Haditha... time's up
Kaushik
320 Posts
Bush Inc. is going to have a hell of a time spinning this one. Putting Rove, Cheney and "Condi" on the case won't make a damn difference. I hope this terrible incident serves as the proverbial tipping point to get the US out of Iraq, once and for all.The Guardian UK - story Marine's wife paints portrait of US troops out of control in Haditha Julian Borger in WashingtonMonday June 5, 2006The Guardian [/b]The marine unit involved in the killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha last November had suffered a "total breakdown" in discipline and had drug and alcohol problems, according to the wife of one of the battalion's staff sergeants.The allegations in Newsweek magazine contribute to an ever more disturbing portrait of embattled marines under high stress, some on their third tour of duty after ferocious door-to-door fighting in the Sunni insurgent strongholds of Falluja and Haditha.The wife of the unnamed staff sergeant claimed there had been a "total breakdown" in the unit's discipline after it was pulled out of Falluja in early 2005."There were problems in Kilo company with drugs, alcohol, hazing [violent initiation games], you name it," she said. "I think it's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha."The troops in Iraq have been ordered to take refresher courses on battlefield ethics, but a growing body of evidence from Haditha suggests the strain of repeated deployments in Iraq is beginning to unravel the cohesion and discipline of the combat troops."We are in trouble in Iraq," Barry McCaffrey, a retired army general who played a leading role in the Iraq war, told Time magazine. "Our forces can't sustain this pace, and I'm afraid the American people are walking away from this war."The Newsweek account described a gung-ho battalion that had staged a chariot race, complete with captured horses, togas and heavy metal music, before the battle for Falluja in late 2004. The marines were given loose rules of engagement in the vicious urban warfare that followed."If you see someone with a cellphone," said one of the commanders was quoted as saying, half-jokingly, "put a bullet in their fucking head".At one point in the battle, a marine from the 3rd battalion was caught on camera shooting a wounded, unarmed man as he lay on the ground. However, the marine involved was later exonerated.The third battalion lost 17 men in 10 days in Falluja and by the time the troops arrived in Haditha, in autumn last year, it was clear morale had plummeted. A Daily Telegraph reporter who visited its headquarters early this year at Haditha Dam, on the outskirts of the town, described it as a "feral place" where discipline was "approaching breakdown". He reported that some marines had left the official living quarters and had set up separate encampments with signs ordering outsiders to keep out.Other observers, however, have come away from time spent with the marines with different impressions. Lucian Read, a photographer who spent five months with Kilo company, said it was generally well led, although sometimes squads had to go on patrol without an officer because there were not enough to go around.Mr Read told Time magazine that Kilo company was the "most human" of the many units he had accompanied in Iraq. "They were never abusive," he said. "There was a certain amount of antagonism and frustration when people didn't cooperate. But it's not like they had 'kill 'em all' spray-painted on the walls."Three senior officers in the Haditha-based 3rd battalion of the first marine regiment, known as the Thundering Third, have been relieved of duty because of a "lack of confidence" in their leadership.The officers include Captain Lucas McConnell, the head of Kilo company, which was directly involved in the deaths of 24 unarmed Iraqis there on November 19.Another captain from the battalion, James Kimber, was relieved of duty for a separate incident, according to his lawyer, who said his subordinates in India company had sworn and derided Iraqi security forces in an interview with Sky News.The commander of the third battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Chessani, has also been made to step down pending the outcome of the Haditha investigation.A criminal investigation conducted by navy investigators into the Haditha killings is still under way, but a parallel army inquiry into the wider issues has been completed. However, a military official said some findings might be withheld pending the principle inquiry findings.On Saturday the Iraqi government rejected the findings of a US inquiry into the death of nine civilians in a US raid in the town of Ishaqi and said it would conduct its own investigation.http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/02/1414228Troops To Undergo Ethics TrainingThe latest evidence that a massacre occurred in Ishaqi comes as the US