Charges Dropped Against Marine In Haditha Case
LOS ANGELES - Military prosecutors dropped all charges on Friday against a Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi women and children at Haditha in 2005, abruptly dismissing the case on the eve of trial with little explanation.
Lance Cpl Stephen B. Tatum became the fifth Haditha defendant out of eight to see charges dropped in a case that brought international condemnation on U.S. troops in Iraq. Three Marines, including accused ringleader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, still face court-martial later this year.
Though prosecutors had reportedly offered Tatum, 26, immunity to testify against Wuterich, defense attorneys said no such deal had been struck.
“Lance Corporal Tatum is not trading his testimony for this dismissal,” defense attorney Jack Zimmermann told Reuters in an interview. “He may very well be called as a witness for the prosecution or the defense, but he is going to be a neutral witness and will tell the truth, as he’s always done.”
Zimmermann said he believed the case was abandoned because it was “weak from the start.” He described his client and the man’s family as “relieved” and tearful at the news.
“I think when the prosecution realized we were going to trial and that he was going to tell the truth, as he has all along, this experienced set of prosecutors realized it wasn’t really fair to dump all this on a lance corporal who was responding the way he was trained,” Zimmermann told Reuters.
MARINES ACCUSED OF ‘MASSACRE’
Word of the development came as jury selection was about to begin in Tatum’s court-martial on charges of involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault at the Camp Pendleton Marine base in California.
The Marines offered little explanation, saying in a statement only that the case had been dropped “in order to continue to pursue the truth-seeking process into the Haditha incident.” A Marine spokesman declined to elaborate.
“To ensure the remaining cases are brought to closure in a fair and just manner, further discussion of this case is inappropriate at this time,” Lt. Col. Sean Gibson said.
Iraqi witnesses say angry Marines massacred unarmed civilians after a popular comrade, Lance Cpl. Miguel “TJ” Terrazas, was ripped in half by a roadside bomb. Defense attorneys maintain that the civilians were killed during a pitched battle with insurgents in and around Haditha.
Other Marines have testified that Tatum, who initially faced more serious charges of unpremeditated murder and negligent homicide, was among those who “cleared” two Iraqi houses after the roadside bombing, resulting in 19 deaths.
Another Marine testified Tatum told him to shoot a group of Iraqi women and children he found on a bed in a closed room. That Marine said he walked away but saw Tatum return and heard a loud noise, possibly gunfire or a grenade.
Of the eight Marines originally charged in the November 19, 2005, killing of 24 men, women and children at Haditha, five have now seen their cases dropped.
Court-martial for Wuterich has been postponed until later this year pending the appeal of a discovery ruling. Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani and 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson are set for court-martial in April and May.
© 2008 Reuters
I’m shocked that anyone expected the military to carry the prosecution to the end. War crimes are what other countries do, not the glorious usa… What’d you expect a live version of JAG, where the good people actually prosecute wrongdoing?
Well, it’ll be good to have that nice young man back on our streets, with ourselves and our families. I hope they explain to him that after his discharge his training will be null and void, and that kicking down our doors and shooting our children is considered inappropriate behavior by most people.
I enlisted in the Marines in 1966 but it wasn’t until 1968 that I realized I had joined a cult. If I had read “WAR IS A RACKET” by Smedley Butler I would have know the reality. As an enlisted guy I’m happy to see Tatum tell the truth and accept the consequences. And I’m sure he’ll regret the day he joined the cult of Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.
Hoa binh
Nice photo !
A stone cold baby-face American killer !
Given the immoral, and amoral, motivations for the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, it’s hardly a surprise that the military authorities turn a blind eye to crimes and atrocities committed by Amerikan troops (and other troops in the Coalition of the Coerced, especially Great Britain) there.
From the beginning, the SOP regarding questionable actions was to let the chips fall where they may, My Lai style, with the assurance that fudged and blatantly mendacious and deceitful reports from local commanders would be accepted at face value by the chain of fools– whoops, I mean “command”.
Only when such crimes and atrocities were publicized (by sources other than “embedded” media stenographers and cheerleaders) did military authorities even bother to conduct a whitewash. And since even these cursory investigations were resisted and delayed, by the time investigators arrived at the scene of the crime, much of the evidence was lost or otherwise unavailable. “Otherwise” includes the accounts of local survivors being rejected or dismissed out of hand, especially because of the lack of corroborating evidence. Funny how that works out– the Fog of War and all that, you know.
