US soldiers admitted the shooting of four shiite militiamen after their capture. Within a deposition two members of the US Army confessed to have -together with a third G.I.- killed the captives in spring 2007 near Bagdad by head shots due to wrath about the death of comrades. This is reported by the “New York Times”.
Superiors had ordered before to release the iraqis due to lack of proof. The three G.I.s, who made their testimonies to US military investigators in Schweinfurth/Germany, have to face charges for murder according to law experts.
In their testimonies two soldiers declared they were given order by the third, who was superior in rank, to shoot one Iraqi each with pistol shots. The superior soldier confessed to have shot two militiamen himself and then ordered to remove the blindfolds and handcuffs off the bodies. “We took the captives out of the car, put them in line and shot them.” one G.I. transcripted. He would have acted out of anger. Shortly before two soldiers of his unit were killed by iraqi snipers and by a bomb placed at the side of a road.
Just last month four more G.I.s of this unit -all based in Germany- were charged for conspiracy to murder due to this incident. They are blamed for having approved the killing of the unarmed captives.
German Press Agency (dpa), August 27, 2008
Well, that probably shows that there are bad seeds in every military. As a US citizen I’m appalled by their actions. I’m glad they were investigated and will be charged for their crimes. Hopefully they’ll get the same sentence that they gave to the Iraqis. That would definitely be a deterrent for future actions such as that. Come to mind, even though I haven’t read much on the Abu Graib prison scandal, I think most of those soldiers seemed to get off lightly, especially the higher ups in command. It’s a shame that the morals of our country aren’t what they used to be.
I am glad you don’t suspect me of trying to discredit the US forces, got nothing but respect to them for doing their duty (that might have been no popular statement as well to some). The treatment of POW’s/opponents’ poulation in WW2 was one of the major issues on the forum lately. I just wanted to show that the issue is still prevailing these days even in a minor scale, just mentioning alleged rapes by dutch forces (don’t remember where it was) or the disturbing of the peace of the dead by german troops in Afghanistan “decorating” enemy skeletons with cigarettes, sunglasses and so on.
It’s a shame that the morals of our country aren’t what they used to be.
All I can say is that our Morals are WAY WAY higher than that of those in the Arab/Persian countries. At least we don’t go strapping TNT to 16 yr old girls and tell them to approach a U.S> convoy and blow herself up, killing innocent American soldiers who are fighting over there to protect our freedoms over here, while we sit on our fat ass and gripe about the odd bad seed who acted a bit out of the norm. There is a lot of built up pressure and stress with US soldiers in Iraq, not knowing when the next suicidal bomber will blow themselves up. Living day by day with such unprecedented warfare causes a lot of mistakes to be made such as the caseof the news article. We can’t expect our soldiers to be prissy and robot trained in spite of the suicidal bombers. There are consequenses for working in an environment like Iraq and some soldiers do things out of whack arising from the pressure. Yes the soldiers should be punished for their actions, bla bla bla, but keep in mind the circumstances in Iraq before saying that American soldiers should get the same punishment as Iraq’s. These guys are coming back with bloddy missing limbs and legs and we should give American soldiers the same punishment as Iraq’ies doesn’t fly with me. A court marsall at best in my opinion.
Hi Herman, I’m only sitting on my not so fat ass because I’m off work today.
I agree with a lot of what you wrote, but doing what they did sounds more pre-meditated than heat of the moment under pressure. It’s just out and out murder. So in their case they should be court martialed and dealt with severely. We (the US) have put ourselves out on the world stage as some champion of democracy and hold ourselves to higher standards bla, bla, bla. But happenings like this and others don’t help that image.
Hi Nayson,
First of all, my ass is probably fatter than yours.haha, and secondly I totally agree with what you are saying with the world stage and all…I was just sort of winging it with my expression for the moment. Thanks for the feedback and I mean no disrespect to any of what you are Ardee are saying. I am sure with time, we will read about US soldiers raping little girls in Iraq. Then again, with a population of 200,000 in any given society, there is bound to be some sicko that is going to do this anyways; but when its a soldier in another country doing it, it hits the fan big time.
