quote:

Originally posted by RebeL9 When I first heard about this massacre I wasn't surprised at all. I've personally seen how the americans act in Afghanistan and I can tell you that the way they treat some afghan locals is horrific. If the americans in America only knew a quarter of what crimes are being commited in the name of the big and democratic name of America they would start an uprising in the US. there is no way you can justify this kind of crimes and i wouldn't be surprised at all if the guilty soldiers are just called of the army as punishment. remember guys. in the eyes of America the americans are soldiers and all their opponent are terrorist. I just hope they'll never be able to sleep again and will hear the screams of their young victims in their dreams for the rest of their lives.

+1

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"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

quote:

Originally posted by Q5echo no! who in the hell is telling you this? do you hear voices? is there someone in the room with you right now? thank you Dr. King, but not everyone is okay with it.

You made it look to be that we're supposed to be ok with soldiers barging into peoples homes and killing them because "they started it with the IED bomb" nonsense.

Please forgive my assumptions.

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quote:

New Video Backs Claims of US Massacre in Ishaqi New evidence has emerged in the case of another alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians at the hands of US troops. The BBC has obtained video footage bolstering accusations first made by Iraqi police that US troops murdered eleven civilians in the town of Ishaqi in March. The dead included five children and four women and ranged in age from 6 months to 75 years old. The Pentagon has insisted only four civilians died in the incident and that they were killed when their home collapsed during a gun battle. But according to the BBC, the new video shows a number of dead adults and children with visible gunshot wounds. Democracy Now covered this story in March. We spoke with Knight Ridder reporter Matthew Schofield in Baghdad. He first obtained the Iraqi police report that accused US troops of the civilian killings. * Matthew Schofield: “We were talking with the police officer who was first on the scene earlier today. He explained the scene of arriving. He said they waited until U.S. troops had left the area and it was safe to go in. When they arrived at the house, it was in rubble. I don't know if you've seen the photos of the remains of the house, but there was very little standing. He said they expected to find bodies under the rubble. Instead, what they found was in one room of the house, in one corner of one room, there was a single man who had been shot in the head. Directly across the room from him against the other wall were ten people, ranging from his 75-year-old mother-in-law to a six-month-old child, also several three-year-olds -- a couple three-year-olds, a couple five-year-olds, and four other -- three other women. Lined up, they were covered, and they had all been shot. According to the doctor we talked to today, they had all been shot in the head, in the chest. A number of -- you know, generally, some of them were shot several times. The doctor said it's very difficult to determine exactly what kind of caliber gun they were shot with. He said the entry wounds were generally small and round, the exit wounds were generally very large. But they were lined up along one wall. There was a blanket over the top of them, and they were under the rubble, so when the police arrived, and residents came to help them start digging in, they came across the blankets. They came across the blankets. They picked the blankets up. They say, at that point, that the hands were handcuffed in front of the Iraqis. They had been handcuffed and shot.” 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."

Source: Democracy Now

___________________
"The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me— and there was no one left to speak out for me." -Martin Niemöller

The ones that vote on PD/D polls saying that the US military should stay in Iraq but never volunteer themselves to help those already there never have anything to say when it comes to non-combatant deaths.

A shame no one steps forward to change their mind.

Change is inevitable, embrace it.

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quote:

Originally posted by ogvh5150 Change is inevitable, embrace it.

thats wierd, millions of decent Iraqis say that exact same thing every day. come to think of it a lot of Muslims are beginning to say that.
i think it sucks that the others that vote differently in the PDD polls don't think of Iraqis first before they open their selfish mouths and take away what they've sacrificed so much to get.

So we're to assume you know millions of Muslims with that statement?

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
Abraham Lincoln

Just where did you get that thought?

