RSS Feed
John Murtha was on Hardball this week and had some harsh and premature words about an incident that is under investigation!
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Let me ask you Mr. Murtha to give us some details about that. Draw us a picture of what happened at Haditha.
REP. JOHN “JACK” MURTHA: Well, I’ll tell you exactly what happened. One Marine was killed and the Marines just said we’re going to take care – we don’t know who the enemy is, the pressure was too much on them, so they went into houses and they actually killed civilians. And, and –MATTHEWS:—was this My Lai? Was this a case of – when you say cold blood Congressman, a lot of people think you’re basically saying you got some civilians sitting in a room around a field and they’re executed.
MURTHA: That’s exactly it.
From Knight Ridder:
Murtha’s comments were the first on-the-record remarks by a U.S. official characterizing the findings of military investigators looking into the Nov. 19 incident. Murtha, the ranking Democrat on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee and an opponent of Bush administration policy in Iraq, said he hadn’t read the report but had learned about its findings from military commanders and other sources.
Three Marine officers — commanders in Haditha — have been relieved of duty, and at least 12 Marines in all are under investigation for what would be the worst single incident involving the deliberate killing of civilians by U.S. military in Iraq.
The Marine Corps issued a statement in response to Murtha’s remarks:“There is an ongoing investigation; therefore, any comment at this time would be inappropriate and could undermine the investigatory and possible legal process. As soon as the facts are known and decisions on future actions are made, we will make that information available to the public to the fullest extent allowable.”
Murtha held the news conference to mark six months since his initial call for “redeployment” of U.S. forces from Iraq.
He said U.S. forces were under undue pressure in Iraq because of poor planning and allocation of resources by the Bush administration.
From Time Magazine in March
The incident seemed like so many others from this war, the kind of tragedy that has become numbingly routine amid the daily reports of violence in Iraq. On the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, a roadside bomb struck a humvee carrying Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, on a road near Haditha, a restive town in western Iraq. The bomb killed Lance Corporal Miguel (T.J.) Terrazas, 20, from El Paso, Texas. The next day a Marine communique from Camp Blue Diamond in Ramadi reported that Terrazas and 15 Iraqi civilians were killed by the blast and that “gunmen attacked the convoy with small-arms fire,” prompting the Marines to return fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding one other. The Marines from Kilo Company held a memorial service for Terrazas at their camp in Haditha. They wrote messages like “T.J., you were a great friend. I’m going to miss seeing you around” on smooth stones and piled them in a funeral mound. And the war moved on.
But the details of what happened that morning in Haditha are more disturbing, disputed and horrific than the military initially reported. According to eyewitnesses and local officials interviewed over the past 10 weeks, the civilians who died in Haditha on Nov. 19 were killed not by a roadside bomb but by the Marines themselves, who went on a rampage in the village after the attack, killing 15 unarmed Iraqis in their homes, including seven women and three children. Human-rights activists say that if the accusations are true, the incident ranks as the worst case of deliberate killing of Iraqi civilians by U.S. service members since the war began.In January, after Time presented military officials in Baghdad with the Iraqis’ accounts of the Marines’ actions, the U.S. opened its own investigation, interviewing 28 people, including the Marines, the families of the victims and local doctors. According to military officials, the inquiry acknowledged that, contrary to the military’s initial report, the 15 civilians killed on Nov. 19 died at the hands of the Marines, not the insurgents. The military announced last week that the matter has been handed over to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (ncis), which will conduct a criminal investigation to determine whether the troops broke the laws of war by deliberately targeting civilians. Lieut. Colonel Michelle Martin-Hing, spokeswoman for the Multi-National Force-Iraq, told Time the involvement of the ncis does not mean that a crime occurred. And she says the fault for the civilian deaths lies squarely with the insurgents, who “placed noncombatants in the line of fire as the Marines responded to defend themselves.”
