Murtha on Hardball: US troops executed 24 civilians

in Anbar province three or four months ago after one of their own had been KIA. Women and children among the dead.

Three commanding officers have been relieved of their duties as a result.

worse than what Time wrote, and the article is scathing.


http://www.time.com/time/world/printout/0,8816,1174649,00.html

I couldn't remember the name of the place. So helpful :hi:

:cry:

"We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor, nor violence indicate possession."

Julia Ward Howe

Dems will have to make up their minds and not support pro war candidates.

What is wrong with Republicans ???
Serious what the f*ck is wrong with republicans?
Are their wires crossed? Are their hearts too small
or penises too tiny? Did someone swap the hemispheres
of their brains or did they just lose their moral compasses???
I mean GOD GOD.. what the hell is wrong with Republicans?

They are just bad bad bad bad bad bad !!!

I suppose the result is the same whether you have a cover-up or whether you have no checks or balances. The Republican-controlled Congress is wholly uninterested in what's being done in Iraq in our name and with our tax dollars. So, when the inevitable payback for this atrocity comes home to roost, they can all go in front of the cameras and wonder and wail about how the terrorists hate us for our freedom.

And anyone like Ward Churchill who has the bad taste to remind the public of what our tax dollars paid for in Iraq can be excoriated and marginalized for hating America the Ever-Virtuous.

He specializes in covering up war crimes.

every day the US kills innocents. It has been happening since 3/03!

It was pure unchecked revenge on innocent people.

America is going to hell for that.

I recall that the Iraqi govt. complained and there were photos of the dead women and children, and the accompanying story was pretty much the same. As I recall many of the dead were executed with a shot to the head, so it wasn't the original story of "returning fire" at a village. Wonder what rank the commanding officers were who were relieved of duties. In any case, being relieved of duties does not satisfy the rules of warfare as to the cold blooded killing of civilians.

On edit: I just read the Time article again - I am so ashamed and sickened by my country's actions.

"The U.S. has paid relatives of the victims $2,500 for each of the 15 dead civilians, plus smaller payments for the injured. But nothing can bring back all that was taken from 9-year-old Eman Waleed on that fateful day last November. She still does not comprehend how, when her father went in to pray with the Koran for the family's safety, his prayers were not answered, as they had been so many times in the past. "He always prayed before, and the Americans left us alone," she says. Leaving, she grabs a handful of candy. "It's for my little brother," she says. "I have to take care of my brother. Nobody else is left."

that IEDs were not involved, the Iraqis were basically slaughtered. Murtha doesn't condone but understands; I don't understand at all, never mind condone.

:cry: Women and children and families. :(

Mi Lai then corrected himself.

Murtha has my respect. He is a true patriot. We need more of him.

and a safe desk job somewhere...

Where the trigger pullers? They been bad, they must pay. Amazing....

at checkpoints, from the air, on raids and after getting attacked. This is only one incident from last November when they actually happen daily.

People get killed, their friends lose their minds, and they kill innocent people. The very people they're supposed to protect.

That's why you don't start a f***ing war unless there is no other f***ing option you neocon, chicken-hawk, never-worn-this-country's-uniform pieces of s***!

Sorry, that just slipped out...

That's why it made me sick when I heard about W. pumping his fist and "feelin' good" when the bombing started.

This guy never had a clue.

Somebody has to say it.

That's all.

on edit: Oh, and a war crime.

The word Genocide should be used very carefully and accurately.

Murtha would be as revered as he is now?

enough to take the stance he is taking. That's true patriotism and bravery you are seeing from him.

My point, exactly.

To expand (and with an eye to all the 08 wannabes) .... he is a man who stands for something and speaks loud and proud for **his** principled stand.

He's as far to the right as any Dem imaginable, yet, for taking a stand and standing proud, he's the darling of the left.

Funny how that works ... that 'conviction' thing.

of them and their families. Soldiers are human and they can crack.

Bring them all out of Iraq - stop this insanity!

:scared:

So we don't have to massacre them over here.

Oh - waitaminute - they wanna massacre Mexicans too.

Oh well - so much for that theory.

Murderous bastards.

The grunts involved have to also be included in the blame on this one.

...that we have done in !Iraq has been exactly correct and right??? :mad:

http://www.dw-world.de/image/0,,816072_1,00.jpg






Are you proud,Mary Cheney?

