Saturday, May 27, 2006 12:42 p.m. EDT
Rush to Judgment Against Haditha Marines
The press is already salivating over the prospect of the next Abu Ghraib-like public relations disaster for the U.S. in the war on terror - ballyhooing as yet unproven allegations that a group of U.S. Marines launched an "unprovoked" attack that killed 24 Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha on November 19, 2005.
But was the Marine response really "unprovoked" - as at least 40 press reports have claimed in recent days?
The Boston Globe reports that the confrontation was touched off when a roadside bomb struck a supply convoy of Kilo Company, Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment. The explosion killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, 20, of El Paso, who was on his second tour in Iraq.
"Everybody agrees that this was the triggering event," Paul Hackett, an attorney for a Marine officer with a slight connection to the case, told the paper.
If the roadside bomb was the "triggering event" for the developments that followed, however, then how can it be said that there was "no provocation"?
And while that provocation may not have been enough to justify the wanton murder of innocent Iraqis, it's far from clear at this point that all of those killed were indeed innocent. Or that any innocents who did die were killed in cold blood.
In an April report that pre-dates the uproar over the Haditha allegations, a Marine press release describes the Iraqi town as "a hotbed of insurgent activity less than a year ago." That would be about the time of the so-called Marine massacre.
Plainly, not all the residents of this terrorist hotbed were as innocent as Marine media critics are now claiming.
The Los Angeles Times reports that after smoke from IED cleared, the Marines quickly determined that it was "a type that would have required someone to detonate it."
Following standard procedure, the troops searched nearby houses, the closest of which was 50 yards away.
That's close enough for its occupants to have tracked the Marine convoy and timed the explosion.
It's also worth remembering that the press has so far reported only one side of the story.
All the witness accounts seem to come from residents of Haditha [that hotbed of insurgent activity] - who paint the Marines as modern day incarnations of Nazi storm troopers.
Alleged witness Aws Fahmi, for instance, told the Boston Globe: "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: `I am a friend. I am good,' But they killed him, and his wife and daughters."
According to the Los Angeles Times, the video that first raised questions about the how the Iraqis died was shot by Haditha residents themselves. Could it have been staged? We still don't know.
Then there's this intriguing tidbit, again from the Times, which notes that after the IED was detonated: "Marines and Iraqi forces searched houses and other structures in the narrow, dusty streets [of Haditha] - jets dropped 500-pound bombs."
Whoever ordered those airstrikes must not have believed the houses of Haditha were filled with Iraqi innocents who knew nothing about planting roadside bombs.
Despite the swirling questions, the press seems eager to jump to conclusions, taking its cue from Rep. John Murtha - who went public last week with charges that the Marines killed innocent Iraqis "in cold blood."
ABC News, for instance, reported Saturday morning that military investigators had already determined that the killings were unjustified, and that several Marines would likely face murder charges. But instead of quoting anyone in uniform, the report offered a soundbyte from a Human Rights Watch spokesman.
It's also worth noting that House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, who got the same insider briefing given to Murtha, says the "in cold blood" allegations are all wet.
"I totally reject that," Hunter told the L.A. Times.[/]
The California Republican has pledged to conclude his own investigation in June. In the meantime he worries about the press using Haditha to further their campaign against the military.
"I don't want the actions of one squad in one city on one morning to be used to symbolize or characterize or tar the actions of our great troops," Hunter told a Washington news conference last week.
