Details emerging on "Marine massacare" atrocity in Iraq

The should only be the tip of the ice berg. Check out some of these photos from Falluja/ WARNING: EXTERMELY GRAPHIC PHOTOS: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1

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This is one atrocity within a larger atrocity. Bushie and Blair should die in prison for their crimes against humanity.

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Without claiming in any way that atrocities of this nature do not happen in Iraq by the american forces, because I believe they do, I do want to warn for believing pictures too easily. Saddam has proven himself an expert propagandist in the first gulf war, and no doubt there are many in Iraq still who know how to evoke the strongest emotions by the use of pictures.

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NickFun wrote:

The should only be the tip of the ice berg. Check out some of these photos from Falluja/ WARNING: EXTERMELY GRAPHIC PHOTOS: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album28&page=1

And you know for a fact that all of those deaths in these photo's were at the hands of US troops?

As for the marines involved in the killings of those innocent people,I hope they all get court martialed,and the ones found guilty get the death penalty be firing squad.
This type of action makes the Marines look real bad,not to mention the way it makes the US look.

Sorry,I have no pity for the guilty parties.

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Amazingly, MM and I are in complete agreement for once Shocked

I think somewhere in hell Satan just got pelted with a snowball...

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In all probability the people in those photos were killed by US troops. Even if they weren't, their deaths were undoubtedly attributable to the war -- that we started!

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NickFun wrote:

In all probability the people in those photos were killed by US troops. Even if they weren't, their deaths were undoubtedly attributable to the war -- that we started!

So,you admit you dont know,but you just cant get away from blaming the US military for all of the problems,can you.

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Hey there MM! Indeed I can! Our military started this war. The death toll is incalculable. Are you saying that those civilain deaths in Faluja were caused by something other than the war? I don't think so.

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So Nick,
Let me see if I have this straight...
You are saying that the aggressor in any war,no matter why they are the aggressor,is responsible for every death that occurred during that war?

Is that about the jist of your argument?

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This atrocity is terrible, but I actually think Abu Ghraib and the prisons in Afghanistan (not to mention outsourcing torture and Gitmo) are worse.

This appears genuinely to have been the action of a few soldiers, NOT, as with the other examples, due to the policicies of the US government.

Only if this atrocity was due to a deliberately instilled attitude to Iraqis, or if the attitude was obvious and not dealt with, does this appear to me as on a par with policies of torture and murder of prisoners.

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NickFun wrote:

In all probability the people in those photos were killed by US troops. Even if they weren't, their deaths were undoubtedly attributable to the war -- that we started!

Aargh...don't let MM derail ANOTHER thread! This stuff is worth discussing reasonably, not letting MM and his ilk draw you off into endless repetitions of a hundred other threads!

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dlowan wrote:

NickFun wrote:
In all probability the people in those photos were killed by US troops. Even if they weren't, their deaths were undoubtedly attributable to the war -- that we started!

Aargh...don't let MM derail ANOTHER thread! This stuff is worth discussing reasonably, not letting MM and his ilk draw you off into endless repetitions of a hundred other threads!

How am I derailing the thread?
I asked about the photo's that were posted.
If that is derailing the thread,then the link to those photo's shouldnt have been posted with a comment about them.

But,the question still stands.
How do you or anyone else know that EVERY person in those photo's was killed by an American soldier?

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Of course MM! Maybe those were simple domestic disputes! Maybe some postal employee went nuts! Maybe they all died of natural causes!

Take another look at those photos MM. Those are war time photographs. Dahr Jamailiraq saw the devastation for himself.

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mysteryman wrote:

How am I derailing the thread?
...
How do you or anyone else know that EVERY person in those photo's was killed by an American soldier?

It's asking questions like that which derails threads.

You could have easily clicked on the "home" link in the photo gallery which would have immediately provided you with this information:

Quote:

Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself.

His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource and he is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, the Guardian and the Independent to name just a few. Dahr's dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, the BBC, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.

Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. Dahr uses the DahrJamailIraq.com website and his popular mailing list to disseminate his dispatches.

That would tell you that Mr. Jamail is a legitimate photographer. If that's not enough, you could CLICK THIS LINK to read an interview with him.

Considering the condition of the bodies, they were killed fairly recently. Clearly those photos were from the current Iraq war. Putting two and two together would tell you that they obviously died either as "collateral casualties," victims of crossfire, from insurgents, car bombs, or our troops.

But did you do any of that? No. You made a nitpicky argument (which you tend to do) without looking into it yourself. THEN the thread is no longer about civilian deaths in Iraq, or the actions of the Marines. It becomes a back and forth with you about some fraction of the issue. You do this ALL the time. It contributes NOTHING to the thread and only distracts and annoys.

