yet another blatant terrorist act from the boys - well done - this project to get as many iraqis as possible to hate the guts of every american man woman and child seems to be going well.

like the jews in palestine if we do it to them it is a mission but if they do it to us it is terrorism

i`m sure those killers have extra drop weapons to prove this 17 year old was armed as well

the iraqis just don`t understand that bringing democracy and freedom to their county is going to have some rough spots

thank god we are going to take the oil off heir hands - they need to focus on freedom

god bless the united states

Let's see...HOW does this go again?

We didn't do it..

3 months go by..

Ooops..we DID do it..BUT..

Cover Up Exposed

"Investigation"

"Marines exhonerated in shooting deaths of Governors children!"

Okay..BUT THEN AGAIN..Because this IS a .."Political" reality THIS time..well..maybe...the scenario will be..:

Q: Do you know what SOUND is made when the SHIT HIT'S THE FAN?

A: MA-RIIIIIINE!

We'll certainly see..won't we...

Oh yeah..YOU PAID FOR THIS YOUNG MAN'S DEATH!..

this incedent is going to make for a very very messy 'diplomatic situtation' ----American troops out NOW!!!

there will be no justice for the murdered Iraqis because, according to the racist rules of engagement, if a US soldier feels threatened-- i.e., detects hostile intent-- then he or she has the right to destroy that perceived threat. If the butchers of Haditha can get off, don't expect these soldiers to, as the president likes to say, "be brought to justice."

I recently re-watched Mel Gibson's "The Patriot". It's a movie that grows on me every time I see it, and is a great allegory on the US adventures in Iraq and Vietnam.

Cornwallis is shown as trying to at least minimally follow the rules of war and not sow too much hatred, but the logic of fighting that kind of war, a war against a people, led him inexorably into the position of condoning mass atrocities.

The problem is that there is no way to send young men - enlisted men or officers - into that kind of a war and expect them to come back with their humanity intact, unless they come back as war resistors.

Son of Iraqi Governor
Son of Iraqi President
Anyman, woman or child
It's all the same to US Troops

Hey Gang,
There's not enough information in the report to say what happened.
And there's a possibility that the boys were engaged in nefarious activities. We just don't know enough yet.

Please hold off being hasty to judge.

For an alternative movie perspective, I urge you to watch Red Dawn.
While watching, consider what could have happened in light of the sparse details given in this news release. Say, when they went to the home of a regular citizen, and picked up the 2 girls. If someone didn't like the (slimebag mayor's in this case) kid and recognized him, he'd have likely as not been killed if the occupiers stormed that house. That's all I'm saying. Whether they were armed at the time or not, the occupiers go on the information given them by informants. That is how an astute enemy uses the occupier's might against their own interests by purposely mis-guiding (or NOT) lethal force.

It's a sub-story in the book of war.

Another Merry Mixup!

I confidently predict the outcome in advance of the findings of the US military's Thorough Investigation: it was a Clean Kill.

And in any case, from the perspective of an invading and occupying army, it falls under the exculpatory dictum familiar to all sports-loving Amerikans: no harm, no foul.

Another Bush/Republican murder.

lapaz000 July 20th, 2008 12:41 pm

"... according to the racist rules of engagement, if a US soldier feels threatened– i.e., detects hostile intent– then he or she has the right to destroy that perceived threat."

NOW all we need to do is change the racist rules of engagement to.
If a US soldier feels threatened– i.e., detects hostile intent– then that soldier has the right to wait around until that soldier is killed before that soldier responds to the hostile intent.

ARE you out of your FUCKING MIND?????? It's obvious you have never been in combat. There is an old WW2 saying, "He who shoots first lives, he who shoots second is a casualty".

Aside from your myths, the ACTUAL rules of engagement in Iraq SUCK!!! If only half of these insane rules were used in WW2 the west coast would be speaking Japanese and the east coast would be speaking German now.

Oh, sheeeee...it!

Everyone is armed in Iraq - it's the NRA's (and Wolf123's, apparently) view of paradise - superior firepower will win out.

Don't insult anyone who served by equating Bush's folly in Iraq with WW II. The only rule of engagement needed in Iraq is complete disengagement.

Our soldiers are terrorists.

Our soldiers are war criminals.

Our soldiers are pathetic cannon fodder.

I do not support our troops.

If anyone stormed into my house, I'd probably be shot, ___ or someone would be. I'm always armed, and as someone else noted, all Iraqis are allowed to have an AK-47 in their house.

"As they entered the target building, coalition forces encountered two armed men. Perceiving hostile intent … they shot and killed the men..."

entered = bashed down door, and stormed in probably shouting and cussing at the people, possibly throwing flash grenades, humiliating the men and women, terrifying the children in the house, possibly overturning furniture, throwing the family's belongings on the floor, breaking things...

