This must be some definition of honorable with which I was not previously familiar

Sgt Frank Wuterich, the only person involved in the Haditha Massacre the military managed to convict of anything, if not actually put in prison, has been given a general discharge under honorable conditions from the Marine Corps.

He gets to keep all his veterans benefits, because of course he does.

Military justice triumphs

Sgt. Frank Wuterich is not, in fact, going to spend a single day in prison for leading the Haditha Massacre, because evidently he’s suffered enough. So 24 deaths, and he gets a reduction in rank (update: maybe not even that). I don’t even think he gets the reduction in pay, since that was only to be during his time in prison.

He issued a statement to the families of those he and his men slaughtered: “I wish to assure you that on that day it was never my intention to harm you or your families. I know that you are the real victims of Nov. 19, 2005.”

“For six years I have had to accept that my name will always be associated with a massacre, with being a cold-blooded baby killer, an ‘out-of-control’ monster and a conspiring liar,” the out-of-control monster continued. “There’s nothing I can do about whoever believes those things. All I can do is continue to be who I’ve always been – me.”

I probably just should have said nothing

The military finally convicted someone for their role in the Haditha Massacre of 24 innocent Iraqi civilians in 2005. Frank Wuterich’s court-martial ended today with a plea deal. He’ll skate on all the manslaughter charges, but by gum they’ve nailed him for negligent dereliction of duty. Although telling his men, “shoot first and ask questions later,” as Wuterich admitted to having done, doesn’t seem “negligent.” A closer fit for “negligent dereliction of duty” would be the work of the military prosecutors, who somehow failed to get this single pathetic conviction in their prosecutions of eight of the war criminals.

Wuterich will get 3 months.

Max.

Here’s Wuterich, manfully taking responsibility today for the “shoot first and ask questions later” thing: “Honestly, I probably should have said nothing. I think we all understood what we were doing so I probably just should have said nothing.”

Live and learn, I guess

At the Haditha Massacre court martial of Frank Wuterich, Hector Salinas, asked what he would do differently, besides massacring a bunch of innocent civilians including children and a septuagenarian in a wheelchair, said he would have called in an air strike to level the house with the innocent civilians including children and the septuagenarian in a wheelchair.

Ask a silly question...

From the Haditha Massacre court-martial:

Q: “Why did you shoot the men?”

Corporal (at the time of the Haditha Massacre; of course he’s been promoted to sergeant since his participation in the Haditha Massacre, because of course he has) Sanick Dela Cruz: “Because I wanted to make sure they were dead, sir.”

A jury of his peers

The last Haditha Massacre court-martial, the last chance to put someone away for 24 murders, has begun.

From the LAT: “On Thursday, prospective jurors were questioned by opposing attorneys. All but one indicated that he had been in combat in Iraq when an order was given to ‘clear’ a house of insurgents; most had lost a Marine in combat. Asked by a defense attorney, none admitted having ‘strong’ feelings about the war in Iraq.”

So they’re all emotionless sociopaths, soul-less killing machines?

The cost of doing business

In the Haditha Massacre papers the NYT pulled off a garbage dump in Iraq, Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson referred to 15 dead civilians (actually 24) as “just a cost of doing business.” So that’s okay then.

I’m not sure which part of that is the most insultingly dismissive, “a cost of doing business” or “just.”

There’s nothing better than having good role models for girls to look at

Today’s must-read: McClatchy’s Leila Fadel on the reaction in Iraq to the US failure to punish anyone for the Haditha Massacre.

Bush, hosting the Phoenix Mercury women’s basketball team: “As the father of twin girls, there’s nothing better than having good role models for girls to look at, and there are no better role models than women basketball players.” So step aside, all you women doctors and lawyers and professors and authors and legislators and governors and...

Insert clever post title here

Saw the Frontline episode on the Haditha Massacre. It didn’t mention the part where the marine urinated on the bodies. And it was so narrowly focused on the events of a single day that there was not a single appearance by Rumsfeld, Pace, Bush, all of whom downplayed Haditha outrageously. If you need a refresher, click on the topic label at the bottom of this post.

Speaking of atrocities, there have been a series of arrests recently of Argentinian military officers who committed them during the Dirty War in the 1970s, and there’s a rather fascinating civil case in which one of those babies (AP says there were 200, Reuters 400) seized from political prisoners and given to military officers or others connected to the junta to raise has sued those adoptive parents (her biological parents were arrested in 1977 when her mother was 6 months pregnant; they were never seen again).

Hawaii had its caucus yesterday, or as they pronounce it, cow-oo-kus.

