Analysis: Marine scandal could roil Iraq

[cal04]

The U.S. military is bracing for a major scandal over the alleged slaying of Iraqi civilians by Marines in Haditha — charges so serious they could threaten President Bush's effort to rally support at home for an increasingly unpopular war. And while the case has attracted little attention so far in Iraq, it still could enflame hostility to the U.S. presence just as Iraq's new government is getting established, and complicate efforts by moderate Sunni Arab leaders to reach out to their community — the bedrock of the insurgency.

U.S. lawmakers have been told the criminal investigation will be finished in about 30 days. But a Pentagon official said investigators believe Marines committed unprovoked murder in the deaths of about two dozen people at Haditha in November. With a political storm brewing, the top U.S. Marine, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, is headed to Iraq to personally deliver the message that troops should use deadly force "only when justified, proportional and, most importantly, lawful."

Haditha is not the only case pending: On Wednesday, the military announced an investigation into allegations that Marines killed a civilian April 26 near Fallujah. The statement gave no further details except that "several service members" had been sent back to the United States "pending the results of the criminal investigation." Last July, Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Samir al-Sumaidaie, accused the Marines of killing his 21-year-old cousin in cold blood during a search of his family's home in Haditha, a city of about 90,000 people along the Euphrates River 140 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The military ordered a criminal investigation but the results have not been announced. Together, the cases present the most serious challenge to U.S. handling of the Iraq war since the Abu Ghraibprison scandal, which Bush cited Thursday as "the biggest mistake that's happened so far, at least from our country's involvement in Iraq." "What happened at Haditha appears to be outright murder," said Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch. "It has the potential to blow up in the U.S. military's face." He said that "the Haditha massacre will go down as Iraq's My Lai," a reference to the Vietnam War incident in which American soldiers slaughtered up to 500 civilians in 1968.

more
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060527/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_killing_crisis

[FloridaPat]

1. This has been going on for 3 years in Iraq and 4 in Afghanistan.

The guilty should be hung - the ones in the White House.

[Cha]

2. Since it has been going on

for so long and nothing's been done about it..this is the Karma that will bring it into the Glaring Light. I'm very sorry for the victims and their famlies.

bush and rummy and the rest of the murdering mauraders at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave should have to answer directly for the war they fomented.

[libhill]

20. Hang the entire Administration

from the nearest available lamp posts. It's time to get rid of these mad men...

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Is this how we spread democacy in the Middle East?

Bush and Rummy should be made to face he Iraqi people on their soil, with no protection.

[Ksec]

4. Not only that but the Tillman case is being investigated

from my vantage point it looks like a murder case. The shooters had to know these were freindlies.

[INDIA]

7. Riiiight....

"from my vantage point it looks like a murder case. The shooters had to know these were freindlies.


Do you know anything about the incident? Do you know anything about the chaos and confusion of combat? Did you view the CNN investigation? Do you know anything about anything?

You are entitled to your opinion. My opinion is that you are 100% ignorant and wrong.


"from my vantage point" :eyes:

[lumpy]

5. Healine is stupidly ridiculous.

"Analysis: Marine scandal could roil Iraq". No shit! Iraq has been 'roiled' since the invasion. Haditha is not the first strike to 'roil' Iraqis.

[cliss]

6. This is already known in Iraqi circles.

According to Stan Goff, a rumour has been circulating around Iraq about cold-blooded murders by US marines.

Goff wrote that 'stories spread through the 'jungle drums'in that country, and it's even reached American circles.

[Cha]

11. Yeah, that didn't sound

right.."And while the case has attracted little attention so far in Iraq.."

Like Iraq wouldn't know about it, duh!

[PATRICK]

26. Correct me but

I think the iraqis are universally afraid of American troops: at blockades, in house raids, firing indiscriminately when ambushed, barricading and castling forces and contractors so defensively the Iraqis can barely move around them. This from an Iraqi reporter who reports this is the general view of every iraqi also terrorized by every group everywhere at everytime. Nor is this atrocity isolated. The shoot-ups at barrier checkpoints, the bombings.

We hear the rosy picture that Bush says we have put all these things behind us somehow. We have the naive picture that some special incident is so heinous that it will spark a conflagration.

The reality is that iraqis know that unready American GI's themselves terrified by the universal violence
that a failed policy and low numbers fails to control are part of the problem and not much of a solution.
That disease, hunger, summer heat and perpetual, reality based fear are more than enough than more pictures of slaughtered women and children from a recent past that has never gone away.

