Nobody knows for sure since the official report isn’t due for another month, but things aren’t looking good (excellent roundup at Hot Air as more and more details and allegations find their way to the media in one way or another.
I’m not about to start passing judgment prior to the conclusion of the investigation, but I’m not about to dismiss the claims out of hand either, both for the very same reason: I don’t know yet.
IF true, this is horrible. Horrible as in sickeningly, disgustingly horrible.
IF true, then those responsible MUST be punished swiftly in the harshest possible way under the UCMJ.
Anything less would be completely contrary to everything we stand for and would be an unforgivable insult to the 99.999% of U.S. soldiers, sailors and airmen who serve their country honorably, bravely and with great compassion and restraint, not to mention the victims whose blood demands and deserves justice.
Gruesome things happen in all wars, but that’s no excuse. The only way we can maintain the moral high ground, the only way we can maintain our honor as a nation and the only way we can protect the honor of those 99.999% that we owe so very much is to make sure that the 0.001% face the full consequences of their actions and do so swiftly and without mercy.
We owe it to the victims, we owe it to the honorable people serving with distinction and honor under sometimes impossible conditions, and we owe it to our great nation.
Let justice be done, may it be fair and without compromise and may G-d, as a result of our resolve in making sure that no excuses are made for the inexcusable, forgive us for what has been done in our name.
Thatisall.
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Now we watch the Left leap all over this like a bloodthirsty vampire handed the keys to a blood bank.
They will of course ignore the fact that those who perpetrated this atrocity are NOT representative of the Marine Corps…..damn.
We have to wait until the facts are all in….but this is or could be a severe setback for the Iraq effort.
And the families and friends of those killed……:(..I have no words to express my grief.
May 27th, 2006 at 6:59 pmYep, they’ve already started to toss the words My Lai around. God, I just can’t believe that so many supposedly “Americans” have such a vested interest in seeing us suffer a defeat in this war. As for the media…Where is the reporting of the heroes of this war? Where is the reporting of the rebuilding of infrastructure? Where is the coverage of units rotating home to families and loved ones?
There are victories ya’ know, there are really good things happening over there, there is talk of troop withdrawals…but that is not news to the propagandists. Let’s see how much coverage this story gets, and let’s watch the traitorous media paint these Marines with a BIG guilty brush. They’ll crucify these Marines, because it will give them one more excuse to crucify Bush and the War Effort
Misha, I hope the murtha’s and cnn’s in this nation remember that…but I fear that they will use this incident to broadband their claims of an “overstressed, overstretched, demoralized” military…..filthy traitors.
May 27th, 2006 at 7:28 pmI could only wish these bastards jumping to judgment could walk a mile in a Marine’s shoes. Knowing the fear of impending battle, the kind of fear leaving twenty eyes in your head, your body amped to the max, your mind everywhere and nowhere all at once, your asshole going in and out…that kind of fear. The kind of fear only superb training and devotion to your fellows can overcome. Yet these men and women do it every day, the finest our nation can offer.
May 27th, 2006 at 8:17 pmAgree with you. Punish them and then get back to the important business of humiliating the ROP and the Senators who will try to use this for a televised hearing to have free on-air attack time.
May 28th, 2006 at 1:34 amNot looking pretty, not that war in general is. The investigation appears to be heavily trending to at least some individuals standing trial for murder and related offenses, and some others standing trial for trying to cover it all up instead of obeying their oaths.
Before anyone says “shit happens,” let me just say that yes indeed it does, but responsible leadership takes corrective action to keep it from happening again, and punish clear-cut criminal behavior involved in it. The shit will always happen, even in the best forces in the world, it’s what you do about it afterward that distinguishes between “moral high ground” and “barbarian horde.”
Large-scale indiscipline and letting troops take out their frustration on innocent civilians, is, after all, why we hanged Yamashita (and yes, he had it coming).
May 28th, 2006 at 11:13 amWhile I can’t countenance what appears to be a violation of the articles of war, I can understand it.
If you’re in the situation these men and women are in every day, it is fully understandable how pressure, stress and fear could push them beyond the pale. Not that this precludes their punishment, nor provides a mitigating circumstance, but they should have our compassion as well as our condemnation.
May 28th, 2006 at 11:13 amNCLivingBrit, I hear what you’re saying and you have a point. The reason I keep what understanding I may harbor under lock and key is that it sounds too much like excuses, even though that’s not at all what it’s meant like. Also, I’m afraid that if I allow compassion and empathy to color my thinking in such cases too often, I might one day come to think of it as an excuse.
But you do have a point. It all depends on what really happened. If we assume for the sake of argument that civilians were indeed massacred (but again, and this can’t be said often enough: We can’t KNOW until the investigation is over), there’s indeed a difference between cold-blooded murder and a stress-induced, fear-driven, bloodthirsty rampage.
Of course Murthafucker, being a drooling idiot, claimed that it was both, which is a contradiction in terms and only goes to prove that the best part of him ran down his mama’s fat thighs.
But that’s beside the point. There IS a difference between the two kinds described.
Both must be punished the same, we must not tolerate such actions regardless of the “excuses”, or soon we’ll start accepting more and more until we’ve become that which we rightfully despise.
