The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.No, this isn't "ugly". It isn't even tragic. It's in Armegeddon zone, where what was done does little except illustrate how un-American we have become. As I said so long ago, placing the troops in Iraq in the war-on-the-cheap, make-money-for-contractors style has only one guarantee - that it will lead to atrocities.On Nov. 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that on the previous day a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed eight insurgents, he said.
U.S. military officials later confirmed that the version of events was wrong.
Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
Military officials say Marine Corp photos taken immediately after the incident show many of the victims were shot at close range, in the head and chest, execution-style. One photo shows a mother and young child bent over on the floor as if in prayer, shot dead, said the officials, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity because the investigation hasn't been completed.
One military official says it appears the civilians were deliberately killed by the Marines, who were outraged at the death of their fellow Marine.
"This one is ugly," one official told NBC News.
The situation is an utter clusterfuck. Soldiers who like death, destruction, mahem, torture, and war crimes have a green light from Donald Rumsfeld himself to act out their worst impulses. Soldiers who do not want to do this kind of shit are thrown into situations where they have no choice, as Garry Trudeau is illustrating so horribly in his story line about BD. Click the links for full sized images - I don't want to reduce their size to fit on the blog.
US soldiers everywhere are being tarred with the atrocities committed by their benighted fellows even as they are increasingly likely to be placed in situations where they will be forced to make impossible choices.
Remind me again, why are we in Iraq? No connection between Hussein and 9/11, no WMD, so many lies to trick the public and Congress to approve it, and now the annihilation of whatever moral or ethical power we had. Iraqis are less secure than under their dictator, oil prices are skyrocketing, and nations with real nuclear capabilities are flipping us the bird when we sabre rattle.
This is the truth, and I'm not sure how many of my countrymen understand just what this is going to do to our nation for the next fifty years.
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia
2 comments:
I just wanted to thank you for writing about this.
I have been surfing the blogs and I can't believe how many people are cursing Murtha for speaking so openly on this truly criminal incident.
One can't help but wonder how many other crimes have occured that have gone unreported.
http://truth-about-iraqis.blogspot.com
The truth has to be told. Indeed, it will always come out if the act is large enough. The question, as Hannah Arendt reminds us, is whether it will be acknowledged.
I read various news sites and blogs, and I see a great deal of reporting on what has happened. But then you have the administration denying that what has happened is a crime, or that it happened at all.
Deliberate falsehood, a brazen disregard for the facts, is both the administration's greatest strength and its self-immolating weakness. The truth is being acknowledged and thus they crumble.
For me, the question is will Americans as a people ever acknowledge the truth of what we have done in Iraq? I am grieved to say I believe the answer is "No".
Thanks for your comments,
Anglachel
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