Children are blown up often. The root cause is bigger than young soldiers gone berserk. The whole war policy has been an uncaring, profiteering focused horror show. In WWI all troops on all sides reached the point of universal mutiny and anarchy. With justification. Maybe no one in these bloody games are at that point yet except the citizens, the perpetual victims of all wars, but the justification is there, despite the fine balanced conscience of planners and PNACers who can see that war death and pointless chaos is for our own good, people who try to salvage their own justification through "victory" and pacification.

On Memorial Day especially we should remember the few, the proud, the profiteers who put all soldiers and civilians in harms' way- for essentially nothing except their financial gain and their power. How can you have many brave firemen without a slumlord or crooked contractor making death traps? How can police be so heroic without cheapskate budget cuts and pumping drugs and guns into the ghetto? How can doctors be heroic without being denied resources and actions that would prevent disasters? Who creates the opportunity for so many to be brave and serve humanity than those who create the danger, limit the protections, manipulate tragedy and dissension than the flag draped dripping leeches swollen on the profits of war? That many broken or maddened, corrupted soldiers are produced as well as heroes is their real contribution to humanity so that evil can reassert itself against universal hope and common decency.

There should be monument with an eternal urinal at its base and a moat of spit surrounding it.

[Liberal OIF Vet]

8. This is going to be ugly...

I am an active duty Marine and I can tell you that this will be ugly. This kind of thing happens when men are placed in an impossible situation and decisions are made under duress. It is just tragic.

[magellan]

9. Indeed

This is one of the main reasons those responsible for this war should be held ultimately accountable, not just those on the ground who commit atrocities.

It did not have to be this way.

[Liberal OIF Vet]

12. I think...

I liken the whole Iraq thing to this. You have two scorpions. You put them both in a jar and seal it. One scorpion kills the other. Do you blame the scorpion that lived for the death of the other scorpion, or do you blame the bastard that put the two scorpions in the jar in the first damned place? Think about Iraq in those terms.

One must never kill unnessesarily on the battlefield. But I know the mentality over there of "I would rather leave out of here in handcuffs than a bodybag". I had that same mentality myself when I was in Iraq. Luckily, I never had to make a decision like that over there.

[Arkham House]

17. Welcome to DU!

...and I'm glad you're out of it...God bless you, and all your fellow Marines...

[magellan]

18. I understand

We should have compassion for our troops, and I do. Having been in the military, though not in combat, I understand at least part of the equation. And this particular conflict is not one I'd ever want to find myself in.

Your analogy of the two scorpions is bang on. Over there it isn't about politics...it's about survival, basic instinct. Those who put them in that situation on false pretenses are the criminals. I'm not anti-war, but I most certainly am against abuse of power that costs innocent lives. And that sums up Iraq.

I think about those young men and women often. Do they feel abandoned?

Welcome to DU, and thank you for your service.

[cliss]

21. Hello, Liberal OIF Vet

and thanks for coming to the DU. We're glad you're here.

[IndyOp]

22. Thank you for your post & Welcome to DU -

I belive it is well past time for the entire US military to stand down.

Sorry if you think my comment is stupid or disrespectful, but it is not.

There have been over 250 US Military and CIA interventions since WWII -- and virtually every single one has had the sole purpose of making the US rich and powerful more rich and more powerful. It doesn't matter to them how many lives they destroy - US troops or other.

You who serve in the US Military - you do not keep us safe - you put us in danger by going out on missions to Panama, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran -- and then the missions' blowback.

There have been many who have served in the military - some did not return. I do not doubt that your motives for wanting to serve were good - as I believe their motives were. But the military is used time after time after time to kill people in the Third World to control markets and resources. It is time to face difficult truths about the US military and to abandon those who would use people with good motives for horrible, horrible purposes.

Google Video: What I've Learned About US Foreign Policy: The War on the Third World. Over 6 million people dead, according to John Stockwell due to CIA and military interventions.

DU Journal: In 15 Years (1991-2006), the US has caused/contributed to 1,000,000 Iraqi deaths

Persian Gulf War: 150,000
Gulf War Aftermath: Many thousands
UN Sanctions: Primary cause of 600,000 deaths
Iraq War: 250,000

Important: Whether or not you believe that US foreign policy caused/contributed to all of these deaths - the death toll is a valid, conservative estimate of Iraqi deaths in the past 15 years in excess of what would have been expected if there had been peace. PLEASE TELL PEOPLE THIS NUMBER -- maybe it is big enough to shock the American public awake and cause them to realize the true devastation in Iraq: 1,000,000

The Persian Gulf War did not have to happen: Hussein did not invade Kuwait until after he had received an assurance from April Gillespie that the "US had no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts." Even if he had invaded, alternatives to war were available.

