[Peace-discuss] Rep. Murtha and Haditha

[Robert Naiman]

I wasn't aware of this My Lai quote: 'I gave them a good boy, and they
sent me back a murderer.' The Surgeon General should require that this
be printed as a warning on all military recruiting materials...

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Institute for Public Accuracy <dcinstitute at igc.org>
Date: May 19, 2006 5:52 AM
Subject: Rep. Murtha and Haditha
To: Institute for Public Accuracy <institute at igc.org>


Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa at accuracy.org
___________________________________________________

       Friday, May 19, 2006

       Rep. Murtha and Haditha

JOHN SIFTON, siftonj at hrw.org, http://hrw.org/
   Sifton is a researcher with Human Rights Watch. He said today:
"Rep. John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a retired Marine colonel, has
provided key new facts about the Haditha incident. If what Rep.
Murtha is saying regarding the Haditha incident is indeed true, this
can only be considered a serious war crime. Retaliations or revenge killings of
civilians are not in a legal gray area, they are war crimes, pure and
simple. Unfortunately, the military has a bad record when it comes to
holding its personnel, especially officers, accountable for grave
misconduct or crimes. Most of the punishments have been limited to
administrative penalties, docking of pay, reduction in rank,
discharge, etc., rather than criminal sanctions. Yet it's been six
months since the incident; there has been more than enough time to
work towards some charges. If the facts are as alleged, it's time for
the responsible parties to be court-martialed. It's time for real
accountability, not fines and slaps on the wrist."
   Sifton added: "Additionally, if what Rep. Murtha is saying is
correct, that means that the military's account of what happened six
months ago was flat-out wrong. At the time, the claim had been that
an improvised explosive device had gone off, killing the civilians.
It now appears that the civilians were shot at close range,
execution-style, by the American troops."

JOE HATCHER, another_sellout at yahoo.com,
http://www.ftssoldier.blogspot.com, http://www.ivaw.net/
   Hatcher was in Iraq for 13 months with Charlie Troop. He said
today: "I have a problem understanding how something like this could
happen. There's no rationale for how the soldiers acted. I very much
appreciate what Murtha is doing."

RAHUL MAHAJAN, rahul at empirenotes.org, http://www.empirenotes.org
   Mahajan is a freelance journalist and author who reported from
occupied Iraq during the first U.S. assault on Fallujah in 2004. He
said today: "Eyewitnesses and journalists have reported, and Rep.
Murtha has confirmed, that U.S. Marines murdered 23 Iraqi civilians,
many of them women and children, in Haditha last November, as revenge
for the death of a comrade. ... The parallel to My Lai is
unmistakable -- the deliberate gunning down of unarmed noncombatants.
Like the My Lai massacre, the Haditha massacre is also simply the tip
of the iceberg. Although it represents an extreme of cold-blooded
brutality, it joins countless incidents where noncombatants have been
killed either deliberately or through negligence so broad that it
amounts to depraved indifference to human life. When in Fallujah in
April 2004, I myself witnessed the widespread shooting of
noncombatants by snipers and even the targeting of ambulances; see:
<http://www.empirenotes.org/fallujah.html>."
   Mahajan added: "Although not all U.S. soldiers act like the
Marines in Haditha, there is a pervasive atmosphere of racist
contempt for Iraqis and indifference to their fate. Soldiers who are
trained from the beginning with chants of 'Kill! Kill! Kill! Blood
makes the grass grow' are put in situations where they are dealing
with a civilian population trying to go about ordinary life. It is no
surprise that atrocities like these occur; they are inevitable in an
occupation like this one. As the mother of one of the soldiers in the
My Lai massacre told Seymour Hersh 35 years ago, 'I gave them a good
boy, and they sent me back a murderer.' It's time to end this war;
the damage to Iraq, to American soldiers, and to our moral culture is
too great."

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167



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-- 
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

"...to involve the two countries in a war, and trusting to escape
scrutiny, by fixing the public gaze upon the exceeding brightness of
military glory -- that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of
blood, that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy – [President Polk]
plunged into it, and has swept, on and on, till, disappointed in his
calculation of the ease with which Mexico might be subdued, he now
finds himself, he knows not where…" Abraham Lincoln, speech to the
House of Representatives against the war with Mexico, Jan. 12, 1848.