Guardian: My Lai on the Euphrates?

[unhappycamper]

My Lai on the Euphrates?
Leader
Thursday June 1, 2006
The Guardian

The My Lai massacre will always be associated with worldwide outrage and the loss of public support in the US for the Vietnam war. What happened in March 1968, when soldiers of Charlie Company, 11th brigade, Americal Division killed more than 300 villagers, did not become public knowledge until November 1969. The killing of 24 innocent Iraqis at Haditha on the Euphrates took place last November, and though reported in some detail since March, it is only now that the whole grim story, including the full death toll, is emerging. Even allowing for the uncertainties of an incomplete investigation, into the incident itself and a possible cover-up, this is without doubt another massacre that will be long remembered. US forces have killed many Iraqi non-combatants since March 2003, by being trigger-happy, by using overwhelming force in residential areas, and by sheer accident. But Haditha, where the alleged perpetrators were men of Kilo Company, 3rd battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, is the worst known incident involving the unprovoked killing of unarmed civilians.

~snip~

Official Washington has been too slow to understand what is at stake. President Bush is reported to have learned of the Haditha story only when media interest began. Publicity was also boosted by John Murtha, the stridently anti-war Democratic congressman. The Marine Corps initially attributed 15 civilian deaths to a car bombing and a subsequent firefight that left eight insurgents dead. But an investigation has shown that a larger number of Iraqis, including women and small children, were killed in cold blood in revenge for the death of one US soldier. There should be no rush to judgment, but the US military must keep its promise of a full, speedy and open investigation, prosecutions and severe punishment. The evasions and buck-passing of the Abu Ghraib affair cannot be tolerated, by Americans or anyone else. Shameful anomaly or part of a wider phenomenon, a war crime is a war crime.

a little more here

[FloridaPat]

1. This invasion since the beginning has been another My Lai.

Everyone involved in the invasion and supporting this war (congress) should be indicted and tried for war crimes. * first.