government continues to deal with the uproar over the killings of at least 24 unarmed Iraqis in the town of Haditha. The Army announced Thursday troops will now undergo 30 days of mandatory ethics training. Iraq Demands US Apology, Files in Haditha CaseMeanwhile in Baghdad, senior Iraqi officials called on the US to apologize and hand over files related to the massacre. The Iraqi government wants the files for its own investigation. Marines To Be Charged in Killing of Iraqi CivilianIn another case, seven marines are being held in the brig at Camp Pendelton. A defense attorney for a US Marine has disclosed the Marines are expected to be charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in the shooting death of an Iraqi man in the town of Hamandiya in April. A member of the Navy will also be charged. The victim was reportedly dragged from his home before he was shot to death. Media reports have speculated troops planted a gun near his body to make it appear he was an insurgent. Iraqi PM: US Killings of Iraqis ???Daily Phenomenon??? Meanwhile, Iraq???s Prime Minister has lashed out at the US military over what he has called the ???daily phenomenon??? of US attacks on Iraqi civilians. In an interview with the New York Times, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said many troops "do not respect the Iraqi people." Maliki went on to say: "They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion. This is completely unacceptable."
Comments
NPR added this show recently in my area.
I gotta turn it off, shit is as skewed as Hannity & Limbaugh, just to the left instead.
I damn near hear glee in their voices when they report another suicide bombing or massacre.
Now that's enough to make you wonder what's wrong with our national priorities. It doesn't matter if you're liberal, conservative, or whatever.
Son, you don't get it. Most Americans don't give a shit unless they feel actively endangered. Moreso, this country is beyond mere apathy; it also knows very well that there is currently nothing at all they can do about insulting, nationally degrading current events like political wars, deliberately anti-gay Constitutional amendments, or, you know, government responses to floods.
Additionally, these issues don't seem to resonate with the sons and daughters of the millions of Conservatively-voting, church-going Americans that wander the streets looking for a good bar or a solid tanning salon, and they are more occupied with trips to Las Vegas and trying to poke out the cute girl/guy the next cubicle over. The Marine Corps could rape and/or murder thousands of men, women, and children in Iraq (they already have), and there would be no U.S. public outrage that would effectively move this President from his office (because he's still there despite this).
Although, granted: I don't hear the term "Neo-Con" (vars. NeoCon, neocon) bandied about as much, anymore. I suppose that's a start.
plaese to substantiate.
Ouch, dude. No one in their right mind would argue against Amy and Co. having a strong leftist slant, but glee? I watch that show fairly often and I've never heard anything but a solemn respect for those who died in such events. I think you need to rethink that statement. Are you saying that because you actually thought you heard it, or because you want to illustrate your understanding of their bias?
That is absolute slander. 99.9% of the Marines over in Iraq are serving honorably under the most difficult and dangerous circumstances imaginable. You should be thanking the Marines for their service instead of spewing out false accusations of mass rape and murder.
February 2, 2006 - (Alternet) - In a startling revelation, the former commander of Abu Ghraib prison testified that Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, former senior U.S.military commander in Iraq, gave orders to cover up the cause of death for some female American soldiers serving in Iraq. Last week, Col. Janis Karpinski told a panel of judges at the Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York that several women had died of dehydration because they refused to drink liquids late in the day.
They were afraid of being assaulted or even raped by male soldiers if they had to use the women's latrine after dark.
The latrine for female soldiers at Camp Victory wasn't located near their barracks, so they had to go outside if they needed to use the bathroom. "There were no lights near any of their facilities, so women were doubly easy targets in the dark of the night," Karpinski told retired U.S. Army Col. David Hackworth in a September 2004 interview.
It was there that male soldiers assaulted and raped women soldiers. So the women took matters into their own hands. They didn't drink in the late afternoon so they wouldn't have to urinate at night. They didn't get raped. But some died of dehydration in the desert heat, Karpinski said.