This kind of behavior should be banned globally. People should be allowed the sanctity of their homes.

wolf123: for one thing, the Iraq debacle is an occupation, not a war. In a country where lots of people are armed, no less. Maybe you just think all Iraqis should be shot? Rules of engagement have to be different in an occupation than a war. Raids on people's homes are a police action and a little more restraint must be used or you will create other problems and turn the population against you - oh wait, we already did that. I've got an idea - let's get the hell out of there!

"A statement from the U.S. military said its forces had wounded and captured an al Qaeda financer in the house."

"Hey, we kicked in this door, and these guys all had guns pointed at us, then this guy showed us his al Qaeda credentials, so we shot them."

wcdevins July 20th, 2008 2:37 pm

Were you born this stupid, or do you have to work hard at it every day to keep up this level of stupidity??????

JUST WHERE DID I SAY MY "view of paradise - superior firepower will win out."

If you had even the remotest clue WHAT the rules of engagement were in Iraq then you would be forced by basic intelligence to agree that if only half of those rules were in effect in WW2 all those east of the Mississippi would be saying "Sieg Heil" and those west of the Mississippi would be bowing to the emperor of Japan.

Sorry your myths and fantasies do not cut it in the REAL world.

citizen1 July 20th, 2008 2:42 pm

Words can not describe the depth of moral decay you have sunk into. So many brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post your blatant nonsense.

KEM PATRICK July 20th, 2008 2:45 pm

As Don The Engineer July 20th, 2008 1:05 pm stated, "There's not enough information in the report to say what happened.
And there's a possibility that the boys were engaged in nefarious activities. We just don't know enough yet."

With so much tribal animosity in Iraq and Afghanistan the various tribes have found out the best way to even old scores is to dupe the US military into doing their killing for them. You even the (usually decades) old score and no one can really say your tribe did it.

wolf123--You are totally ignorant of WW2 history and a tribute to the stupidity that enables the crimes of the US Empire. The last time the continental US was attacked was during the 1812 war by the Brits who chased away what few defenders there were of Washington DC and proceded to burn the nascent city. In WW2, neither the Japanese nor the Germans had any possibility of invading the US mainland--Hell, the Germans couldn't even cross the Channel to finish the Brits. So take your crap and exit stage Right.

wolf123---The Iraqis were NOT threatening any of our freedoms. We would still be blogging if we had NOT invaded and occupied Iraq. Do you know that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, was the enemy of al Qaeda, and had no WMD? In March 2003 neither Kuwait, Iran, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, nor Turkey felt threatened by Iraq. As Rice and Powell said in 2001: they were very well contained and a threat to noone.

We have caused the deaths of 1.2 million Iraqi innocents, 4123 of our troops, at a cost of $3 Trillion (Stiglitz & Bilmes), and according to our 16 intelligence agencies: have made ourselves LESS safe.

karlof1 July 20th, 2008 4:06 pm

PLEASE take a reading comprehension course. I was talking about the RULES OF ENGAGEMENT in Iraq and how the Germans and Japanese would have won in WW2 if the rules of engagement were the same. WHY don't YOU bother to find out what the rules of engagement ARE in Iraq before you make asinine statements.

ALSO after you take your reading comprehension course read a history of the BEGINNING of WW2, like how the German air force was pulverizing the RAF in the first months of the war, how the English left all their heavy equipment (tanks, artillery etc.) on the beaches of Dunkirk and how if Hitler did not switch from pounding RAF air fields to pounding English cities he very well could have invaded England.

Keith July 20th, 2008 4:35 pm

What the HELL are you talking about? YOU also need to take a reading comprehension course, I said NOTHING about 9/11, WMD's and Iraq threatening our freedoms. PLEASE get out of your fantasy world and join the world of reality, you may not like it but you will not (maybe you will still) make a total fool of yourself.

RichM----23 senators voted against Iraq war authorization:
21 Democratic, 1 Republican, 1 Independent

133 in House voted against:
126 Democratic, 6 Republican, 1 Independent.

If that is not a statistically-significant difference, I would like to know what in the &^#@ is!

wolf123-----You said: "Words can not describe the depth of moral decay you have sunk into. So many brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post your blatant nonsense."

I was saying that if that statement is supposed to include what we are doing in Iraq, then you are seriously wrong because there is no way in hell that Iraq was a threat to our freedom to blog. In fact, Iraq was a buffer against the radical Islamists. If you were only talking about WWII, then it doesn't really make any sense when the topic is our killing Iraqis.