Because the incident is officially under investigation, members of the Marine unit that was in Haditha on Nov. 19 are not allowed to speak with reporters. But the military’s own reconstruction of events and the accounts of town residents interviewed by Time—including six whose family members were killed that day—paint a picture of a devastatingly violent response by a group of U.S. troops who had lost one of their own to a deadly insurgent attack and believed they were under fire…
So Murtha, a former Marine, is convicting his own based on hearsay? Or is he just using his fellow Marine to futher his agenda? Anyway you slice it, he is a traitor!
12 Responses to “John Murtha Convicts The Marines Without A Trial!”
TrackBack URL
Traitors in Our Midst
While our soldiers - our sons and daughters - are fighting a war and putting their lives on the line every second of the day, we have these freakin’ idiots that are supposed to be Americans, stabbing them in the back on a continuous basis.
John Murtha Is A Disgrace
I’ve been reading the blogging world’s reaction to John Murtha accusation that the Marines killed innocent civilians in cold blood. I think his words are absolutely dispicable while this is still under investigation. If individuals are guilty of this…
Semper Fi, eh John Murtha?
Exactly Robert
is he on Bin Laden’s side? the guy is a total shit and people like this will someday get us all killed by his friends the Red china boys!
my Sisters Kid has been in iraq for 2 years Fighting for little rats like john murtha and now this pig wants more Americans( former USA ) killed for his evil one world ideals.
SOMEDAY BILLIONS OF POOR PEOPLE WILL DIE BECUASE OF GUYS LIKE Murtha and his RAT Friends. I would know how to deal with guys like this in 1941-45, but you can’t do that any-more! how sad.:evil:
but lets face facts this is the former USA, And people like Murtha are the coming thing in the political world of new world order for mexico and red China.
JOHN MURTHA YOU SNOTTY PEICE OF CIVIELIAN BS DROP DOWN AND GIVE ME 25 PUSH-UPS:mad::cool:
Let’s see…. John Murtha 35 yrs and made it to Colonel. Most of th Generals in charge in Iraq have less than 30 years service. Who do you have more faith in? I think Murtha is becoming senile and needs to be slapped in the side of the head to check that theory.
What an utter and total disgrace Murtha is. The results of the official investigation have not been released and he is already jumping the gun and blaming our guys.
You would think if anything, he’d be the one telling the MSM to calm down, let the investigation proceed, don’t rush to judgement.
He should get an honorary turban. I think he and Chap[atraitor Ted, plus Turban Durbin should be required to always wear their turbans in public. And when they are in Congress. You know, just to let people know which side they are on.
Actually much worse was said by another retired marine colonel Rep Kline (R). This was after being briefed by the Commandant of the Corps. This information seems to have been leaked by the Commandant himself to prepare for the shock to come. There are also cell phone cam pics that will surface taken by marines that were there. It is interesting to note that there is MORE criticism about Murtha, than by what the Naval Investigators have determined most probably occured there.
My criticism of Murtha isn’t about what he’s saying as to his timing. It’s not the business of any congressman to get up in Congress and start spewing acidic commentary about service members still in harms way until such time as the investigation has been completed. Murtha has been running his mouth about things he has no first hand knowledge about and making disparaging comments about the members of our armed forces for over a year. THAT is what I have problems with him about. Perhaps someone should ask him that since he wouldn’t volunteer to join today’s military, perhaps the draft would explain how he ended up in the Marines in the first place.
[…] May 18, 2006: Right blogosphere goes ballistic on Murtha, calling him “dishonorable,” a “traitor,” and advocating he be censured. […]
[…] Time Magazine has been covering the Haditha incident since January. It wasn’t until Murtha got involved that the rumors started flying…well now Time is issuing a “we regret the error“. In the original version of this story, TIME reported that “one of the most damning pieces of evidence investigators have in their possession, John Sifton of Human Rights Watch told Time’s Tim McGirk, is a photo, taken by a Marine with his cell phone that shows Iraqis kneeling — and thus posing no threat — before they were shot.” While Sifton did tell TIME that there was photographic evidence, taken by Marines, he had only heard about the specific content of the photos from reports done by NBC, and had no firsthand knowledge. TIME regrets the error. […]