Karpinski testified that a surgeon for the coalition's joint task force said in a briefing that "women in fear of getting up in the hours of darkness to go out to the port-a-lets or the latrines were not drinking liquids after 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and in 120 degree heat or warmer, because there was no air-conditioning at most of the facilities, they were dying from dehydration in their sleep."
"And rather than make everybody aware of that -- because that's shocking, and as a leader if that's not shocking to you, then you're not much of a leader -- what they told the surgeon to do is don't brief those details anymore. And don't say specifically that they're women. You can provide that in a written report, but don't brief it in the open anymore."
For example, Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, Sanchez's top deputy in Iraq, saw "dehydration" listed as the cause of death on the death certificate of a female master sergeant in September 2003. Under orders from Sanchez, he directed that the cause of death no longer be listed, Karpinski stated. The official explanation for this was to protect the women's privacy rights.
Sanchez's attitude was: "The women asked to be here, so now let them take what comes with the territory," Karpinski quoted him as saying. Karpinski told me that Sanchez, who was her boss, was very sensitive to the political ramifications of everything he did. She thinks it likely that when the information about the cause of these women's deaths was passed to the Pentagon, DonaldRumsfeld ordered that the details not be released. "That's how Rumsfeld works," she said.
"It was out of control," Karpinski told a group of students at Thomas Jefferson School of Law last October. There was an 800 number women could use to report sexual assaults. But no one had a phone, she added. And no one answered that number, which was based in the United States. Any woman who successfully connected to it would get a recording. Even after more than 83 incidents were reported during a six-month period in Iraq and Kuwait, the 24-hour rape hot line was still answered by a machine that told callers to leave a message.
"There were countless such situations all over the theater of operations -- Iraq and Kuwait -- because female soldiers didn't have a voice, individually or collectively," Karpinski told Hackworth. "Even as a general, I didn't have a voice with Sanchez, so I know what the soldiers were facing. Sanchez did not want to hear about female soldier requirements and/or issues."
Karpinski was the highest officer reprimanded for the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, although the details of interrogations were carefully hidden from her. Demoted from brigadier general to colonel, Karpinski feels she was chosen as a scapegoat because she was a female.
Sexual assault in the U.S. military has become a hot topic in the last few years, "not just because of the high number of rapes and other assaults, but also because of the tendency to cover up assaults and to harass or retaliate against women who report assaults," according to Kathy Gilberd, co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild's Military Law Task Force. This problem has become so acute that the Army has set up its own sexual assault web site.
In February 2004, Rumsfeld directed the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness to undertake a 90-day review of sexual assault policies. "Sexual assault will not be tolerated in the Department of Defense," Rumsfeld declared.
The 99-page report was issued in April 2004. It affirmed, "The chain of command is responsible for ensuring that policies and practices regarding crime prevention and security are in place for the safety of service members." The rates of reported alleged sexual assault were 69.1 and 70.0 per 100,000 uniformed service members in 2002 and 2003. Yet those rates were not directly comparable to rates reported by the Department of Justice, due to substantial differences in the definition of sexual assault.
Notably, the report found that low sociocultural power (i.e., age, education, race/ethnicity, marital status) and low organizational power (i.e., pay grade and years of active duty service) were associated with an increased likelihood of both sexual assault and sexual harassment.
The Department of Defense announced a new policy on sexual assault prevention and response on Jan. 3, 2005. It was a reaction to media reports and public outrage about sexual assaults against women in the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ongoing sexual assaults and cover-ups at the Air Force Academy in Colorado, Gilberd said. As a result, Congress demanded that the military review the problem, and the Defense Authorization Act of 2005 required a new policy be put in place by January 1.
The policy is a series of very brief "directive-type memoranda" for the secretaries of the military services from the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness. "Overall, the policy emphasizes that sexual assault harms military readiness, that education about sexual assault policy needs to be increased and repeated, and that improvements in response to sexual assaults are necessary to make victims more willing to report assaults," Gilberd notes. "Unfortunately," she added, "analysis of the issues is shallow, and the plans for addressing them are limited."
