[Marxism] The "frustration defense" trumps "a few bad apples"

[Brian Shannon <brian_shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

MURDERS BY U.S. MARINES HUSHED UP, SAYS CONGRESSMEN

Even as he criticizes the action and the cover-up, Congressmen Murtha  
provides an excuse:
“The massacre was blamed, in part, by the psychological pressure of  
overtaxed soldiers fighting an unpopular war and Murtha has already  
speculated that with respect to the current incident, the members of  
Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which was made up  
of marines mostly in their second Iraq deployment, may have been  
stressed beyond the limit.”

And yesterday on ABC’s This Week, Murtha portrayed himself again as a  
supporter of the war, albeit with criticisms: “This is the kind of  
war you have to win the hearts and minds of the people,” Rep. John  
Murtha, D-Pa., said Sunday. “And we’re set back every time something  
like this happens. This is worse than Abu Ghraib.”

Here is another article where the “frustration defense” is developed  
in some detail. Whoa, there’s a lot of frustration out there because  
this is an entirely different incident from the one described below.  
Who would have guessed that?
http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y21D12E2D

However, in the scale “worse than Abu Ghraib,” I would have to place  
Fallujah at the head of the list. This was planned from the top down.  
The soldiers were prepared for what they were to do. Perhaps we can  
assume that like athletes, they were rested up and ready to go. Those  
of us in the United States saw the bodies of the private contractors  
that were strung up at Fallujah. The media ignored what had provoked  
that: “The initial insurgency in the city was sparked by the killing  
there, in cold blood, of 18 civilians protesting about the US  
military’s initial occupation of their primary school on 28 April  
2003.” So much frustration, so few known targets. “Wait, I see some  
civilians. Perhaps we can take some pelts.”

There was an attempt to attack Fallujah in April 2004. It was broken  
off because of world opposition. What was required was an extensive  
PR campaign to make the world hate Fallujah and all the people in it.  
Meanwhile, even before the aborted April 2004 assault, it was U.S.  
occupation policy to not allow men between 15 and 55 to leave the city.

In other words, the U.S. forces wanted to trap them there in order to  
kill theml.

The rules of engagement in November were to kill them all. This is  
from a photographer for the LA Times:

“The JAG officer gave the rules of engagement: see a man 30 years or  
younger, light them up, woman 30 years or younger, light them up.  
Someone with a cell phone, light them up.”

The JAG officer, in case you didn’t know, is a Judge Advocates  
General lawyer, a military lawyer. You know--the ones that you see on  
TV protecting civil liberties. Where is this one now? Working for  
Reich attorney-general Alberto Gonzales?

from Brian Shannon
______________________

MURDERS BY U.S. MARINES HUSHED UP, SAYS CONGRESSMEN

Toronto Star
Washington (May 29, 2006)

The focus has quickly moved from the alleged crime to the cover-up in  
what is now being dubbed “Iraq’s My Lai,” a tale of murder that is  
blossoming into the worst scandal of the U.S. war in Iraq.

A leading war critic and former marine, Pennsylvania Democratic  
congressman John Murtha, said yesterday it was clear to him that the  
alleged murders of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. marines in Haditha last  
November was originally hushed up.

Comparisons are being made to the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968,  
when U.S. soldiers, including members of an army platoon led by  
Lieutenant William Calley, killed some 500 innocent Vietnamese  
villagers.

The massacre was blamed, in part, by the psychological pressure of  
overtaxed soldiers fighting an unpopular war and Murtha has already  
speculated that with respect to the current incident, the members of  
Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, which was made up  
of marines mostly in their second Iraq deployment, may have been  
stressed beyond the limit.

Murtha, one of a handful of American legislators to be briefed on the  
Iraqi incident, said on ABC’s This Week that investigators went to  
the site the day after the alleged rampage and then a blanket was  
thrown over any information dealing with the atrocity.

The Republican chair of the Senate armed services committee, John  
Warner of Virginia, agreed there were “serious questions” about a  
possible cover-up and he said he would summon military brass to  
testify under oath about the investigation.

The day after the deaths, a U.S. Marine Corps spokesperson from  
Ramadi issued a statement detailing the death of an American soldier  
and 15 civilians from a blast from a roadside bomb, then detailed how  
immediately after the blast, Iraqi insurgents attacked the joint  
American-Iraqi convoy resulting in eight deaths when the coalition  
soldiers “returned fire.”

Investigators at the scene now believe the only shred of truth in  
that statement was the death of Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, a 20- 
year-old from El Paso, Texas, who died from the blast of an  
improvised explosive device (IED).

Instead, marines are now alleged to have gone through the  
neighborhood door to door, firing shots at such close range,  
according to witnesses quoted by The Washington Post, that the  
bullets passed through the bodies of the victims and into walls or  
floors.

Included among the dead was a young mother shielding her one-year-old  
daughter. Witnesses reported hearing her screams for mercy before she  
and the child were shot and marines tossed grenades into the kitchen  
and bathroom of the family home.

Five men in a taxi who happened to drive into the neighborhood at the  
wrong time were shot and killed when they attempted to flee, said The  
Post’s account, which was published in Saturday’s Spectator.

No questions were raised about the events that day until Time  
magazine published an account of events based on its own probe, which  
included accounts of survivors and a video of the local hospital and  
victims’ homes shot by a young Iraqi journalism student.

Yesterday, Time reported that some of the most damning evidence  
uncovered by military investigators are photos taken by the marines  
themselves, perhaps personal snapshots, raising memories of the  
notorious photos taken during the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

If any marines are charged with murder, they would face the death  
penalty.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y1EC21E2D



 
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