No cold blooded murder charges in Haditha cases

North County Times:

Two Marines involved in the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians and its aftermath in Haditha in 2005 have been ordered to trial by court-martial.

A Marine Corps spokesman said Monday that Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich will face trial on charges of voluntary manslaughter, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice.

Also ordered to stand trial is 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson, who faces charges of making false official statements, obstruction of justice and attempting to fraudulently separate from the Marine Corps.

The two join Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani and Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum as having been ordered to trial for their actions following a roadside bombing at Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005.

Wuterich led a squad from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment's Kilo Company in a house-to-house search following the bombing that killed one Marine and injured two others.

During those searches, 19 Iraqis were killed. The slain included several women and children and five men who emerged from a car moments after the bombing.

Chessani, who was the battalion commander at Haditha, faces trial on dereliction of duty for failing to fully investigate the incident.

Tatum faces manslaughter charges.

...
It will be difficult to convict them on the charges that are brought. It would have been impossible to convict them of "cold blooded murder as alleged by Congressman Jack Murtha. When you are facing an enemy who camouflages himself as a civilian and uses civilian shields it is impossible not to make mistakes, because it is the war crimes of the enemy that put the civilians at risk. The defense should be able to make that point at the time of the trial.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more