Clipmarks | Haditha Clips

Biden's refusal to apologize for Haditha

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 00:49:48 GMT

clipped by: sillysam

t's a transcript of Biden in June of 2006 on Meet the Press talking about the Haditha massacre. Now, when you hear Biden talking about this you must keep in mind that he was totally wrong about Haditha, just like Jack Murtha was and Biden has not apologized nor has Murtha. Eight of the Marines charged for that so-called massacre and the cover-up have already been exonerated. One case is still pending. Here's Russert: "Let me ask you a question on Iraq about Haditha, some of the other alleged atrocities. The fact is, our government knew about that for some time. How high up the chain, based on your information, do you think this goes?" Biden: "Secretary of Defense." Russert: "What should be done about Rumsfeld?" Biden: "He should be gone. He shouldn't be in his office tomorrow morning, but I'm so tired of saying this on your show. I've been saying this for two years." "Well, the president knew about Haditha in March." "Well, we can't get rid of the president.

Dark Horse Challenging Murtha Turns Out To Be A Thoroughbred

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 05:43:48 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: It challenged the signatures on Russell’s petition in court. Just enough signatures were removed to assure that Russell would not be on the primary ballot-–which was the plan.

Undeterred, Russell asked voters to write in his name on the primary ballot to be the Republican candidate in the upcoming general election. He received more than 4,000 write-in votes in the GOP Primary and another 1,000 in the Democrat Primary, enough to once again make him a candidate, Luksik said.

It is an impressive performance in a district with approximately 345,000 registered voters. Instead of the "dark horse" Murtha’s machine expected, they encountered a thoroughbred who apparently knows how to run.

A Haditha Marine father joins "Murtha Must Go"

Darryl Sharratt is the father of former LCpl Justin Sharratt; last year his son was exonerated and publicly lauded for his remarkable courage by Gen James N. Mattis.

Murtha Must Go Blog
http://murthamustgo.blogspot.com/search/label/Jack%20Murtha

Clip Source: warchronicle.com

His unlikely opponent in Pennsylvania's 12th District is an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel named William T. Russell, 47, a Desert Storm and Iraq war veteran who is barred by the Hatch Act from stumping until August 1 when his active duty stint ends. A Cinderella candidate running against the tide of Democratic hopefuls elsewhere, Russell is garnering national attention for his improbable early success.

Just getting on the ballot was a tough battle for Russell, a political outsider who came to roost in Pennsylvania after serving his country around the world. During his military career he lived in 11 states and seven countries. Despite such handicaps he still managed to obtain enough voter signatures get on the primary ballot as the only Republican candidate in the district.

“He is just a nice guy,” Luksik explained. “When people hear him, when they meet him, they come away impressed.”

Murtha’s well financed and artfully crafted campaign apparatus was less easily swayed

Tags: murtha, pennsylvania congressman, lt. col. william t. russell, desert storm/iraq war veteran

Jack Murtha Steps In It Again

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:21:31 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: And, Murtha still has not apologized to the 7 innocent Haditha Marines he accused of cold-blooded murder last time.

UPDATE: Murtha's opponent this year for Congress is Lt. Colonel William Russell a decorated combat veteran who has served in Desert Storm, the Iraq War, and the Pentagon on 9/11.

You can donate to his campaign HERE.

A WilleyBCoyote Video.

Murtha Makes An Outrageous Allegation

http://newsbusters.org/node/5410

Clip Source: gatewaypundit.blogspot.com

[Video]

Here is what Murtha says:

Murtha: I think they have 17 or so guidelines and they've solved 4 or 5 of them.
(Actually they've completed 15 of the 18 benchmarks.)

Murtha: I think the short term it (the Bush Surge) has reduced incidents. I'm not sure if it's because the Iraqis are just worn out but certainly the way they are doing it today it makes a big difference. It used to be we broke down doors. We went in and we killed people inadvertantly. Now they're much more careful about it.

And, just think...
This hateful boob is the national security "expert" in the Democratic Party!

Blackfive adds: "And they wonder why no one takes them seriously in those areas???"

Let's hope justice is served against this hateful man some day soon. Murtha put those Haditha Marines through hell these past few years and he isn't man enough to apologize to them.

He is a coward.

Tags: jack murtha, iraq, surge, u.s. troops, marines

Haditha Marine prepares to sue Murtha over smear

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:35:47 GMT

clipped by: pkronfield
clipper's remarks: They should sue that fat pig Murtha, who, like another disgusting individual (Kerry) claims to be a war hero. Murtha seems to have long ago forgot what Semper Fi means, and stabbed his fellow marines in the back for political advantage. I say sue his ass. Then get him out of office on the double quick so for the first time in his life he will have to work for a living.

