August 27th, 2008
The US Marine that killed Civilians
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.
This episode of 60 Minutes can be played by clicking play below.
I like the comment from Tracey Bates (taken from the 60 Minutes website):
“Scott Pelley should be ashamed. How dare he call himself an American! How many combat situations has he been in? I doubt ANY after listening to the despicable way he spoke to a brave Marine that voluntarily served our country. We send our brave men and women into dangerous and often deadly situations when they are 22 or 23 years of age, and expect them make decisions that we think we might have made while we are sitting over here in complete and total safety.”
After listening to this podcast I was deeply concerned for the soldiers. They are ’stuck between a rock and a hard place’. They are serving their country while the elected politicians are playing games with their lives. How much of this can be blamed on this soldier, especially two minutes after surviving a bomb blast. How rational could he have been? This exemplifies a solid relationship among his ’shoot first’ training, the attitude of his political leaders, and the general lack of understanding of the war. Just look at the recent civilian deaths in Afghanistan (read the article “U.N. cites evidence that U.S. attack in Afghanistan killed 90 civilians“). We can see that focus on this issue is often short sighted and blame is at the lowest level.
Everything has gone wrong. I hope the US elections bring changes like Obama promises. If I was an American, I would vote for him. Look at what Sen. Edward Kennedy said in his speech
“Barack Obama will be a commander and Chief who understands that young Americans in uniform must never be committed to a mistake but always to a mission worthy of their bravery“. This was a phenomenal speech that marries up nicely with this article.
