I read today that there's someone out there who thinks our war is being "lawyered to death" - this Newsmax story is a strong indicator that such is a reasonable position to hold:
video taped from a Scan Eagle unmanned aerial vehicle – purported to show the action that took place in Haditha when 24 Iraqi civilians and insurgents were killed – was heavily edited by government investigators, a NewsMax investigation reveals.The reason, according to an inside source: to avoid showing anything that exonerates the Marines who were accused of murdering the victims.
Four Marines originally faced murder charges stemming from the Haditha incident. Charges against three of them have since been dropped, but Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich is still facing a court martial.
NewsMax can reveal that the video – which was broadcast by CNN – was a small, carefully edited part of what the Scan Eagle transmitted during its daylong surveillance flight over the battle scene on Nov. 19, 2005. And shockingly, the approximately one hour of edited footage was the only Scan Eagle footage provided to the Marines’ defense teams by the prosecution.
According to CNN, “The video appears to show that, throughout that day, Marines engaged in fierce firefights and called in air strikes to level buildings - often with no definitive idea of who was inside."
Had the entire video been shown it would have revealed that the Marines knew exactly “who was inside” - insurgents were clearly shown entering the target buildings before the structures were bombed. If CNN had been able “to review the whole video, they would see that we did indeed have a definitive idea of who was inside,’" an intelligence officer told NewsMax.
All four of these Marines were declared guilty a long time ago in a despicable gambit by Jack Murtha to garner leftwing political support for his agenda (and, also, to save his bacon - he's on a mountain of corruption, and the ground is starting to slide under his feet). Now that three of them have been exhonerated, you'd think that the prosecution would back off and rethink things a bit - but no such luck.
Why are we seeing things like this?
Well, first off; because the MSM and a large segment of the political left believe that our soldiers are war criminals unless proved otherwise. When this story started bubbling up - likely from a terrorist source - it was just naturally believed. The next step was to find a military prosecutor who was willing to run with it - and, as we've seen over the years, there is never a shortage of prosecutors willing to pursue the most absurd charges. These Marines just happened to fall under an MSM/Political Left/Overzealous Prosecutor steamroller. This can be stopped, of course - all President Bush has to do is give the word that he'll step in an end these sorts of prosecutions unless there is clear and incontrovertable evidence of a crime...but, he can't do that. Partially because prosecutors must be given their due, but mostly because to do that would create enemy and leftwing (I know, often that is same/same) propaganda about how President Bush is "covering up" war crimes. The issue would then become war crimes, rather than the war.
The stories of American war crimes are as old as the Korean War - in that war, the communists found it easy to garner the support of leftwing dunces by generating war crimes stories about American forces. These stories fall into two broad catagories:
1. In fighting the war, Americans are violating the Geneva Convention.
2. In our treatment of non-combatants, we are acting like blood-crazed savages (or, as John Kerry slanderously put it, in a manner like Gengis Khan).
We're using chemical weapons; we're using excessive force; we're torturing; we're murdering; we're raping...all of these, and more, have been used since the Korean War, with only the particulars modified to fit the current conflict. The very few crimes American soldiers do commit are used as the pivot around which all the other crimes are centered - it works like this: because My Lai happened, all other stories of American war crimes in Vietnam are credible. In our current war: becuase Abu Ghraib happned, all other stories of American war crimes in Iraq are credible. That, at least, is how the MSM and the left veiws the matter, and they run with it.
And, of course, long after the accusations are made and the damage done, investigation shows that the crimes were grossly exaggerated, when not entirely made up. Such it is with Haditha - the enemy already has the propaganda that American troops went beserk in Haditha, and this is verified by simply quoting Jack Murtha and other American political figures...no amount of post-facto exhoneration will matter in the least to enemy propaganda: they just won't mention it.
Democrats trying to score political points and leftists determined that everything Bush has done be considered wicked should really sit down and think about this for a moment - a year ago, all of you were ready to hang these Marines out to dry, but now three out of four are off the hook, and the case against the fourth looks mighty shaky. Who knows? Perhaps the Marines were telling the truth all along?
You might want to consider that, next time one of these stories comes up.
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