George and Laura in Rwanda, attending a school play about abstinence. The mind boggles. Evidently both Bushes speak fluent Kinyarwanda and don’t need an interpreter.



Here... oh god, please tell me he isn’t trying to dance to those drums.

If people want to be cynical about it, they’ll be cynical about it

Sgt Frank Wuterich, leader of the squad that carried out the Haditha Massacre, who both ordered the massacre and participated in it (see previous posts on Wuterich here and here, and all Haditha posts here) will be charged with manslaughter but not murder. 24 innocent civilians murdered, no one charged with murder.

Mike Huckabee, as you probably know, held a press conference today to unveil his “negative attack” ads against Romney (“No executions”, “Supported gun control”), but instead he announced that the ads, which he showed to the assembled reporters, would not run. Unless they do: an email he then sent out (which included the phrase I just quoted, “negative attack”), noted, “If it was run at all, it would be until the stations pulled it off their schedules.” So that’s all right then.

The ad ended, “If a man’s dishonest trying to get the job, he’ll be dishonest on the job.” And if a man’s a pious hypocrite trying to get the job... Asked if his showing the ad at the presser might spark cynicism, the Huck said, “If people want to be cynical about it, they’ll be cynical about it.”

Is that true?

more at twiigs.com...

No, there is no option for not being cynical about it. I mean, there is just... no... option.

Huckabee is presenting this as yet another of those tales of temptation and redemption those Baptists love so much: “I believe that Americans aren’t interested in politics that divide us, they want their leaders to focus on what will lift them up and make things better. I almost forgot that today in the face of the withering barrage of criticism we have endured over the last few weeks from my rivals. I say almost, because our negative ad won’t run.” Unless it does.

By the way, one of those things that will lift us up and make things better: banning abortion, the subject of another ad which he did start running today.

Mass disturbances and New Zealand porn

Your commercial of the day, for a New Zealand porn channel. I’m told it contains one or two metaphors for things sexual, but darned if I can spot them.



(h/t Away With Words)

Another Haditha hearing, this one for Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich. Evidently, just a week before the massacre, he was just sittin’ around with his buds, smokin’, and told them that the next time an IED went off, they should kill absolutely everyone in the vicinity.

And they did.

Guantanamo continues to be a black box. For example, Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj, who is on hunger strike in his 6th year of detention without trial, is said by his lawyer to have lost 40 pounds and to be in serious physical shape, and by Gitmo officials to have gained 20 pounds and to be getting downright chubby. Today we hear that there were 385 “mass disturbances” at Guantanamo in the first 6 months of 2007. The military won’t say what that actually means.

His body had already acted

Brattleboro, Vermont’s ban on public nudity has not been renewed and will expire next month (one may not, however, expose one’s genitals; bare butts and breasts in Brattleboro, however, will be bitchin’). Plan your vacations accordingly.

Must-read: the NIE on Iraq (4 pages). Not a lot of false optimism.

Turkey is demanding that Israel pressure the Anti-Defamation League to reverse its decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide as an act of genocide. I’m not sure how you un-recognize a genocide.

In a statement misrepresented in pretty much every headline about it, John Warner has suggested that we must take “some decisive action” in Iraq. The decisive action he recommends: possibly reducing the American military presence 3% by Christmas. But of course, he hastened to add, it is entirely up to George Bush whether he cares to do this or not. Still, many people hang on Sen. Warner’s every word. Fuck if I’ve ever known why.

The investigating officer in the case of Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum, one of the participants in the Haditha Massacre (for more on Tatum, see these previous posts) wants the charges against Tatum dropped. Sure he killed a bunch of civilians, including children, Col. Paul Ware says, but “Tatum’s real life experience and training on how to clear a room took over and his body instinctively began firing while his head tried to grasp at what and why he was firing. By the time he could recognize that he was shooting at children, his body had already acted.” So that’s okay, then.

Living up to the standards of the Marine Corps

Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis drops the charges against Lance Corp. Justin Sharratt for his role in the Haditha Massacre (click on the H.M. label at the bottom of this post for more on Sharratt), saying he lived up to the standards of the Marine Corps when he mowed down a family of civilians. Mattis accepts the disproved premise that “combat” was going on in Haditha, that the Marines were under fire.

This is very good, but is it really the only Nichols and May sketch available on YouTube?



Fifty religious quotes from the Rev. Chimpy.

A proud moment for George W. Bush

Tony Blair says there is a “sense of possibility at the moment” in the Middle East. He does not say if there is a possibility of sense.