Commands can reject the complaints if they decide they aren't credible, and there is limited protection against retaliation against the women who come forward, according to Gilberd. "People who report assaults still face command disbelief, illegal efforts to protect the assaulters, informal harassment from assaulters, their friends or the command itself," she said.
But most shameful is Sanchez's cover-up of the dehydration deaths of women that occurred in Iraq. Sanchez is no stranger to outrageous military orders. He was heavily involved in the torture scandal that surfaced at Abu Ghraib. Sanchez approved the use of unmuzzled dogs and the insertion of prisoners head first into sleeping bags, after which they were tied with an electrical cord, and their mouths were covered. At least one person died as the result of the sleeping bag technique. Karpinski charges thatSanchez attempted to hide the torture after the hideous photographs became
public.
Sanchez reportedly plans to retire soon, according to an article in the International Herald Tribune earlier this month. But Rumsfeld recently considered elevating the three-star general to a four- star. T he Tribune also reported that Brig. Gen. VincentBrooks, the Army's chief spokesman, said in an email message, "The Army leaders do have confidence in LTG Sanchez."
Please...The Commission of Inquiry for Crimes against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration and the National Lawyers Guild, that's like posting an article from human events online that sources to the John Birch Society and the Aryan Nation.
All servicemen/women that are deployed over there aren't raping the women and pillaging the land. As a matter of fact, a small number of troops engage in that type of activity.
http://icasualties.org/oif/female.aspx
another fake but true story
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
I think there are almost certainly cases of sexual abuse/assault/rape happening within the U.S. military forces stationed in Iraq. I'm also willing to believe that there are cases of assault which are covered up by the military.
However the article you posted strains believability on multiple levels, not the least of which is that death by dehydration - even in the desert - would take a complete lack of water for several days and there would be a variety of medical warnings signs indicating that someone was in real danger prior to this happening. Not drinking water late in the afternoon, even in 120 degree heat, is not going to kill you vis a vis dehydration. Heat stroke would be more likely.
Also, and I hate to actually have to be in agreement with sabadababa on anything but in Sep of 2003, there were no female sergaents, let alone master sergaents reported as being non-hostile casualties. There was only one death noted in that month, a specialist, who died from a weapon discharge (non-hostile). Cause of death could be faked I suppose, but rank?
I also note that there's yet to be any other independent substantiation for Karpinski's claims. If you try to research her story, her's is still the only one that comes up.
a bitter pill to swallow.
Yes, I noticed that, too. The death by dehydration was not really the part that I was focusing on.
My point in posting that was to address the disbelief that Iraqi women are being raped by some US forces. If there are numerous allegations of sexual assualt of American female soldiers by fellow soldiers, one can only imagine what is being done to the "enemy".
It goes without saying - but I guess it still needs to be said - this behaviour is not limited to the American military.
Not the most reliable source, absolutely, and not the best way to make my point.
I co-sign your first paragraph.
exactly. i dont know what's more troubling, the story of Haditha or the lack of stories about Haditha. without fail, bush has flooded the gop-owned media with a bunch of bullshit issues the past two weeks so that Haditha gets brushed under the rug. he still is working on immigration (an issue that has been around for decades) as he "heads to the border" today, and last week we were treated to more comments about a constitutional ban on gay marriage. glad to see he is pushing an amendment that has already failed with the identical congress.
also..
can everyone please stop accusing others of being anti-soldier? enough. the moment someone on this board criticizes any aspect of the military, it is inevitable that someone else is gonna post a "how dare you" response. soldiers are giving their lives for this war. nobody questions their bravery. go watch hbo's documentary on the baghdad ER. its amazing to see these kids lose limbs and want to go back and fight or only be concerned about what happened to their friends.
however, if an attrocity happens, like is alleged in haditha, our govt needs to own up to it right away. no doubt this happens on all sides during war, but when our govt covers it up, it basically shows the world that we approve of it. biden was on meet the press saying that there is no doubt rumsfeld knew about this back in november. if that is the case and he's not fired....we need to replace the image for the NAGL graemlin.
