I’m even more surprised to find so many on the Left willing to not only believe it, but are tripping over themselves in their rush to judgement as well as spraining their shoulders while they try to pat themselves on the back for their opposition of ….

I need to figure out how I can get an all purpose scapegoat in my work life. Things go awry on my watch, somehow I am held accountable…..

Despite Jack Murtha’s presumptive guilty finding of the Marines involved in the incident at Haditha (as well as his indictment of the entire chain of command) more information continues to come out about the alleged massacre, some of it favorable to t…

Gotta say, with all due respect to BlackFive, that this is crap. Let’s wait until the military finishes their investigation is the battle cry of those who take enjoyment out of ripping apart Congressman Murtha. Where were all of these no rush to judge…

Are we sure Moutha (aka Murtha) was a war hero? Maybe he was called a “baby killer” when he returned from Nam, and he wants to make sure this generation of soldiers gets tagged the same way. Of course liberals never have been ones to let the facts get in the way of their opinion.

The real basis for the rush to judegment is to lay the blame for all that goes wrong at the feet of our President. Regardless of the hundreds of thousands of things that have gone right, the drive by media need their fix of perceived foul-ups in order to keep themselves from suffering positive news panic attacks…and this is the type slop the liberal and moderates in congress feed upon.

Our military investigators will get it right…and that is more confidence than I can place in our current crop of congressional leaders.

There has been a spike in insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan the last few days. The seditionist news stations are trying to figure out why. They think we have to work harder to ‘win their hearts and minds’….

The House will take time off from wrapping legal blankets around its own felons to pass a ‘Haditha Resolution’ condemning the USMC.

Michael Moore will premiere his new ‘documentary’ movie ‘Haditha’ which will implicate Chm JCS Peter Pace.

Christ (The King) Mathews will claim, supported by ‘hard evidence’ from ‘reliable sources’ such as Dan Rather, Ranger veteran Jesse MacBeth and Professor Ward Churchill that Vice President Dick Cheney gave the personal order for the massacre and that President Bush ordered the coverup.

Jesse Jackson will scream that the Haditha “victims” were “targeted” because they were non-Caucasians.

The newly elected Democratic Senate will call for a Special Counsel to investigate the “documents” produced by Christ (The King) Mathews.

Hopefully this doesn’t sound too callous, but if this is the only incident of this type we’ve had to deal with in 3 years than we’ve shown more restraint than in any other prior conflict. We should perform due diligence, investigate the action and prosecute as seems fit. One of the most astute comments I’ve seen is that every place has a few bad apples; regardless of what process is in place, its inevitable that a few should find their way in. Whether this is a case of that or something more complex remains to be seen.

I think it is VERY poor, however, for people like Murtha to condemn the whole lot. We don’t know what someone under fire has seen; some soldiers may have been looking for an excuse to vent anger and should be punished for their lack of discipline and concern for collateral damage, while others may have simply seen a moving target- later identified as a child- as the source of small arms fire.

I DO hope that the military will do the right thing (it sounds so far as if they are being thorough), and resist the urge to make everyone a scapegoat rather than risk Congressional and media ire. If 2 people really are responsible for the atrocity and the remainder are not, then that is what they should find.

Obviously, the latest developments in the military investigation are fueled by chilling echoes of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, used to discredit our sacrifices in Vietnam. The anti-war mongers are perversely excited at the prospect of hitting anothe…

One of the main purposes for the GC to require combatants to be clearly identifiable (i.e. in uniform, etc…) is to protect the civilians from being inadvertantly targetted. When the ‘insurgants’ hide behind the civilian population, use women and children as human shields these types of things are more prone to occur.

Note also that when we allow the insurgants to hide behind women and children with no price (they are still treated as being protected by the GC instead of as illegal combatants including being shot in the field) we encourage it. Why should they abide by the rules when breaking them gives them an advantage with no cost?

What do you think would happen if a U.S. commander actually ordered an illegal combatant to be ‘shot’ in the field? The MSM would go apeshit in condeming them. Yet the ‘insurgents’ deliberately target and kill/execute innocent people all the time and the MSM is mum about it.

I would like to know: 1) If the innocent people were killed by the marines or by the insurgents – this needs to be answered. 2) Where they being used as ‘human shields’ (including firing from a civilian crowd or from a civilian home/building) at the time? 3) Where the people firing at the marines not identified as soldiers (in uniform or wearing some clearly identifiable badge)? 4) Did they then hide among the civilians?

If the marines did kill the civilians ‘in cold blood’ then they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. However if the ‘insurgents’ do not abide by the GC then they should not enjoy its protections.

We need to declare that illegal combatants would be treated as such – and follow up on it. If the insurgents are using human shields we should videotape it and publish it worldwide. Nothing says cowardice more then a video of a man hiding behind women and children.

Unfortunately people like Muthra are already using this (and endangering our troops) for their own political gain.

Haditha: Marine eyewitnesses come forward There are two, according to the AP. They weren’t there during the incident but they took photos and helped carry out the bodies afterwards. One of them, Lance Cpl. Ryan Briones, was interviewed by the……

Jon sent along a link to this Hot Air round-up of information on the investigation into the murders in Haditha: The Times says three or four Marines are suspected of carrying out the killings with several more facing charges of……

Just one time, Mr. Left, just one time – walk the walk of a U.S. Marine in combat, and we might hear a different perspective coming from you and our other friends on the Left. …

If the facts and evidence bears out the need to harshly punish those involved, then that must be done. At the same time, we should not let members of Congress with an agenda push this issue further and faster than the facts and evidence allows or dic…..

I don’t know what might have prompted a reaction that happened in Haditha and I am certainly never going to condone murder, but under the circumstances, I can see how this could be much different than a My Lai and I resent people attempting to make that connection. In the case of My Lai, not a shot was fired at the soldiers who murdered over 500 people. At Haditha we have a group who were targeted by a bomb and were apparently taking small arms fire. I can’t pretend to know what might have set someone off but I could imagine something as small as a civilian celebrating the bomb explosion might be enough.

Put let’s keep this in perspective. 15 people killed by a breakdown during a bombing/firefight is completely different than over 500 killed without a shot fired in anger. Given the size of the unit at Haditha, the firepower at it’s disposal and the size of Haditha itself, that 15 were killed leads me to believe that this was not the full blown rampage that My Lai was. Had it been, the toll would have been much, much higher.

Second, if this turns out to be true, it is a slap in the face to all the great troops who perform unbelievable work (in the face of often poor leadership) under the strain of combat without taking the lives of innocents–in this case including a 3 year old–to whitewash it. The military is like any other organization, always a couple bad apples.

The left shouldn’t grab this as anti-war fodder, the right shouldn’t make excuses for crimes.

On May 18th, I was one of many bloggers on the Right to condemn Democrat Rep. John Murtha for blabbing about the still-not-complete investigation of alleged war atrocities by Marines at Haditha. (Formal findings are not expected for several weeks.)……

I give the Marines much more leeway not because they are right, but because they cannot afford to be wrong. Their life was at stake, not mine.

Easy87us