But if the massacre happened and if the troops’ actions were a result of fear, stress and battle fatigue, I’ll pray for their souls as they’re marched out to face the firing squad.
If it was done in cold blood, I’ll pray instead that Satan is unusually creative in thinking up horrible punishments for them for all eternity.
May 28th, 2006 at 4:20 pmHi Emperor,
A peaceful and reflective Memorial Day to you. I agree with your sentiments (how often does that happen!). I would say one thing–for a moment of reflection. Let us suppose, for argument’s sake, that it happened as the reports seem to suggest it did. This does not happen in a vaccuum.
Trying to tell good guy from bad guy in this war must be next to impossible. So when a loved friend buys it, I can get a sense of how emotions of revenge can overcome rational impulses. We have within us, I believe, xenophobic and ethnocentric impulses. We are suspicious of that which is foreign to us and love what is most like us. Totally understandable and I think, hardwired into us. It can be a lethal combination in a combat zone. It is exacerbated when we reinforce the worst aspects of these tendencies with inflammatory rhetoric and name-calling. It is easy to paint ALL of a group with a brush we mean for just SOME. And words help shape perceptions.
I like the robust nature of debate on this site, yet the anti-Muslim rhetoric that sometimes erupts on the site is indicative of a xenophobic reflex that needs to be faced down. And I don’t always see that amongst folks who comment here. I know these tend to be isolated, but they do happen.
Sometimes, it is a bit more systemic than that, in the case of the Palestinians (or should that be Paleswinians?). What would we be saying if we had incontrovertible evidence that the Israeli armed forces had perpetrated a horrible massacre of women and children in similar circumstances? Is there a distinction here that you would/could make that would justify these actions?
Just some thoughts.
Cas
PS. Sorry I can’t write as often as I used to–We are in the process of selling our house and moving cross country. So it is hectic around here. Got to take the children to services.
May 29th, 2006 at 9:16 am$s to Os the marines were fired upon from the building, returned fire and lots of it (killing most of the occupants) entered and found “insurgents,” maybe with their family members and human shields that they didn’t display well enough to alert the USM they were there (not that it should make any difference–in that case, it’s the insurgents killing their own people as they seem to love to do anyway) with arms everywhere, killed anyone that made a move with or near a weapon, as they should and must, then moved on. The remaining insurgents and their supporters (who are also enemies and should be treated as saboteurs, since they wear no uniform and serve no national military command) went in, cleaned the scene of weaponry, then invited media and/or other family members in to create the drama. The dirtbags have done it before and they’ll do it again. They routinely blow their own children to pieces, then lie about it to advance their jihad. Soldiers may lose it sometimes in war, but I’m very skeptical of these charges against OUR MARINES. And yes, I meant to shout that.
BTW, responding to Cas, above, there is a fair distinction between xenophobia and hating a vicious, unscrupulous and intractable enemy. Given the demographics and foreign aid record of the US and its military, only a complete idiot would use the term xenophobia in this context. Was it xenophobia to portray Hirohito and Tojo as monsters after Pearl Harbor,the Bataan Death March, the rape of Nanking, etc. etc. etc. or was it an accurate, symbolic portrayal of the nature of the enemy? No need to answer or even discuss–truth doesn’t require much commentary. If you are ever faced with incontrovertible proof that IDF has committed a massacre of women and children (despite the numbers of times their vicious, unscrupulous and intractable enemies have done so, not under duress of battle but in cold blood), better put on your thermals and watch out for falling pig poop, ’cause hell just froze over and you get the rest. Now, please get a clue.
May 29th, 2006 at 1:22 pmIn the heat of combat, reacting and overreacting has nothing to do with xenophobia or ethnocentrism and everything to do with survival. It doesn’t matter if the “them” are white, brown, yellow, black or blue, all that matters is that there’s a “them”, a “them” that is threatening to kill you and that you need to kill them first. When the combatants on the other side cowardly disguise themselves as civilians, they make it much harder, well-nigh impossible in fact, to distinguish. At least the Nazis (most of the time) had the common decency to dress up in an easily identifiable fashion, making it a lot easier to avoid killing innocent German civilians. And we didn’t kill Nazis because of xenophobia, we killed them because they were the enemy and would kill us if given half a chance.
Speaking for myself, I am in no way “anti-Muslim”, I’m anti-Islam, a “religion” that has yet, after 1,400 years of existence, to address the calls to and glorification of violence and murder of innocents clearly on display in its most hallowed books.
Sadly, with absolutely no mainstream clerics or movements in existence that dare address those issues, instead we’re treated to denial, lies and deceptions about what’s actually in the Quran and the Hadiths, it’s ofttimes hard to make a distinction between faith and believer, and that DOES tend to muddy the waters. How can it not?
If the situation were reversed, if the Bible was filled to the brim with calls to violence and murder of unbelievers, if there were numerous terrorist Christian sects carrying out such violence, quoting Scripture as justification for their actions, and there was NOT ONE mainstream Christian denomination arguing openly and honestly against that, could we REALLY blame the Muslims if they were to have a hard time distinguishing between “Christian” and “Christianity?”
