Last week, Rep. Murtha made statements about an investigation into murders of civilians by US Marines in Haditha, Iraq (Army Times):
The Marine Corps originally claimed that a convoy from the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, hit a roadside bomb that killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, Texas, and the ensuing firefight killed 15 Iraqi civilians — casualties the Corps at first claimed were killed in the bomb blast — including seven women and three children.
A March 27 Time magazine report [link] published claims by an Iraqi civil rights group that the Marines barged into houses near the bomb strike, throwing grenades and shooting civilians as they cowered in fear. The report prompted calls for a Pentagon probe.>
“It’s much worse than was reported in Time magazine,” Murtha, a Democrat, former Marine colonel and Vietnam war veteran, told reporters on Capitol Hill.
“There was no firefight. There was no [bomb] that killed those innocent people,” Murtha explained, adding there were “about twice as many” Iraqis killed than Time had reported.
Check your calendars, folks. This is the end of May. The incident happened on November 19, 2005 — six months ago.
When Murtha made his statements last week, there were outraged shrieks from the usual sources on the radical fringes. “John Murtha, Traitor”, shouted one blogger, while another said, “John Murtha hanging the Marines!” Their objection? Such criticism might undermine the troops in Iraq.
You know what? Polimom disagrees that covering up atrocities by keeping silent about them undermines the troops. Silence on the homefront merely keeps Americans from knowing what the Iraqis are hearing already. Does somebody actually think that a civilian massacre — or even Abu Ghraib — should be a secret?
As it happens, it sounds very much as if Murtha was, sadly and abominably, right (LATimes):
SAN DIEGO — Marines from Camp Pendleton wantonly killed unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, and then tried to cover up the slayings in the insurgent stronghold of Haditha, military investigations have found. Officials who have seen the findings of the investigations said the filing of criminal charges, including some murder counts, was expected, which would make the Nov. 19 incident the most serious case of alleged U.S. war crimes in Iraq.
An administrative inquiry overseen by Army Maj. Gen. Eldon Bargewell found that several infantry Marines fatally shot as many as 24 Iraqis and that other Marines either failed to stop them or filed misleading or blatantly false reports
Polimom could easily launch off into a rant about the war in Iraq, or about the neocons… but none of those are what strikes me the hardest about this hideous atrocity and potential national shame.
Polimom is sad beyond words for those who were killed — people who were doing their best to simply live their lives, both before and after this war. Along with that, though, what Polimom feels is enormous sadness for the terribly warped Marines who are at war — who have succumbed to the beast.
Just two days before this incident apparently occurred in November, I wrote a rare rant. At the time, I was ticked off about reports coming out of Iraq about the use of white phosphorous in Fallujah, and stories of torture. I said:
Bad enough that the American public was “dismayed” and “disturbed” when our little Janeys and Johnnys were discovered torturing their prisoners (remember Abu Ghraib?). Now, we’re hearing about lions, too. (LIONS????)
Folks, if you think our sons and daughters are being sent to a war with anything less than a targeted, focused hatred for the “enemy”, you are clueless. In basic training, they are given bayonets, with which they charge, screaming vicious epithets, at a straw dummy. Years ago, that straw dummy was a “Red” named Ivan. Any guesses what names they use today to dehumanize their “targets”?
War cannot be waged without virulent hate. It is not an academic exercise.
To kill, as we’ve asked our children to do in Iraq, requires hate, and whatever comes of the investigation in Haditha, we cannot forget that along with all the other losses and deaths, this is also the price we pay to wage war.
We sent them into hell, and the devil is running free. Surely we didn’t expect something different… did we?
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Update: Some conservative voices are weighing in on the latest news, including AllahPundit at HotAir, Confederate Yankee, and the Jawa Report. The gist seems to be that they viewed Murtha’s statements a week ago as politicizing at the expense of the troops.
Polimom has absolutely no idea whether that’s why Murtha discussed Haditha, and I still maintain that the how and why of our entry into Iraq are not relevant to the current situation. We are where we are, and we cannot simply abandon the Iraqis to the chaos brought about by our interventions there.
But blindly rejecting or attacking Murtha’s statements (as happened last week) is every bit as knee-jerk a reaction as the “lefty” reactions the right complains about.
More: David A at In Search of Utopia has a great post (you should read it all), that includes this (my emphasis):
This is not about whether we are for or against the war. It is about a crime, perpetrated in our name. I don’t even want to think about the international implications, but there will be many. I am [personally] very saddened by all this. Sad for the victims, sad for the families and loved ones of the Marines involved, sad for our international image, and sad for the retribution that is sure to come.
He’s absolutely right.
(I’ve cross-posted a slightly modified version of this post at the Chronicle, also.)
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