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UK Times Smears Our Marines

 
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kate
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Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 4:18 am    Post subject: UK Times Smears Our Marines Reply with quote
title is from Michelle Malkin blog
re: a UK Times's report from June 1 titled "Massacre Marines blinded by hate:"

The photo featured with the article was captioned
"Victims in al-Haditha. The US is carrying out two inquiries".

But, the photo was not from the Nov. 19 incident in Haditha involving our Marines, it was a photo featured in a Newsweek article from last May’05 of an execution in Haditha of 19 Shiites by insurgents. ( they have hands tied behind their backs) Our Marines did not kill these people.

Michelle Malkin has the details & photos. An astute blogger caught it.

Complaints were sent to the Times, and the photo was pulled with an apology in an email to Malkin. She has posted exchange of emails with the Editor. Bloggers and readers sent letters asking for a very public retraction from the Times. The damage done to our Troops is immeasureable.

as Allah Pundit is quoted on her blog:
How many Iraqis will be killed in the next few weeks and months by terrorists eager to make it look like American troops have perpetrated another massacre? How many gullible media outlets will be only too eager to believe them?

I just checked the Times website, they have a disclaimer under the headline now, but damage has already been done
UK Times

a BZ to the bloggers for catching this. It is sickening what the press is doing with this Haditha issue, and even more sickening with an err such as this misrepresentation of our Marines with that photo
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shawa
CNO


Joined: 03 Sep 2004
Posts: 2004
PostPosted: Sun Jun 04, 2006 12:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
As I stated in another post, my suspicion is a set-up by insurgents and gleefully embraced by the media anxious to make it another My Lai.
IMO it stinks!! This is in Anbar, where insurgents hold sway, and by intimidation and threats can gin up all things anti-U.S.
This writer echoes my doubts:
NY Daily News

Quote:
Take atrocity claims with grains of salt
June 4, 2006
BY MICHAEL ZACCHEA

Something tragic and horrible may have happened in Haditha.
But do not accept at face value what you are hearing about the alleged November 2005 massacre of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines.

Every time you hear the reports, make sure you repeat to yourself the word "alleged." Questions about the incident - terribly serious questions - remain.

Here are four big reasons I question much of what I've heard so far:

First, I have served in peace and war with Lt. Col. Jeff Chessani, the commander of the battalion involved in the incident. Chessani, who was relieved in April in the wake of the ongoing investigation, is among the Marine Corps' best and brightest officers, a man I believe incapable of participating in or covering up such an atrocity.

Second, extensive training in the Rules of Engagement and Law of Land Warfare is an annual requirement of the Marine Corps. Before each mission, a mission brief includes a review of applicable guidelines. This regimen is not taken lightly - not by any Marine I know.

Third, I know that the payments that were made to the victims' families - which some people consider evidence that the military admits guilt in this case - are nothing out of the ordinary. In Iraq, where there is an unreliable banking system, almost no civil court system and no insurance system, the payment of cash for damages is the equivalent of our own "no fault" insurance. It is common for American units to compensate Iraqis for damages, whether a destroyed building, a car accident or inadvertent injury or death.

Fourth, I must admit I am suspicious of ulterior motives by Iraqis eager to paint the worst possible picture of the incident, the facts be damned.

Iraqi society is in agony. Growing numbers of people are being kidnapped, tortured and indiscriminately murdered by a grim array of militias, corrupt security forces, criminal gangs and foreign Islamo-fascists. Those thugs, to whom this story has boundless strategic value, have the power to intimidate civilians into fabricating evidence - if that is what they seek to do.

I am angry about these allegations, and I will be still angrier if they turn out to be true. But until that day comes, I will maintain a healthy skepticism toward the supposed evidence.

I have an allegiance to my fellow Marines - and an even greater belief in basic human rights, fairness and justice.


Zacchea, of Long Island, is a Marine Reserves officer who served in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 as an adviser to the first Iraqi Army battalion to be trained by the U.S. military.

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