Free Republic

You'd hardly know it if you relied on the mainstream media, but the government's case against the Haditha Marines took another body blow last Friday that may be the beginning of the end for this whole sorry attempt to severely punish eight heroic United States Marines for doing what they are trained to do. In a surprise development on the day Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum's court martial was scheduled to begin, all charges against him were dropped without explanation. Tatum, facing charges of reckless endangerment and aggravated assault that could have sent him to prison for 18 years, was the...

On May 31, 2006, the Los Angeles Times editorially bellowed, "What happened at the Iraqi My Lai?" The charge was that on Nov. 19, 2005, the Marines of Kilo Company, Third Battalion, First Marine Regiment, had gone on a killing rampage in the town of Haditha in Anbar province. The rampage was said to be in response to the killing by IED of one of their comrades. That May, Rep. Murtha, D-Pa., vowed at a press conference an investigation would prove "our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood." As the...

When I heard the news that four U.S. Marines were charged for their alleged role in the killing of 24 Iraqi civilians in the western town of Haditha in Nov. 2005, it marked the end of a personal odyssey.In Jan. 2005, at Time's heavily fortified Baghdad bureau, I was shown a video by Iraqi human rights workers. In the first segment of the video, grieving Iraqi families were collecting bodies at a morgue. The second part showed the interior of two houses whose walls were spattered with blood and pitted with bullet holes. I asked who had carried out this...

From the Columbia Journalism Review site, the CJR Daily: Tim McGirk.Tim McGirk on HadithaPaul McLearyJune 16, 2006 Time magazine's veteran foreign correspondent Tim McGirk has reported from postings such as Islamabad, Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Baghdad and New Delhi, and is currently in the process of moving to Jerusalem to become the magazine's bureau chief there. This past March, while in Baghdad, he was the first reporter to break the story of the alleged slaughter of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the town of Haditha in November 2005.Paul McLeary: In March, Time magazine broke the story of the...

Evidence accumulates of a hoax in Haditha. The weblog Sweetness & Light has done an estimable service gathering together the articles which cast substantial doubt on the charge of a massacre of civilians at Haditha . Because the blog is too busy gathering and fisking the news, I offered and the publisher accepted my offer to put what he has uncovered in a narrative form. Having done so, I can tell you that the story has a whiff of yet another mediagenic scandal like the TANG memos or the Plame “outing.” While the Marines quite correctly will not comment on...

The barons of bombast allowed President George W. Bush a few minutes of air-time to commend our troops and note that they had administered "a severe blow to Al Qaeda." Then it was business as usual, bashing the administration, trashing our troops, and making sure that the words "Haditha" and "atrocity" are firmly branded in the minds of everyone with access to American media. article in full here ==================================================================== Islamist: *Me Lie* about Haditha. Your Media laps it up The story of Haditha puts national security -- the GOP's forte -- back on the front burner. Which means it's probably...