Clip Source: wnd.com

With most of the eight Marines charged in the Haditha, Iraq, incident now exonerated, the highest-ranking officer among the accused is considering a lawsuit against Democratic Rep. John Murtha, who fueled the case by declaring the men cold-blooded killers.

lead attorney for Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani said he and his client will look into suing Murtha and the Time magazine reporter, Tim McGuirk, who first published the accusations by Iraqi insurgents.

He noted the New York Times featured the case on the front page when it was being compared by war critics to the infamous My Lai massacre in Vietnam. But now, with evidence the Haditha accusations were a smear, the story has been relegated to the back pages.

Tags: loony left, democrat traitors

Murtha Lied; Marines Were Tried (and Aquitted)

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 18:44:34 GMT

clipped by: jatfla
clipper's remarks: I'm waiting for the outcry that the trial process was not impartial and there needed to be an international court presiding. Murtha has no credibility and has caused huge embarrassment to himself.

Clip Source: www.frontpagemag.com

Murtha Lied; Marines Were Tried (And Acquitted)

On May 17, 2006, John Murtha, he of the unassailable “war hero”/“patriot” mythos, assailed his fellow Marines in Haditha as murderers “in cold blood.” The super-patriot made this indictment, in front of an international audience, before an investigation had concluded.

yesterday, military judge Col. Steven Folsom dismissed all charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, the highest-ranking officer accused in the Haditha massacre-of-justice.

The antiwar Left morphed reporting errors into a “cover-up,” much as it deformed a self-defense operation against terrorists hiding amidst Iraq’s civilian population as an imperial assault on 24 blameless Iraqi civilians

Every trial to date has proven the report truthful and Murtha a calumnious liar:

Front page news?

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 18:02:09 GMT

clipped by: sillysam

Clip Source: www.foxnews.com

Judge Dismisses Charges Against Marine Officer Accused of Failing to Investigate Haditha Iraqi Killings

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. — A military judge has dismissed charges against a Marine officer accused of failing to investigate the killings of 24 Iraqis.

Should be front page news

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 17:56:16 GMT

clipped by: sillysam

Clip Source: www.breitbart.com

US Marine acquitted of all charges in Haditha killings

A court martial on Wednesday acquitted a US Marine for his role in the deaths of 24 civilians in Haditha in Iraq in 2005, the sixth man to be exonerated in the affair, a military official said.

Lieutenant Andrew Grayson, 27, was declared "not guilty on all charges" by a jury, said a spokesman for the Camp Pendleton military base in southern California where the hearing started on May 28.

Grayson had been charged with making false statements and attempting to fraudulently separate from the Marine Corps. He was also charged with obstruction of justice, but the military judge dismissed this charge Tuesday.

He was the first Marine to stand trial in connection with the killings of 24 men, women and children in Haditha, the most serious war crime allegations leveled at US forces since the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

3rd marine cleared of Haditha charges

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:37:10 GMT

clipped by: jklugman
clipper's remarks:

Officials close to the Haditha case said they think prosecutors dismissed the charges in order to pursue Wuterich aggressively at trial. The cases against three of the Marines accused of shooting civilians have fallen apart, and Wuterich remains the only one left for prosecutors to target for accountability. Wuterich led the Marine squad and allegedly told his troops, as they approached a group of civilian homes that day, to shoot first and ask questions later.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

The Marine Corps yesterday dismissed all charges against one of the Marines accused of killing women and children in the Iraqi town of Haditha in late 2005, the third time a Marine linked to the slayings has been exonerated

Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, who has admitted shooting civilians inside their homes as part of a pursuit of insurgents, was cleared and granted immunity to testify in further hearings related to the investigation. The move leaves only Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich to face charges in connection with the shootings on Nov. 19, 2005.

Although the Marines were at first accused of going on a rampage, the case has evolved into a far more complex examination of the Corps' rules of engagement and the general conduct of wartime operations in hostile residential areas.

Tags: haditha, marines, iraq, war, civilian-killings, stephen tatum, frank wuterich

Reconstruction work credited with helping cut violence in Iraq

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:47:30 GMT

clipped by: cptenaud
clipper's remarks: Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, the contingent's new commanding general, discussed the upcoming deployments, various improvements in Iraq and related topics during a media roundtable yesterday on the base.