Quick, somebody rile up WOLF123.

RichM--- I know very well which Dems voted for the authorization and totally disagree with them. But that doesn't change the truth of what I said. If among the ones who made the right vote, the Dems outnumber the Repubs 21 to 1, then you cannot say there is no difference between the two parties.

Wow! So many violent thoughts, and that is just the bloggers. One of the few things that General "bootlicker" Petraeus did right in Iraq was start a policy of not kicking in doors and getting in gun battles with innocent people who thought they were being robbed. It sounds like that's exactly what happened and it probably was caused by a deliberateley false tip. In the early days of the occupation a British General had the audacity to suggest that the US troops were too trigger happy and tended to shoot up the entire area. He said that didn't go over well with the US Generals. One of our generals did point out that for every door kicked in, Iraqi shot and killed by mistake, that we would make a hundred enemies. By those standards, we have lost the occupation. The idiots who say that the surge worked should try walking down any street in downtown Baghdad without a gun and see how long they last.

I think a lot of Dems often act like wimps----not impeaching Bush and Cheney, not forcing Rove to testify, not filibustering, and allowing elections to be determined by machines made by conservative corporations.

esarge July 20th, 2008 3:32 pm

"entered = bashed down door, and stormed in probably shouting and cussing at the people, possibly throwing flash grenades, humiliating the men and women, terrifying the children in the house, possibly overturning furniture, throwing the family's belongings on the floor, breaking things…"

"bashed down door", based on the above story this is the only part of your statement that may have any validity, the rest is pure, total and complete conjecture on your part. Unless YOU were there you don't know, your statement is great for riling up the idiots that live in fantasy land but that is about it.

If you own a TV it might be educational for you to watch a program called "COPS" or the other shows like it, on this show you will see local police bashing down doors, and storming in shouting and cussing at the people, humiliating the men and women, terrifying the children in the house, possibly overturning furniture, throwing the family's belongings on the floor, breaking things… as they enter DRUG houses, DROP houses for imprisoned illegal aliens, houses where a criminal might be armed or a serious confrontation might happen. THIS is to confuse and disorient the inhabitants of the house to insure the safety of the police and capture any criminals. If you don't like the police then you probably detest this behavior, the wife and family of the policeman don't give a fuck what you think, they just want their husband and father home alive after work and the criminal arrested or dead.

"A statement from the U.S. military said its forces had wounded and captured an al Qaeda financer in the house."

Maybe maybe not, BUT if there was, WHAT was the 17-year-old son and another relative of the governor doing with him in their house? As Don The Engineer said, possibly they were engaged in nefarious activities. OR as most of those posting here think ALL Iraqis are as pure as the new fallen snow and ALL US troops are spawn of the demons from hell!!!

"the Iraq debacle is an occupation, not a war."

Tell that to the men and women over there, kind of like Korea was a "POLICE ACTION" and not a war, twisting semantics does not change what it is.

In Korea, our enemy was most definitely an ARMY. We were not occupying the country and fighting insurgents. We have absolutely no right to be in Iraq in the first place. There were 935 lies taking us into this fiasco. If the USA was invaded and occupied by the Russians and Chinese, would you say it was comparable to the tv show Cops?

The longer the U.S. stays in Iraq, the more it looks like the Zionists in Palestine. MURDER INCORPORATED.

I'm a "military mom" - not by choice or vocation - and I do a lot of work to bring an end to this war. (see www.raisingsandradio.org and www.motherspeak.org for example). I also counsel troops who want to resist war. I do want to bring up a trend that I see around the US...and in this commentary. That it is "them" - the "others", the bad warriors - who are to blame. Sure, they are perpetrators but, by and large, the vast majority of the troops deployed to the so called War on Terror are decent people who have been duped by 1) US culture that valorizes violence, from Joe, Moe and Curly to "Weeds, for example 2) a culture that also unconsciously agrees to throw away a large section of our young people because they are poor, or undereducated, or can't get jobs in their rural areas and then uses them up for doing our dirty work of managing resource collection by killling 3) that our young people are very young when they're recruited, often by #$@#$#% lying sons of bitches who are themselves threatened with deployment if they don't meet their quotas 4) that our young are trained to kill by a military that has perfected desensitizing our young and then shutting them off to any and all connections to family, friends, and life outside the military 5) that most of these young people are terrified out of their wits on the combat zone and we cannot simply judge them using our usual, old tired moral system 6) that the Pentagon itself is quite frank about not wanting to spend money to heal our young injured in war but to use that money, instead, on purchasing more weapons and maintaining militarism (it is a huge @#$$ industry as we now know).
I find it quite incredibly that, after decades of hearing about the effects of war on young warriors, we persist in our belief system that "they" - the warriors - are fully to blame for the terrible stuff they do during war. Terrible stuff is WHAT the military -- and therefore, WE the People too -- demands of them...backed up by what American culture says "men" "warriors" "patriots" do. And WE, all of us, learn this from our first days on the planet. If we're naive enough to believe these cultural imperatives (democracy, individualism, what is a hero, a man, etc, etc) - and, let's face it, MOST of us are naive for at least a part of our life - we're bait.
Let's look to ourselves, our assumptions, and, particularly, our culture for the answers to our warriors' activities as invaders.