Thus, even with fragmenatry evidence of crime and atrocity, and incontrovertable evidence that official reports and other accounts were indeed falsified or deliberately deceptive, the military prosecutors were hamstrung by this lack of competent evidence. In turn, they rely on secondary measures– like granting immunity or making similar sordid deals with “little fish” in order to obtain testimony to use against “bigger fish”.
Assuming the process isn’t truncated, as it typically has been in many cases, the final step involves military prosecutors presenting their sketchy and circumstantial cases before military judges and juries manifestly sympathetic to the accused. What a shame that Our Boys and Girls are sullied by the suggestion that they acted other than decently and circumspectly Defending Our Freedoms in such hazardous circumstances!
And once the perp’s case is dismissed, or the perp is “exonerated”, or even given a slap on the wrist, the wingnut bottom-feeders– the 25% or so of the population wholly lacking intellectual capacity– howl and shake their fists at the injustice of subjecting Our Heroes to such vile character assassination. There are still outcries from rabid wingnuts (see the trash-tabloid “Huffington Post” comment threads) insisting that Congressman Murtha, a conservative ex-Marine, apologize to Sgt. Frank Wuterich for irresponsibly slandering him and his honorable subordinates by denouncing their atrocious and criminal behavior. In our Through the Looking Glass voyage into Amerika’s Evil Empire, the perps emerge as the innocent victims.
Oh, there have been a smattering of convictions, but they’re the exception to the rule: a Few Bad Apples, dontcha know. And if “military justice” (pardon the oxymoron) continues as it’s begun, Wuterich may actually get his apology after all.
When the empire runs out of gas in Iraq and Afghanistan and the homeland is struggling with a bankrupt economy, this is the type of hero who will be making sure that Americans do not revolt against the upper class.
I have always been amazed that working class people can be so easily duped into killing the poor for the benefit of the rich ?
JConrad March 29th, 2008 1:20 pm wrote:
“I have always been amazed that working class people can be so easily duped into killing the poor for the benefit of the rich?”
The Volunteer Army: Who Fights and Why, from the NYRB:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21201
Why isn’t anyone outside the USA, you know, like the rest of the world, trying to bring war crimes charges against these outrageous perpetrators and incidents? Oh, wait, that means they’d have to string up The Decider In Chief too.
He’s a white American, they’re darker-skinned foreigners. That makes him innocent. Case closed.
WHITE GUYS RULE!!! Even if they are murdering, cold-blooded killers….
Our Heroes can never be blemished by accountability for their crimes and certainly not the Great Leaders (read scum) that sent them there!
JConrad - a clue to the reason Americans can be so easily duped is given in the preface to one of George Carlin’s books: “This book is dedicated to all those Americans who so willingly humiliate themselves”.
Hoa binh
It’s hard to put the genie back in the bottle after you’ve opened it. We took these men, put them into basic training, gave them weapons, demonized other people and told our “boys” that it was alright to kill them. When they take us at our word and go overboard, they are threatened with courts martial. But if we punish them for what are clearly war crimes, the rest of the troops might suffer in morale and quit killing “ragheads,” “hadjis,” and other “terrorists.” So we throw in our cards so that they can go on killing.
Israel faces the same problem with its violent settlers. It tells them that it’s okay to steal Palestinian land and kick Palestinian butt, then, if it wants to make peace, it has to tell them that they’ve got to give at least part of it back.
“The Marines offered little explanation, saying in a statement only that the case had been dropped “in order to continue to pursue the truth-seeking process into the Haditha incident.” A Marine spokesman declined to elaborate.”
How can the military elaborate on bull$hit and not be called on it? There are still some journalists out there with integrity, though we can probably count them on one hand.
The military just wants this to go away and be forgotten by the world like all the other criminal activities they have managed to escape during their occupation of Iraq.
This is making me sick. Look at the face of that creature!
We are supposed to believe that the best of us are in the military.
Somebody is going to live with a serial murderer in their neighborhood. That guy calmly killed 24 people because he could and because he wanted to. I hope he doesn’t get one day of rest in this country and that somebody always reminds him what he is. A failure as a human being.