As regards the condition of the hemispheres themselves, an alert state of the nervous system is absolutely essential for the formation of a new conditioned reflex. If the dog is mostly drowsy during the experiments, the establishment of a conditioned reflex becomes a long and tedious process, and in extreme cases is impossible to accomplish. The hemispheres must, however, be free from any other nervous activity, and therefore in building up a new conditioned reflex it is important to avoid foreign stimuli which, falling upon the animal, would cause other reactions of their own. If this is not attended to, the establishment of a conditioned reflex is very difficult, if not impossible.
Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex
Ivan P. Pavlov

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quote:

New York Daily News Druggie marines? BY DAVE GOLDINER DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Monday, June 5th, 2006 The wife of a Marine whose unit is accused of killing Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha says the troops might have been high on illicit drugs when they carried out the alleged massacre, a new report says. "It's more than possible that these guys were totally tweaked out on speed or something when they shot those civilians in Haditha," the woman told Newsweek for its upcoming issue. She told the magazine that the unit suffered "a total breakdown" in discipline and morale after a new commander took over early in 2005. Some returning U.S. troops say alcohol and prescription drug abuse is rampant in Iraq, where extreme stress and numbing boredom are the only constants. "There were problems in Kilo Company with drugs, alcohol, hazing, you name it," said the woman, whose husband is a staff sergeant in the unit. The startling claims came as officials continued to probe the killings of 24 civilians in Haditha last Nov. 19. Iraqi witnesses say Marines shot the civilians in cold blood after one of their comrades was killed by insurgents. Marines initially claimed the Iraqis died in a roadside bombing, but they were actually killed by gunfire. "They went into one house. I heard gunfire, explosions and screams," Iraqi witness Taher Thabet told Time magazine. The massacre claim could wind up being one of the worst blows yet to the American occupation of Iraq. Many Iraqis believe that Haditha-style killings by U.S. troops happen nearly daily, and some U.S. commentators have already compared the killings with the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, which fueled popular opposition to that war. Secretary of State Rice vowed yesterday that the military would "get to the bottom" of the massacre claim and promised to stay the course in Iraq. "American forces are the solution here, not the problem," Rice said, adding that insurgents are partly to blame for "hiding" among civilians. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was an Air Force lawyer, termed the Haditha allegations "unnerving," but said he was confident the military would conduct a thorough investigation. "If it is true that our Marines killed innocent civilians, noncombatants, out of revenge, they will be severely dealt with," he said.

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eh, why wait until we find out what REALLY happened - let's just let the liberal media be the trial and jury and you can all jump on the media hysteria!!!

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Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation Enduring Freedom

Photos seem to contradict Marine version of Haditha killings
By Jamie McIntyre
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pentagon sources say some of the most incriminating evidence against Marines under investigation in the deaths of civilians at Haditha is a set of photographs taken by another group of Marines who came along afterward and helped clean up the scene.
CNN is the first news organization to examine those images. They were snapped before an aspiring Iraq journalist videotaped the aftermath of the November 19 deaths. That video convinced Time magazine to pursue the story earlier this year.
Pentagon sources say the 30 images of men, women and children are some of the strongest evidence that, in some cases, the victims were shot inside their homes and at close range -- not killed by shrapnel from a roadside bomb or by stray bullets from a distant firefight, as Marines had claimed.
Senior Pentagon officials have said a probe into the November deaths tends to support allegations that Marines carried out an unprovoked massacre after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. The military is investigating both the deaths and a possible cover-up.
The Marines originally reported that Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by a roadside bomb in Haditha, a town on the Euphrates River in northwestern Iraq that was the scene of heavy fighting in 2005. They later added that eight insurgents were killed in an ensuing gun battle.
The Marine photographs are evidence in a criminal probe, and only investigators and a few very senior officials have access to them.
"I have seen the photographs, but they are part of the investigation and I'm not going to talk about those photographs," Marine commandant Gen. Michael Hagee told reporters Wednesday.
But a source allowed CNN to examine copies of the photographs, which a military official said match in both number and description the pictures in the possession of investigators.
The source would not allow CNN to have copies of the images out of concern over personal repercussions.
There are images of 24 bodies, each marked with red numbers. Some of numbers are written on foreheads, others on the victim's backs. A senior military official told CNN that in some cases the numbers may denote the location of bullet wounds.
Among the images:

• A woman and child leaning against the wall, heads slumped forward.
  
