Chris Floyd: There Will Be Blood...But No Justice for Iraq Atrocity {Haditha}

[babylonsister]

There Will Be Blood...But No Justice for Iraq Atrocity
Saturday, 05 January 2008
by Chris Floyd


The headline in Friday's Washington Post says it all: "No Murder Charges Filed in Haditha Case."



Two years ago, a group of Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians – including women and children cowering in their own homes – in a revenge rampage in Haditha. Once the story emerged from the usual layers of lies and cover-up, the atrocity flared briefly on the public stage and eight of the Marines and their officers were charged "with murder or failing to investigate an apparent war crime," as the Post reports. But public attention moved swiftly on, and over the past few months, the Pentagon's "military justice" system has quietly reduced or dropped charges against most of the men. Yesterday's announcement signaled the final climb-down in the case, leaving only a single Marine, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, facing a charge of voluntary manslaughter, and lesser charges against one other enlisted man and two officers.

Two dozen civilians slaughtered, as confirmed by the Pentagon itself – and yet there was no murder. Indeed, Brian Rooney, the lawyer for one of the officers charged with failing to investigate the killings, now says "it's clear now that no massacre occurred, yet this legal fiction is moving forward." Twenty-four actual, physical dead bodies in the ground – yet the incident was a "legal fiction" – "no massacre occurred."

The Pentagon has decided that the beserkers who killed two dozen innocent civilians were essentially following the accepted rules of engagement for U.S. forces in Iraq – a revealing fact in itself. As the Post notes:

Investigating officers in the cases have recommended lesser charges because they have found that the Marines determined the houses were hostile and believed they could kill everyone inside, more likely a case of recklessness than intent to commit a crime.

Even the indictment of Wuterich contains mitigating circumstances in the charge itself, which, the Post notes, alleges "that he had an intent to kill and that his actions inside a residential home and on a residential street in November 2005 amounted to unlawful killing 'in the heat of sudden passion caused by adequate provocation.'"

"Adequate provocation" to kill twenty-four unarmed civilians in cold blood – or rather, as the indictment terms it, in hot blood, "the heat of sudden passion."

more...

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/3187/81/

[Quantess]

1. K & R

[ConsAreLiars]

2. "the houses were hostile" so the mass murder of innocents was just Government policy.

As a rationale for a genocidal war, that says much about the logic and ethics of invading armies and imperialism everywhere. What an utterly debased, degraded, and evil country this has become when people who make that kind of statement are not locked up in some asylum.

(edit syntax)

[autorank]

3. Damn! This is terrific!

It is also the historical legacy of every single public figure and presidential candidate who fails to stand up – right now, today, and every single day – and demand that this abomination come to an immediate end, and that its perpetrators face the full measure of justice for what they have done. Who gives a damn about Obama's "elevating rhetoric" or Hillary's "tough fight-back" in New Hampshire – or any of the other soul-rotting bullshit of the presidential campaign – when this innocent blood drenches us all, day after day after day? Moral insanity has gripped this nation – and we are all of us, every single one, tainted and corrupted by it...and are passing it on to our children. Who will break this chain of madness? And where will we find mercy for these crimes? http://tinyurl.com/2zxdu4

The truth is hard to take. I have an addendum. All those politicians and columnists who were so public
about the well deserved attention paid to Darfur knew well enough that the greater suffering and death
in Iraq was an atrocity. Their support of action to stop one but not another belies any favorable
judgment on either case of human devastation.

One exception to this brilliant argument: "...we are all tainted...and corrupted by it." I
disagree here. "THEY" did this and THEY lied to the citizens and THEY continued to lie. If the
people are denied access to even the remotest standards of truth and information and receive lies in
the place of the truth, then the responsibility lies with THEM, not US.

And it is THEM versus US, the liars and hoarders versus the people who never would have supported
this war had they been given the truth, or even had a shot at it. But, otherwise, this is rock solid
and has to be said again and again.