By the way, I don’t buy into the following argument that those guys have been messed up in their Marine training. They’ve been aggravated by their training. What I think is that anybody who enlist knowing that they’re going to be asked to kill more or less defenseless third world people is already gravely messed and a poor excuse of a human being. That’s what the US military has been used to do since the end of WW2, From Korea to Vietnam and to Iraq and going through Grenada, Panama, Somalia etc,, all what the military has been used to do is NOT to fight for my freedom but to kill innocent civilians from various third world countries. I’m fed up with this pro military mentality, this ongoing scam of We the People, America, blah, blah, if the moronic masses put Mc Cain in power in November, I’ll move out and I won’t even bother turning the light off behind me, it’s never been on, ever!
hussey said:
But if we punish them for what are clearly war crimes, the rest of the troops might suffer in morale and quit killing “ragheads,” “hadjis,” and other “terrorists.”
Yes, as the even larger question is the “legality” of the entire invasion and occupation rather than isolated events like Haditha.
In a sense, we have become a nation of war criminals.
I refuse to take the blame for the neocons’ actions in Iraq or anywhere else they’re murdering people on the altar of their god, profit. Bush was never legitimately elected; he and his mafia stole 2000 and 2004. The ones who should be hauled into court are this criminal government and all the corrupt corporations that put and keep them in power, not those of us who have never stopped protesting. Talk about maladaptive behavior–these guys are mowing down huge swaths of their own species and destroying the planet in the bargain, all for money and what they perceive to be power. I agree with the people above who think Tatum has been turned into a serial killer and that he’ll never be a fit member of society again. I also think he should be punished and the rest of us protected from him. But beyond that, I think we need to find a way to punish the people who created the situation in which he was able to murder so many innocents. Somebody on another thread said it’s time for a major economic action, and I agree. We need a boycott of all nonessential goods, a strike by all workers who can afford to do it. And we need to do everything we can to defeat McCain in November, because he’s just another of the criminals.
You refuse to take the blame, but let’s face it, most Americans have done NOTHING. When I demonstrated against the war in Chicago in 2003 then again one year later and one year later we were a ridiculous number of people. I do NOT see actions, simple actions, done by Americans to dissociate themselves from their government. Nice try, but in 2003 2/3 of Americans were FOR going to kill defenseless Iraqis that had already been bombed ad nauseum by slick Willy, approved by Hillary.
I won’t judge you, you might be one of the few decent, but let’s face it, the country is rotten. Nobody is putting into question the fact that we are spending half a trillion on the military. Very few are really worried about anything this country is doing abroad. Very few are bothering about anything but work, making money, feed their fat asses, watch TV. Have you been able to catch a conversation between two grown up males in non work related situations other than sports? I doubt
Phillipe - You are absolutely right. The complexities of duty and responsibility and the greater good only muddy the moral waters. We are each one of us responsible to behave decently, and the defense that we did this godawful thing because we were stupid, because we were misled, because we didn’t pay attention in bible class, because we forgot to whistle for Jiminy Cricket, can not hold water if there is to be any accountability. The kid’s face is a revelation, isn’t it? He is both a baby faced killer and somehow also a baby. He is not mature enough to have thought through his ethics or the state of his own soul. He’s like a kid hiding behind his mama’s skirts. Let the Marines defend my orders. I’m just a grunt. I do what I’m told. Semper Fi. My job is to kill, and if you don’t like it, talk to my commanding officer.
PHILLIPE
‘have you been able to catch a conversation between two grown up males in non work related situations other than sports?
i haven’t been able to catch a conversation between two grown up adults, never mind two males……………..
Like Lee Greenwood sang – I am proud to be a white American ….
The Marines offered little explanation, saying in a statement only that the case had been dropped “in order to continue to pursue the truth-hiding process into the Haditha incident.”
WAS THERE EVER ANY DOUBT THEY WOULD WALK? ITS NOT LIKE THEY MURDERED AMERICANS…RIGHT?
I’m a progressive and a teacher, and I’ll fault Bush and Cheney first, before faulting the immature kids, often still teens, who commit these acts. Many of them were put in terrible circumstances, with not enough soldiers deployed, to police a populace that didn’t want them there. These kids, morally, are still relatively unformed clay. We can’t expect most of them to be Martin Luther Kind Jr.’s, or like the helicopter pilot and crew that landed and tried to stop some of the My Lai massacre. We know from history that kids in the army don’t work that way, and that those who try to do the right thing are the exception. Some of them end up dead for being too conscientious in following the rules of engagement. So fault those who got us into the bogus wars in the first place, those who designed and implimented the “racket” Smedley Butler warned us about. Yes, hold the kids accountable, but if those who are most accountable go free, I say pardon them.
