facts verses Time magazine fiction RE Haditha
An Open Letter to General Mattis
NOTE: The following are excerpts from a letter written by veteran
journalist
Phil
Brennan, who writes for NewsMax.com. The full letter can be
read
here on NewMax. He is editor & publisher of
Wednesday on the Web and was Washington columnist for National
Review magazine in the 1960s. He also served as a staff aide for the
House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington
public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which
won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage
Institute and a member of the Association of Former Intelligence
Officers.
...In the days following the Time magazine story, hundreds of
newspapers and broadcast outlets around the world compared the deaths
of the 24 civilians with the slaughter of hundreds of civilians in My
Lai. Haditha was proclaimed the new My Lai.
The effect of this, plus leaks of inaccurate and often totally false
information from some individuals in the Pentagon, has dealt a serious
blow to the morale of many Marines, who now think they are being
betrayed by the very people they have always believed would protect
them to the death. They have caused many to wonder if the Marines'
ancient warrior code of not abandoning your wounded has been replaced
by the code of CYA. They believe their fellow Marines are being
offered up as sacrifices on the altar of political correctness.
I have no idea of what the NCIS investigation has concluded, but I do
know that enormous pressure has been put on that service to find
something - anything at all - that will enable the nervous Nellies to
tell the media, "Look, we found that so-and-so committed this or that
offense, so you can't accuse us of a cover-up." The offense might be
equivalent to a charge of spitting on the sidewalk, but it will soothe
their delicate consciences, if not the media's skepticism.
No matter what kind of obfuscation has been employed by the
investigators, the facts remain facts. And the facts are indisputable.
1. An IED explosion killed a Marine.
2. Marine intelligence operatives learned immediately that the
incident now developing was being videotaped by the al-Qaida
insurgents, a common practice among this media-savvy group of killers.
3. Within five minutes of the explosion the
Kilo Company Marines came under small-arms fire from the vicinity of
two houses in the immediate area of the explosion. Radio
communications verify this despite Congressman Murtha's claim that no
firefight took place.
3. A squad under the command of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich entered the
two houses, using normal house-clearing procedures. In the course of
this operation, a door was opened and as dictated by the ROEs a
grenade was thrown into the room and automatic fire sprayed on the
unknown occupants, killing the 15 civilians in the room. In the second
house, another civilian was gunned down. The Marines noticed that a
rear door was ajar, indicating that someone had fled before they
entered.
4. Within minutes a UAV was in the sky above the area. It remained
aloft all day, catching views of armed conflict. Some screen-shot
photos were downloaded either at battalion or regimental headquarters.
5. Within 30 minutes of the explosion an intelligence unit was on the
scene and the Marines involved were closely questioned. Those in that
unit testify that the Kilo Marines' composure and demeanor were such
that it was incomprehensible to them that they could have just
participated in the cold-blooded massacre of the civilians.
6. By nightfall an after-action PowerPoint presentation including the
screen-shot photos downloaded from the UAV was sent up the chain of
command. It carefully and fully detailed the day's action and was
based on the constant radio communications, testimony of those present
as participants and after-action investigators, and the data revealed
minute-by-minute by the UAV. It left no T's uncrossed and no I's
undotted.
7. Within days of the incident, officers from up the entire chain of
command were fully briefed and concluded that the evidence provided
them proved that the actions were fully justified by the circumstances
on the ground at the time.
...
...According to my sources, this whole incident was filmed,
produced and directed by al-Qaida insurgents. They provoked the
Marines' counterattack, used the civilians as human shields, peddled
the video they shot for weeks until they found a gullible Time
reporter who swallowed their story hook, line and sinker, thereby
giving life to the insurgents' massacre hoax.
...
>>>.read entire letter on NewsMax.com
 Time-lai
facts vs Time magazine fiction
"Sweetness
& Light, which has been all over the Haditha story, notes that
Time Magazine has been discreetly backing off its Haditha coverage
with a series of corrections. Time has an enormous amount of prestige
invested in its Haditha "scoop." It turns out, though, that the
magazine apparently misrepresented the source of the videotape that
got the whole story rolling. And it has also developed that a
photograph that Time described as "one of the most damning pieces of
evidence investigators have in their possession" is only the subject
of rumor, and may not even exist.
As a story about the Marines, the jury is out on Haditha. As a story
about journalism, it's starting to look bad for Time. Based on recent
history, I suppose that means the magazine is likely to get a
Pulitzer."
-PowerlineBlog
Steppin' back in TIME...
Rep. John Murtha on Wolf Blitzer:
The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer: Aired May 19, 2006 [transcript]:
REP. DUNCAN HUNTER, (R) ARMED SERVICES CHAIRMAN: If there were
problems in the chain of command, if there was a cover-up, if anything
wasn't reported, let the chips fall where they may. But don't presume
anything. Those reports aren't finished yet. But the reports and the
investigations are being pursued with great integrity.
BLITZER: He was responding in part to you, because you've suggested
this week that there in effect was a massacre.
 MURTHA:
Well there was. [a massacre] There's no question about it. I
know, in talking to a number of people, and the information, I've
never given you bad information yet. I talked to about it, in the
context of the fact that these troops are under such tremendous
pressure and that's what happens when they're under tremendous
pressure.
When this thing's all over, you're going to see exactly what I've said
to be true. That, there was an IED attack, it killed one marine, and
then they overreacted and killed a number of civilians
without anybody firing at them. That's what
you're going to find out.
{snip}
BLITZER: The marines say they're still investigating. They don't know
what happened yet. The pentagon says the same thing. How do you know
what happened?
MURTHA: Wolf, you read the "Time" magazine articles. There are
pictures, there are photos. You don't have to
talk to the military about the proof.
But you will see when the investigation is done that this was an
overreaction by our troops, and this is the type thing that hurts us
so badly.
Weeks earlier, Time magazine printed this correction
to their Haditha story:
Mar. 27, 2006...
In the original version of this story, TIME reported that "a day
after the incident, a Haditha journalism student videotaped the scene
at the local morgue and at the homes where the killings had occurred.
The video was obtained by the Hammurabi Human Rights Group, which
cooperates with the internationally respected Human Rights Watch, and
has been shared with TIME." In fact, Human Rights Watch has no ties or
association with the Hammurabi Human Rights Group.
TIME regrets the error.
http://time-proxy.yaga.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1174682,
00.html
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