The Killings in Haditha

Ski8799

Ski8799

Active member
Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich was charged with killing 18 Iraqi civilians in Haditha. Wuterich tells 60 Minutes that while he's sorry about the death of the civilians, including women and children, he'd make the same decisions again. More...

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml


They grilled this guy, tough questions and the harsh realities of quick decisions on the battlefield, another example of this horrific asymmetrical type of warfare which we are facing.

the segment should be available for viewing on the above link
 
Ski8799 said:
They grilled this guy, tough questions and the harsh realities of quick decisions on the battlefield, another example of this horrific asymmetrical type of warfare which we are facing.
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It seems to me that the Western military has leaned nothing from the Mai Lai massacre except how to repeatedly alienate indigenous populations so they become enemy recruits. Irrespective of what actually happened, do you think it's a good idea to give these guys an easy time? (they have let everyone off so far). What message do you think this gives the local population. Imagine a local gunman firing from a family house in middle America and American children and old people being massacred in the resulting storming of the house. Are the assault group likely to get a pat on the back, or strung up by their testicles? Of course it's different over there, isn't it? asymmetrical warfare, what the hell does that mean, can't fire back at defenceless civilians?

Here are the facts.

the video shot .. shows the bodies of the children and women with gunshot wounds, bullet holes in the interior walls of the house, and bloodstains on the floor. Insufficient evidence has come to light to account for insurgents hiding in the houses that first came under attack.

While the Marines claim that the victims had been killed by shrapnel from the roadside bomb and that the men "were saboteurs", Dr Wahid said that there were "no organs slashed by shrapnel in any of the bodies". He further claimed that it appeared that "the victims were shot in the head and chest from close range

9yo Child's statement "I couldn't see their faces very well - only their guns sticking in to the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny"

Military officials say they believe the delay in beginning the investigation was a result of the squad's initial efforts to cover up what happened

Republican John Kline said "There is no question that the Marines involved, those doing the shooting, they were busy in lying about it and covering it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings

If they didn't do anything wrong why lie through their teeth? At the end of the day they just want Carte Blanche to use civilians for retaliation every time they get shot at, why not just do the job properly and flatten the entire town, so they will die from acceptable shrapnel rather than close in bullet wounds? Of course every single remaining person in the Muslim world can then be recruited into the enemies ranks.

Not fair? 3000 or so dead is a low casualty rate in relation to any previous war of this magnitude, unless you include the million civilians as well. It might be somewhat more tolerable if the excuse to invade didn't turn out to be completely false.
 
I have a bit of a problem with this case in that it looks so open and shut that it makes no sense for it to have dragged on this long, it seems to me that if all that has been reported was all there was to know then it would have been over by now so until the case is concluded I think it a wiser option to reserve judgment.
 
perseus said:
It seems to me that the Western military has leaned nothing from the Mai Lai massacre except how to repeatedly alienate indigenous populations so they become enemy recruits. Irrespective of what actually happened, do you think it's a good idea to give these guys an easy time? (they have let everyone off so far). What message do you think this gives the local population. Imagine a local gunman firing from a family house in middle America and American children and old people being massacred in the resulting storming of the house. Are the assault group likely to get a pat on the back, or strung up by their testicles? Of course it's different over there, isn't it? asymmetrical warfare, what the hell does that mean, can't fire back at defenceless civilians?

Here are the facts.

the video shot .. shows the bodies of the children and women with gunshot wounds, bullet holes in the interior walls of the house, and bloodstains on the floor. Insufficient evidence has come to light to account for insurgents hiding in the houses that first came under attack.

While the Marines claim that the victims had been killed by shrapnel from the roadside bomb and that the men "were saboteurs", Dr Wahid said that there were "no organs slashed by shrapnel in any of the bodies". He further claimed that it appeared that "the victims were shot in the head and chest from close range

9yo Child's statement "I couldn't see their faces very well - only their guns sticking in to the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head. Then they killed my granny"

Military officials say they believe the delay in beginning the investigation was a result of the squad's initial efforts to cover up what happened

Republican John Kline said "There is no question that the Marines involved, those doing the shooting, they were busy in lying about it and covering it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings

If they didn't do anything wrong why lie through their teeth? At the end of the day they just want Carte Blanche to use civilians for retaliation every time they get shot at, why not just do the job properly and flatten the entire town, so they will die from acceptable shrapnel rather than close in bullet wounds? Of course every single remaining person in the Muslim world can then be recruited into the enemies ranks.

Not fair? 3000 or so dead is a low casualty rate in relation to any previous war of this magnitude, unless you include the million civilians as well. It might be somewhat more tolerable if the excuse to invade didn't turn out to be completely false.
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The WMD thing has been a little overdone, I think that we've moved beyond that discussion in an effort to emphasize the benefits of a post-Saddam Iraq. The Iraqi civilian deaths are a horrifc part of armed conflict and while they should not be forgotten, I should remind you that they are a by-product of a growing Iraq as it gains autonomy, during Saddam's rule they WERE the product. I spoke with many Kurds in the Kirkuk area among other Ba'athist opposers that were comforted greatly when Saddam was captured.