Lance Cpl Stephen Tatum said (not under oath) at his hearing that during the Haditha Massacre, he killed civilians in their home because he didn’t know that there were civilians in civilian homes: “I didn’t know there was women and children in that house until later.” In fact, he had another word for them: “I really couldn’t make out more than targets.” He said that if he had known, “I would have physically stopped everybody in that room from shooting.” However, witnesses have testified that he was told, gave an order to kill them, then went back and did it himself. Also, last year he told investigators, “targets women and kids can hurt you, too.”

And in the court-martial of Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III, the mastermind behind the abduction and murder of Awad the Lame, we are told that he hatched the plan after hearing that another squad had kidnapped and murdered a suspected insurgent and got away with it. Hutchins’s lawyer says that at the time he was suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and poor leadership. For example, he was once ordered to choke a prisoner into unconsciousness.

According to the NYT, every week or two Bush calls up Maliki and they have a drunken discussion about God, or something.

Bush held a little photo op as he received the report from Donna Shalala and Elizabeth Dole on the medical treatment of wounded soldiers. “And so they took a very interesting approach. They took the perspective from the patient”. Also present, Bob Woodruff of ABC, who was injured in Iraq. Bush told him, “Congratulations on the will to recover.”

Bush’s handlers decided that he should celebrate that report and demonstrate his commitment to the wounded by going jogging with two of them.


Afterwards, he said, “Running with these two men is incredibly inspirational for me.” So it was all worth while.


“And it should be inspirational to anybody who has been dealt a tough hand.” No, no, George, it’s their legs that are made of metal, their legs.


He added, “It’s a proud moment for me, a proud moment.” It was unclear what he felt he had to be proud of.

The Marine Corps, it’s me

An email from the McCain campaign presents yet more fun facts about John McCain: John McCain’s favorite movies include “Letters from Iwo Jima” and “Some Like it Hot.” His favorite actors include Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe.

Bush, today: “Failure in Iraq would send an unmistakable signal to America’s enemies that our country can be bullied into retreat.” Bullied. Bullied!

Interesting factoid, in a BBC article about the Uganda government’s plan to introduce compulsory military training: there’s only one African country with a military draft, Eritrea.

Yesterday in the hearing for Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum re the Haditha Massacre, there was a debate over what the evidence showed about the death of a 4-year old boy. The investigator believes someone stood over him and deliberately executed him. Tatum’s lawyer proposed that “it was much more likely that the boy had been huddled at a woman’s bosom when the Marines burst into the room and sprayed it with gunfire after first tossing in a grenade.” So that’s okay, then.

“Insultingly light sentence,” I predicted. Corp. Trent Thomas was sentenced to zero jail time for the killing of Awad the Lame. He has been reduced to a private and been given a bad conduct discharge from the Marine Corps. Thomas had begged to be allowed to stay in the Marines: “I’ve never been good at anything until I came to the Marine Corps. It’s pretty obvious Michael Jordan was meant to play basketball. Tiger Woods was meant to play golf. The Marine Corps, it’s me.”

Bush and Sugar Ray Leonard. You know, I’m not ordinarily a big fan of the pugilistic arts, but...

This one’s for you: ||||||||||||||||||||||||

The Haditha Massacre hearing for Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum heard today from another corporal who shot a few people that day but was given immunity. Cpl. Humberto Manuel Mendoza says that when they raided a house, shooting a man in the house for, you know, looking at them, he found two women and several children in a bedroom, informed Tatum, who said, “Well, shoot them.” Tatum then went back and did it himself (in the news reports I’ve read, the names and ages of the dead are nowhere to be found). Tatum would later tell investigators, “women and kids can hurt you, too,” adding, “I stand fast in my decisions that day, as I reacted to the threats that I perceived at that time.” Threats like women and kids. Which are the sort of people you tend to find in, you know, homes. Tatum was known to opine (this is after the massacre) that the way to fight a war is to go into a city and kill every living thing.

You’ll remember that the Haditha Massacre began after a roadside bomb killed a Marine. When the unit sent the Marine’s pack to his parents, they signed it, Tatum adding 24 hatch marks, representing every civilian massacred at Haditha, and the words “This one’s for you.” Tatum’s lawyer suggested the marks referred to a rosary.

And in the other war crimes trial I’ve been following, Trent Thomas’s court-martial concluded today, with his lawyer claiming that the prosecution never claimed that the man Thomas murdered was in fact Awad the Lame or even an Iraqi, so he should be acquitted. Not sure I follow the logic. “There was not murder. There was a killing,” he said. Well that’s okay then.