wolf123 -

What you're calling the REAL world is what I call Hell. As can be seen by our Iraq incursion, we make our own worlds. I look forward to the day when people who justify monstrous behavior by citing goon squad procedures no longer volunteer to make mine.

Keith July 20th, 2008 7:13 pm

And when we crossed the 38th parallel into NORTH KOREA we were not occupying the country? It is estimated that there were over 40,000 north Korean Regulars and civilian insurgents fighting behind our lines.

www.state.nj.us/military/korea/ops.pdf

"... irregular enemy forces established some ambushes and fireblocks along the road and rail lines serving as the Eighth Army's main lines of communications," " ... despite large numbers (estimated as high as 40,000[)], they were largely disorganized..."

"If the USA was invaded and occupied by the Russians and Chinese, would you say it was comparable to the tv show Cops?"

Iraq has NO viable police force, the US military unfortunately is the Iraqi police force, the US military is doing the same thing police forces ALL over the world do when entering a house that a suspected ARMED and DANGEROUS criminal is occupying (I get international TV and a local COPS TV program is a popular program in England, France, Germany and Spain). YOUR straw man argument of some other country occupying the US is just that and nothing more, the US invaded and among other reasons most of which turned out to be false, liberated the Shia and Kurds of Iraq from a brutal murderous dictator, a Russian or Chinese invasion of the US IS not the same and YOU KNOW IT. NO matter how much you despise and hate bush, he is in no way comparable to Saddam. If that is the argument you are trying to make I will no longer respond to you because I feel I should not take advantage of someone with such an infantile intellegence.

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

GOTT MIT UNS

quousque July 20th, 2008 9:05 pm

I support our troops, BUT I don't believe in a god (unless you count Bacchus) so god can not be with us (or them).

They (military) shouldn't have been there in the first place, but the blood sport continues anyway.

Wolf, a lot of young men and women have given their lives
so all of us can post here. But if you believe the fighting
in Iraq is for our freedom then you sir are the idiot. Iraq's only crime was sitting on top of all that OIL that
George Wanker Bush and Dick "Deadeye" Cheney wanted for
their buddies in the oil "bidness". Fighting for freedom my
ass!

wolf123 6:31pm: "...most of those posting there think ALL Iraqis are as pure as newfallen snow and ALL US troops are spwan of the demons from hell!!!"

No! But, IT's THE IRAQIS GODDAMN COUNTRY! What in the hell are we doing there?!

wolf123, I hope you could speack German today. Because in my opinion you don't deserved to live if the moto of WWII is your modus operanti.

Wolf123, You seem to want to talk about every military conflict in the world except Iraq. Don't listen to me. Listen to the vast majority of Iraqis who say they are worse off after the invasion than before. One quarter of the population is either dead or a refugee. Do you think they feel liberated? One in eight Iraqi children die before the age of five. Sixty-three per cent of Iraqis agree with attacks on American troops. They don't have any jobs, any money, any clean water, any healthcare, any electricity (130 degrees F), etc. They have to wait in line half a day for gas, roadblocks and barricades everywhere they go, etc.

The CIA put Saddam in power in the first place because he was so strongly anti-communist. Carter had sanctions against him---immediately dropped by Reagan. Reagan and GHWBush strongly supported him and Iran and progressives like me criticized them for doing so.

rumiluv asks " What in the hell are we doing there?!" Well, Project for a New American Century and the Pentagon wrote it down in black and white well before 9/11. They said we must take control of the Middle East because of the importance of OIL. Iraq has the #2 OIL reserves in the world and sits in between #1 (Saudi Arabia)and #3 (Iran). Guess who is next if Cheney and Bush get their way?

And this has killed 4,123 of the troops you love so much and will cost us $3 TRILLION (Stiglitz & Bilmes).

The figure of over 1,200,000 Iraqis deaths is the INCREASE over what it would have been with the normal rate under Saddam. So you cannot say that Saddam killed more. He killed 1.2 million FEWER!

