 CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - Pentagon investigations into the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians are focused on about a dozen enlisted Marines and do
not target their commanding officers, the lawyer for one of the officers said Tuesday.
The investigations of up to two dozen killings and whether Marines covered them up are focused on the troops who were in a four-vehicle convoy hit by
a roadside bomb last Nov. 19 in the western Iraqi city of Haditha, attorney Paul Hackett said.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s prime minister said on Tuesday his patience was wearing thin with excuses from U.S. troops that they kill civilians by
“mistake” and said he would launch an investigation into the Haditha killings.
So, can it be presumed that a massacre is symptomatic of a quagmire? A difficult to find enemy, booby traps, an increasing casualty rate, frustrated
soldiers, a civilian population caught in the middle?
Sounds like a bummer to me.
But whom do we hold responsible? The marines involved in the alleged crime? Or the leadership that put them in this position? I doubt personally that
our young soldiers and marines arrived in iraq with murder on their minds. But combat zones generate huge degrees of stress.
Back in the day, I recall Lt. Calley's court martial. He was one of the prime leaders at the My Lei massacre. A former shoe clerk, and a product of
OCS - "Shake & Bake" - he made the big time as a mass murderer. So far as I know Calley hasn't committed any further crimes. So what happened to
him and his men?
My guess is a misguided policy in Vietnam. A war of attrition without relief or victory. And that wasn't the fault of the individual soldier...
[edit on 3/3/2008 by Dave Rabbit]
|
Hi. 
Sorry to be off topic, but I don't know if you get U2Us yet and I wanted to alert you to this thread.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
External Source Tags
And always leave a url for your source material. 
|
Well... since I was there in 1968 when this took place, but like the majority of Americans and others around the world, didn't find out about it
until over a year later..... there has been much discussion about the same kind of scenario going on in Afghanistan and Iraq. In doing a bit of
reading.... I found two sites that really get into the CORE of the discussion much better that I could.
newsbusters.org...
And....
chud.com...
Personally speaking, I think anytime troops who are under constant pressure and attack from insurgents..... are going to be guarded and, perhaps, a
bit too fast on the trigger..... thus allowing their fears to override their common sense. This was most evident in Vietnam. One of the biggest
stories that use to flow around Nam was about women VC and children VC who would walk into encampments of GI's on the premise of friendship and then
releasing a grenade in the midst of everyone, committing suicide and killing or wounding GI's. I KNOW this for a fact as one of my High School
friends was KILLED by this technique. Don't get me wrong... I am totally against violence against innocents (especially women and children) ......
but I was never in that situation. "Platoon" by Oliver Stone, was as close to depicting Mei Lei as anything that Hollywood cranked out.
Honestly.... if you want to start a discussion.... how about the idiots whose intelligence was so poor, that ALLIED TROOPS were KILLED.... aka
FRIENDLY FIRE! How many hundreds of lives were lost by THAT? In fact... I just started a NEW THREAD about this.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
Just one opinion.
Dave
[edit on 5/31/2006 by Dave Rabbit]
|
Dave, friendly fire. That's a whole nuther nightmare. Who was the football star who turned down the scholarship, went Ranger, then got wasted by his
own troops in Afghanistan? The army in it's infinite wisdom did a Jessica Lynch on him. Covered up the friendly fire part and gave him a Silver Star.
As it has been said, "It just keeps getting worse..."
|
Well..... in listening to all the opinions in print, Larry King Live, CNN and everyone else that threw their TWO CENTS in...... the Haditha incident
is NOT what the U. S. needed right now with all the other BS that is having to be dealt with. Of course, it will be a matter of TIME before ALL THE
FACTS come out..... but like Mei Lei, there will be NO WINNERS........ only LOSERS.
Just one opinion.
Dave
|
Nor should Haditha be considered surprising, either. I'm pretty sure that down the road Dubya is going to replace Murphy, as in Murphy's Law wll
hence forward be referred to as Dubya's law.
Just about everything that could go wrong in Iraq has gone wrong. From the initial "decapitation strike" which failed to decapitate to the absence
of WMD's to the looting of Iraq's museums to the birth of an insurgency and creation of Iraq as a base for terrorism...Haditha, ladies and
gentleman, was just waiting to happen.
And maybe we got off easy. It could have been worse. Lt Calley took out what around three hundred civillians?
What I like best, though, is the way this Adminsitration keeps rolling out the blunders. One after another. It's like bowling for dollars without the
dollars. How many of you noticed the news on the third page earlier in the week?
"PENTAGON TO DROP BASIC GENEVA RULE
But State Department objects to removal of protection from degrading treatment
Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times
Monday, June 5, 2006
Washington -- The Pentagon has decided to omit from new detainee policies a key tenet of the Geneva Convention that bans "humiliating and degrading
treatment," according to military officials, a step that would mark a potentially permanent shift away from strict adherence to international human
rights standards.
The decision culminates a lengthy debate within the Department of Defense, but will not become final until the Pentagon makes new guidelines public, a
step that has been delayed.
However, the State Department fiercely opposes the military's decision to exclude Geneva Convention protections and has been pushing for the Pentagon
and White House to reconsider, Defense officials acknowledged.
For more than a year, the Pentagon has been redrawing policies on detainees and interrogation, and intends to issue a new Army Field Manual, which,
along with accompanying directives, represents core instructions to U.S. soldiers worldwide.
The process has been beset by debate and controversy, but the decision to omit Geneva Convention protections from a principal directive comes at a
time of growing worldwide criticism of U.S. detention practices and the conduct of American forces in Iraq."
Sure, that's what we want, in the wake of Haditha, that everyone should know that the United States of America is no longer interested in holding the
high ground.
|
I'm right there with you Kim..... but as I said in my earlier post.... I think this has the potential, if not already, of changing the course of the
war....... and I also think that it lends itself to the old Vietnam quote which you and I know so well "Winning The Minds And The Hearts"..... and
we BOTH know where that got us.
Just One Opinion.
Dave
|
reply to post by KimWHoffman
So many factors here, and if you first just rule out the factor that they are just evil men then the answer to why boils down to basically two
elements. First one is self-preservation; in a world where anyone can be the bad guy, any car could have explosives or any person could be rigged too,
any house could be a trap, any inch of the road could have a 500 pounder under it waiting, any roof could have a sniper etc. one tends to get a little
jumpy. The other one is emotional revenge; your buddy just died and you cannot see or find who did it so you kill everyone around there hoping to get
him/them.
The cause for both of these events rests on the insurgents and other who have decided to use the civilian population as their cover, shield and
disguise.
|