As far as the Haditha incident, overcome with emotion, these Marines apparently went too far, but were you there? do you personally know of all of the complexities of this particular situation? Point is, you don't have the right to summarily judge any of these Marines based on the facts as distributed by a biased media.

It's easy for us comfortable armchair critics to claim the moral high ground and immediately condemn servicemembers as they do their job in a warzone.
 
Ski, I am responding to the sympathetic judgement you have made. Any hint of cover up and 'let's support our boys' mentality will spell disaster for the whole Iraq campaign. At least the court needs to be seen to be doing it's duty, and grilling is surely part of this process considering that they have clearly not been telling the whole truth since shrapnel wounds cannot be subsequently covered up and replaced by bullets by someone after the event.

The problem is that only the defendants were there, so we have to rely on the evidence collected. I mention the issue of justification behind the war (WMD, freedom from torture, distributing Iraqi wealth to the people) is hypocritical to the extreme, so the 'they can shoot us but we can't shoot back' excuse has to be got into perspective, so its difficult to complain of unfairness after what's happened so far.
 
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Perseus, I know what you mean but I'm just seeing a pattern where you just say the military done wrong and is evil EVERY time in just about EVERY topic. Why are you even here?
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Perseus, I know what you mean but I'm just seeing a pattern where you just say the military done wrong and is evil EVERY time in just about EVERY topic. Why are you even here?
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No it is many others here that are forming the biased argument that the military can do no (or little) wrong. I am attempting to form a balanced argument to confront the jingoism that it prevalent on this board, and if it isn't allowed then moderators have the option to ban me. I accept civilian casualties are inevitable in war, and war is necessary to stop tyrants oppressing the people. If there were insurgents present in this incident then do you think they give a F*** about civilians any more than these guys on trial? Perhaps they may have fallen into the trap that was laid by the insurgents, the road bomb was just the detonator.

I am not anti-military, both my parents have fought in the most important war we have ever fought. Perhaps we should have gone to war to stop the genocides in Rwanda or Congo, whereas I don't consider appeasement and minding you own business is a valid moral viewpoint, but such a discussion is unlikely to take place because everyone seems to be fighting for number one.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
Perseus, I know what you mean but I'm just seeing a pattern where you just say the military done wrong and is evil EVERY time in just about EVERY topic. Why are you even here?
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The same could be said for the opposite, there is a very strong "might is right" group on this board who refuse accept responsibility for actions and hide behind "what ifs" to shrug off a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

The description of this particular forun says the following "Discussions about military related topics. (Almost) All opinions are welcome. Please read the rules inside." I am sure that those who made that description would have written something completely different had they desired we all have the same opinion.
The simple reality is that we all have differing views and we all believe that those views are right therefore if you are not prepared to accept this then I think it fair to ask why are you here?
 
I listen more than most people (I believe so anyway) but when I see a pattern where a guy consistently jumps on everything military, I see a problem with that.
Now in terms of politics, I don't mind so much as you may have figured. I have had friends on both sides of the spectrum and that's both civilian and military. But they don't go around jumping on everything anti-military. Well, there are a few liberal civilians who do but not that many... and heck, I even listen to them. Would you believe a college friend of mine was actually a big time anti-war demonstrator who liked to make environmental videos on his Macintosh? I wanted to hear what he had to say and he wasn't like a bad guy or anything. But if he was on this board slating the military at every turn, I'd be asking him, "why are you here?"
Bit of a difference I think.
Kind of like going on a doctor's forum and posting all kinds of anti-doctor posts, writing and pasting article after article about doctor malpractice, unethical doctors, etc.
Now I've never stated that the military could do no wrong, in fact I've argued AGAINST such statements. The one I can remember off the top of my head was, though not military, is Law Enforcement, where I said that incompetence of on scene officers was a factor in security. Same goes with military. I question a lot of the projects that the military undergoes in terms of equipment and priority and sometimes the strategic direction of things. No, I don't think the smartest people in the world are in the military.
So if anyone's going to spend your whole time slating our line of work or former line of work then why don't they just piss off somewhere else? Geez... there's so many comparisons. It's like some hard core Anti-Australian guy from Indonesia immigrating to Australia and continuing to ***** about Australia. Or a hard core Anti-American Korean guy doing the same in America.
The truth is this: Perseus wasn't there. I wasn't there. Obviously something really foul did happen but we don't know a damned thing about it. There is a commission and a trial going on to sort it out so until that's done with, let's keep our own conclusions to ourselves. You don't know what it's like to face streets with bombs disguised as just about anything, having to deal with the higher ups that send you into those areas and how hopeless it is when something goes BOOM and there's not a damn thing you can do about it. And neither do I. So why don't you just keep your conclusions to yourself? And I mean you Perseus, not you MontyB.
 
Once again I will say "So what" we all form our opinions from the information we have and the slant we put on that information based on our own experiences if we were to make no comment on the things we have no direct experiences with it would be a very quiet world and completely dead forum.