Yeah Herman, I was pretty much winging my first post also. That’s why I agreed with most of what you said. As a kid growing up it’s implied that we don’t do those kinds of things (i’m sure other countries the same). So in naivety you believe that. When it happens then you are surprised/appalled. It just seems to be happening on a broader scale than in the past (better reporting maybe), therefore my comment on morality. As for our soldiers, I wholeheartedly support their efforts and can’t comprehend what they must go through over there.
God Bless Our troops!
And Goddamn this prick!:
(CBS) This segment was originally broadcast on March 18, 2007. It was updated on Aug. 22, 2008.
On Nov. 19, 2005, a squad of United States Marines killed 24 apparently innocent civilians in an Iraqi town called Haditha. The dead included men, women, and children as young as two. Iraqi witnesses said the Marines were on a rampage, slaughtering people in the street and in their homes. A year after the attack, four Marines were charged with murder.
Were the killings in Haditha a massacre? A military jury will decide. But, there’s no question that Haditha is symbolic of a war that leaves American troops with terrible choices.
As correspondent Scott Pelley first reported in March 2007, the Marine making those choices in Haditha that day was a 25-year-old sergeant named Frank Wuterich. He was charged with 18 murders. Wuterich sat down with 60 Minutes for his only interview. He said he wanted to tell the truth about the day he decided who would live and who would die in Haditha.
“Everyone visualizes me as a monster, a baby killer, cold-blooded, that sort of thing. And, it’s, you know, that’s not accurate, and neither is the story that most of them know of this incident. They need to know the truth,” Wuterich tells Pelley.
Wuterich does not believe 24 dead civilians equates to a massacre. “No, absolutely not… A massacre in my mind, by definition, is a large group of people being executed, being killed for absolutely no reason and that’s absolutely not what happened here,” he says.
The day after the killings, bodies were wrapped to conceal the sight of 24 civilians: 15 men, three women and six children, killed by shrapnel and gunshot. A year after they died, the Marine Corps announced the charges, which included murder, dereliction of duty, false official statement, and obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors charged Wuterich and three of his Marines with unpremeditated murder - essentially killing without military justification. To understand how this happened, you need to know where it happened.
Haditha is a town of 70,000, in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni resistance, where, among the residents, anti-American passions run high. In the months before Wuterich’s unit arrived, other Marines there were suffering some of the heaviest causalities in all of Iraq, including the bombing of an armored vehicle that killed 14 Marines. Days before that, six Marines in Haditha were ambushed, tortured and killed. The enemy put it on the Internet where Wuterich and his men saw the bodies and the dog tags of their dead comrades.
…
The story on 60 Minutes:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2582351n%3Fsource=search_video
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2582353n%3Fsource=search_video
Hi nickdfresh, out of curiosity, are you calling herman a prick, the news correspondent, or the soldier in the article?
Not having been in the military, you do see what happens when you have to make split second decisions.
That’s the fitting last name for his deeds, it’s actually german and means something like berserk or tartar.
Then why isn’t it acceptable for Arabs / Persians to bring war to America, Britain, Canada, Australia, and every other nation that has troops in Arab / Persian countries?
Is there some special international or moral law which says that Western countries are always the good guys and are entitled to go into non-Western countries and fuck them up beyond all belief? So that Iraq, which had a pretty decent hospital system before some of the more moronic elements of the West invaded it on a stupid pretext, lacked the ability to treat its people properly afterwards, not least because of the increased number of war related injuries caused by the Western invaders?
How is it just that we can amuse ourselves on the internet commenting about the lives and deaths of poor bastards in places like Iraq, where our actions have caused thousands upon thousands of avoidable deaths and particularly among children, when those poor bastards lack medical and food supplies which were readily available before we decided to crush them?
Why are American or any other soldiers in Arab / Persian countries ‘innocent’?
If Iranians bombed Canada remorselessly and then occupied it, and occupied it with moral bullshit which involved Iran’s president approving laws which allowed kidnapping and torture of Canadian civilians, would you think their soldiers were ‘innocent’ and shouldn’t be targeted?
Or would you be a loyal Canadian who took up arms against the invader and did all you could to drive them out of your country?
Probably all three. 
None of the above! I’m called the cunt of an ex-Marine NCO in the article a prick.
