June 02, 2006

Haditha


1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in attack on US convoy.
2) US military initially says bomb also killed 15 Iraqi civilians.
3) Eight insurgents killed after attacking convoy. US later says the 15 civilians were not killed by bomb, but shot accidentally in battle.


1) Marine Lance Corp Miguel Terrazas dies in bomb attack on convoy of four Humvees. Troops then "go on rampage".
2) At roadblock, four students and taxi driver killed.
3) Eight people killed in one of three houses.
4) Seven killed in a second house.
5) Four brothers put in wardrobe and shot dead in a third house.


Unlike Jack Murtha, who is gleefully pointing to this incident as evidence that he believes advances his political agenda and who is obviously choosing to believe the worst of our American service personnel, I would rather wait until the investigation is concluded.

Rather than theorize and speculate as to what happened I would just point out that Iraqi insurgents have no problem using civilians as cover and generally involving civilians whenever possible. All it would take to cause civilians causalities if you were an insurgent, would be to fire at American troops and then run into a house or building where civilians were resideing and then hide, or even use civilians as a human shield.

It is very difficult to conduct a war where the enemy is not held to any standards of decency and/or rules of engagement, yet our own forces are constantly placed under the microscope with some of those on the American Left scrambling to find any evidence of wrongdoing to further thier political agenda and thereby, as a by- product of their political posturing, giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

In a separate incident, American forces were cleared of any wrong doing when calling in an air strike on a building where insurgents were hiding. “The nighttime raid was conducted in the village of Ishaqi, about 50 miles north of Baghdad, by a ground assault force. After being fired upon from the vicinity of the targeted building, the soldiers called in air strikes by an Air Force AC-130 gunship, which attacked the building, the defense officials said."

"Local Iraqis said there were 11 total dead, and contended that they were killed by U.S. troops before the house was leveled."

In this case, the findings of the investigation seem to contradict the statements of the eyewitnesses. We shall see who is telling the truth in the Haditha “massacre” and if the Marines did blatantly kill civilians, they should be punished. However, the rushing to condemnation that is being offered up by Jack Murtha is utterly shameful and serves to bolster the enemies morale rather than our own. Jack Murtha and others who delight in bad news in Iraq are a disgrace.


6 comments:

JasMars said...

Wha...?

Kent said...

Excellent presentation.

Progressive Pinhead said...

Either way it is unacceptable, civilains being killed even accidentaly will only give the terrorsits more propoganda and the Iraqi people more hate for the American army.

Progressive Pinhead said...

I wonder why you haven;t responded here in your usal ignorant matter. Pehrpas it is because not even lies can justify your outlandish postition.

JasMars said...

Get one thing straight, activist, although I appreciate your fervor because it enhances the debate, I will address comments when I have a chance to.

You say, “…Not even lies can justify your outlandish position.”

What pray tell, do you imagine that my “position” on this is? In the original post I have stated that, “…if the Marines did blatantly kill civilians, they should be punished”. Or do have a problem with my condemnation of Murtha’s unpatriotic behavior? If the latter concept is the one you have a problem with, than I must point out that calling it outlandish is not at all correct. In fact, I would suggest that Murtha’s rushing to condemn our forces for his own short-term political gain is distasteful to the majority of Americans. Outlandish? I think not.

Otter said...

"I would suggest that Murtha’s rushing to condemn our forces for his own short-term political gain is distasteful to the majority of Americans."
This is the classic "if you're not with you're against us" mindset.
Perhaps you have heard this quote from Thomas Jefferson "Dissent is the highest form of patriotism". Murtha is not critical of the troops, part of the reason he is doing what he is doing is because he cares about the troops. He was a marine prior to becoming a Congressman. It is Bush who put us into this war for political and personal reasons that was unpatriotic. If Murtha wanted political gain from this hew would have never done it. He had a secure seat and noe he has the guns of powerful politicains trained on him. There are really only four politicians on the national level who I don't think would do something like this for political gain: Sen. Robery Byrd, Sen. Joh Mcain, Rep. Bernard Sanders, and Rep. John Murtha. How does Murtha benefeit from this politically? Only 30 something percent of Americans believe in the Iraq war, most American admire Murtha even some prominenet Republicans have praised him on the floor of the House.