Iraq. It is perhaps America's first and greatest blunder of the new century. A country many believe we have no business in, a war that was started, not in the name of justice or peace, but rather in the name of oil and money. War, however, is war--no matter it's birth or cause, and one aspect of all wars is that of civillian casualties. Even realizing this however, the recent revelations regarding the activity of a Marine patrol group on November 19th, 2005 in Haditha Iraq, are horrifying.
Early that morning, while on routine patrol, Marines from the the third battallion ran over a roadside bomb. A man was injured. Badly. After administering first aid, members of the unit rushed into the three houses nearest the attack, seeking the insurgents responsible. What they found instead were three families, fathers, brothers, mothers and sisters--going about the daily business of living. From these three familes, only three individuals survived. A 13 year old girl, a 27 year old woman and a 2 month old baby. The 13 year old was spared when she fainted into a pool of her father's blood as Marine bullets slew her brothers, sisters and mother. She was presumed dead. The 27 year old women fled out behind the house with the 2 month old--afraid of the gunshots she had heard down the street. Her fear saved her life. Every person in the house she had just left would die in a hail of bullets in another ten minutes.
The Marine Corps reported that one soldier and over two dozen Iraqi's had been killed by a roadside bomb. Autopsy photographs tell a different story. Over two dozen Iraqi's died in those three houses from shots fired at close range. The bullets ran directly through the bodies and into the walls of their homes. The families were compensated monetarily for their losses by the US Marine Corps, and the incident was very conveniently forgotten.
That is until recently. Now four of the soldiers thought to be involved are being held in 'custody' in Camp Pendleton and an investigation into the kiillings has been ordered. Justice may come perchance, but before we simply forget the story and assume that all will end well, we might perhaps, need to take a closer look.
The blood on the hands of those 4 (or more) Marines is blood on the hands of every American citizen. We put our soldiers in a foriegn land and told them to fight an enemy we barely even knew. Even if we didn't support the war we had a chance in 2004 to effectively end--or at least drastically change--the course of the war, and we did not. As American citizens each and every one of us should be ashamed. The public outcry at this incident should be shouted throughout the streets--the injustice and immorality of it all is beneath America--or so we had hoped. Fighting any war is not easy, even watching a war is rough--but for any moral high ground to be established and maintianed the citizens to whom the soldiers must come home have to take a stand. They need to make it clear that they will not tolerate abuse, they will not allow thier soliders to turn into beasts. They expect men and women to behave like people.
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It is horrible what some soldiers do to those people. They believe that because they are in war, and the victims are from 'the opposite site', they can do whatever they want to them. I've also heard (among many many other atrocities) that they make Muslim people eat pork. This is so humiliating.
Man, we're giving those freeloading bastards free pork too? OOOOOH The HORROR!!!!
In the muslim culture, eating pork is abhorrant. Try to have some cultural understanding. You wouldn't appreciate having someone elses culture shoved down your throat.
~CallieV
Our soldiers are supposed to be groups that our country can be proud of. Whatever this war is about, I have forgotten after these long pointless years, it is not about killing innocent families and children. On 9/11 too many innocent people lost their lives, but an eye for an eye is not what we should have here. They may be citizens of the country we are fighting, but they are people too. Now this is not a justification-- but I wonder if the perils of fighting and bloodshed has gotten to those 4 soldiers and psychologically affected them to the point of killing a family that they knew did not have anything to do with that bomb.
Of course its gotten to those soldiers, it gets into every soldier that spends a year or longer away from their loved ones not knowing when their ticket is going to get punched, imagine having to fear for your life for a year and a half straight? Imagine that? Imagine your fear of every foriegn face when you the first day you get over their your told that children or women may be suicide bombers? Imagine being sleep deprived while being on long dangerous missions? Imagine becoming brothers or sisters with every soldier in your squad, a bond that is extremely intensified becuase of the situation their in, then when you least expect it imagine one or more of them getting blowed away right before your eyes! Imagine how you would feel? Imagine how highe your adrenaline would be when this happened and imagine how your hatred for those guilty would be coursing through your veins. I'm not condoning what they did, but I understand how easily it could happen. We shouldn't think of these soldiers as monsters like we would serial killers on our streets here at home, yes they are guilty of murder and they should be punished, but the circumstances of the events surrounding this tragedy should be taken into account. We should be blaming the leaders of this country, those who send our young, our poor, often our less educated to fight wars that they don't fully understand, all so that a small group of rich people can fully line their pockets with gold!!! Yes I agree these soldiers should be punished, but so should our higher up's that declared this war and put our boys their for so long to begin with!
I know how horrible the circumstances of war are, you don't have to make me imagine any of it. I don't actually know first-hand, but I hate war and can't believe the amount of courage that it takes for them to do all that they do. The perils of war does get to every soldier, but every soldier does not and cannot go and kill innocent families whom they shouldn't be killing. I feel very badly for everyone involved in this situation because I just wish that they could all be back here with their own families instead of amongst all that violence and trauma.
this is horriable. A real tear jerker
The fact that some marines killed in cold blood innocent people, including children, women and old people is atrocious. And they will surely pay for that, even in their own conscience.
But what about a whole war initiated in cold blood, from their comfortable chairs in Washington? Will those who started it with lies pay for the hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths? Waging a war against a defenseless country that poses no threat, knowing - as they knew, and as has been confirmed - that there was no connection whatsoever with 9/11, and causing an enormous number of deaths is no doubt a crime, a crime of far graver import than those perpetrated by these marines.
Will Bush and Blair pay for their crimes? Will they face a trial?
Its an investigation its not certain that it was a massacare. We cant be sure yet, its highly unlikely that it was. There have been many a few credible allegations of massacres and they have turned out to be false or at least deviations from what actually happened according to locals.
Actually war crimes happen all the time, its expected and covered up in most cases. Rarely does allegations ever come out. We only hear about these things when a reporter happened to be close by to get the stories of bystanders. Did you ever hear about the "Accidental killings" caused by our bombings when Clinton was president? Our Military Intelligence was sure that this particular building over there was housing weapons, so Clinton said bomb it, they did and it turned out it was the site of a big birthday party! 30 some innocents slaughtered beyond recognition. It was reported as an accident there was no investigations no trials, nothing? Were was justice that day? Why didn't our higher ups have to answer for their mistakes?
Clinton also bombed an aspirin factory. Funny, those bombs landed just as his impeachment trial started. Coincident? Probably not.
~CallieV
thast terriable
Again, I would appreciate it if responses were discussion-inspiring.
~CallieV
This didn't happen. It has been proven that the accusations were falsified and the marines were wrongly accussed. The people were killed in a firefight and some were killed by terrorists so that the accusations could be made. Now what?
Please tell that to time magazine. They should publish a correction. They came out with a front page story about Haditha a week after I posted this blog.
~CallieV