How can the Marine Corps spend the time and effort teaching kids how to kill
and then prosecute them when they do? Did the kid miss some subtle nuance of
murder, or are the brass just covering their collective ass?
Why don’t we grill the big-cheese, without whom none of this would be necessary?
Frankly, I get a retching feeling when reading your comments about the guy’s picture — it’s racism with another face. I’ve got a picture of a pimple-faced who happens to be what I was — and, to a degree, still am…
Yeah, I was there, in the “lottery”, anno 1964 and I was lucky — I got out before they really turned on the heat in the War to Save the Dominoes (Vietnam).
Something I will never forget is the pimple-faced leuteintant who cried, “What is the spirit of the bajonet?” and we cried “Kill!” He repeated the question until we cried “Kill!!!” and, I swear to God, I think the fugger creamed in his jeans…
I love this:
it wasn’t really fair to dump all this on a lance corporal who was responding the
way he was trained,”
Oh, that makes me feel much better, thank you.
“Well, it’ll be good to have that nice young man back on our streets, with ourselves and our families. I hope they explain to him that after his discharge his training will be null and void, and that kicking down our doors and shooting our children is considered inappropriate behavior by most people.”
Rather than “null and void” his training is highly sought-after by Blackwater (and privatized-Others)…for ‘our streets’, or others-nearby.
These young-men were fortunate-indeed that ‘real’ criminal-courts in Iraq (or, even in the US) didn’t review their ‘conducts’ under Color of the applicable Rules-of-Engagement in Haditha [and elsewhere throughout-Iraq/Afghanistan/etc.] — they’d have been subsequently ’singled-out’ for what surely WOULD have been considered&Found ‘Crimes’ — by most ‘non-military’ peers/officials.
If such civilian/’moral’-standards were so-applied to the whole of our current/veteran “Volunteer Army-of-One”, I’m fearful that the majority would be ‘headed to prison’ (in ‘reality’, rather than just inside their minds&souls)…a VERY high price for them to pay for their having been made/raised merely “Patriotic&Poor” — and at the “wrong time”.
All these boys are going to require DECADES of help and understanding and “support” once they muster-out/discharge (those who don’t make a career-of and come-to-enjoy further-’services’ in the likes of Blackwater).
They are, in fact, gravely-wounded/Fallen after their Service (hateful of themselves, and torn-apart with dissonance and moral self-outrage within themselves) — and they will get NO real ‘help’ from this current/so-called ‘V.A.’. Suicide-rates among them, within a deteriorating two-years of diverse ‘acting-out behaviors’ and their downward-spiral when “back home”, will be close to 40%-or-so. And, they will NEVER ‘Be all they could have been’ in their now-crippled Futures…
This whole mess is just/plain Sad — and never/ever ‘needed to happen’.
Soon, our beleaguered/demoralized-Army will Recruit millions of the poor&starving of Mexico/C.A. (those that our corporate-leaders couldn’t swing ‘Guest-Worker’ Mass-Immigration for) with a vile&false-promise of “Survive-Six, become a Citizen-Soldier” — and then those-Peons will become our ‘very-needed’ Boots-on-the-Ground/Cannon-Fodder in diverse other ‘neo-Theaters’ [that ALSO needn’t-have-been, but surely will-be-rife].
We have become the ‘Military and Technological Homeland’ of the so-called ‘NWO’ — since China seems designated as their ‘neo-Manufacturing Arm’. That was apparently our Fate&Calling since our-inception/Founding (ever since Britain agreed in Paris-1783 to stop ‘calling’ us it’s Colony…but reserved it’s ‘Control’ through it’s financial/banking-’monarchy’ — and later re-emphasized/enforced that Control as-required in 1812, and during our 1860’s, and via ’subtler-Means’ under a blackmailed-Wilson and since 1913, Economically). Our lawyers/law-makers are Esquires, still — and our Bankers our Lords — the CIA an honor-guard of Wall-Street, with the Rockefeller’s the closest-thing identifiable-here as ‘royalty’ (but, they are all just a ‘wholly-owned’ Proxy for other-Interests, abroad — like JPMorgan was).
“They who paid the Piper name the Tunes…”
All very Sad…all very ‘unnecessary’…
He should be tried in Iraqi Court.
“Was responding the way he was trained.” Let that be lesson to all who seek to alter the psychology of man towards a peaceful existence.
For seems it easy to train a man to kill, then to lay down is gun.