You haven’t been in the military? Or I haven’t been in the military? Who are you speaking for? Because and you don’t know anything about me…
And since when is shooting and fragging unarmed men, women and children merely because they were unfortunate enough to be in the proximity of a combat zone justified as a “split-second decision?” If that’s the case, then a lot of criminal pricks get to go free…
Just because one is hyped up and pissed off that members in their charge are killed doesn’t give them the right to go on a lunatic rampage and take it out on nearby Iraqis. And if you read the article, you’d realize that the war criminal marine in question, Wuterich, had never been in combat and hadn’t even been in Iraq very long when he was sent out, even though he had been an NCO. The USMC deserves at least part of the blame for that! To send a greenhorn to lead veteran infantry is pretty lame.
I was speaking for myself, not having been in the military. I think that is a split second decision and people (criminals too) have to live with the consequences also. No, they don’t have the right to go on rampages. In the article a different official talked about tactics (seeing the opposing person by sight if they are a combatant before just lobbing a grenade into a house or something to that effect). So no they shouldn’t have had him in charge when there were others with experience. So it sounds as though I’m agreeing with you, I was just wondering to whom you were referring.
It was strong statement.
Mate you are real socialist:)
Or would you be a loyal Canadian who took up arms against the invader and did all you could to drive them out of your country?
I think mr Herman would be the first canadian who agree to drop the A-bomb right on centre of Bahdad.
Poor arabs will have been all killed till last man if somebody of them ever even touch the Canada.
Exactly because our moral are “much higher” then the Arab’s one:)
Oh please, don’t get him started on the A-bombing stuff again. His head will exploding with visions of A-bombings…
But now he is god lad, so he will not .Am i right, mr Herman?
I was a bit of a socialist once, but I was young and stupid then. Now I’m old and, after lots of practice, better at being stupid.
The old saying is that anyone who isn’t a socialist at 20 has no heart, and anyone who is still a socialist at 40 has no brain. That’s more or less me.
Now I realise that the worst enemy of the average person is a politician, in the widest sense from those in government to the people who play office politics to advance themselves, and that if we can breed that gene out of the species we’d all be a lot better off.
P.S. Forty or so years ago I used to vote for the communists, secure in the knowledge that they’d never get in but enjoying the knowledge that my vote increased their percentage of the vote disproportionately because hardly anyone voted for them. I also enjoyed worrying both major political parties by helping to create the impression that the communists were gaining ground if a few more people voted for them in an election.
That was at a time when I thought Marx still had something to offer the world and that people like Regis Debray knew how to achieve it. Which was a bit odd because at the time I was in the army and quite happy to blow the shit out of Viet Cong who were actually applying Debray’s ideas.
Youth can be a very confusing time.
I think you underestimate the Youth mate.
Indeed in 20 me was no more clever then in my 30;)
I think in 20 the man is socialist because you have NOTHING except you health ( if you have)
The socialism is the order of POOR. As any other poor , young mans want a good and free education, cheap food and other elementary thinhs.
They are consideres the social guaranties and equal possibilitis as the most importaint things in the life.
But now in 40 you have a property ,your car your home, your job , your wife ( part of property:))
You have enough money to buy the expensive things and pay for medical service.
So the life seems for you not so EXPENSIVE when you are 40, right?( Well of course you don’t need to pay for education of your childs)
Now you are sitting on your computer and going to cry how your Youth was bad and stupid:)
Life is fine mate., sometimes , even if you are young
Now I realise that the worst enemy of the average person is a politician, in the widest sense from those in government to the people who play office politics to advance themselves, and that if we can breed that gene out of the species we’d all be a lot better off.
That’s true
The political bureaucrats were, are and will in ANY order, not just social…
P.S. Forty or so years ago I used to vote for the communists, secure in the knowledge that they’d never get in but enjoying the knowledge that my vote increased their percentage of the vote disproportionately because hardly anyone voted for them. I also enjoyed worrying both major political parties by helping to create the impression that the communists were gaining ground if a few more people voted for them in an election.
That was at a time when I thought Marx still had something to offer the world and that people like Regis Debray knew how to achieve it. Which was a bit odd because at the time I was in the army and quite happy to blow the shit out of Viet Cong who were actually applying Debray’s ideas.
Oh come on
You did never serve in Vietnam.