Todd, I think the real truth has better chance to come out with this war. History never had the benefit of the internet to put other views of the truth out there.

Cool link JLH. Now I'll waste some time day dreaming.

Unfortunately, one is only tried for commission of war crimes if one loses the war. Had Germany not lost WWII, there wouldn't have been justice at Nuremburg.

In the present case, whether the war in Iraq was legal or illegal (and by whose measure?), the U.S. won it in a matter of days. What the U.S. cannot win, is peace through occupation in Iraq; quite a different situation.

So true Salmo

http://www.military.com/opinion/0,15202,100239,00.html?ESRC=eb.nl

The other Haditha: http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=22779

Marine may Call Murtha as Witness
Washington Times | June 15, 2006

A criminal defense attorney for a Marine under investigation in the Haditha killings says he will call a senior Democratic congressman as a trial witness, if his client is charged, to find out who told the lawmaker that U.S. troops are guilty of cold blooded murder. Attorney Neal A. Puckett told The Washington Times that Gen. Michael Hagee, the Marine commandant, briefed Rep. John P. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, on the Nov. 19 killings of 24 Iraqis in the town north of Baghdad. Mr. Murtha later told reporters that the Marines were guilty of killing the civilians in "cold blood." Mr. Murtha said he based his statement on Marine commanders, whom he did not identify. Mr. Puckett said such public comments from a congressman via senior Marines amount to "unlawful command influence." He said potential Marine jurors could be biased by the knowledge that their commandant, the Corps' top officer, thinks the Haditha Marines are guilty. More

Wow. Now, exactly how do we know that these Marines did the killing? Just because there are photographs taken of the dead bodies by a Marine doesn't mean they were the shooters.

Wouldn't it be a hoot if the insurgents were guilty and it's proven?

Sheesh, all Murtha's got to do is claim that he "forgot" who told him. Hell, lapse of memory works time and again for this administration. Just ask rove.

I need to address one of those links Sard. The Military.com one.

The events at Haditha, in which Marines may have killed civilians in retaliation for the loss of one of their own, are shaping up to be the My Lai of the Iraq war. Some people are horrified. They did what? Not the US Marine Corps! Others, while not exactly happy about the possibility that this happened, are more philosophical: Hey, it's war. Besides, they say, focusing on a few out-of-control incidents gives a false overall picture: we're doing this for you. Don't ask too many questions about how we accomplish the objectives. Both are valid reactions. The correct path lies in the middle.

Literature teaches us that people have always had this ambivalence about the things that happen in war, or “out there.” The people safe and secure at home mostly don't know what the men in the field have to do to win. If they did know, they'd be horrified, and usually are when they find out. Spec Ops, psychological torture, physical torture, secret prisons -- you don't want to know. Just say, “Thank you.” That's the view of the hawks. And to a degree they're right. It's hypocritical to pretend that war is clean; it isn't. Innocent civilians die awful deaths; the whole infrastructure collapses and children starve to death or are turned away from bombed-out hospitals. Why all of a sudden get upset about a few more?

This point of view is well developed in literature. One of the classics is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, about a man named Kurtz who plumbs the depths of his own evil as an ivory trader in the Belgian Congo. (Some readers will have seen the Vietnam War movie “Apocalypse Now” based on this.) The “Heart of Darkness” of the title is metaphoric in two ways. Ultimately it refers to the moral darkness at the center of our own hearts. Kurtz is also at the center of Africa, called the “dark continent” -- not because of the color of the people who live there but because unexplored, overgrown, and mysterious from the point of view of the Western colonizers.

I've recently concluded a consideration of this book in a course at the Naval Academy about the relationship of the West with writers from the world outside: if you live there, it's not a dark continent at all. But Heart of Darkness has another aspect even more relevant to the military: this realization that the means used by men working outside the home country in its ends aren't pretty, and can never be shared by the people back home. It's the basis of what I call the glamour of battle, its sense of being something out of the ordinary, something not for the home folks, something extreme but for that reason alluring. Especially to men: it's the ultimate situation where you don't have to color inside the lines, which men notoriously hate doing. Think of Huck Finn, always trying to escape the clutches of the widow who's trying to “civilize” him.

Kurtz seems to have set himself up as a god to whom human sacrifices are made. He's feared; his methods work. The attitude of the other Europeans towards Kurtz ranges from jealousy (he's making them look bad because he brings in so much ivory) to awe. Kurtz may be as horrified by discovering his own liking for these methods as his scorn for the fact that they work. On a work left after his death he's scrawled: “Exterminate all the brutes!” And his dying words, to the narrator Marlowe, are “the horror, the horror.” He certainly doesn't want the people back home to get wind of them.

This isn't, apparently, because he's afraid of being punished. It seems rather to be that the people back home mustn't know what goes on outside. They wouldn't be able to take it. They should ask no questions, all these people for whom he's doing what he does.