The people responsible for this massacre are cold-blooded killers-period; and they need to be dealth with as such.
Do you really want people like this standing in line behind you at cash registers, sitting next to you in restaurants, driving your school buses?
People like this are on their way back to the US. My blood runs cold just thinking about it. Acts of premeditated murder occured. These people need to be sentenced accordingly.
“IN YOUR FACE, AMERICA!”
That’s what I heard from the USMC. Same message Bush has perfected these last few years.
What kind of a world are we entering (and accepting) when we allow such arrogant criminality from our so-called leaders and protectors?
I would have bet money it would all be swept under the rug! That’s the way Dubya and his merry band of thugs always does things. It isn’t surprising they murdered women and children either. I have heard from several different sources it goes on far to many times.
After all we have a President who has thumbed his nose at the law and the Constitution from day one. Whether anyone wants to believe it or not corruption always trickles down from the top to infect the whole barrel of apples. I am not looking forward to these killing machine’s coming home to join the population here. It’s hard to say what is going to happen there.
J CONRAD: As to why such persons pick up arms and follow military commands, shades of the nazi excuse, “I was only following orders,” can be analyzed through a number of viable prisms. We make the mistake when we think only ONE such analysis is the “right” one. Certainly the economics of our highly status-oriented society plays a role, but so, too, does the constant drum beat of glamourized miltarism that’s also disguised as heroism when the local policeman shoots at “the bad guy,” a theme that’s done so often and dressed up with such glory, that a GREAT many men really believe such rites of murder are important rites of manhood.
We can’t under-rate the power of mass media, its film depictions of “the strong guy” who goes after danger (always disguised as the conveniently bad person(s) or enemy) and shows his courage and oftentimes muscles, or the muscular extension seen as some weapon. These images are so thoroughly embedded into our TV shows, movies, songs and sporting events as to constitute the basis of American (war) culture. You underestimate them at your peril!
Even if he was prosecuted, bush probably would have pardoned him anyway. There is no law for those within this administration or the military. Everything changed since 9-11, remember?
It changed long before 911 .In the “New World”the government may murder anyone they like.It’s a little like the “Old World”
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4298137966377572665
This shows how SICK this country is at its very core of humanity. This country is ruled by the monsters and these monsters are elected by the majority of monsters. How true are Condi Rice’s words that there is defect at the very birth of the US as a counrty.
Unless there a national day of mourning and introspection, this “monster” country will continue to spill the innocent blood in order to maintain its social order in the world.
canuckchuck, oh the right-wing death squads would indeed murder Americans if we Americans dared to disagree or question them, if they could get away with it and if they could provide a lie/flimsy excuse to cover their criminal actions, especially if the person were not wealthy and not a war supporter.
correction: “if the person were not wealthy and NOT a war supporter.”
It is a good question, whether we are responsible for our own behavior, or whether soldiers and criminals and all of us are also products of our training or of the culture from which we emerge. My thoughts about the making of soldiers are here: http://www.voxclamantis.com/pages/spiffer.html (not required reading.)
I’m simply amazed. Amazed I tell you..
Who would have thought that a little angel like the one pictured could ever have been programmed to commit such a crime??
Impossible for a good Marine grunt to do anything but kill with god, precision and compassion. As programmed.
..truth-seeking process…???? Jeez..
“a lance corporal who was responding the way he was trained”
sounds exactly the same as the Nuremberg defence to me (just following orders)
The worry is that if he was responding the way he was trained, then whoever trained him has influenced thousands of young men who may respond in exactly the same way.
Who trained him? because they are equally complicit.
If you could see this (and feel it), as if it were a shot into your own foot, perhaps humankind would wise up to the reality that we’re ALL ONE.
It’s not “just” about innocents (woman and children), but believe me when I say it hurts my foot, when you shot your own (or another’s).
Perceptual ignorance under the Law’s of Karma, is no excuse
Namaste
… … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … & … ML King … … Inspiration … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed »
« We adopt the means of nonviolence because our end is a community at peace with itself » — MLK
This is why we DESPERATELY NEED A LAW PASSED THAT PREVENTS THESE IDIOTS..SORRY VETS..BUT MOST OF YOU AE SO SCREWED UP THAT YOU SIMPLY CANNOT BE TRUSTED WITH A GUN AND A BADGE…THIS IS WHY WE NEED LAWS NOW THAT PREVENT RETURNING VETS FROM ENTERING LAW ENFORCEMENT JOBS HERE “AT HOME”…PERIOD!
