The New York Times quotes an anonymous informant (yes, another one) in reporting that the investigation into the Haditha incident has centered around one or two Marines:
Congressional and military officials say the Naval Criminal Investigative Service inquiry is focusing on the actions of a Marine Corps staff sergeant serving as squad leader at the time, but that Marine officials have told members of Congress that up to a dozen other marines in the unit are also under investigation. Officials briefed on the inquiry said that most of the bullets that killed the civilians were now thought to have been “fired by a couple of rifles,” as one of them put it.
The rest of the article contains nothing new except for this part which describes the possible defense:
Lawyers who have been in conversations with the marines under investigation stressed the chaotic situation in Haditha at the time of the killings. And they expect that the defense will stress that insurgents often hide among civilians, that Haditha on the day of the shootings was suffering a wave of fluid insurgent attacks and that the marines responded to high levels of hostile action aimed at them.
Much of the area around Haditha is controlled by Sunni Arab insurgents who have made the city one of the deadliest in Iraq for American troops. On Aug. 1, three months before the massacre, insurgents ambushed and killed six Marine snipers moving through Haditha on foot. Insurgents released a video after the ambush that appeared to show the attack, and the mangled and burned body of a dead serviceman. Then, two days later, 14 marines were killed when their armored vehicle was destroyed by a roadside bomb near the southern edge of the city.
As I said in my earlier post, the first reported accounts from the EX-Marine Rep. Murtha smelled bad.
It smells. For a WHOLE platoon to snap would mean 15 individual Marines would have needed to be involved.
But unlike Murtha I will not jump to conclusions and attempt to proclaim anyone innocent or guilty.
Now it appears if this DID happen then it may have involved one or two bad Marines. And as I’ve said over and over already, if they are found guilty then they need to hang.
Big Lizards has an excellent piece up about it:
The fact is that we don’t yet know the facts. The dribs and drabs we’ve gotten from Murtha, from the Los Angeles Times, and from other antique media are anything but illuminating; they critically depend upon anonymous sources, and they conceal weasel-words like “may be,” “could be” behind a veil of unfounded certainty
[…]Again, we want to caution: Big Lizards is certainly no more prepared to say that the Marines are innocent than we are to say that they are guilty. We’re agnostics on this… but we’re militant agnostics: we don’t know, and neither do you, dang it!
And neither will anyone know, save a handful of people, until the reports are actually released. Until then, as you read increasingly tabloidesque stories in the elite media, bear in mind not only what you have been told but what you haven’t been told… particuarly about the source or sources of this story.
And that is my point. Murtha cannot see into the future and proclaim them guilty before a trial. But he did, and that is why he is an EX-Marine not worthy of a Eagle Globe & Anchor anywhere near him.
UPDATE
Many of those I link below are despairing and coming dangerously close to proclaiming these Marines guilty which I find incredible. The investigation isn’t done yet people. Don’t make assumptions based on the NYTs, the LATs, and the like.
As Michelle said:
Just a reminder that a Marine has been unjustly accused of murdering Iraqis before: Remember Lt. Ilario Pantano.
Earlier Posts:
The Dishonorable Murtha
Because Time Has Pictures
The Haditha Marines
The Dishonorable Murtha, Update
Other’s Blogging:
- Michelle Malkin
- QandO Blog
- Hot Air
- The Politburo Diktat
- The Jawa Report
- Blue Crab Boulevard
- Pundit Review
- Confederate Yankee
- A Blog For All
- Captain’s Quarters
Many of those I link below are despairing and coming dangerously close to proclaiming these Marines guilty which I find incredible. The investigation isn’t done yet people. Don’t make assumptions based on the NYTs, the LATs, and the like.
See author page
Just posted a new post about that Hugh Hewitt interview….Thx Word.
Unless there are outright railroaded confessions, which is highly doubtful, it will not be possible to convict these brave Marines of anything. This was not My Lai, involving hundreds of people and troops, many of whom did not wish to do what they had been ordered to do. This was a very small action, involving a small squad of Marines and a few dozen possible partisans. The incident occurred six months ago, and was only recently thoroughly investigated. In other words, stale and questionable evidence in the middle of a war zone! I am reminded of the action in Afghanistan last summer when medals were awarded to a Special Forces Team for carrying out a raid on a village harboring several dozen Taliban who were protecting a famed Taliban Regional Leader. All twenty of the Taliban bodyguards were killed, and just as the Team was leaving, the Regional Leader was detected and captured. Where was he hiding? Why under two native women who were sitting on him with their clothes spread out over him. Yes, the scumbag was armed, and no the women were not killed in the capture of this senior Taliban thug. But they easily could have been, and justifiably so!