Forget the past. What should we do NOW re Haditha?

[Stinky The Clown]

We are where we are. You didn't get us here. I didn't get us here, But nontheless, here we are.

I'm old enough to recall My Lai. The country was rocked back on its heels. Fingers were pointed up, but in the end, it came down to Lt. Calley.

What do we do about Haditha?

A part of me wants to excuse the men who did it. They were simply victims in the sense that they were there and they snapped.

That said, I don't beleive that for a second. They had a choice and they took the wrong way. Murder is murder and the place matters not a whit.

What I am NOT able to get past is ...... well ...... Rumsfeld. That man who looks like your uncle or grandfather .... or some central casting suggestion to play the Nazi kommander. There are no words in my really fucked up head to describe what I feel about him.

And he's simply the front man for all this. Cheney, Feith, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Derita, every neocon motherfucker in the Pentagon. Every neocon motherfucker at State, the CIA, the NSA, the Congress, the White House.

Every neocon motherfucker that ever breathed our air.

But what's the right thing to do about Haditha?

Lt. Calley again?

That simply will not do it for me. Neither will some nameless colonel or even a general. That just won't do it for me.

I.Am.So.Fucking.Angry.

What's the **right** thing to do .... now ..... about Haditha?

[The_Warmth]

1. Show how...

we AREN'T helping the people of Iraq. This can be shown in many ways, and has, but this situation is one that's easy to grasp for everyone. Use it to help end the war, so it will not and cannot happen again.

[hlthe2b]

2. If you are old enough to remember My Lai and Calley...

or simply wise enough to educate yourself on that bit of history-- you know there was NO justice for those murdered Vietnamese. Calley was forever defended by RWers and never received the just sentence he deserved--nor the others involved.

Meanwhile the chopper pilot who stopped the continuation of the massacre was demonized by many.


What should happen? Bush* Cheney, Rumsfeld and the entire Senior leadership of Pentagon should be tried for war crimes. We should extradict them to the Hague without delay.

That is what SHOULD happen...

[Stinky The Clown]

5. I'm very much aware of the back stories re My Lai

The reference was simply historical shorthand.

I agree with the rest of you post.

One of the things I read/heard somewhere was how, on the Iraqi Main Street, they are already anticipating some small quiet trial and imprisonment of the direct preps, but no justice and no respect for the Iraqis involved.

In addition to the issues here at home, this could **easily** swirl up into a shitstorm that we can't yet even imagine in the greater Middle East.

edit for spelling, not content

[hlthe2b]

10. Yes...

I read something that referenced Iraqi opinion that a show trial of the direct perps would lead to a sentence no more severe than for killing a dog since the US considers Iraqis to be dogs.


Now, as an eternal dog lover, who would consider intentional killing of a dog to be a serious crime as well--well I digress.

But I do understand where they are coming from.....and, clearly, they are right. There will be a white wash, as has happened in all the incidents to date.

Makes one so proud to be an Merikan, eh? Somedays I wonder if we will EVER be able to take back our country and correct all that is going on--both known and unknown--in our names.


edited for grammar...

[Selatius]

3. If this were Nuremberg all over again, they'd all be tried and hung

I'm talking about the soldiers all the way up to the senior leadership for committing various crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Since I don't believe in the death penalty anymore, I'd say the harshest penalty should be life in prison with no parole.

After the atrocities of the Second World War, I do not believe anybody could convincingly argue that they were just "following orders."

[Stinky The Clown]

7. There could be no such orders

Our own UCMJ says that such orders, were they given, are illegal and *must* be disobeyed. There is enormous clarity around that point. To have obeyed such an order is to have committed yet another crime.

[Selatius]

9. Does the UCMJ stop the president from launching an unprovoked war?

I want to pull the whole lot of them down from those who are proven guilty of murder to the senior leadership for ordering this war for non-existent reasons. None of this would be happening at all if it weren't for the president ordering the war in the first place.

If orders were given in the heat of the moment to go in and shoot civilians as revenge and several did go in and shoot, then that'd be two crimes committed, but in the end, it doesn't matter to the dead how they died.

[Stinky The Clown]

11. Obviously not ........

.... and help me out here, cuz I'm getting confused ... are you and I arguing or agreeing? What you just said was pretty much the point of my OP :shrug:

[Selatius]

12. I'm in agreement with your views; I'm just frustrated is all

This is an issue that has some relevance to my family, given that my parents are Vietnamese and lived through similar experiences in South Viet Nam. These issues make me raw very quickly.