Seriously, cut it out. Your a grown man. You should know better.

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JustanObserver wrote:

mysteryman wrote:
How am I derailing the thread?
...
How do you or anyone else know that EVERY person in those photo's was killed by an American soldier?

It's asking questions like that which derails threads.

You could have easily clicked on the "home" link in the photo gallery which would have immediately provided you with this information:

Quote:
Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself.

His dispatches were quickly recognized as an important media resource and he is now writing for the Inter Press Service, The Asia Times and many other outlets. His reports have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald, Islam Online, the Guardian and the Independent to name just a few. Dahr's dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, the BBC, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.

Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. Dahr uses the DahrJamailIraq.com website and his popular mailing list to disseminate his dispatches.

That would tell you that Mr. Jamail is a legitimate photographer. If that's not enough, you could CLICK THIS LINK to read an interview with him.

Considering the condition of the bodies, they were killed fairly recently. Clearly those photos were from the current Iraq war. Putting two and two together would tell you that they obviously died either as "collateral casualties," victims of crossfire, from insurgents, car bombs, or our troops.

But did you do any of that? No. You made a nitpicky argument (which you tend to do) without looking into it yourself. THEN the thread is no longer about civilian deaths in Iraq, or the actions of the Marines. It becomes a back and forth with you about some fraction of the issue. You do this ALL the time. It contributes NOTHING to the thread and only distracts and annoys.

Seriously, cut it out. Your a grown man. You should know better.

I read the link,and even you say...

Quote:

victims of crossfire, from insurgents, car bombs, or our troops.

Now,I never said that they didnt die in Iraq,nor did I say that they werent pictures from Iraq.

Nick said that they all were killed by US Soldiers.
So,I wanna know how he knows that.
Posting photo's of dead civilians,killed in a combat zone,does NOT mean that the US troops killed them.
All it means is that they were killed.

As for the actions of the marines in question from the original link that started this thread,I have already said what I think.
But,since apparently you were to busy looking for ways to attack me to read what I posted,so I will repost it for youe education and enjoyment...

Quote:

As for the marines involved in the killings of those innocent people,I hope they all get court martialed,and the ones found guilty get the death penalty be firing squad.
This type of action makes the Marines look real bad,not to mention the way it makes the US look.

Sorry,I have no pity for the guilty parties.

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Pointless. I don't know why I bother.

MM, your 100% right. Good for you. Now please shut the hell up and let the grownups continue with the conversation.

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ICH repeats Washingtom Post article:

In Haditha, Memories of a Massacre

Iraqi Townspeople Describe Slaying of 24 Civilians by Marines in Nov. 19 Incident

By Ellen Knickmeyer
Washington Post Foreign Service

05/27/06 "Washington Post" -- -- BAGHDAD, May 26 -- Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing.

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.

Two U.S. military boards are investigating the incident as potentially the gravest violation of the law of war by U.S. forces in the three-year-old conflict in Iraq. The U.S. military ordered the probes after Time magazine presented military officials in Baghdad this year with the findings of its own investigation, based on accounts of survivors and on a videotape shot by an Iraqi journalism student at Haditha's hospital and inside victims' houses.

An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service into the killings and a separate military probe into an alleged coverup are slated to end in the next few weeks. Marines have briefed members of the Senate Armed Services Committee and other officials on the findings; some of the officials briefed say the evidence is damaging. Charges of murder, dereliction of duty and making a false statement are likely, people familiar with the case said Friday.

"Marines overreacted . . . and killed innocent civilians in cold blood," said one of those briefed, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a former Marine who maintains close ties with senior Marine officers despite his opposition to the war.

Haditha is one of a chain of farm towns on the Euphrates River where U.S. and Iraqi forces have battled foreign and local insurgents without resolution for much of the war. The first account of the killings there was a false or erroneous statement issued the next day, Nov. 20, by a U.S. Marine spokesman from a Marine base in Ramadi: "A U.S. Marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and Marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another.''

The incident was touched off when a roadside bomb struck a Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment supply convoy. The explosion killed Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, who was on his second tour of duty in Iraq. Following in the footsteps of two Marine uncles and a Marine grandfather, Terrazas had planned to go to college when it was all done, his family said.

Insurgents planted the bomb on a side road off one of Haditha's main streets, placing it between two vacant lots to try to avoid killing -- and further alienating -- Haditha's civilians, residents said. It went off at 7:15 a.m. Terrazas was driving the Humvee, and he died instantly. Two other Marines in the convoy were wounded.

