Official: Evidence points to unjustified killings by Marines

[BlueTalon]

The fact that they lied should raise suspissions. The rules of engagement basically allow of anything to happen...

If you want the specifics, please post them when you find them.

Do you have any idea at all of what you're talking about?

[OaktonSkins/BushFan]

Don't worry about it, he is really not intelligent enough to be worth talking to. Let the baby keep crying.

Which is why you respond to so many of my posts and threads. :doh:

Please, learn how to articulate your position in a succinct manner so as to remove any room for interpretation. :dunce:

[Titaw]

I hate BS so I'm going to ask you a straight forward question. Should marines face the punishment (real punishment not a slap on the wrist) for killing innocent civilians without just cause?

Yes or No.

No. I will try to explain. War has no boundaries and rules, if it did it would be a killing game. Therefore, in a war such as this where you don't know who is the enemy and who is innocent and most of the time it's too late to find out, you have to CYA and make sure you are a feared unit.

If you haven't worn the prestigious Eagle, Globe and Anchor then you will not understand my viewpoint and we can agree to disagree.

The Bush administration effed up I am not going to sugar coat it. If the Armed Forces were given orders of a fast and hard attack, instead of a slow and steady one, we would not be having conversations such as this because the war would be over. Since we now live in a world where 90% of American males (who call themselves "metrosexuals") under the age of 18 have never been in a fist fight, we have become a soft nation where everyone doesn't want to offend anyone. So, now we have to walk on eggshells as to not offend the Arab world and try to make friends. EFF THAT!! MAN UP!! If history repeats itself, then the Arab world will stab us in the back just like every other time we have tried to help them.

My not on topic pearl of wisdom: There is no such term as "metrosexual". There is heterosexual and homosexual, there is no in between. Metrosexuals are just homosexuals that haven't come out of the closet yet.

[chomerics]

No. I will try to explain. War has no boundaries and rules, if it did it would be a killing game.

Actually war DOES have rules, ever heard of the GWP? That would be a good place to start. . .How about not killing children? Would that be a place to start?

Here. lets put on the table what these guys did ,and I am sorry, but the innocent until proven guilty is a crock. If they did it, they should rot, simple as that, there is also a LOT of evidence already public through Iraq.

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."

The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif's house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates

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

This is what is being investegated, so lets be aware that everyone is on the same topic OK?

Therefore, in a war such as this where you don't know who is the enemy and who is innocent and most of the time it's too late to find out, you have to CYA and make sure you are a feared unit.

If you haven't worn the prestigious Eagle, Globe and Anchor then you will not understand my viewpoint and we can agree to disagree.

I venture almost EVERYONE who wears the Eagle, Globe and Anchor is completely abhored by these actions, and feels that disgusting feeling in the pit of their stomach. When you wear the uniform, you are representing OUR country, and these actions tarnish the uniform no matter how you look at it.

The Bush administration effed up I am not going to sugar coat it. If the Armed Forces were given orders of a fast and hard attack, instead of a slow and steady one, we would not be having conversations such as this because the war would be over. Since we now live in a world where 90% of American males (who call themselves "metrosexuals") under the age of 18 have never been in a fist fight, we have become a soft nation where everyone doesn't want to offend anyone. So, now we have to walk on eggshells as to not offend the Arab world and try to make friends. EFF THAT!! MAN UP!! If history repeats itself, then the Arab world will stab us in the back just like every other time we have tried to help them.

No, we don't have to "walk on eggshells" we just can't kill 3 year old children. We can't indescriminantly massacre families because an IUD killed a fellow Marine, otherwise we ARE NOT BETTER THEN SADDAM!!!! Do you understand that??? Do you understand how this appears in the Arab world? Can you see how something like this will completely destroy the mission as a whole and single handedly create millions of more terrorists? Do you see this? I ask that question because you seem to be completely ignoring the atrocious actions, and instead are saying that Arabs stab us in the back (which is not only racist, but completely untrue and hypocritical)

My not on topic pearl of wisdom: There is no such term as "metrosexual". There is heterosexual and homosexual, there is no in between. Metrosexuals are just homosexuals that haven't come out of the closet yet.

I think that last quote speaks volumes about your character, and who you are, way to walk on eggshells huh.

[Titaw]

^Like I said we agree to disagree. You cannot trust what the bleeding heart liberal media is spewing these days. Marines killed people, okay. Some Iraqis are saying that they murdered those people in cold blood, okay. The truth lies somewhere in between.

Oh and BTW the rules of war only apply to Americans, not to everyone else. I mean if they did then we wouldn't have terrorists or bad guys.

