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December 21, 2006
Haditha Charges are to be Announced
The marines who killed 24 unarmed civilians, many of them women and children, after breaking into their houses in a fit of fury following an IED explosion that killed one of their comrades are about to be charged. You might remember that the Marines had lied about it, claiming that the dead Iraqis were either insurgents or civilians caught in crossfire between the marines and the insurgents, only to be exposed because someone had gone to the morgue and filmed the bodies of children shot at close range.
So, what is Iraqi life worth? What would be the criminal penalty for people who burst into random people's home in a moment of anger and grief and slaughtered families wholesale if the victims were us? What will be the penalty sought for these men? We will see.
UPDATE: Four marines charged with murder and perhaps more importantly, four officers charged with dereliction of duty. "This is standard Nuremberg stuff", says a Marine corps court-martial prosecutor about the charging of officers who were not present during the incident:
"Under the law of armed conflict, if a superior knew, or should have known, of a subordinate's misconduct, and he took no action to stop it or to punish it, then he is himself personally criminally liable for the crime committed," said Gary Solis, a 26-year Marine Corps veteran who served as a courts-martial prosecutor and judge.
The soldiers claim that what has happened is simply part of combat.
Posted by zeynep at December 21, 2006 01:28 PM
Comments
This is great news.
Now when is El Shrubbo del Estupido going to do his turn in the dock for waging aggressive war? Or how about Alberto "Quaint Constitution" Gonzales? "Shooter" Cheney?
Posted by: JollyRoger at December 26, 2006 09:29 PM