"Everybody agrees that this was the triggering event. The question is: What happened afterward?" said Paul Hackett, an attorney for a Marine officer with a slight connection to the case.

The descriptions of events provided to The Post by witnesses in Haditha could not be independently verified, although their accounts of the number of casualties and their identities were corroborated by death certificates.

In the first minutes after the shock of the blast, residents said, silence reigned on the street of walled courtyards, brick homes and tiny palm groves. Marines appeared stunned, or purposeful, as they moved around the burning Humvee, witnesses said.

Then one of the Marines took charge and began shouting, said Fahmi, who was watching from his roof. Fahmi said he saw the Marine direct other Marines into the house closest to the blast, about 50 yards away.

It was the home of 76-year-old Abdul Hamid Hassan Ali. Although he had used a wheelchair since diabetes forced a leg amputation years ago, Ali was always one of the first on his block to go out every morning, scattering scraps for his chickens and hosing the dust of the arid western town from his driveway, neighbors said.

In the house with Ali and his 66-year-old wife, Khamisa Tuma Ali, were three of the middle-aged male members of their family, at least one daughter-in-law and four children -- 4-year-old Abdullah, 8-year-old Iman, 5-year-old Abdul Rahman and 2-month-old Asia.

Marines entered shooting, witnesses recalled. Most of the shots -- in Ali's house and two others -- were fired at such close range that they went through the bodies of the family members and plowed into walls or the floor, physicians at Haditha's hospital said.

A daughter-in-law, identified as Hibbah, escaped with Asia, survivors and neighbors said. Iman and Abdul Rahman were shot but survived. Four-year-old Abdullah, Ali and the rest died.

Ali took nine rounds in the chest and abdomen, leaving his intestines spilling out of the exit wounds in his back, according to his death certificate.

The Marines moved to the house next door, Fahmi said.

Inside were 43-year-old Khafif, 41-year-old Aeda Yasin Ahmed, an 8-year-old son, five young daughters and a 1-year-old girl staying with the family, according to death certificates and neighbors.

The Marines shot them at close range and hurled grenades into the kitchen and bathroom, survivors and neighbors said later. Khafif's pleas could be heard across the neighborhood. Four of the girls died screaming.

Only 13-year-old Safa Younis lived -- saved, she said, by her mother's blood spilling onto her, making her look dead when she fell, limp, in a faint.

Townspeople led a Washington Post reporter this week to the girl they identified as Safa. Wearing a ponytail and tracksuit, the girl said her mother died trying to gather the girls. The girl burst into tears after a few words. The older couple caring for her apologized and asked the reporter to leave.

Moving to a third house in the row, Marines burst in on four brothers, Marwan, Qahtan, Chasib and Jamal Ahmed. Neighbors said the Marines killed them together.

Marine officials said later that one of the brothers had the only gun found among the three families, although there has been no known allegation that the weapon was fired.

Meanwhile, a separate group of Marines found at least one other house full of young men. The Marines led the men in that house outside, some still in their underwear, and away to detention.

The final victims of the day happened upon the scene inadvertently, witnesses said. Four male college students -- Khalid Ayada al-Zawi, Wajdi Ayada al-Zawi, Mohammed Battal Mahmoud and Akram Hamid Flayeh -- had left the Technical Institute in Saqlawiyah for the weekend to stay with one of their families on the street, said Fahmi, a friend of the young men.

A Haditha taxi driver, Ahmed Khidher, was bringing them home, Fahmi said.

According to Fahmi, the young men and their driver turned onto the street and saw the wrecked Humvee and the Marines. Khidher threw the car into reverse, trying to back away at full speed, Fahmi said, and the Marines opened fire from about 30 yards away, killing all the men inside the taxi.

After the killings, Fahmi said, more Americans arrived at the scene. They shouted among themselves. The Marines cordoned off the block; then, and for at least the next day, Marines filed into the houses, looked around and came out.

At some point on Nov. 19, Marines in an armored convoy arrived at Haditha's hospital. They placed the bodies of the victims in the garden of the hospital and left without explanation, said Mohammed al-Hadithi, one of the hospital officials who helped carry the bodies inside. By some accounts, some of the corpses were burnt.

The remains of the 24 lie today in a cemetery called Martyrs' Graveyard. Stray dogs scrounge in the deserted homes. "Democracy assassinated the family that was here," graffiti on one of the houses declared.

The insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq said it sent copies of the journalism student's videotape to mosques in Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, using the killings of the women and children to recruit fighters.

After Haditha leaders complained, the Marines paid compensation put variously by townspeople at $1,500 or $2,500 for each of the 15 men, women and children killed in the first two houses. They refused to pay for the nine other men killed, insisting that they were insurgents. Officials familiar with the investigations said it is now believed that the nine were innocent victims. By some accounts, a 25th person, the father of the four brothers killed together, was also killed.

