My bet is Congressman Murtha will go into hiding over the next few days.

After all, he won’t want to be questioned again about why yet another Marine’s charges have been dropped in relation to Haditha.

Charges against the Battalion Commander of the Haditha Marines have been dropped.

While it remains to be seen if the charges will be filed again in the case of Lt. Col. Chessani, the fact remains that not one Marine has been found guilty of the charges levied against them primarily stemming from a Time Magazine reporters account.

Head on over to Blackfive with the link above for all the details. The only thing I might add to this final sentence penned by Uncle Jimbo:

Shame on you Mr. Murtha you disgraced yourself, the Congress and earned the disgust of 99% of the US military.

is that there were also many civilians angry at the press in general for their handling of this case but the contempt felt for Congressman Murtha far outweighed even that.

More here.

Nathaniel Helms at Defend Our Marines has written a very interesting piece with information on the Haditha case which I have read no where else to this point.

Buried in the mountain of exhibits attached to the once secret Haditha, Iraq murder inquiry prepared by US Army Maj. Gen. Eldon A. Bargewell is an obscure Marine Corps intelligence summary (see pdf) that says the deadly encounter was an intentional propaganda ploy planned and paid for by Al Qaeda foreign fighters.

Veteran military defense attorney Gary Meyers said he never understood why the Naval Criminal Investigative Service special agents leading the Haditha criminal investigation didn’t “examine the linkage” between Al Qaeda, the local insurgency and the events at Haditha. Meyers was an attorney on the defense team that successfully defended Justin Sharratt, a Marine infantryman accused of multiple murders at Haditha.

The report – apparently overlooked by a Washington press corps awash in leaked Bargewell documents and secret Naval Criminal Investigative Service reports – shows that Marine Corps intelligence operatives were advised of the scheme to demonize the Marines by an informant named Muhannad Hassan Hamadi. The informant was snared by 3/1 Marines on December 11 2005 and decided to cooperate.

I too would be puzzled as to why this angle was not pursued further. With no other sources on this particular aspect of the case, it is difficult to draw any conclusions. However, in reading this entire article, it seems as though there was enough intelligence and information to believe that the Haditha attack may very well have been set up by the enemy and used as propaganda when filtered through the American press.

What leads me to believe there is far more to this case then the public has been told is the fact that it has unraveled to the point where all major charges have either been dropped or it has been recommended that they be dismissed or reduced. We shall know more soon I believe, but until then, the article noted may answer some questions for those of us who have questioned this entire case from its inception.

HT:
Clarice Feldman

I was not in Haditha when these killings occurred and neither were most in the press who wrote stories about atrocities committed. Nor was a Congressman from my home state present in this town but he chose to label these Marines cold blooded killers before a full investigation had even begun.

An investigating officer recommended Thursday dismissing all charges against a Marine accused of murdering two girls in an assault that killed 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha.

Lance Cpl. Stephen B. Tatum, 26, is charged with unpremeditated murder of two girls and negligent homicide on suspicion that he unlawfully killed two men, a woman and a boy. He is also accused of assaulting another boy and a girl.

Investigating officer Lt. Col. Paul Ware said the evidence was too weak for a court-martial. Tatum shot and killed civilians, but “he did so because of his training and the circumstances he was placed in, not to exact revenge and commit murder,” Ware wrote.

Many times over, I have said that if a member of the military deliberately takes the life of another, even in war, they deserve just punishment. Why is it though, that we are willing to grant civilians the right to be innocent until proven guilty but there are those who assume that the opposite should be true when it applies to our military.

Even if this Marine is eventually found not guilty of all charges as has been recommended, he will live the events of that day for the rest of his life just as someone would if they were in a civilian walk of life. War and tragedy are sometime synonymous, Haditha was one of those times.

HT: The Jawa Report

This ABC News exclusive on the Pat Tillman case leads with these two paragraphs:

ABC News has learned that seven Army officers will receive career-ending administrative punishments for mishandling the Pat Tillman case. The Army has decided not to punish three other officers who had been accused of wrongdoing by the Pentagon inspector general.

None of the officers will face criminal charges.

A few paragraphs down in the article we find this:

Army officials would not confirm the punishments and cautioned that nothing had been finalized.

“No final decisions has been made, but those things are being considered,” Army spokesman Col. Dan Baggio told ABC News. Baggio added, “It would be inappropriate for the Army to make any announcements prior to family and congressional notification, which is going to happen next week.”

It escapes me how you can incorporate both of those paragraphs in one article. While I believe there are those who should pay a price for the handling of this friendly fire incident, why can we not just wait until all the facts are on the table before we make assumptions.

Furthermore, we are treated to the news that Congress will open yet another hearing into this matter.

Congressional investigators announced this week that they intend to question several former Bush administration officials about their knowledge of Pat Tillman’s death.

The top Democrat and Republican on the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to White House counsel Fred Fielding Tuesday, informing him about the upcoming investigation.