Camp Pendleton's Marines are returning to Anbar as violence there is declining. Helland said cities are slowly refilling as families who fled violence are going back home.

Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, the commanding general of Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, said the level of violence in Anbar has declined.
“People are riding buses. Kids are playing soccer in streets,” he said. “That didn't happen a year ago.”

Other military commanders and defense analysts agree the Marine Corps' reconstruction work reflects a growing sense of calm and relative normalcy in Anbar. Shortly after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the province gained notoriety because of major insurgent cells in places such as Fallujah, Ramadi and Haditha. The region became known as the Triangle of

Clip Source: www.signonsandiego.com

Combat is the Marines Corps' forte, a skill exhibited in epic battles such as those on the shores of Okinawa, Japan, and in the jungles of Vietnam.

JOE RAEDLE / Getty Images

Marine Lt. Miles G. Warren (left) and Sgt. Lance Cpl. Christopher Erwin visited a newly built school in Fallujah, in Iraq's Anbar province. The reconstruction project was spearheaded by their unit.

In recent months, though, Marines have garnered headlines for their noncombat efforts in western Iraq's vast Anbar province. They have not only sought out insurgents, but taken on the duties of nation building and political brokering as the region increasingly regains stability.

These unusual roles for the Marines include using helicopters to ferry Sunni sheiks from certain towns to meetings with sheiks in other towns. The troops also help collect garbage, build schools, repair sewage systems and train Iraqi security forces.

Tags: the, way, it, should, have, been, done, from, start

Validity of Charges on Haditha Marine Questioned

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:37:59 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: "Our position is that if this had not been Haditha and everything around it, he never would have been charged." - Attorney for defendant, Joseph Casas

Clip Source: nctimes.com

A military hearing officer said Saturday he has serious doubts over the validity of criminal charges filed against a Marine lieutenant

The hearing officer, Col. Robert Stahlman, said that if 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson was guilty of dereliction of duty for not ordering an investigation into the slayings, numerous other members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment command staff should have been similarly charged.

Testimony during the hearing showed that Grayson had ordered the destruction of 70 photographs taken by a member of the intelligence team he led at Haditha. The order, however, was in keeping with a military policy that photographs deemed not to have any intelligence value be destroyed.

The man in charge of intelligence gathering for the 3rd Battalion at Haditha, Maj. Jeffrey Dinsmore, testified Saturday that he considered the photos "extraneous" and that Grayson and his team were responsible for developing intelligence leads and not probing civilian killings.

Tags: haditha, iraq, marines

The Media's Iraq Con Job

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:51:29 GMT

clipped by: ClipClipHooray
clipper's remarks: Matt Sanchez is a reporter still on the ground in Iraq.

Clip Source: www.worldnetdaily.com

The media's Iraq con job

What made me more anxious is that I swore I'd tell the full story, the good, bad and ugly. That's what the press is supposed to do. They're supposed to tell the stories of the events that happen. The job of the press is to explain what's going on in places where most readers will never be able to go.

Unlike what I had read in the newspapers, I didn't find demoralized troops complaining about a dangerous quagmire in Iraq, and believe me, I asked.

Even more surprising was how poor the reporting back home has been. Time magazine writer Tim McGirk reported on a Haditha massacre while leaving out huge important facts that were pertinent to the credibility of his sources.

As a result of the research or omissions, Marines have been arrested and charged, and although most have been exonerated, the consequences of the report have ruined careers and lives.

What has been the consequence for McGirk or Time magazine? McGirk himself refused to support his own words under oath.

Tags: iraq, reporting, con job, quagmire

The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 07:23:47 GMT

clipped by: raven714
clipper's remarks: The soldiers, sailors and marines emphasized that not all troops took part in indiscriminate killings. Many said that these acts were perpetrated by a minority. But they nevertheless described such acts as common and said they often go unreported--and almost always go unpunished
Court cases, such as the ones surrounding the massacre in Haditha and the rape and murder of a 14-year-old in Mahmudiya, and news stories in the Washington Post, Time, the London Independent and elsewhere based on Iraqi accounts have begun to hint at the wide extent of the attacks on civilians. Human rights groups have issued reports, such as Human Rights Watch's Hearts and Minds: Post-war Civilian Deaths in Baghdad Caused by U.S. Forces, packed with detailed incidents that suggest that the killing of Iraqi civilians by occupation forces is more common than has been acknowledged by military authorities.