As the official investigations conclude and fresh information continues to surface in Haditha, several aspects of the incident remain unclear or are in dispute.

For example, John Sifton of Human Rights Watch, which helped break the news that spurred the military investigation, said he had been told by Marine officers that the rampage lasted three to five hours and involved two squads of Marines.

Although Marines' accounts offered in the early stages of the investigation described a running gun battle, those versions of the story proved to be false, officials briefed by the Marines said.

Also, one member of Congress who was briefed by Marines said in Washington that the shooting of the men in the taxi occurred before the shootings in the houses.

Another point of dispute is whether some houses were destroyed by fire or by airstrikes. Some Iraqis reported that the Marines burned houses in the area of the attack, but two people familiar with the case, including Hackett, the lawyer, said warplanes conducted airstrikes, dropping 500-pound bombs on more than one house.

That is significant for any possible court-martial proceedings, because it would indicate that senior commanders, who must approve such strikes and who would also use aircraft to assess their effects, were paying attention to events in Haditha that day.

The Marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines have rotated back home, to California. Last month, the Marine Corps relieved Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani of command of the 3rd Battalion. Two of his company commanders were relieved of their commands, as well. Authorities said a series of unspecified incidents had led to a loss of confidence in the three.

In Haditha, families of those killed keep an ear cocked to a foreign station, Radio Monte Carlo, waiting for any news of a trial of the Marines.

"They are waiting for the sentence -- although they are convinced that the sentence will be like one for someone who killed a dog in the United States," said Waleed Mohammed, a lawyer preparing a file for Iraqi courts and the United Nations, if the U.S. trial disappoints. "Because Iraqis have become like dogs in the eyes of Americans.''

A Washington Post staff member in Iraq and staff writer Thomas E. Ricks and staff researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052602069_pf.html

War sucks.

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JustanObserver wrote:

Pointless. I don't know why I bother.

MM, your 100% right. Good for you. Now please shut the hell up and let the grownups continue with the conversation.

I will,as soon as some adults show up.
So far,all I have seen are a bunch of cowards that will blame the US military for everything bad that happens,without ever having served themselves.

So,while I hope the marines involved in the intentional killing of unarmed civilians all get court martialed,I will NOT sit here and let you or anyone else attack the honor,duty,or courage of the military itself.

Yes,there are some bad apples,but for you or anyone else to blame all the military for the actions of a few is wrong.

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mysteryman wrote:

JustanObserver wrote:
Pointless. I don't know why I bother.

MM, your 100% right. Good for you. Now please shut the hell up and let the grownups continue with the conversation.

I will,as soon as some adults show up.
So far,all I have seen are a bunch of cowards that will blame the US military for everything bad that happens,without ever having served themselves.

So,while I hope the marines involved in the intentional killing of unarmed civilians all get court martialed,I will NOT sit here and let you or anyone else attack the honor,duty,or courage of the military itself.

Yes,there are some bad apples,but for you or anyone else to blame all the military for the actions of a few is wrong.

excuse me, but show me where someone on this thread blamed the entire US military for everything bad happening in iraq. or as you put it, "attack[ed] the honor,duty,or courage of the military itself."

go ahead, show me.

but if you cannot do that why don't you just stop making $hit up?

you are just making $hit up because you know damn right well what those boys did and you are smart enough to figure out why they went berserk. they were under a great deal of strain and lost it. just as each of us, you as well as i likely would have reacted.

you know, as I do that the 2nd, 3rd or 4th tours of duty are getting to our young marines, and that the proper training and leaderhip expected is beginning to break down because of that strain. and you also know that those poor men are not the ones responsible for them being put there in such bad circumstances

it is terrible, a terrible blight on our marines and soldiers to have their fellows in arms commit atrocities, but they apparently did. But this nation and its military leadership is ultimately responsible for the actions of the men who serve under them. You said you were in the navy and you ought to know that the captain of a ship is ultimately responsible for all the sailors under his command in times of conflict.

your remarks on the personal bravery of those who oppose your viewpoints is a non-sequiter here. it has no legitimate place. and you look foolish to even mention it when so many of the politicians you support did not serve and those who you oppose actually did serve, and were cited for bravery.

I ask, what war did George Bush and Dick Cheney fight in, what wounds do they carry that you honor them so?

if personal bravery under fire or even simply being in the regular military were the only coin of the realm those who you support would be bankrupt, and no less bankrupt than your empty rhetoric

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Details emerging on "Marine massacare" atrocity in Iraq

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