Vanity Fair has an article on the development of torture techniques by a couple of Mormon psychologists the government hired with your tax dollars. Subtle stuff, as you’d expect from a psychologist. Actually, the authors don’t know if the CIA actually did use that coffin they built to soften up Abu Zubaydah by burying him alive... but the idea was approved by White House lawyers.

Deadly force is the proper response to a threat

Today in the court-martial of Corp. Trent Thomas for the murder of Awad the Lame, a doctor at the Naval Medical Center in Bethesda claimed that because Thomas was so often exposed to bomb blasts in Iraq, he may have received a hitherto unnoticed brain injury that caused him to be incapable of saying no to orders.

But how does that explain the same symptoms in [insert name of idiot pro-war politician of your choice here]?

In another war-crimes trial, that of Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum for his part in the Haditha Massacre, Tatum’s lawyer insisted that he was under attack, or at least that he’d heard a metallic sound which might have indicated that he was under attack, or at least that he knew a house was “hostile” because his squad leader was shooting at it, so he did too. The lawyer argued, “He was taught that deadly force is the proper response to a threat.” Actually, his rules of engagement said he also had to know what he was shooting at, it was written down on a card and everything, but his lawyer says they can’t prove he actually had the card at the time. He added, “We would have chaos on the battlefield if every lance corporal questioned every order given by a staff sergeant.” Yes, much better to have a mass slaughter of civilians than to have chaos on the battlefield. Chaos is so... chaotic.

We will not acknowledge this reporter’s attempt to stain the engagement with the misnomer “killings.”

NATO spokesmodel Nick Lunt responds to Afghan PuppetPrez Karzai’s criticisms of all those NATO bombings that have killed civilians in large numbers recently, sounding like one of those infuriating oh-so-calm customer-relations phone reps. Karzai, he says, “has a right to be disappointed and angry,” and NATO will try to “do better.” He added, “But unlike the Taleban, we do not set out to cause civilian casualties, and that is a critical difference.” Not to the civilian casualties, it isn’t.

Headline of the day (AP): “Man Throws a Log at a Bear, Killing It.”

Today’s must-read: the NYT has excerpts (I want to see the whole thing! I want it I want it I want it!) from a memo written in response to emailed questions from Time magazine reporter Tim McGirk, who would break the Haditha Massacre story by Marines on Col. Chessani’s staff, including the egregious Lt. Mathes. Actually, I’m just going to reproduce all the excerpts. I love the one bit that goes off in increasingly paranoic terms on the need to avoid runaway sergeant storylines, My Lai, and “Platoon” analogies.

McGirk: How many marines were killed and wounded in the I.E.D. attack that morning?

Memo: If it bleeds, it leads. This question is McGirk’s attempt to get good bloody gouge on the situation. He will most likely use the information he gains from this answer as an attention gainer.

•

McGirk: Were there any officers?

Memo: By asking if there was an officer on scene the reporter may be trying to identify a point of blame for lack of judgment. If there was an officer involved, then he may be able to have his My Lai massacre pinned on that officer’s shoulders. ...

In the reporter’s eyes, military officers may represent the U.S. government and enlisted marines may represent the American People. Given the current political climate in the U.S. at this time concerning the Iraq war and the current administration’s conduct of the war, the reporter would most likely seek to discredit the U.S. government (one of our officers) and expose victimization of the American people by the hand of the government (the enlisted marines under the haphazard command of our “rogue officer.”) Unfortunately for McGirk, this is not the case.

One common tactic used by reporters is to spin a story in such a way that it is easily recognized and remembered by the general population through its association with an event that the general population is familiar with or can relate to. For example, McGirk’s story will sell if it can be spun as “Iraq’s My Lai massacre.” Since there was not an officer involved, this attempt will not go very far.

We must be on guard, though, of the reporter’s attempt to spin the story to sound like incidents from well-known war movies, like “Platoon.”

In “Platoon,” Sergeant Barnes, the movie’s antihero, is depicted as a no-nonsense, war-haggard platoon sergeant who knows how to get things done in the bloody jungles of Vietnam — and it ain’t always pretty. During one scene, Sergeant Barnes is shown on the verge of committing war crimes in front of his platoon by threatening to kill women and children as a means of interrogation. This is a classic “runaway sergeant” storyline wherein the audience is supposed to be sickened by the sergeant’s brutality and equally sickened by the traumatic effects war has on soldiers. This schema is especially fruitful for Mr. McGirk because if he tries to adapt our situation to this model it simultaneously exposes a “war crime cover-up” and shows the deteriorative (albeit exaggerated) effects of war on U.S. marines (the best of the best), which could be expanded by the general press as a testament for why the U.S. should pull out of Iraq.

