Perspective on the real Haditha massacre

Mark Walker:

Smiles and handshakes greeted U.S. Marines who strolled down a bustling commercial street here Wednesday.

It was a much different picture from three years ago, when two dozen civilians were killed by a group of Camp Pendleton troops after a roadside bombing.

The slayings led to an international outcry and criminal charges against eight Marines, six of whom have since been exonerated.

That was Haditha in 2005. Haditha in late 2008 is a resurgent municipality no longer occupied by Marine forces.

Any lingering animosity over the 2005 killings and the years-long military presence was not apparent.

"You guys are like brothers to us," a prominent sheik, speaking through an interpreter, told a contingent of visiting Marine officers. "The insurgents killed our people. We don't have forgiveness for them."

The sheik, Said Flayah Othman al-Jughayfi, along with the mayor of this city of 85,000 along the Euphrates River, are more interested in talking about economic development than revisiting darker periods in Haditha's history.

"Iraq was sick then," Mayor Abd al-Hakim Muhammad Rashid said. "Now, it is getting better, and I don't want to see anybody killed."

Residents here don't consider the 2005 civilian killings a "massacre." Instead, they call the slayings the "Haditha accident."

The Haditha massacre, they say, was when al-Qaida insurgents lined up police officials and local men in a soccer stadium four years ago and beheaded them as part of an intimidation campaign.

...

Walker also strolls through a vibrant marketplace and looks at the local economy.

What is really striking about this piece is that sheik has a better understanding of what happened in Haditha than most of the liberals in the US including Congressman Murtha. It is too bad that the Marines whose cases have not yet gone away can't bring this guy in as an expert witness. He gets it. The Marines were reacting to a combat situation and accidentally killed some civilians. Al-Qaeda lined up non combatants and chopped their heads off in a soccer stadium to make a point. The distinction is pretty clear to everyone but the anti war left.