Clip Source: www.thenation.com

Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians. These combat veterans, some of whom bear deep emotional and physical scars, and many of whom have come to oppose the occupation, gave vivid, on-the-record accounts. They described a brutal side of the war rarely seen on television screens or chronicled in newspaper accounts.

Their stories, recorded and typed into thousands of pages of transcripts, reveal disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq. Dozens of those interviewed witnessed Iraqi civilians, including children, dying from American firepower. Some participated in such killings; others treated or investigated civilian casualties after the fact. Many also heard such stories, in detail, from members of their unit.

Tags: war

The Shame of Haditha

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 01:07:07 GMT

clipped by: Rustee
clipper's remarks: The tragedies of war aren't limited to the military engagements.

Clip Source: www.opinionjournal.com

It seems Haditha, though tragic, was exploited politically, and the allegations were exaggerated, if not unfounded.

In March 2006, Time magazine broke the story, which erupted in the press. The accounts relied on a narrative that the Marines had gone berserk after the killing of Cpl. Terrazas and murdered Iraqis in retaliation. "Eyewitnesses" reported that the riders in the car had been lined up and executed, and that there had been a rampage through the houses targeting women and children. A coverup by the top brass was also asserted.

Yet neither was Haditha the atrocity or "massacre" that many assumed--though errors in judgment may well have been committed. And while some violent crimes have been visited on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, overall the highly disciplined U.S. military has conducted itself in an exemplary fashion.

The critics rushed to judgment; facts and evidence were discarded to fit the antiwar template.

This is the deepest shame of Haditha

Tags: iraq, haditha, media, marines

Two marines to face Haditha trial

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 15:05:22 GMT

clipped by: sahara
clipper's remarks: Eight US soldiers were originally charged in connection with the killings, which sparked international outrage. After a report in Time magazine showed flaws in the initial marine statement, a preliminary investigation was begun. The inquiry confirmed civilians had been shot in their homes, but described the deaths as "collateral damage".
Sad, all around.

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Two US marines, including a battalion commander, are to face a court martial in connection with the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005.

Lt Col Jeffrey Chessani is charged with dereliction of duty and failing to report and investigate the deaths.

L/Cpl Stephen Tatum is accused of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault.

The two men are the first to be sent to court martial in the biggest criminal case involving civilian deaths in Iraq.

International outrage

The US military at first reported that the Iraqis had been killed by the improvised explosive device (IED) that killed L/Cpl Miguel Terrazas, or in a subsequent gunfight with insurgents.

HADITHA CHARGES

Lt Col Jeffrey R Chessani: Violation of a lawful order, dereliction

1st Lt Andrew A Grayson: Dereliction, false official statement, obstructing justice

Capt Lucas M McConnell: Dereliction; Charges dismissed

L/Cpl Stephen B Tatum: Involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, aggravated assault

Tags: iraq, war, soldiers

Haditha Marines Cleared Of Murdering Civilians - Military Justice Or Injustice

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 05:31:16 GMT

clipped by: cptenaud
clipper's remarks: Who is the impartial jury anyway? Oh that’s right it’s the military, they try their own. Why? Well that’s who their peers are of course and only they know what it’s like to be confronted with the threat of unarmed, seventy-six year old Abdul Hamid, blind and in a wheelchair and why slaughtering him in cold blood is justified. Local coroners’ reports say Hamid was shot in the stomach and head and that his wife and five other unarmed relatives were also killed by multiple gunshot wounds. Four others inside the house survived, including ten year old, Iman who said this,

The Americans came into the room where my father was praying and shot him. They went to my grandmother and killed her, too.

Meet the decider, Lt. General John Mattis. Mattis, known as "Mad Dog Mattis" to his troops, is currently commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Virginia. The General whose job it is to decide the fate of the Haditha marines has said,

Clip Source: bravenewfilms.org

Many marines are honorable and decent and serve their country with honor and distinction. But not all.

In November 2005, in Haditha, Iraq, twenty-four Iraqi civilians including women and children were shot after a marine was killed in a roadside bombing. The Haditha deaths justifiably sparked international anger. Even Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had this to say about the Haditha case.

Iraqi and multinational forces must respect human rights and the rights of Iraqi citizens, and a family cannot be killed because someone is fighting terrorists.

Yet, as supposed military justice continues it’s inexorable march towards “injustice” in Camp Pendleton, California, one after another of these marines are being set free. Predictably, the hysterical cries from the right in support of the Haditha marines slaughter of twenty-four civilians are deafening.

Tags: as, a, marine, i, know, right, from, wrong