Lib Smear Implodes
 

http://www.nypost.com/seven/06182008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/a_smear_implodes_116012.htm




http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1213845074.jpg

New York post
June 18, 2008 --


YET another US Marine, Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani, had charges dropped Tuesday in the so-called Haditha massacre - bringing the total number of Marines who've been cleared or won case dismissals in the Iraq war incident to seven.

In Chessani's case, the military judge found that Gen. James Mattis had succumbed to impermissible outside meddling in bringing charges.

Bottom line: Zero for seven for military prosecutors, with one trial left to go.

But you won't see that headline in the same Armageddon-sized font The New York Times used repeatedly when the story first broke.

The Times, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa) and the rest of the anti-war drum-pounders who fueled the smear campaign against the troops two years ago should hang their hands in shame. They won't, of course. Perpetuating the "cold-blooded Marines" narrative means never having to say you're sorry.

It means never having to look Lt. Col. Chessani (charges dismissed), Lt. Andrew Grayson (acquitted), Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum (charges dismissed), Capt. Lucas McConnell (charges dismissed), Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt (charges dismissed), Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz (charges dismissed), Sgt. Frank Wuterich (awaiting trial) and their families in the eyes and apologize for the preemptive character assassination they all faced at the hands of the hyperventilating press.

Murtha and company applied "Off with their heads!" treatment to our own men and women in uniform while giving more benefit of the doubt to foreign terror suspects at Gitmo. It is worth recalling, because the press won't do it for you, what they concluded about the now-crumbling Haditha case in the summer of 2006, before a single formal charge had been filed.

* MSNBC hangman Keith Olbermann, who couldn't wait to define the entire war in Iraq by a single moment about which he knew nothing, inveighed that the incident was "willful targeted brutality." Due process? For convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, of course. For our military? Never mind.

* The Nation magazine railed, "Enough details have emerged . . . to conclude that . . . members of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment perpetrated a massacre." It also judged the event "a willful, targeted brutality designed to send a message to Iraqis." Not content with hanging the troops, The Nation pinned blame on the president and a so-called "culture of impunity" that supposedly permeates the most accountable military in the world.

* The Times spilled a flood of front-page ink on the case and took things a step further in a lead editorial blaming not just President Bush, but also top Pentagon brass for the "nightmare" killings in Haditha. Timesman Paul von Zielbauer filed over 30 stories on the case, which the paper called the war's "defining atrocity."

* Hoping to facilitate a self-fulfilling prophecy, media tools around the world likened Haditha to the Vietnam War's most infamous atrocity - from The Guardian ("My Lai on the Euphrates?") to the Daily Telegraph ("Massacre in Iraq just like My Lai") to the Los Angeles Times ("What happened at the Iraqi My Lai?") to the Times' Maureen Dowd ("My Lai acid flashback") and the Associated Press, which reached into its photo archives to run a 1970 file photo of My Lai to illustrate a Haditha article.

* And, of course, there's the permanent stain left by Murtha's slanderous propaganda: "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."

Relatives of the Haditha Marines have called for Congress to censure Murtha, who cuts and runs to the nearest elevator when questioned about the Haditha dismissals. He and the Haditha smear merchants have skated while the men and their families suffered global whippings on the airwaves and eternal demonization in print. Whose "culture of impunity

This story will make the back page on the home improvement section. The baastards who trumpeted this in the beginning should be hung but they have found something new to embrace and they will not do the right thing.

I noticed one of our "more progressive" members rated this thread with one star. Guess they don't like getting caught in their own filth.

The only "culture of impunity" in evidence is that enjoyed by our illustrious mass media.

Most of America will never hear that these fine men were acquited. Even worse than that, some of America won't care. They will simply ascribe their acquitals to some evil behind the scenes manouvering, convinced in their own minds of the guilt of these men. These men will remain forever guilty in the minds of the "open minded" liberals, simply because they so very want them to be, need them to be, guilty so as to support their incredibly warped world view. Terrorist=good; oppressed by the evil U.S. gubmint. U.S. armed forces=evil; killing innocents far and wide. How shameful. How deluded.

Here's a link to another version of the article.

