NY Times; punish those Haditha Marines even if they’re innocent

By way of Republicanpundit of Hang Right Politics, I found this sorry, whining turd of an “opinion” piece from the New York Times today;

Last December, when the Marine Corps charged four infantrymen with killing Iraqi civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, the allegation was as dark as it was devastating: after a roadside bomb had killed their buddy, a group of marines rampaged through nearby homes, massacring 24 innocent people.

In Iraq and in the United States, the killings were viewed as cold-blooded vengeance. After a perfunctory military investigation, Haditha was brushed aside, but once the details were disclosed, the killings became an ugly symbol of a difficult, demoralizing war. After a fuller investigation, the Marines promised to punish the guilty.

But now, the prosecutions have faltered.

See that? The prosecutions have faltered – not that the Marines are innocent, it’s those incompetent boobs that can’t prosecute them without evidence. Because we, the editorial board of the New York Times, already declared them guilty – what more evidence do you need?  

Now their final attempt to get a murder conviction is set to begin, with a military court hearing on Thursday for Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, the last marine still facing that charge. He is accused of killing 18 Iraqis, including several women and children, after the attack on his convoy.

If the legal problems that have thwarted the prosecutors in other cases are repeated this time, there is a possibility that no marine will be convicted for what happened in Haditha.

Nor is it yet clear whether officers higher up the chain of command than Sergeant Wuterich will be held responsible for the inadequate initial investigation.

Translation; maybe those incompetent boobs can get it right this last time, after all we know they’re guilty because public opinion convicted them last year. Can’t the Marines succumb to public pressure and convict them like those Duke lacrosse players? Didn’t the Marines learn how a real justice system is supposed to work?

On the other hand, some scholars said the spate of dismissals has left them wondering what to think of the young enlisted marines who, illegally or not, clearly killed unarmed people in a combat zone.

Whether they’re guilty of an actual crime or not doesn’t matter(“illegally or not”), apparently – it’s what we should think about them for killing people in the dark in a combat zone. So even if they get off, it’s OK for us think poorly of these Marines cuz the New York Times editorial weinies said so – after all it’s their commanders’ fault and ultimately the President’s fault for being Republicans…I…er…mean warmongers. Whew, my guilt is assuaged.

And let’s trot out some “legal experts” who can make inane, general statements that have nothing to do with this case;

“It certainly erodes that sense that what they did was wrong,” Elizabeth L. Hillman, a legal historian who teaches military law at Rutgers University School of Law at Camden, said of the outcomes so far. “When the story broke, it seemed like we understood what happened; there didn’t seem to be much doubt. But we didn’t know.”

Walter B. Huffman, a former Army judge advocate general, said it was not uncommon in military criminal proceedings to see charges against troops involved in a single episode to fall away under closer examination of evidence, winnowing culpability to just one or two defendants.

See? When the story broke, we all knew what the verdict was going to be, we started jumping to conclusions – even though we didn’t know the facts. I just don’t understand how the lack of evidence of any wrong doing can affect the Marines being found guilty. What’s wrong with those Marine lawyers, anyway? Didn’t they watch “A Few Good Men?”

Regardless of what happened to charges against the other defendants, there is still great public pressure on the Marine Corps to investigate and punish any wrongdoing in a case in which so many civilians died.

Don’t you mean public pressure to prosecute an uninformed perception of wrongdoing?

I’d like to see the New York Times get on the side of law and justice for a change instead of their own prejudices. If there’s no evidence, they’re innocent, you half-witted baboons. That’s what our whole system of justice is based upon – you should read the Fifth Amendment sometime.

“We can’t say those guys didn’t commit a crime,” said Michael F. Noone Jr., a retired Air Force lawyer and law professor at Catholic University of America. “We can only say that after an investigation, there was not sufficient evidence to prosecute.”

Michael F. Noone, Jr., retired Air Force lawyer and professor at Catholic University of America Columbus Law School in Northeast DC, because you must’ve missed a class in law school, I’ll twig you to this; insufficient evidence to prosecute means these guys didn’t commit a crime. Despite your backstabbing on your fellow servicemembers and scurrying up their fallen bodies so you can get your idiot name in the New York Times, you scum-sucking, back-biting turd lawyer/professor bitch.

Kathy at Hang Right Politics piles on with “Something Rep. Murtha Needs to Learn”

But, that’s what this is all about – the NYT is running a screen for Jack Murtha. They’re demanding the heads of “officers higher up” (don’t they realize that generals are part of that entity that we call “the troops” whom we want the anti-US groups to support, too) for failing to investigate this as if it were a crime scene in Las Vegas instead of a war in Iraq. Murtha can now hold up this article and tell us how the Marines botched its investigation, so he’s been right all along.  

And the NYT is trying to influence the Marines into prosecuting this young Staff Sergeant – just like they influenced the prosecutor in North Carolina to presecute those innocent youngsters at Duke. It’s almost ironic that they should be pushing this morally and factually bankrupt opinion piece the day after Richard Jewel died.

If you haven’t read Chickenhawk Express’  Four Part series (so far) on the media and their sorry behavior in this Haditha Marines case (I’m sure this NY Times hit piece will be part of the series, too) you’re missing a fantastic wrap up.  

Part I     Part II      Part III      Part IV

And while we’re talking media bias, check out Rick Moran at Right Wing Nut House for “Bias? What Media Bias?”

Category: Legal, Media, Support the troops, Terror War