The Gulf War Aftermath Encouraged by American radio broadcasts to rise up against their ‘dictator’, the Kurds of northern Iraq rebelled against a nominally defeated and certainly weakened Saddam Hussein in March of 1991. Fear of being drawn into an Iraqi civil war and possible diplomatic repercussions precluded President Bush from committing US forces to support the Kurds. Within days Iraqi forces recovered and launched a ruthless counteroffensive including napalm and chemical attacks from helicopters. They quickly reclaimed lost territory and crushed the rebellion. By the first week of April, 800 to 1,000 people, mostly the very young and the very old, were dying each day. link Al Franken has said that many 100,000's of Kurds and Shia were slaughtered, but I do not have a printed source.

UN (US/UK Sanctions) The United Nations Security Council has maintained comprehensive economic sanctions on Iraq from August 1990 until March 2003. Sanctions in Iraq hurt large numbers of innocent civilians not only by limiting the availability of food and medicines, but also by disrupting the whole economy, and reducing the national capacity of water treatment, electrical systems and other infrastructure critical for health and life. The oil-for-food program provided an average of $200 per year for each of 23,000,000 Iraqis - well below the international poverty level. In the UN Security Council, countries urged the US and UK to allow the sanctions to be lifted, but the US/UK would not allow this.

Iraq War A Johns Hopkins University study published in the British medical journal The Lancet in October, 2004. // The figure of 100,000 had been based on somewhat "conservative assumptions", notes Les Roberts at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, U.S., who led the study. That estimate excludes Falluja, a hotspot for violence. If the data from this town is included, the compiled studies point to about 250,000 excess deaths since the outbreak of the U.S.-led war. // Eman Ahmad Khamas.... said: "This occupation has destroyed Iraq. Americans don't know that tens of thousands of Iraqis are in prisons. Americans don't know how many have been killed. Lancet reported 100,000 in 2004, not counting Falluja. Now it is something like double this number."

[cassiepriam]

10. This is the tip of the iceburg..... this guys are on melt down....

God help them.

[tblue37]

24. The guys that did this were on their third tour of duty. (eom)

[cassiepriam]

25. Exactly, Total burn out and meldown... In viet nam the rotations

were much shorter, we had a draft and plenty of troops. And the death rate was much higher. Many men were killed before they could reach PTSD time.

[Rex]

13. Signs of it is time to leave

Iraq and bring them home now! This is a mental illness brought about from endless killing. Stop this now. They all serve faithfully, what kind of faith will soldiers have when they come back fucked up mentally and physically? Over what again? Why are we slaughtering civilians again? Bring them home. Now.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. More kerosene on the fire we started.

[peacebaby3]

15. This documentary is about Marines who were stationed in Haditha until late

Oct. early Nov. of 2005.

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1273389>

Very interesting view of what was going on in and around Haditha at the time.

[rasputin1952]

16. These things have happened in every war ever fought, that does not

excuse this in any way, but it is a symptom of how well we have stryaed from any moral base.

This is not a singular case either. I can assure people that the frustrations felt by the use of IED's and not ever really knowing who the "enemy" is places extreme duress upon the military personnel. What is shocking is that these acts were apparently condoned by some senior officers; this shows a breakdown at the highest levels, and that is always extremely serious.

It is one thing to get caught in a crossfire, it is something entirely different when people are systematically 'executed'. Time will show how this pans out, but since we have already lost any moral ground we may have had by blaming this all on a lie in the first place, this will destroy any credibility our soldiers/sailors/airmen/marines could muster. We have always prided ourselves in our attention to the Geneva Convention and the Rule of Land Warfare, a situation like this will ensure that many other 'insurgents' will be recruited.

[Eugene]

19. With the torture at Abu Ghraib, the WP bombing of Fallujah,

the secret Interior Ministry prisons, and the death squads, I'd say that
there already are plenty of attrocities to inflame the Iraqi people.
The Haditha massacre isn't the only revenge raid of its kind, it is just
the best documented.

[newspeak]

23. yes, and speaking about Falluja

was it chemical or not? How many civilians killed there?

[lebkuchen]

28. Yes, it was chemical.

The Pentagon has already admitted using White Phosphorus in Fallujah, and I believe also Mark 77 and napalm.

[lebkuchen]

27. What will the marines learn from this?

To make damn sure everybody in the house is dead next time.