Also, were you over there or have you been over there? If you haven't you have NO IDEA what it is like therefore you really can't form an educated opinion on the subject at hand because you haven't experienced it first hand.

The whole point of my post is that America was built by tough guys and thrived because of the tough guys. Now, America is soft and I am gonna hate to see how this country turns out in the next 20-30 years.

[webnarc]

Do you have any idea at all of what you're talking about?

Yes.

What part are YOU having difficulty with?

[Redskins Diehard]

Yes.

What part are YOU having difficulty with?

I have difficulty with the fact that you post a message saying that the ROE permits just about anything, when in fact you do not know what the ROE is. Sure your link provides a definition of ROE, and an example for Somalia, which has very few similarities. In fact we operated under a different ROE in Afghanistan than we did in Iraq, and the ROE can change mission to mission, town to town.

[webnarc]

I have difficulty with the fact that you post a message saying that the ROE permits just about anything, when in fact you do not know what the ROE is. Sure your link provides a definition of ROE, and an example for Somalia, which has very few similarities. In fact we operated under a different ROE in Afghanistan than we did in Iraq, and the ROE can change mission to mission, town to town.

Okay, a standard portion of the ROE *appears* to be some stating that proportionate defensive actions are permitted (at least it is consistent with all that I've been able to find). Hence my follow-up statement "The thrust of my argument is that defense is an appropriate justification for killing. Therefore show the actions to be defensive and you are in the clear." This doesn't appear to be the case with this incident.

If you can find the ROE for this war, please post them. I have a feeling they will support what I'm saying here.

[dfitzo53]

Here. lets put on the table what these guys did ,and I am sorry, but the innocent until proven guilty is a crock. If they did it, they should rot, simple as that, there is also a LOT of evidence already public through Iraq.

Sorry chomerics, but "innocent until proven guilty" is how we do things in this country. Without exception, period, end of sentence.

[twa]

Sorry chomerics, but "innocent until proven guilty" is how we do things in this country. Without exception, period, end of sentence.

Thank you,

None of us know what happened and while I understand the posts correcting the implication there should be no charges, let's not try and convict w/o facts.

[Prosperity]

Which is why you respond to so many of my posts and threads. :doh:

Please, learn how to articulate your position in a succinct manner so as to remove any room for interpretation. :dunce:

Dude, I am out of your league, just quit before you embarrass yourself any further.

[Midnight Judges]

Dude, I am out of your league, just quit before you embarrass yourself any further.

I second this statement. Oakton has been embarrassing himself on a regular basis as of late. Dude is a partisan hack, facts are irrelevent in Oakton's world as he is incapable of processing them. The ® and the (D) are all that matter.

[Midnight Judges]

No. I will try to explain. War has no boundaries and rules, if it did it would be a killing game. Therefore, in a war such as this where you don't know who is the enemy and who is innocent and most of the time it's too late to find out, you have to CYA and make sure you are a feared unit.

If you haven't worn the prestigious Eagle, Globe and Anchor then you will not understand my viewpoint and we can agree to disagree.

The Bush administration effed up I am not going to sugar coat it. If the Armed Forces were given orders of a fast and hard attack, instead of a slow and steady one, we would not be having conversations such as this because the war would be over. Since we now live in a world where 90% of American males (who call themselves "metrosexuals") under the age of 18 have never been in a fist fight, we have become a soft nation where everyone doesn't want to offend anyone. So, now we have to walk on eggshells as to not offend the Arab world and try to make friends. EFF THAT!! MAN UP!! If history repeats itself, then the Arab world will stab us in the back just like every other time we have tried to help them.

My not on topic pearl of wisdom: There is no such term as "metrosexual". There is heterosexual and homosexual, there is no in between. Metrosexuals are just homosexuals that haven't come out of the closet yet.

I don't know why you felt the need to bring up metrosexuals. It has absolutely nothing to do with this case...and your 90% figure is probably complete bs anyway.

Basically, what I am getting from your post is that you think fist fighting is good for the country and you think we should have killed more people in the initial invasion in Iraq. You think that if our military personel were given a complete license to kill anything that moves, things would be better right now. Killing civilians is wrong, period. That is supposedly why we are there-because Saddam killed innocent civilians. Now, if we kill more civilians than Saddam did, and Saddam did not have WMD's, what is the point of the invasion?

I don't think you have fully considered the moral implications of your assertions, rather, you are echoing what you have heard elsewhere. If things were run your way, we would have hundreds of marines being charged with wrongful death and 10 times as many dead Iraqi civilians. Not to mention our traditional allies would not be our allies anymore.