Marlowe contrasts the world of darkness with the “white city” of Brussels, enriched by the ivory brought back by such dubious means. This “white city” seems populated mostly by women: first the string-pulling auntie who gets Marlowe his job, and then later by Marlowe's fiancée, his “Intended,” to whom Marlowe brings the word of Kurtz's death. The men go out into the field and do whatever it takes. And in the end, Marlowe (who's said he hates lying) seems to lie to the Intended in order to preserve her beatific vision of what's going on out there in the jungle. She asks what Kurtz's final words were; Marlowe tells her that in dying, Kurtz spoke her name rather admitting what he really said.

In class, we always discuss this question: Is Marlowe in fact lying? or is the point precisely that the “Intended” and her “don't want/can't know” blindness is precisely the “horror” of which Kurtz in fact spoke with his last breath? The Intended in any case is thrilled; this is exactly what she expected, wanted to hear. The fiction is preserved. And that seems to be Conrad's point: it has to be. The deal is this: I do your dirty work; you don't ask questions.

Those who go into battle for America in far-flung places frequently see themselves as doing necessary dirty work. Frustratingly enough, when they do whatever it takes to get the job done, they're often chastised by journalists, liberals, or in the court of public opinion for having done what they had to. Many times the military takes the “just let me do my job and don't complain” attitude that Kurtz exudes.

We back home might be shocked at things like wiping out villages, killing innocent civilians, or even the unfortunate fact of friendly fire. Yet a sizeable percentage of those in the military, I think, regard things like these as the regrettable but necessary price of doing business. Even the ugly, drab reality of killing is revolting when looked at without the adrenaline rush that makes it possible for people to do it. So they're exasperated that the people back home seem to reserve the right, somewhat hypocritically, to be shocked at the methods necessary to attain the goals these very people have sent them out to achieve.

We can understand this point of view without accepting it. Yes, war is hell. But just as there are circles of hell, so there are of war. We should do all we can to keep war in the upper circles of hell, not the lower.
--------------------------------

And the reason we need to keep war in the upper circles of hell is so that these guys come home in as good a state of mind as possible, not because the public at home can't handle it. Just review a few stories posted on the MSNBC gallery to see what I mean.

As noted above, the events at Haditha are the result of poor leadership...I think that a good military chain of command starts and ends with one important factor...trust.

When the soldiers on the ground trust their immediate supervisors, who in turn trust their commanders, all the way up to the CinC, then all of them are on the same page. When they are given orders that they don't know the reason behind, or the intelligence behind, that's OK...so long as they trust those giving the orders.

The bond of trust is severely broken in the prosecution of this war...the soldiers in Iraq are being lied to just as much as those of us at home are...the War on Terror, Saddam's links to Al Qaeda, and therefore to 9/11...they know what's up. They're fighting for the corporate interests that are the political bedfellows of the Bush Administration...and they're dying for those illicit relationships, too.

When the bond of trust is broken, and leadership fails, these are the results...and while our soldiers fighting in Iraq are going to need counseling and assistance when they get back, they know they're not going to get it...they see the cuts that Bush is making to VA benefits, soldier pay, forced re-enlistment (aka "stop loss")...they know they are just cogs in his war machine...especially when they see the massive tax cuts that are going straight to the Bush cronies.

Need more evidence of the poor leadership? Click on this link...this is what happens when our soldiers are lied to on a daily basis...

http://www.cair.com/video/marine-hadji-girl.wmv

Fish on...

Todd

The voice of experience. Hear! Hear!
Do we really know what happened at Haditha or are we playing the media's game?

Todd, your last comments make me want to vomit, how can you be so vocal on these matters ?

I knew if we started speculating, we might end up with egg on our faces... but I fell into the trap anyway.

:rolleyes:

Oregonian, you're an idiot.

Sincerely,

Todd

Maybe I am an idiot, but reading your opinion on matters you could never understand (what goes on in the minds of men at war...) spouted as fact is enough to make me sick...

Just read a blurb that said two Iraqi Mds created the Haditha massacre scenario out of whole clothe. The authorities are hunting them.
Patience patience. I wanna know what's going on.

Maybe, if you are right about me, then we are both idiots...............


I'm not much on internet name calling, so if want the last word go ahead.

Given the opportunity I think there are a lot of people in the world who would love to set up a situation like "Haditha Massacre", in fact there are probably a few on this board who would like to see it but are only affraid to get caught/hands dirty.

I love it when people make my point for me...

Carry on Oreo, you're doing fine...

Fish on...

Todd

Sard, I'd be interested in a link to that story if you have it handy. I can't find anything on it.

In fact, most news stories aren't giving enough details of who said they did what.

Here is one report I found.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061706A.shtml
Talk about a mess. I'm concerned that the Army General that investigated/did the interviews had his mind made up prior to the investigation and was only looking for evidence of guilt.

Another of the things that concerns me, is the Bush has publically stated those responsible for the Haditha massacre will be punished. Military Court Martials being what they are, I am afraid these young men won't get a fair trial.