A cooling off period, of say THREE YEARS..before they can DO WHAT THEY DID IN IRAQ AND BE PROTECTED BY THE SAME KIND OF LETHAL RED TAPE CLERK CONTROLLED “THIN BLUE LINE” THAT WILL KEEP THEM SAFE FROM PROSECUTION WHEN THEY KILL SOME MOTORIST AT 3 AM FOR A BUMPER STICKER THAT SENDS THEM BACK TO THE FRONT….IN THEIR MINDS…IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN..
Mother Jones..”When Torture Comes Home”
6000 SUICIDES IN 5 YEARS…MORE DEAD FROM THE GUILT OF THEIR ACTIONS THEN HAVE BEEN KILLED IN COMBAT..EVEN WHEN YOU COUNT THE MERCENARIES…WHO BY THE WAY, AND INTERESTINGLY, HAVE ALOWER SUICIDE LEVEL THEN THE CITIZEN SOLDIERS…I GUESS EVIL COMES NATURALLY TO THOSE IDIOTS…
FINALLY..YOU PAID FOR HIS DEFENSE..I DIDN’T..BUT YOU DID….SO DO NOT DECLARE…APRIL IS HERE..WILL YOU PICK UP THE CHECK FOR THE BUSH DOCTRINE? I THINK MOST OF YOU WILL…TOO BAD..BECAUSE THE POWER OF THE PURSE IS OUR ONLY TRUE POWER…USE IT OR HOLD YOUR TONGUE..DO NOT PAY.
He may not have been convicted…but like other murderers…he will have to live with his conscience…take it to his grave…and Lord help him if there is a ‘trial’ after death…
All of us pay, and the price is disconnection from our eternal source and souls, while alive.
This is something beyond anything else we “value”, and priceless doesn’t even come close to broaching the ineffable peace and joy awaiting us in the now, if we would allow it.
Killing is “OFF of my TABLE”, as I revere all LIFE.
Namaste
JCRUMB — We share the same regard for our fellow citizens, while being “protected” by mentally deranged and untreated un-acknowledged PTSD-encumbered vets, from youngsters “we” foolishly trained to kill. Elsewhere today, I also mentioned that there is “no away” to throw these troubles to, as everywhere is our backyard now days.
I posted a very similar thought here
Namaste
Why are we so quick to believe an accusation carefully thought out by our enemies when there is no proof? We need to look at how this whole thing came about.
There is no value for human life in muslim countries or in its religion as we have seen unless you are 1. mulsim and 2. agree with that muslim.
It is a culture based on murder, rape, pedophilia, ritualistic slaughter, where children are encouraged to be used as shields to protect grown adult cowards and the “moderates” are simply those who do not carry out the above acts, but support it with money,shelter and praise. Christians have not done this since the last crusades! Muslims are doing it NOW!!!!
This marine, as all of our troops,has been placed in a part of the world where the values of enemy combatants are less than human. This marine killed the enemy. If there were children, they were killed by the cowards who intentionally placed them between themselves and the line of fire. No other religion or culture does this anymore!!
In the USA when an innocent hostage is killed it is called felony murder and the perpetrator is punished. In the muslim world, these same people are called heroes. As a country that values human life and values tolerance of others, we do not need to accept this cowardly practice of using children as shields by our enemies, eventhough it has long been accepted by muslims.
If you support the prosecution of this marine, you support the Bush presence in Iraq. These marines are sacrificial lambs from Bush/Cheney/Halleburton to their muslim business partners for whom our troops are dieing. This Iraqi action has never been for democracy as Islam is an enemy of democracy. It has been for the business ventures of Bush, Cheney and Halleburton. Our young women and men are merely mercenaries sold to Saudi Arabia. If enough are not killed to satisfy Saudi, then they are courtmartialed on unsupported charges.
carrasco1308, exactly. He has to live with himself and what he’s done. According to karma as I understand it, if he has killed 24 people, he’ll have to be reborn 24 more times and be killed each time for payback and to make sure he learns the lesson. Karma is not cruel, but it is discipline. That’s the meaning of what you do to others, you automatically do to yourself.
By the way, isn’t killing civilians, women and children, a WAR CRIME??
tolerancenow — The best thing about your post is the screen name TOLERANCE NOW
after that, nothing else matter (nor is particularly useful).
Namaste