[chomerics]

Sorry chomerics, but "innocent until proven guilty" is how we do things in this country. Without exception, period, end of sentence.

Ahhh, the hiding behind the rhetoric of innocent until proven guilty.

Keep that head buried in the sand, and keep ignoring what is staring you straight in the face. I heard of the Iraqi Abu Ghriab torturing, people denied it, said it didn;t exist. This came out in March, and people said it didn't exist, and denied it. At what point do you people actually say enough is enough? When do you realize this crap does NOT work, and is NOT working?

[dfitzo53]

Ahhh, the hiding behind the rhetoric of innocent until proven guilty.

Keep that head buried in the sand, and keep ignoring what is staring you straight in the face. I heard of the Iraqi Abu Ghriab torturing, people denied it, said it didn;t exist. This came out in March, and people said it didn't exist, and denied it. At what point do you people actually say enough is enough? When do you realize this crap does NOT work, and is NOT working?

There's no rhetoric, chom, just my understanding of the United States Constitution you love to tout when it suits your case. I've nothing to hide.

I'm also curious to know who "you people" are, because I wasn't aware I was speaking for anyone but myself.

[twa]

Chom exactly which part innocent untill proven guilty does this address?

"When do you realize this crap does NOT work, and is NOT working"

The investigations are continuing,several in leadership positions relieved of duty and charges are being considered...both for the fire squad responsible and anyone involved in a coverup IF it occurred.

Should we take these men out and hang them now?

Or would you allow time for the facts to be determined?

You are better than that rhetoric...or I hope.

Young men in the service of thier country ,that could easily face death or life in prison, deserve at least the benefit of impartiality.

[chomerics]

^Like I said we agree to disagree. You cannot trust what the bleeding heart liberal media is spewing these days.

Funny how many people blame the "evil liberal hate spewing media" when this was not reported in the media, yet has been all over Muslim papers for months huh. How do you even attempt to blame the media for NOT reporting this atrocity when it has been plastered on every Muslim paper for the past few months.

Marines killed people, okay. Some Iraqis are saying that they murdered those people in cold blood, okay. The truth lies somewhere in between.

We are talking about killing a one year old baby, a three year old child, women and other childern. TO say "Marines kill people" is not only completely devoid of humanity, but is utterly disgusting and beyond reproach of actual civilized thinking. To say that the baby with a bullet in the head was a casualty of war shows a complete lack of compassion in this conflict, and it is no WONDER why we can't get people to understand us with mentalities like yours around.

People like YOU are the reason this is going so bad, you sit there in a Col. Jessup type stance and say hey, sometimes bad things need to be done, well, this is beyond bad, and beyond reproach. It DESTROYS our credibility, and complerely undermines the war effort at the core level. If you actually had a hint of empathy or compassion, you could see why this is such a vile and disgusting act, and how it completely undermines the effort from the inside out.

Picture yourself an Iraqi citizen who sees American troops out there, and they tell them they are helping him out. Then picture how you would feel hearing that American troops just killed a bunch of children. Would you still think we are there to help people? Would you still look at Americans in the same light? Why is it that people like yourself have such a hard time understanding how and why other people feel the way they do?

Oh and BTW the rules of war only apply to Americans, not to everyone else. I mean if they did then we wouldn't have terrorists or bad guys.

WE are a civilized nation, WE have laws to govern by (well only the ones the presidens wants to follow, he just ignores ones he wants to). Bush was the one that placed these soldiers in this position, and then FIRED everyone who told him this was a bad idea. He was the person who KNEW the rules of engagement would be different for us, then for them, yet he sitll decided this was a grand idea.

Also, were you over there or have you been over there? If you haven't you have NO IDEA what it is like therefore you really can't form an educated opinion on the subject at hand because you haven't experienced it first hand.

Just because I was not over in Iraq does not mean I can't form an educated judgement about murdering a one year old baby! How anyone can even attempt to defend the actions of these people is really beyond rational thought, and it shows a fundamental flaw in thinking. It explains in words, what is clear as day to the rest of the people here, that you don't care about human life.

The whole point of my post is that America was built by tough guys and thrived because of the tough guys. Now, America is soft and I am gonna hate to see how this country turns out in the next 20-30 years.

Pahlease, America "thrives because of tough guys"? WOW, I can't believe someone in this country actually believes stuff like this. Maybe pick up a history book and read about how and why we thrived. . . hint, it isn't because we are "tough", it is because we are smart. Want to test the theory? Take the toughest SOB on earth, and watch him fight a smart bomb, I will take the side with technology over braun anyday.