  
• Another woman and child shot in bed.
  
  
• A man sprawled face down with his legs behind him.
  
  
• An elderly woman slumped over, her neck possibly snapped by the force of gunfire.

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quote:

Nearly Complete Haditha Probe Supports Accusations Against Marines Wednesday, August 02, 2006 WASHINGTON — Evidence collected on the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot the civilians, including unarmed women and children, a Pentagon official said Wednesday. Agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service have completed their initial work on the incident last November, but may be asked to probe further as Marine Corps and Navy prosecutors review the evidence and determine whether to recommend criminal charges, according to two Pentagon officials who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity. The decision on whether to press criminal charges ultimately will be made by the commander of the accused Marines' parent unit, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force at Camp Pendleton, Calif. That currently is Lt. Gen. John Sattler, but he is scheduled to move to a Pentagon assignment soon; his successor will be Lt. Gen. James Mattis. Click here to visit FOXNews.com's Iraq center. Investigators conducted a wide range of interviews but did not obtain permission to exhume the bodies of the 24 who were killed, one official said. The case is one of several involving alleged unjustified killings of Iraqi civilians that have emerged this year, damaging the military's reputation for humane treatment of civilians and triggering calls by some Iraqi leaders to end the arrangement under which U.S. troops are immune from prosecution by Iraqi authorities. The Marines initially reported after the Nov. 19, 2005 killings at Haditha that 15 Iraqi civilians had been killed by a makeshift roadside bomb and in crossfire between Marines and insurgent attackers. Based on accounts from survivors and human rights groups, Time magazine first reported in March that the killings were deliberate acts by the Marines. A criminal investigation was then ordered by the top Marine commander in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Richard Zilmer. A parallel investigation is examining whether officers in the Marines' chain of command tried to cover up the events. The probe, which has not been made public, faults some officers for failing to pursue obvious discrepancies in the initial reports about what happened in Haditha and for not launching an early investigation. Public attention on the Haditha case grew after Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a former Marine, asserted publicly on May 17 that he had learned from Marine Corps officials that innocent Iraqis had been killed "in cold blood." (Full story) Lawyers for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, one of the Marines under investigation, argued in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court that Murtha falsely accused Wuterich of murder and war crimes. The suit maintains that Pentagon officials "who have briefed or leaked information to Mr. Murtha deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information" and that the congressman subsequently "has made repeated statements .... that are defamatory" to Wuterich and his fellow Marines. Among the other cases of alleged deliberate killings of Iraqi civilians, seven Marines and one Navy corpsman have been charged with premeditated murder and other criminal acts in connection with the killing of an Iraqi man in Hamdania on April 26. Also, five soldiers and a former soldier have been charged in the March 12 rape-slaying of a young Iraqi woman and the killings of her relatives in Mahmoudiya.

Another AP story:

quote:

Aug. 2, 2006, 8:30PM Marine sues congressman for defamation By KIMBERLY HEFLING Associated press Writer © 2006 The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Rep. John P. Murtha was sued for defamation Wednesday by a Marine Corps sergeant under investigation in connection with the deaths of Iraqi civilians in Haditha. ADVERTISEMENT Lawyers for Frank D. Wuterich, 26, argue in a federal lawsuit that the Pennsylvania Democrat falsely accused Wuterich of "cold-blooded murder and war crimes." But they acknowledged during a news conference that Murtha identified Wuterich's squad, but not Wuterich by name, when speaking with reporters. "His real problem is not his lawsuit against me, it's defending himself in court," Murtha told reporters Wednesday while campaigning in his hometown, Johnstown, Pa. In a statement earlier Wednesday, the 16-term congressman said he does not blame Wuterich for "lashing out." "When I spoke up about Haditha, my intention was to draw attention to the horrendous pressure put on our troops in Iraq and to the cover-up of the incident," Murtha said. The suit contends Pentagon officials "who have briefed or leaked information to Mr. Murtha deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information" and that Murtha subsequently "has made repeated statements .... that are defamatory" to Wuterich and his fellow Marines. The suit accuses Murtha of spreading "false and malicious lies" about Wuterich and his squad that were "intended to serve his own private purpose and interests." Murtha's comments, according to the suit, "have been reproduced by countless third parties throughout the world." It says many of Murtha's comments were made outside his "scope of employment as a congressman." Murtha, a former Marine and decorated Vietnam War veteran, has been a leading proponent of withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. The claim for libel and invasion of privacy seeks damages to be determined, but not less than $75,000. Mark Zaid, a lawyer for Wuterich, said during a news conference that the suit was not about money or politics. "This case ... is about truth, honor and accountability and Congressman Murtha, who we believe has acted out of his scope as a congressman," Zaid said. The suit details Wuterich's account of what happened on Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha, a story he has told previously through his lawyers. Wuterich says several civilians were killed when his squad pursued insurgents, firing at them from inside a house after a roadside bomb killed one Marine. He describes a house-to-house hunt that went wrong in the midst of a confusing battlefield, but has denied through his lawyers any vengeful massacre. Wuterich and other Marines from his 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, are under investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigation Service. A parallel investigation is looking at whether officers at higher levels in the chain of command covered up the facts. No one has been charged in the case. A Pentagon official told The Associated Press on Wednesday that evidence collected on the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha supports accusations that Marines deliberately shot the civilians, including unarmed women and children. ___ Associated Press writer Michael Cowden contributed to this story from Johnstown, Pa.

ARTICLE USED WITHOUT PERMISSION FOR NON-COMMERCIAL EDUCATIONAL USE ONLY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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quote:

Originally posted by RebeL9 When I first heard about this massacre I wasn't surprised at all. I've personally seen how the americans act in Afghanistan and I can tell you that the way they treat some afghan locals is horrific. If the americans in America only knew a quarter of what crimes are being commited in the name of the big and democratic name of America they would start an uprising in the US. there is no way you can justify this kind of crimes and i wouldn't be surprised at all if the guilty soldiers are just called of the army as punishment. remember guys. in the eyes of America the americans are soldiers and all their opponent are terrorist. I just hope they'll never be able to sleep again and will hear the screams of their young victims in their dreams for the rest of their lives.

Just wanted to let you know that I have watched one of my soldiers die almost literally in my arms fighting for your country. I sleep under an Afghan and American flag, and so did he. He woke up every day hoping to help make your country a better place to live, for all people - Afghans and American soldiers alike.

It is sad that you should feel this way about thousands of people you really don't know who are fighting for your country and it's people in your place while you are hiding in Sweden. Maybe if you and your fellow critics of America spent as much time and effort fighting to help your OWN country as you do denouncing Americans and their forces fighting to help rid your country of Taliban/HiG/Al Qaeda influence, we would arrive at a conclusion to this war a bit faster.

It is easy for someone (who has no part in the effort to help their own country) to post in the luxury of their home via internet (something 75% of Afghanistan only dreams of) from the safety of a different country.

I suggest that rather than vehemently criticizing thousands of people helping your native country, you either:

A) Pick up a rifle and help rid the place of Taliban/HiG/AQ
B) Pick up a book and help teach the children
C) Some other misc. country-building role (construction work, government service, etc)

Because right now, the Americans you seem to hate so badly are doing more for your native country than you are.

Oh, enjoy the peace of your home in Sweden tonight - We are protecting your native country for you.

- Staff Sergeant Matthew Jones, United States Army

PS - Rest in peace, Bernard. (Bernard Paul Corpuz; Born 16 August 1977, Killed in Action in the vicinity of Yaqubi Village, Ghazni Province, Afghanistan, 11 June 2006)
http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/bpcorpuz.htm

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Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation Enduring Freedom