The death of this young man was indeed a tragedy as each one is, but if he was not a former NFL star I doubt very seriously if this would be on the table for Congressional investigation. Friendly fire incidents unfortunately are a product of war and sometimes difficult to immediately distinguish.

I have no problem with the military disciplining their own when wrongdoing is confirmed,but I do have a problem with this becoming just another sound bite for Congress and a continuation of the following.(via White House Press Briefing, 07/25/07)

In any event, it’s worth putting this in perspective in terms of the accomplishments of the present Congress. If you take a look at the 110th Congress right now, which had promised to have all of its appropriations bills done this month, here’s what we have seen since the beginning of the Congress: More than 300 executive branch investigations or inquiries; 400 requests for documents, interviews, or testimony; we’ve had more than 550 officials testify; we’ve had more than 600 oversight hearings; 87,000-plus hours spent responding to oversight requests; and 430,000 pages made available to Congress for oversight. That’s pretty significant.

In fact, the 87,000 hours that we mentioned that have been used in document production — that’s equal to more than nine-and-a-half years — and here’s your graphic of the day, ladies and gentlemen — if you took those 430,000 pages and stack them on top of each other, they would reach a height twice that of the executive mansion, itself.

Oh well, another day, another taxpayer dollar.

I hope they get everything they have got coming. We have gone to support the troops whether they are in combat or home.

Frustrated by delays in health care, injured Iraq war veterans accused VA Secretary Jim Nicholson in a lawsuit of breaking the law by denying them disability pay and mental health treatment.

The lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, seeks broad changes in the agency as it struggles to meet growing demands from veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Suing on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, it charges that the VA has failed warriors on numerous fronts. It contends the VA failed to provide prompt disability benefits, failed to add staff to reduce wait times for medical care and failed to boost services for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The lawsuit also accuses the VA of deliberately cheating some veterans by allegedly working with the Pentagon to misclassify PTSD claims as pre-existing personality disorders to avoid paying benefits. The VA and Pentagon have generally denied such charges.

Story

Marine Cpl. Trent Thomas, convicted by court martial of kidnapping an Iraqi and conspiracy to make it look as though the Iraqi had been attacking the Marine squad was sentenced to a bad conduct discharge and reduction in pay but no prison time.

He could have received life in prison. I’m surprised he didn’t get a prison term but I wasn’t privy to all the evidence presented in the court martial.

Since he expressed his desire to remain in the Corps this might very well be a punishment worse than prison for him.

Thomas, of Madison, Ill., was among seven Marines and a Navy corpsman accused of snatching 52-year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad from his house, marching him to a nearby ditch and shooting him after they botched an attempt to capture a suspected insurgent.

Prosecutors said squad members tried to cover up the killing by planting a shovel and AK-47 by Awad’s body to make it look like he was an insurgent planting a bomb.

A military jury of three officers and six enlisted Marines deliberated Thomas’ sentence for less than an hour before returning its decision.

On Thursday, Thomas told the court he wanted to continue serving.

“I’ve never been good at anything until I came to the Marine Corps,” said Thomas, who served three combat tours in Iraq and was awarded a Purple Heart for the 2004 siege on Fallujah. “It’s pretty obvious Michael Jordan was meant to play basketball. Tiger Woods was meant to play golf. The Marine Corps, it’s me.”

The final terms of Thomas’ punishment are subject to review by Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the commanding general overseeing the case, but he can only reduce the sentence.

Hopefully, he will be able to live a productive life outside the Corps.

Once again we are reading that U.S. soldiers have been accused of premeditated murder on an Iraqi.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Two U.S. soldiers have been charged with murdering an Iraqi last month near Kirkuk, the U.S. military said on Thursday, the latest in a string of accusations of abuse laid against American forces in Iraq.

Sergeant 1st Class Trey Corrales, from San Antonio, Texas, and Specialist Christopher Shore, from Winder, Georgia, were each charged with one count of premeditated murder, the military said in a statement.

…

The premeditated killing of the Iraqi was alleged to have taken place on or around June 23 near the northern oil-city of Kirkuk, where the two soldiers were serving with the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, the military statement said.

In addition, their battalion commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Browder, while not a suspect in the case, was relieved of his duties because of a lack of confidence in his ability to command effectively, the statement said.

It gave no specific details on the incident.

Since there are no details it’s difficult to make any judgment as to whether or not we think they are guilty as charged.

As discussed yesterday, military justice is swift and sure and if they are found guilty the punishment will be just as swift and sure.

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) — A military jury on Wednesday convicted a Marine of kidnapping and conspiring to murder an Iraqi man in a bungled attempt to abduct and kill a suspected insurgent in Hamdania.

Cpl. Trent Thomas was acquitted of premeditated murder, making a false official statement and housebreaking. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, according to his defense attorney, Victor Kelley.

Thomas, 25, was the first of seven Marines and a Navy corpsman to go to trial in the killing, which squad members tried to cover up by planting a gun near the victim after he was gunned down in a ditch.