Lets be realistic here how many of those that rattled on about the "evils" of Russia or the "poor Georgians" were there, would you be so bold as to tell them they should keep their conclusions to themselves because I bet 5.56, Aikirooster, ToG, Yourself, Myself probably couldn't have found Georgia on a map 6 weeks ago and yet we all had opinions as to who was right or wrong in the conflict.

The simple truth of the matter is that every is entitled to an opinion you and I may not like that opinion but that does not make it any less valid.

In terms of this "anti-military" pattern you "see" developing my personal opinion is that you are seeing what you want to see here as from what I can tell Perseus spends very little time in the "political" side of these forums and outside a rare burst of enthusiasm on electric cars and global warming neither of which were particularly anti-military I struggle to find more than a handful of posts outside the WW2 forum.
 
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A lot of what may be considered by some as anti military, or anti whatever here, is bought about by equal or worse cases of deliberate baiting in the first place. Also there are people among us who deliberately misconstrue another's point merely to try and divert the debate because they don't like the way that it is going.
 
Hmmm that may actually be true.
No, my stance on this subject isn't "hmm, whatever." It's more like "this stuff is real bad and I wonder what the authorities will make of it." Either way, it's real bad. I wouldn't jump on anything but it seems that way.
As for the Russia thing... let me put it this way. The way Russia fights in Chechnya, armies of Western countries DO NOT fight in that sort of manner. It is by no means equal.
There's no question that Georgia screwed up. The part about the situation that I found most troublesome was that we did choose to see them as allies, and they did give us a hand in the Middle East. As for the level of American involvement... I think it was just about right. Georgia messed up enough to not warrant a full military backing.
The difference can be seen as such.
In fact, I don't think I've even criticized Supostat for being totally Pro-Russia on the Georgia issue and I don't see why I should because heck, if that's the side of the line he stands on I guess that is the case. Being on the other side's military doesn't mean you're anti-military. Just means you belong on the other side.
MontyB, you and I disagree a lot but you don't strike me as being Anti-military.
Perseus though is a different story.
 
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the_13th_redneck said:
Hmmm that may actually be true.
No, my stance on this subject isn't "hmm, whatever." It's more like "this stuff is real bad and I wonder what the authorities will make of it." Either way, it's real bad. I wouldn't jump on anything but it seems that way.
As for the Russia thing... let me put it this way. The way Russia fights in Chechnya, armies of Western countries DO NOT fight in that sort of manner. It is by no means equal.
There's no question that Georgia screwed up. The part about the situation that I found most troublesome was that we did choose to see them as allies, and they did give us a hand in the Middle East. As for the level of American involvement... I think it was just about right. Georgia messed up enough to not warrant a full military backing.
The difference can be seen as such.
In fact, I don't think I've even criticized Supostat for being totally Pro-Russia on the Georgia issue and I don't see why I should because heck, if that's the side of the line he stands on I guess that is the case. Being on the other side's military doesn't mean you're anti-military. Just means you belong on the other side.
MontyB, you and I disagree a lot but you don't strike me as being Anti-military.
Perseus though is a different story.
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Well I disagree with your assessment and in the end even if you were right he is still entitled to his opinion just like everybody else.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
And my point is, if his opinion on the military in general is THAT bad, what's he doing here?
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Did you miss the bit where I said I disagreed with your assessment?

Further to this there are large sections of these forums which are devoted to history, politics and humour all of which do not require anything more than an opinion and the capacity to express said opinion to be a part of.

Given the lack of quality and thought that has gone into many of the posts and threads on these forums of recent months I am of the opinion that you are picking on the wrong target.
 
MontyB said:
Did you miss the bit where I said I disagreed with your assessment?
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No, I didn't miss it.
As for why the quality of posts have gone down, in case you didn't realize, it's election time in America. Supporters of both sides are extremely high strung, especially with this one.
Having foreign people like you (and me too since I'm not legally a citizen) jumping all over THEIR issues IS going to get a reaction.
So maybe I did earlier in the year but lately I have not been arguing against either the Republicans or the Democrats in here about what's going on with them. More emotion, a little less thought than the usual, you know an election is coming up. And it's not your election.
Yes there is a history section, humor section etc., but don't expect to come to a military forum, slate the military in pretty much every shape and form and then wonder why you get on peoples' sh*t list.
 
the_13th_redneck said:
In fact, I don't think I've even criticized Supostat for being totally Pro-Russia on the Georgia issue and I don't see why I should because heck, if that's the side of the line he stands on I guess that is the case. Being on the other side's military doesn't mean you're anti-military. Just means you belong on the other side.
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No, you haven't... at least I didn't notice such critics :)

However, I do not think I am totally Pro-Russia. You should see those guys in Russian forums... :confused:
 
RE; the topic


I do see fault as these Marines obviously crossed the line and were in violation of the ROE. I think that an emotional assessment is unavoidable in these situations as this team leader had just witnessed his best Marine instantly converted into "a pile of flesh" as he put it.

It would be nice if we could dispatch Robocop-like automotons to precisely carry out missions and follow the ROE in its entirety. We don't have that luxury as of yet, so unfortunately these types of horrific incidents will happen again.
 
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