Saddam complied with the UN resolutions, he was the enemy of al Qaeda, and he had no WMD. In March 2003, the USA had 24,000 TONS of VX, sarin, and mustard agents. Anniston, Alabama had 77,000 rockets filled with these agents.

"They hate us for our freedoms (tm)." - G.W. Bush

If a foreign army invaded my country and went street by street every day, randomly smashing my neighbors' doors down and "accidentally" shooting anyone they thought was a threat to them, then I'd be dead fairly soon after they invaded. You know why? Because I would be out there on the streets shooting at every last mother's son of them.

We commited a war crime by launching an illegal war of aggression against Iraq. Look it up, Wolf123 and all you other Rethuglican anti-Constitutional trolls here on CD. It's in black and white in the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and the Nuremburg Charter. Actually, invading another country is the "supreme war crime," from which all other war crimes spring. Not that the Rethugs give a rat's ass about the law, as evidenced by their support of illegal invasions and a President who has broken more laws than I can even count any longer.

As for the argument that the soldiers are "Defending themselves," that is complete and utter bullshit. The Iraqi people have a right - if not an obligation - to fight back against the invading army that is illegally occupying their home. Bush and the Rethugs call them "terrorists," when they are, in point of fact, patriots. I wonder what the Rethugs would do if a foreign army invaded and occupied the US someday? Sit on their hands and do whatever the enemy soldiers told them to do? Actually, yes, most of them probably would, being pussies who would rather send other people's children off to do their fighting for them. But most non-Rethuglican Americans would fight the hell BACK, and be heroes for doing so.

Of COURSE our forces are going to perceive a threat, in every Iraqi they see! Because they ARE a threat to them. They shouldn't be there in the first fucking place. So I guess our "boys" might as well shoot every man, woman, and child they come across. Because the ones they don't kill today will go on hating America and all Americans for the rest of their lives.

And justifiably so.

America is the true Terrorist.

Are we free to chose between AT&T or Sprint. Are we free to chose between Chevron and Mobile oil, what a choice! What a democratie! Wow. I think the soviet had the same choice in the time of Staline, maybe not, ok, I am pushing it, sorry.

You know as much as I agree with some of the feelings and thoughts fueled (no pun intended) by the lack of desire for our country to be in Iraq I have to say that some of you are a bit off (e.g., Demonstorm)and this negativity at this point only serves to undermine what privilidges we have b/c we live in a country built on such foundations as "freedom of speech". I am sure that there are some soldiers who deserve a bit more respect that being called a "terroist". As far as I am concerned anyone that creates the space for a "Jihad" is a terroist - white, black, purple, agnostic whatever...I don't see us over there creating these types of situations (killing innocent civilians by direction)...get a grip and get yer head out of your ass.

Firm but fair, Demonstorm!

Thank you to MotherSpeak. What you say makes so much sense as most of the other posts do not.

wolf123 July 20th, 2008 3:40 pm
So many brave men and women have given their lives so you have the freedom to post your blatant nonsense.

Who 'gave their lives' so *I* can post from Europe ?
My countrymen in 1949 (China) ?
The Europeans so I can use Internet cafes and hotel high speed Internet connection ?
The Neanderthals so that the CroMagnons can take Europe ?

Really, who should I be thank for this privilege to use the *World Wide* Web ?

You realize pretty much *everyone* may post on the Internet, don't you ? Or does your Mommy tell you during home schooling that only America lets people speak out... praise Jesus.

I've been watching the new HBO miniseries Generation Kill. It enlightens me and makes me furious at the same time.
These kids, barely legal age, are sent to a war zone without the proper equipment & training to do the job assigned them. And sometimes they don't even know what they are in Iraq for. I don't blame the individual troops, they are scared to death and trying to survive. But they are taught the Iraqis are nothing but dogs to be killed, taught to have no compassion for those residents in THEIR country that the US is occupying.
No wonder they come home mentally deranged. War is an abomination to the human soul and war is never justified as a first resort. Old rich men start wars (may they rot in Hell, especially Darth Cheney)and poor men/women die for their greed. This cycle needs to end!
Our kids are suffering and dying for Shrub's Folly. It's time for them to come home!

Sandyk77 - Tell that to the victims of Charles Ng, the Marine trained rapist and murderer, veteran of Viet Nam.

Oh, that's right. you can't.

They're dead.

Feeling sorry for this new breed of Fascist killing machine is futile.

Here in Canada, the media is playing up the latest of our war dead as a hero.

He joined the Canadian Armed Forces as an adventure, and enthusiastically volunteered for front line postings.

He got all the excitement he could handle. He found an 'IED' the hard way.

They shipped what was left of him home yesterday.