On the one hand,you take a 19 year old kid, fill him full of "kill every raghead that you see" brainwashing in boot camp, send him 6000 miles away from everything he knows, out to a foreign environment where he knows nothing about the people or the culture, and where he can't really tell who the enemy is, add to it that even the nationals that are supposed to be on his side hate his guts and may be trying to kill him, and mix in a hefty dose of sleep deprivation and shitload of gunshots and explosions, you can see how stuff like this tends to happen.

On the other hand, could I ever get as stone cold as to just drop the hammer on women and children? I couldn't in Vietnam, and I probably couldn't if I was in Iraq.

But hey, enough of that, how come the liberal media doesn't report about the women and children that we haven't massacred?

Which is why it is a terrible idea to send these boys for more than one deployment.My son did three,and after the second one,I wouldn't have put it past him to do the same thing(he has PTSS,too,by the way)

Look, I can ALMOST sympatize with this point of view except for one fact, those MURDERERS are still alive, and their victims are dead. Look, I never wanted to join the military, even when they pursued me under Clinton, and the reason was that the United States had a bad habit of starting bad wars for one Bullshit reason or another depending on the Administration. Granted under Clinton we had "relative" peace, and Bosnia could be considered justified.

The problem is that everything you said people use as an excuse for atrocities like this, to dodge responsibility. Its inexcusable, plain and simple, I would LOVE to see those in charge at the Hague, charged for war crimes, from the President all the way down. At the same time, any of the lowest rung that were involved in shit like this ALSO needs to be brought to trial, and if found guilty, sent to prison for a VERY long time. The Nuremburg defense doesn't cut it, and to be honest I do not want Mass Murderers running free on OUR streets or left in charge of our country either.

who is the "enemy"?How do you condition someone to kill?What about when you can't tell one from the other?
I agree -it's wrong-these marines were wrong..but don't be so quick to demonize all of them.

Those who acted against the rules of war are to be punished in a court of law where jurisdiction is appropriate. I call those who act this way murderers, because that is what they are. This doesn't cover ALL soldiers in either Iraq or Afganistan, only those who commit acts of murder for fucked up reasons. Saying you can't tell a civilian from the enemy isn't an excuse, its a justification for your atrocious behavior. To be honest, I wouldn't want to live next door to a soldier who acted as these soldiers did, would you?

Americans like to pretend out guys don't do it, but we did in Vietnam and we're doing it in Iraq. The situation these guys are in, the frustration of fighting an insurgency where you can never feel safe, seeing your buddies get killed and the enemy running away. It is a recipe for atrocities.

This is why some Vietnam vets hate Kerry. He talked about the unspeakable things that happened.

War is for psychos & incipient psychos

It is understandable how circumstances can bring out the very highest (like, say John Kerry) or lowest (like say, an immature, sadomasochistic, megalomaniac with a great big military machine)in a human being. Catch 22: if you really get off on wandering around a foreign country with your life threatened every moment, pretty much free to wreak violence and cruelty against innocent civilians for grins, we really shouldn't send you. On the other hand if you're a pansy-hugging, compassionate human being who genuinely wants those pesky foreigners to have a decent life free of tyranny, you don't want to go.

How can I say this? Errr, ahh, WAR IS HELL. Or maybe that is not clear.

WAR IS HELLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What worries me is what happens to the average Jane or Joe who is neither of the above. Continuing, prolonged, exposure to danger and violence will take its toll. How many spirits will return irretrievably broken and bruised--even if not physically damaged--unable to ever fully integrate back into their communities? Answer: enough to be a national tragedy; too few to be a national priority.

It's Vietnam Vets all over again.

...contemplate participating in this kind of wanton slaughter become raging, homicidal monsters. And if they do manage to come back home alive, they are never the same, never happy, mostly dead inside. This is the reality of war.

From the linked article:

"Lieut. Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing, spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq, told Time the involvement of the ncis does not mean that a crime occurred. And she says the fault for the civilian deaths lies squarely with the insurgents, who "placed noncombatants in the line of fire as the Marines responded to defend themselves."


Case closed.

I am sure that no bias will be involved.

"Executed" is used for the deserving.

I say let's give them demonstrators. We need to set a date and take to the streets.
How about July 5th?

Especially for those of us who are old enough to remember Vietnam. One of the posters up in the thread said, "take a 19 year old kid, fill him full of "kill every raghead that you see" brainwashing in boot camp, send him 6000 miles away from everything he knows, out to a foreign environment where he knows nothing about the people or the culture, and where he can't really tell who the enemy is ..."

Change "raghead" to "gook" and you could just as easily be talking about Vietnam.

Bake