Haditha - An American Shame

The War in Iraq is entering its 40th month. And from the looks of it… there seems no end in sight as long as Mr. Bystander occupies the Oval office. When this whole mess began, I used to get into arguments with people… why were American troops there in the first place? I did not have much to say; just that it didn’t feel right to occupy a country that had clearly no involvement in the escalating terror problems in the U.S. As the months dragged into years, it became evident that the U.S was sending troops into Iraq that were young, inexperienced, under equipped and most importantly – lacked adequate training.

The first evidence of this was the Abu Ghraib Prison-Abuse Scandal.

There were constant reports of atrocities in other places, committed by young soldiers who cracked under the pressure of a war fought on a battlefield with no front lines, no easy way to tell civilians from insurgents, and no end in sight. Its not exactly clear what happened on Nov 19 (2005) in Haditha, a small farm town by the Euphrates. But thanks to an exposé by TIME Magazine in March 2006, the investigation has lead to what most Americans were hoping would never happen.

In fact, this could be the turning point...

One Marine (Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20) and 24 Iraqis died... that much is certain. Local survivors say Americans on a rampage massacred their neighbors in cold blood. The videotaped eyewitness accounts that have been made available to the news organizations are horrifying, hard to believe in their sordidness and brutality. The Marines at first said 15 civilians, along with one marine had been killed by an IED (improvised explosive devices), and that the rest died in a shoot-out with insurgents. But the official story changed, in part because of the Time magazine exposé (the video of the aftermath of the November 19 deaths taped by an aspiring journalist convinced Time magazine to investigate). Now, according to congressmen who have been briefed by the Pentagon, the military is investigating Kilo Company for possible war crimes. Investigators have seen grisly photographs and are pursuing allegations of a cover-up.

Did the marines of Kilo Company murder the unarmed Iraqi civilians in cold blood? And was there a cover up? Two investigations are being conducted by the American Command in Baghdad.

New photographs taken by another group of Marines who came along afterward and helped clean up the scene were presented before Pentagon. 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 Marine photographs are evidence in a criminal probe, and only investigators and a few very senior officials have access to them. 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 believes 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.

All of the victims were wearing casual attire. Some had been shot in the head. Some were face down, others face up. The pictures appear to show the locations of the bodies in the houses before a Marine unit loaded them into a truck and brought them to a morgue.

Haditha may turn out to be the worst massacre since My Lai. And Iraqis may be entirely justified in their outrage. In Vietnam, when the doleful news came home of burned villages and slaughtered civilians, many Americans blamed the military. Vets came home to be spat upon and called "baby killers." Americans have learned from their disgraceful behavior back then, and generally honor today's Marines, soldiers, sailors and airmen. But increasingly, they blame their leaders for putting young men and women into situations they were not trained or equipped to handle. As more accounts of civilian killings come to light, the pressure is likely to grow on the Bush administration to bring home the troops, not just to save their lives, but to rescue their honor and decency.

'I got my finger on the trigger
But I don't know who to trust
When I look into your eyes
There's just Devils and Dust..'