[chomerics]

Chom exactly which part innocent untill proven guilty does this address?

"When do you realize this crap does NOT work, and is NOT working"

The investigations are continuing,several in leadership positions relieved of duty and charges are being considered...both for the fire squad responsible and anyone involved in a coverup IF it occurred.

Should we take these men out and hang them now?

Or would you allow time for the facts to be determined?

We're disgussing the article, as if it happened. You can chose to bury your head in the sand if you want, but I believe the article. I have heard about this before, through different news sources, and it did not hit the American papers. Once the post starts quoting government officials, I start to believe.

You see here is the problem. You want to say innocent until proven guilty (which is fine), but then you ALSO want to make sure this stuff never gets printed (which is not fine). It is akin to buring your head in the sand and ignoring the problem. You want to make sure if this did happen that nothing is said, or spojen of it. Unfortunately this was done in our name, and it is a horrible act. Choose to say I don't believe it if you want, I chose to say that I do believe it, because it has been from soooo many different sources. If you want more reading on it, try google. . .

http://www.google.com/search?q=Haditha+massacre&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official

In fact it really doesn't matter if it happened or not now does it? I mean the dammage has already ben done.

You are better than that rhetoric...or I hope.

Young men in the service of thier country ,that could easily face death or life in prison, deserve at least the benefit of impartiality.

Yes they do, but why ignore it and try to paint the picture that this may have not happened? Read some of the testimony from Murtha, did you see him on Meet the Press? Are you telling me he is lying?

[chomerics]

There's no rhetoric, chom, just my understanding of the United States Constitution you love to tout when it suits your case. I've nothing to hide.

I'm also curious to know who "you people" are, because I wasn't aware I was speaking for anyone but myself.

You people are the apologists.

As for the Constitution, they will be tried, but that does not mean that I don't believe they did this. That does not mean I will not debate how this undermines our effort, or how people saying "I'll believe it after they are proven guilty" are ignoring the issue. Just because they are innocent until proven guilty does not mean that I am going to ignore the issue until the trial comes out, if that was the case, i would just be burying my head in the sand.

[twa]

Quote Chom

"

In fact it really doesn't matter if it happened or not now does it? I mean the dammage has already ben done, "

It matters to me.

I have followed this story for months and it is plain there were wrongs done,exactly how and by who is still to be determined and should not be bandied about as a political toy. Partial releases of facts does Nothing but inflame the issue and create even more damage.

[skinfan133]

reading some of the stuff in this thread makes me sick, from both sides of the argument. the conduct of some people is dispicable.

as for the issue, i burdens my heart that it had to be marines

[Ignatius J.]

To me, I think that when you go out there in a voluntary military and put your life on the line to do what your president asks of you, you deserve every benefit of the doubt. Even an irrational benefit of the doubt. I won't say a bad word about any of these guys until something gets proven in a court.

If this is true, then people need to be severely punished. Like life in prison punished. The conduct is unacceptable at any level.

I think part of the reason chom is taking the stance he is, (a stance that is very unatural for him to take given some of his other views) is that there is a severe lack of trust that the military will investigate this in the manner the accusations deserve. There needs to be a real trial, and a real accounting. I don't see how we can all be confident that this will happen.

[twa]

You people are the apologists.

As for the Constitution, they will be tried, but that does not mean that I don't believe they did this. That does not mean I will not debate how this undermines our effort, or how people saying "I'll believe it after they are proven guilty" are ignoring the issue. Just because they are innocent until proven guilty does not mean that I am going to ignore the issue until the trial comes out, if that was the case, i would just be burying my head in the sand.

Example of rushing to judgement:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/27/AR2006052700846.html

A year ago I was charged with two counts of premeditated murder and with other war crimes related to my service in Iraq. My wife and mother sat in a Camp Lejeune courtroom for five days while prosecutors painted me as a monster; then autopsy evidence blew their case out of the water, and the Marine Corps dropped all charges against me ["Marine Officer Cleared in Killing of Two Iraqis," news story, May 27, 2005].

[edgun88]

Innocent people die in wars, I wish the F'n media would stay out of it alll.

[Jumbo]

reading some of the stuff in this thread makes me sick, from both sides of the argument. the conduct of some people is dispicable.

as for the issue, i burdens my heart that it had to be marines

I hear ya. Though I still hold to "wait till all the facts come out" ,at least before making defintive statements.

One presentation that's a popular form of untruth: that everybody wearing (or having worn) the same uniform has all the same opinions, beliefs, or even is the same "kind" of person.