[Stinky The Clown]

13. I can understand that

I have a business associate who was born in Viet Nam and emigrated here with her family just before the fall of Saigon. The parallels in Iraq are all too clear.

[Ghost Dog]

14. Please make clear that "enormous clarity", if possible?

...ie. providing legally-binding documentation?

[Stinky The Clown]

15. The UCMJ is clear

Here is a dissection of that part of the code.

http://www.omjp.org/ArtLarryDisobey.html

And here's the UCMJ itslef, right fore the horse's mouth

http://www.army.mil/references/UCMJ/

[Ghost Dog]

22. Thankyou, Husb2Sparkly. These documents

do indeed appear to be quite clear on the subject (though of course I need more time to do more than merely scan them: archived).

Do you know if ordinary US soldiers, sailors and airmen/women (and especially their officers) are in fact taught, that is, required to know and understand this law (ie. such that no potential plea of ignorance could be possible)?

[Warpy]

4. The men who did it can't be excused.

Yes, I know what the conditioning is like. I don't want men who blindly follow it to commit atrocity back in society. Sorry, that's the way it is.

I want their superiors punished. I want the men who started this awful war punished. It's the only way we can start getting our good name back. We can't let them off the hook, say they were misled, made mistakes or anything else. They are guilty of attacking a people who hadn't done anything to them and who were no threat. They must be punished for this.

I want the war profiteers stripped of their ill gotten gains, charged, tried, and imprisoned, every damned one of them. Corporate charters should be withdrawn. If corporations are "persons," let them experience the death penalty for wrongdoing of this magnitude.

I want us out of that country. Period. We don't belong there. Our continued presence will only prolong their agony. We need to let them do whatever they need to do to get a stable country and respect it even though we won't like it and they won't be our friends. We need to arrange a method of delivering rebuilding supplies to them. We broke it, we need to at least supply the repairs.

We have made a lot of serious enemies in the world over this thing. Only by doing the right thing and punishing the men responsible for this will we be able to show the world this is an aberration, not business as usual.

[Scoody Boo]

6. This won't go "to the top..."

It will probably end with the Company Commander or maybe the Battalion Commander. In a situation like this it is the men at the incident who lose control. There were no orders "from the top" to take down these people. The Marines were attacked, went to the village and lost it.

Unforgiveable for troops to act that way and they should be punished.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. If a Mafia Don were to

order a bank roberry ... or, say .... the burgling of a rival's home and in the process the innocent gardner gets killed, our laws would hold the Don guilty, too.

Don Rumsfeldini is guilty. As Is Don Chenie. Fredo Bush is just pathetic.

[Scoody Boo]

20. Rummy and company are responsible...

for the Marines being there, but if they did not give the order for that particular village to be targeted, if it was that company of Marines acting on their own, then Rummy can't be charged and had nothing to do with this particular incident.

[Stinky The Clown]

21. I can't argue the legality of that, but ......

... neither can I accept it.

[Warpy]

16. I agree, which is why I won't let them off the hook

What they did was wrong, it was a crime, and they need to be punished for it.

But every player in this horror show needs to share the blame.

Unless we have the will to imprison the architects of this war, we will never get our reputation back in this world.

Since we're in debt to most of it, we need it.

[Stinky The Clown]

17. Warpy, here's a 'what if' for ya .........

.... what if we do what needs to be done to the direct perps and then we .... I'm making this up ... what if we were to fire Rumsfeld in a public and humilaiting fashion. No trial, just public vilification.

Would that be enough?

It wouldn't satisfy *me* per se, but I'm a rabid pit bull on this sorta shit. Would it carry any weight in the real/wider world? If it did, my personal feelings aside, I think I could at least not scream if that was the soluton we came to *as a nation*.

[dave502d]

18. Fire Rumsfeld. n/t

[karlrschneider]

19. There's no way to unscramble that egg...the best we can hope for

is some result that will return -some- credibility to our country as a whole. The world is watching but unfortunately I don't know (nor does, I suspect anyone else) just how that might be accomplished. Would a public trial, conviction and sentence of the people involved manage to exculpate our image to any meaningful degree? I can't answer that. I'd love to find someone who can.