All but two of the others have entered guilty pleas. Thomas withdrew his guilty plea on the eve of sentencing after having an “epiphany.” His lawyer claimed Thomas was only following orders.

Prosecutors said that during a nighttime patrol on April 26, 2006, Thomas’ squad hatched a plan to kidnap and kill a suspected insurgent from his house. When they couldn’t find him, they instead kidnapped a man identified by prosecutors as Hashim Ibrahim Awad, a retired policeman and father of 11 who lived nearby.

Thomas, of Madison, Ill., the senior corporal in the squad and a fireteam leader, led a four-man team to take Awad from his home, prosecutors said.

During the eight-day court-martial, Thomas’ attorneys argued that he was following orders of squad leader Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins III. Thomas did not address the court during his trial, but made similar statements when he changed his plea.

Story here.

It appears one of the Marines who had been charged in the Haditha case will be cleared of at the very least the murder charges.

It is my hope that the others will also be found to be innocent of cold blooded murder.

It has always been my contention that if any soldier intentionally kills, they should be treated as any civilian would be, but this case was clearly in many aspects a “rush to judgment” and a thirst by the MSM (and Congressman Murtha) to condemn these Marines. I wonder if there will be any apologies forthcoming to LCpl Sharratt.

Also, Michael Yon has posted another dispatch from Iraq. Seems we must be doing something right.

Al-Qaeda on the Run: Feasting on the Moveable Beast

While we were driving in the belly of the Stryker into Buhriz, I asked Abu Ali, “What did you do to al Qaeda?”

Abu Ali said that on 1 April 2007, he and his people attacked al Qaeda in Buhriz for their crimes against Islam. He also said something that many Muslims have said to me: al Qaeda are not Muslims. (Both Sunni and Shia have said nearly the exact same words, at times on video.) Abu Ali said they fought hard against al Qaeda, and on 10 April, they asked the Americans to join the attack. It worked.

Sounds like we must be winning at least some hearts and minds.

And
Courtesy of Jack Army I discovered this link to the Global Incident Map. In looking over the information provided, there are events which I clearly remember reading about and others which I checked out by reading the copy provided when clicking on the incident itself. Just a little something different for those who have never seen anything quite like this.

New information on the Haditha Marines.

Writing at Macsmind, Clarice Feldman pens:

Bombshell In Haditha Case
Newsmax is reporting that an intelligence officer provided substantial exculpatory evidence in the Haditha case, evidence he says the NCIS sat on, evidence that supports the defendants’ version of the facts, and evidence which indicates the entire incident was an ambush which was being videotaped by our enemies who edited it and handed it over to anti-war activists to present the case in the worst possible way to our troops. If this is so, it would substantiate the belief of Steve Gilbert who early on was sceptical of the claims underlying this case.

In a nutshell, the case exploded when an intelligence officer dropped a bombshell on prosecutors during a pre-hearing interview when he revealed the existence of exculpatory evidence that appears to have been obtained by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and withheld from the prosecutors.

Links to further information included by Ms. Feldman.

Australian David Hicks has entered a guilty plea to one of two counts against him, that of supporting a terrorist organization.

He was taken to court late at night and his civilian attorneys were tossed off the case by the presiding judge, one because she was not a serving member of the military and the other because he refused to sign form demanded by the court saying he would conform to the regulations governing proceedings.

David Hicks has pleaded guilty to one count of supporting a terrorist organisation.

He pleaded guilty to a late night specially convened military commission after an apparent deal was reached between his defence attorney and the prosecution.

Major Michael Mori, Hicks’s military lawyer, entered the plea to the charge of material support for terrorism, which was broken into two counts or specifications.

Major Mori said Hicks pled guilty on specification one, and not guilty on specification two.

Specification one of the charge detailed Hicks’s links to terrorist organisations and his activities in Afghanistan where he met Osama bin Laden and completed al-Qaeda training courses.

Specification two simply alleged that Hicks entered Afghanistan from about December 2000 to December 2001 to provide support for terrorism and that he did so in “the context of and was associated with an armed conflict namely al-Qaeda, or its associated forces against the United States or its coalition partners”.

The plea raises the prospect that he will soon return to Australia.

It is unclear what sentence he will have to serve. There was no mention of how long he will have to serve, or if he will serve it in Australia.

The Military Commission will reconvene tomorrow (Tuesday) to enter a formal verdict.

Hicks was asked to stand when he entered his guilty plea. He showed little emotion, but at the end of the hearing he turned around and said to one of his supporters: “Good to see, mate.”

His father is reported to have left Guantanamo Bay before he entered the plea. Terry Hicks was told there was a late night hearing but declined to attend.

Maybe we’ll hear what his sentence is and where it will be served, but if he pled guilty to supporting Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and trained with them I would consider him to be a terrorist.

Military justice is not like civilian justice and we must all remember that. We must also remember he pled guilty to one charge and that charge is serious.