Chris Floyd: There Will Be Blood...But No Justice for Iraq Atrocity {Haditha}

[babylonsister]

There Will Be Blood...But No Justice for Iraq Atrocity
Saturday, 05 January 2008
by Chris Floyd


The headline in Friday's Washington Post says it all: "No Murder Charges Filed in Haditha Case."



Two years ago, a group of Marines killed 24 Iraqi civilians – including women and children cowering in their own homes – in a revenge rampage in Haditha. Once the story emerged from the usual layers of lies and cover-up, the atrocity flared briefly on the public stage and eight of the Marines and their officers were charged "with murder or failing to investigate an apparent war crime," as the Post reports. But public attention moved swiftly on, and over the past few months, the Pentagon's "military justice" system has quietly reduced or dropped charges against most of the men. Yesterday's announcement signaled the final climb-down in the case, leaving only a single Marine, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, facing a charge of voluntary manslaughter, and lesser charges against one other enlisted man and two officers.

Two dozen civilians slaughtered, as confirmed by the Pentagon itself – and yet there was no murder. Indeed, Brian Rooney, the lawyer for one of the officers charged with failing to investigate the killings, now says "it's clear now that no massacre occurred, yet this legal fiction is moving forward." Twenty-four actual, physical dead bodies in the ground – yet the incident was a "legal fiction" – "no massacre occurred."

The Pentagon has decided that the beserkers who killed two dozen innocent civilians were essentially following the accepted rules of engagement for U.S. forces in Iraq – a revealing fact in itself. As the Post notes:

Investigating officers in the cases have recommended lesser charges because they have found that the Marines determined the houses were hostile and believed they could kill everyone inside, more likely a case of recklessness than intent to commit a crime.

Even the indictment of Wuterich contains mitigating circumstances in the charge itself, which, the Post notes, alleges "that he had an intent to kill and that his actions inside a residential home and on a residential street in November 2005 amounted to unlawful killing 'in the heat of sudden passion caused by adequate provocation.'"

"Adequate provocation" to kill twenty-four unarmed civilians in cold blood – or rather, as the indictment terms it, in hot blood, "the heat of sudden passion."

more...

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/3187/81/