, Calif., to which they recently returned.
"This decision was made independent of the NCIS investigation."
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/14298263.htm |
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