Web Results 1 - 100 of about 39,000,000 for haditha. (0.28 seconds)
that is meaningless. take a look at the "issues" Bush has fed to the press over the last few weeks. immigration, same sex marriage, and undoubtedly "progress" in iraq....and of course...TERRORISM!!!!!!!
with everything that is going on in this country and the world, do you think "same sex marriage" should be the issue of the moment?????? and please explain why immigration has suddenly become a hot topic? are we suddenly overpopulated? is everything else going so well that the whitehouse has all this free time on their hands? if you think immigration was so important, why was it ignored for twenty years. the govt is a disgrace, our major news media is just as bad.
facts against = meaningless ?????????????? junior high school[/b]
So let me understand you. An all inclusive Google search under "Haditha" gives you 39 million + results, and that suggests there's no lack of stories on the topic? Please. That's a stretch.
Moreover, # of Google hits does not equate into media mentions in the US press: TV, radio, newspaper, online etc.
If youre going to use the junior high school argument, at least look at the # mentions of Haditha in Google News: about 11,000 hits:
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=haditha&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&scoring=d
Even that does not substantiate the claim that there's no lack of stories.
Anyway the main point is that this will probably be swept under the rug amidst the ongoing culture wars in this country. Keep the illegals out (deport them preferably) and stop the homos from getting married, and don't worry about Iraq, because we've got that covered.
every last bit of it! even this is fake.
Clues about the general lack of interest in American misconduct in Iraq -- here at home -- appear in Thomas Ricks??? Washington Post story on Haditha on Sunday.
Near the end, he traces the now-familiar timeline: Haditha killings in November, Time magazine story in March, quiet again until Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) told reporters on May 17 the shocking news (after he was briefed on the incident) that what happened in Haditha was "much worse than reported in Time magazine." Murtha stated that the investigations would reveal that our troops overreacted, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.
But here???s what happened next, according to Ricks: ???The reporters present barely focused on what Murtha had said. When the congressman finished his statement, the first reporter asked about Iraqi security forces. The second asked about U.S. troop withdrawals. The third asked about congressional support for Murtha's resolution calling for a U.S. pullout from Iraq.
???Finally, the fourth asked about Haditha. Murtha responded with a bit more detail: ???They actually went into the houses and killed women and children. And there was about twice as many as originally reported by Time.??? Even then, his comments captured little attention and were not front-page news. It took a few days for the horror of what Murtha was talking about to sink in.???
This is shocking, on one level, but on another, not surprising, because the media had pretty much ignored the Haditha story after noting Time???s scoop back in March.
The New York Times, for example, covered the Time revelations on March 17. On April 6, Haditha briefly appeared in a story, without any reference to the Time probe, and a week later another story mentioned the possible massacre in one sentence. Nothing else appeared in the paper until May 19???after Murtha???s talk. Nothing appeared in any opinion columns either.
The Washington Post carried two stories just after the Time scoop ??? then nothing else until Murtha???s remarks. The Los Angeles Times, after covering the Time revelations, returned for an April 8 story on three commanders at Haditha being relieved of duty, and that???s it. A search of AP archives mirrors the L.A. Times??? record in that period.
----------------
This is all pre-Murtha. There has been more recent coverage of Haditha, but in my opinion, it is still insufficient, and pales in comparison to the "important" issues Bush has talked about recently...like same sex marriage. Bush remarked that he didn't even know about Haditha until it was reported in the press. c'mon dawg!!
Total incompetence on the part of civilian leadership.[/b]
Editing your own post as a response to mine? Now that's rich, and so junior high.
Yes. Run on that ticket again. Please.
do yourself a favor