Rep. John Murtha died

[Jeremy Roenick]

Fact: Rep Murtha called ALL of these Marines "cold blooded murderers" before an investigation was even started.

Fact: All but one Marine has been found innocent or the charges have been dropped.

Fact: What Rep Murtha said was wrecklessly irresponsible in an attempt to grandstand or get political gain from the bloodshed and war in Iraq.

[Flummoxed Lummox]

Fact: Rep Murtha called ALL of these Marines "cold blooded murderers" before an investigation was even started.

Did a few renegade Marines murder innocent citizens or not? There are 24 dead bodies; dozens of witnesses; several investigations; and contradictory testimony from the Marines themselves which certainly seem to indicate murders took place. What part of Murtha's statement was wrong?

Fact: All but one Marine has been found innocent or the charges have been dropped.

None of them have been "proven innocent." Charges have been dropped, for a variety of reasons. For example,

The judge ruled that Lt. Gen. James Mattis, who made the decision to press charges in the Haditha case, had improperly allowed an investigator, who would be a potential witness for the prosecution, to be present during discussions about whether to prosecute the case. "The appearance of unlawful command influence is as devastating as actual manipulation of a trial," the judge said.

That isn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the Marine's innocence. Charges were dropped because rules weren't followed, not because no wrongdoing occurred.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/etc/update.html

Fact: What Rep Murtha said was wrecklessly irresponsible in an attempt to grandstand or get political gain from the bloodshed and war in Iraq.

That's not a fact. That's an opinion ... and a baseless opinion at that.


Here is what witnesses to the event said:

BAGHDAD, May 26 -- Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing.

Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' " Fahmi said. "But they killed him, and his wife and daughters."
---
Then one of the Marines took charge and began shouting, said Fahmi, who was watching from his roof. Fahmi said he saw the Marine direct other Marines into the house closest to the blast, about 50 yards away.

It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali. Although he had used a wheelchair since diabetes forced a leg amputation years ago, Ali was always one of the first on his block to go out every morning, scattering scraps for his chickens and hosing the dust of the arid western town from his driveway, neighbors said.

In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children -- 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia.

Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots -- in Ali's house and two others -- were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha's hospital said.
---
The Marines moved to the house next door, Fahmi said.

Inside were 43-year-old Khafif, 41-year-old Aeda Yasin Ahmed, an 8-year-old son, five young daughters and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family, according to death certificates and neighbors.

The Marines shot them at close range and hurled grenades into the kitchen and bathroom, survivors and neighbors said later. Khafif's pleas could be heard across the neighborhood. Four of the girls died screaming. 
---
Moving to a third house in the row, Marines burst in on four brothers, Marwan, Qahtan, Chasib and Jamal Ahmed. Neighbors said the Marines killed them together.
---
The final victims of the day happened upon the scene inadvertently, witnesses said. Four male college students -- Khalid Ayada al-Zawi, Wajdi Ayada al-Zawi, Mohammed Battal Mahmoud and Akram Hamid Flayeh -- had left the Technical Institute in Saqlawiyah for the weekend to stay with one of their families on the street, said Fahmi, a friend of the young men.

A Haditha taxi driver, Ahmed Khidher, was bringing them home, Fahmi said.

According to Fahmi, the young men and their driver turned onto the street and saw the wrecked Humvee and the Marines. Khidher threw the car into reverse, trying to back away at full speed, Fahmi said, and the Marines opened fire from about 30 yards away, killing all the men inside the taxi.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052602069.html

How ANYONE could defend the actions of these rogue Marines is beyond me. They were sent there, ostensibly, to liberate the Iraqis from a thug dictator, not to assassinate innocent civilians, the very people they were there to protect and liberate.

Again, I want to emphasize that 99.99% of our military follow the rules of combat and fulfill their duty with honor. But that doesn't mean that men and women, under the stress of combat, can't make heinous decisions, which is what happened at Haditha. Those soldiers who murdered innocent civilians should be in jail for the rest of their miserable lives. They are unfit to serve in our military and are a disgrace to our country.

And shame on any of you who defend what these few rogue Marines did to innocent people.

[Flummoxed Lummox]

After a complete investigation, facts revealed that the Haditha incident was part of a planned ambush by insurgents that used civilians as human shields, and that despite the claims of Rep. Murtha, this was not murder but the tragic result of a firefight in which U.S. Marines were honorably defending themselves.

This is pure fabrication. No such event occurred that even remotely resembles this piece of fiction.