I think the answer to that question is pretty obvious.
Are there really any rationally thinking adults who would argue that, were a radical Christian terrorist organization to arise, quoting Scripture as its endorsement, it would be tolerated by Christianity as a whole, that NOT ONE Christian denomination would stand up and oppose it unequivocally?
Yet we’re supposed to hold Islam and Muslims to a lower standard and accept that which would be unacceptable amongst ourselves?
Who’s the xenophobe then? Who’s the bigot then? Who’s being ethnocentric then?
I would, of course, be saying the exact same thing that I’d be saying about any such thing being done by the other side.
“Palestine” isn’t a nation, it’s a cancer in the body of humanity, a vicious hotbed of irrational hatred and devotion to anti-Semitism, a cesspool of officially sanctioned and endorsed racism, a virulent pustule that is absolutely no different from Nazi Germany, except for the obvious fact that they lack the means to inflict the pain and misery that Adolf Hitler did, thank G-d.
Because rest assured that if they had the means, they’d do so in a heartbeat. They loudly proclaim it themselves all the time, and it is the very epitome of stupidity to refuse to listen to it, to refuse to acknowledge that it is so just because you don’t like what you’re hearing.
There is nothing “noble” about wishful thinking, about sticking your fingers in your ears and refusing to acknowledge reality while the facts are staring you in the eyes and the blood of innocents is running freely.
The correct term would be “cowardice”, and the blood is equally on the hands of those who idly stand by and refuse to act while thousands are being slaughtered.
May 29th, 2006 at 1:50 pmWhile I was growing up, the various Irish bombing campaigns in London were in full swing. Almost every day there was an explosion, atrocity or security alert somewhere in the capital, or in their wider activities against soft targets elsewhere in the country.
Now as I’m a bit of a Paddy myself, it’s hardly xenophobia to say at the time I’d have gladly doused each and every one of those arseholes in burning petrol and pissed them out with battery acid.
When people are doing their level best to kill or harm you and yours, it’s natural to respond with the atavistic response of bearing your teeth and going for the throat. Doesn’t matter who it is, right down to friends and neighbours.
Right now, a sizeable portion of the Islamic world is either actively or tacitly supporting the idea of stoning/shooting/burning/exploding/raping me and my loved ones to death for not believing in seventh century gibberish and making my wife, sister and mother into second class citizens one step about housepets. So you’ll forgive me if I am not at all shamed to tell you I’d be happy to buy myself a new jerrycan of four-star and a couple of old car batteries.
Basically, Misha says it all:
Once more, the man has framed it, hung it on the wall and said it for us.
We should never be ashamed to resist those that hate us, even if we have to drop some of the PC trappings that our society of laws, checks and balances have allowed us to saddle ourselves with. For one thing, most of them are affectations that attempt to artificially thin out the normal clannish human notions of community.
May 29th, 2006 at 5:13 pmHi Emperor,
That is my point. Would you countenance the possibility of a Palestinian who is a friend ro Israel, or at least interested in peaceful coexistence? If the blanket statement above is a commonly held belief, how can it NOT affect the way that people think? Substitute the word, “Follower of Islam” for “Palestinian” or “Islam” for “Palestine,” and what difference is there? Assume that many folks fighting in IOraq have this mindset–how can it not affect their thinking–after all, if they are part of Islam, how easy would it be to just put all of them–insurgents and innocent bystanders into the same category of “enemy”? And if we do, isn’t what we have done there perfectly acceptable given that mindset?
Yes, I can see that you draw a distinction between “Islam” and “Muslim.” How much water does that carry? Will soldiers under fire draw that distinction–it is possible that they didn’t.
As for xenophobia and its application–I am not arguing that we don’t have a right to kill those who wish to harm us (as the same can be said for those we wish to harm), but it is not Nazi soldiers that is the issue here–its potentially innocent civilians who look like they just happened to be in the very wrong place at the very wrong time…
May 29th, 2006 at 8:05 pmcas plainly isn’t paying attention–no one’s buying the moral equivalency argument, cause it’s fundamentally a lie. It is not only possible that one side of a conflict can be right or at least have a comparative moral high-ground, it is the normal state of affairs (exceptions that prove the rule being when rival drug dealers or hamas and fatah thugs shoot it out). It is easy for anyone (not a complete moron or demon-spawn) to see that a terrorist who blows up a couple of dozen children while friendly soldiers are giving them candy is not morally equivalent to a soldier who blows up a couple of dozen terrorists and their supporters. cas is only right about one thing–we’re not talking about nazi soldiers. We’re talking about something more evil and low–an enemy that wears no uniform, routinely uses women, children, and places of worship as shields, canon fodder, and “soft targets” for terror strikes. If soldiers aren’t able to distinguish between an islamofascist terrorist who’s hiding behind civilian clothes, maybe even wearing a burqa to hide amidst the normal people of his own country it is the terrorist who has put his own people in harm’s way. It is the surrounding people’s responsibility, if they do not want to get caught in the cross-fire or a good carpet bombing, to reject such tactics and quit supporting the terrorists among them.
May 30th, 2006 at 10:30 am