[Colonel Chessani later shortened this answer to “No.”]

•

McGirk: How many marines were involved in the killings?

Memo: First off, we don’t know what you’re talking about when you say “killings.” One of our squads reinforced by a squad of Iraqi Army soldiers were engaged by an enemy initiated ambush on the 19th that killed one American marine and seriously injured two others. We will not justify that question with a response. Theme: Legitimate engagement: we will not acknowledge this reporter’s attempt to stain the engagement with the misnomer “killings.”

•

McGirk: Were there any weapons found during these house raids — or terrorists — where the killings occurred?

Memo: Again, you are showing yourself to be uneducated in the world of contemporary insurgent combat. The subject about which we are speaking was a legitimate engagement initiated by the enemy. ...

•

McGirk: Is there any investigation ongoing into these civilian deaths, and if so have any marines been formally charged?

Memo: No, the engagement was bona fide combat action. ... By asking this question, McGirk is assuming the engagement was a LOAC [Law of Armed Conflict] violation and that by asking about investigations, he may spurn a reaction from the command that will initiate an investigation.

•

McGirk: Are the marines in this unit still serving in Haditha?

Memo: Yes, we are still fighting terrorists of Al Qaida in Iraq in Haditha. (“Fighting terrorists associated with Al Qaida” is stronger language than “serving.” The American people will side more with someone actively fighting a terrorist organization that is tied to 9/11 than with someone who is idly “serving,” like in a way one “serves” a casserole. It’s semantics, but in reporting and journalism, words spin the story.)

Don’t they just.

Wherein your humble blogger’s motives are reconsidered

Headline of the day: “Rushdie ‘Humbled’ by Knighthood.” Er, isn’t that rather missing the point of the whole knighthood thing?

Kurt Waldheim, in a document released after his death yesterday, still denies having committed any war crimes, but does acknowledge having taken an “unambiguous position far too late on Nazi crimes,” because, he says, of the “hectic pace of an overloaded international life.” Busy busy busy, what with running the UN and covering up his past, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. He even reached out to the people who hounded him: “I pay respect to all those who confronted me critically and ask them to reconsider their motives and, if possible, grant me reconciliation.” Hmm, let me reconsider my “motives.” Reconsidering... Reconsidering... Reconsidering... Nope, I still don’t like Nazis or torture or mass murder, so I would have to say no, Kurt.

Current UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon managed to come up with this to say about his predecessor: “He was a man who had lived history.” Yeah, that was kind of the problem.

Speaking of war crimes, the Haditha hearings continue. Sharratt’s lawyer says he should get a medal. Sharratt says the reason he went into the house with guns blazing was that he saw male Iraqis repeatedly “turkey peeking” at him over a wall. Clearly they were asking for it.

The Haditha massacre is the subject of a forthcoming motion picture by the director of the documentaries (although the Haditha film is a dramatization) “Kurt & Courtney,” “Biggie and Tupac,” and “Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam.” Which may just make him uniquely qualified to make sense of the Iraq war.

Our spirit is not broken. Although everything else is.

Haditha massacre hearings update: last week Lt Col. Chessani tried to call an expert witness on Islamic culture, to prove... well, what exactly we’ll never know because the court decided hearing from a Benedictine monk would look bad in Iraq. This week we’ve learned that Corp. Justin Sharratt said in a 2006 statement that he believed the entire Haditha area (pop. of city 90,000) was hostile, so he was free to “use any means necessary and my training to eliminate the hostile threat.” For example, after shooting one armed man (or so he says), he took out several others. That’s the “any means necessary” part. Here’s the “training” part: “I could not tell while I was shooting if they were armed or not, but I felt threatened.” Of course he felt threatened; after all, there were Iraqis around, and he considered every single Iraqi to be hostile.

Although, to be fair, I don’t imagine Sharratt is the most popular guy in Haditha.

There has been a parade of Americans visiting Maliki to tell him to, you know, accomplish something. Anything, really. Maliki, while saying that “There are lots of difficulties that are not well understood from outside,” also claims that there have been many successes that aren’t well understood from outside Maliki’s head. He says that Petraeus’s report in September “should list the accomplishments.” For example, “Our spirit is not broken.” I’m not sure “accomplishment” is the precise word for “our spirit is not broken.” What else’ve ya got? “Another success is that no one is above the law.” Or below it, because, really, what law? Also, and I’ll reprint in full the every-so-slightly sceptical NYT sentence containing the quote, “Without providing evidence, he added, ‘we have eliminated the danger of sectarian war.’”