[Flummoxed Lummox]

"This was a small number of Marines who fired directly on civilians and killed them," said Representative John Kline, a Minnesota Republican and former Marine who was briefed two weeks ago by Marine Corps officials.

Almost as damaging as the alleged massacre may be evidence that the unit's members and their superiors conspired to cover it up. "There's no doubt that the Marines allegedly involved in doing this--they lied about it," says Kline. "They certainly tried to cover it up."

The military's initial report stated that Terrazas and 15 civilians were killed in a roadside blast and that shortly afterward, the Marines came under attack and returned fire, killing eight insurgents. But as TIME reported in March on the basis of interviews with 28 individuals, including military officials, the families of the victims, human-rights investigators and local doctors, much of that account is dubious. Members of Congress, as well as military sources, have confirmed the critical details of TIME's initial report--that after gunning down the five fleeing the taxi, a few members of Kilo Company moved through four homes along nearby streets, killing 19 men, women and children. The Marines contend they took small-arms fire from at least one house, but as TIME's story detailed in March, only one of the 19 victims was found with a weapon.

A military source in Iraq says the men of Kilo Company stuck by their story throughout the initial inquiry, but what they told the first military investigator raised suspicions. One of the most glaring discrepancies involved the shooting of the four students and the taxi driver. "They had no weapons, they didn't show hostile intent, so why shoot them?" the military source says. Khaled Raseef, a spokesman for the victims' relatives, says U.S. military investigators visited the alleged massacre sites 15 times and "asked detailed questions, examined each bullet hole and burn mark and took all sorts of measurements. In the end, they brought all the survivors to the homes and did a mock-up of the Marines' movements." As the detectives found contradictions in the Marines' account, "the official story fell apart and people started rolling on each other," says the military source.

Marine Sergeant Eddie Wright, who lost both hands in a rocket-propelled-grenade attack in Fallujah two years ago, said it's natural "to want to kill the guys who killed your buddy." But, he adds, "you don't lash out at innocent people."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1198892,00.html

[Flummoxed Lummox]

Here is what John Murtha said about Haditha in 2005:

"It's much worse than reported in Time magazine. There was no fire fight. There was no IED that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood. And that's what the report is going to tell."

John Murtha was dead on in his comments about the actions of Marines at Haditha. Everything he said was factually accurate. John Murtha is a true American hero, a valient man who served his country bravely.

Shame on the despicable chickenhawks on this forum who dare to question the patriotism of this man because he spoke the truth. You people make me want to  .  You're a collective disgrace.

[Jeremy Roenick]

You have a handful of Marines that have been charged, and the charges have been dropped, one has been found NOT GUILTY, and one is pending.

You're holding an empty bag AV, no matter how much "gloss" you want to throw on this thread.  And Murtha's "conviction" of these men before they were investigated or tried was blatantly wreckless and for his own gain.  That is despicable.  Using the death of civilians in a war zone, and the exploitation of our soldiers for his own political gain.

[NCVol]

I don't know what Murtha's motivation was, but the Haditha incident is a horrible example of why these kinds of "wars" are so horrific.  The fact is those guys killed a bunch of innocent civilians, old folks and children.  And their original accounts about how the deaths occurred were false.  So even if the deaths were justified in some sense as collateral damage or whatever, the fact is the deaths were and are tragic and we'll likely never know what really happened. 

I'm hesitant to blame the soldiers since if they were being attacked from those houses and the dead civilians were human shields, I suppose this is a cost of war, and if they weren't attacked, but thought they were or just over reacted following a bombing, I don't know if murder charges are appropriate.  Those guys will either pay a heavy price for the rest of their life or not, but I don't have any evidence they are evil men, just soldiers in a war zone.  To me the only thing wrong with what Murtha did was basically condemn the soldiers instead of just condemning the war and the people who put them in a position of having to kill innocent civilians to do the job they were asked to do. 

[Sasquatch]

Here is what Murtha said in 2005:

On November 17, 2005, he created a firestorm when he called for the immediate redeployment of U.S. troops in Iraq, (H.J. Res. 73)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_P._Murtha#Views_on_the_2003_Iraq_war

Does anybody know if Murtha had any thoughts on the "immediate redeployment" of US troops since Obama took office? The reason I ask is if he were not political grandstanding in 2005, wouldn't he have also demanded that Obama, in 2009, immediately redeploy the troops in Iraq?

Also, did any of you know this about Murtha:

In 1989 Murtha became chairman of the Defense Appropriation Subcommittee. There he imposed new rules and procedure that forced Defense appropriations bills to be decided behind closed doors.

I would think that this would make the left of centers very angry.