This should play out quite interestingly, IMHO.

Haditha Marine prepares to sue Murtha over smear


Randy

Murtha is a POS.

Please, do not hold back. This is Pelican OT. Tell us how you really feel! :)

~~~~

From the story that Randy posted:

""This is the most important case since Vietnam, if not before," Rooney said. "There's no doubt about it."

He noted the New York Times featured the case on the front page when it was being compared by war critics to the infamous My Lai massacre in Vietnam. But now, with evidence the Haditha accusations were a smear, the story has been relegated to the back pages.

"All the information I get, it comes from the commanders, it comes from people who know what they're talking about," Murtha told reporters at the time.

Murtha's assertions, however, conflicted with results from the military's own investigations. An initial probe by Army Col. G.A. Watt found no indications coalition forces "intentionally targeted, engaged and killed noncombatants." Later, Army Maj. Gen. Aldon Bargewell found no cover-up."

Murtha really needs to get taken to court over this and hope that the Marines that he slandered win.

The Washington Post salivated over this weeks- front page- above the fold. I don't recall reading any story in that paper about the acquitals- but they could have been buried somewhere.

This is the like the Duke rape case- only worse. The vast majority of the media (and all you left wingers who were ready to- or did- condemn those soldiers) have absolutely no shame.

The root cause of the over reactions to the incident lie with the initial report about an IED being inaccurate. Whoever sent out the first PR statement from the Marines started all of this.


lest you forget

In the same LA Times story, Republican Representative John Kline of Minnesota was quoted as saying:
There is no question that the Marines involved, those doing the shooting, they were busy in lying about it and covering it up — there is no question about it. But I am confident, as soon as the command learned there might be some truth to this, they started to pursue it vigorously. I don't have any reason now to think there was any foot dragging.[25]


Anyone who jumped the gun with accusations without real basis needs to be accountable.

Ron, your title says it all...:D

fixed it for you lest anyone forget how easy it is to jump on the bandwagon.

Absolutely. Accross party lines. This is not a "Republican vs. Democrat" issue that should be politicized.

As a side note, however, I think it remains clear that "left wingers" jumped on the lynching bandwagon, while "right wingers" did not. "Democrat" is not always synonomous with "left winger", nor is "Republican" synonomous with "right winger". There is way too much cross breeding to make such generalizations about parties. So let's not play a tit for tat game trying to see our left wingers and raise us one right winger. That is not what this is about.

There exists a faction in our society that appears to firmly believe our military, and the people who deploy it are evil. That same faction seems to believe the terrorists of our world are not; that they are merely misunderstood. They give terrorists every break imaginable; every benefit of the doubt. In stark contrast, they never hesitate to jump on the bandwagon (often on the sketchiest of "evidence") to accuse, try, and convict our men. Not in a court of law, but in their press. These folks tend to be of the "liberal" persuasion; not necessarily of, or exclusive to, the Democratic Party.

In typical liberal fashion, they follow their hearts more so than their minds. In spite of their constant claims of having "open minds" (especially when compared to those of conservatives), they are unshakeable in their beliefs. Beliefs originating in their hearts, not their minds. "Facts" that support those heartfelt beliefs are readily accepted as such, regardless of a lack of supporting evidence. Real facts that contradict those heartfelt beliefs are just as quickly dismissed, regardless of the evidence supporting them.

That is what we see playing out before us in this case. The liberal mindset was very quick to eagerly accept their guilt, long before any evidence of any substance came to light. Now that the evidence has been collected, now that it has been presented in court and found to be either lacking, non-existant, or outright false, the liberal mind either ignores or rejects that evidence. It does not fit with their heartfelt beliefs that our military men are inherently evil. The "open" liberal mind simply cannot digest that. The liberal personna cannot admit it was wrong about such a matter. Everyone in their liberal circles just knows these things, after all. It really is a bizarre way to digest facts and data, and it is pretty much the provence of the liberal. Conservatives tend to weigh facts and data before arriving at a conclusion. Liberals arrive at a conclusion, in their hearts, and then looks for "facts" and "data" to support it, picking and choosing along the way.

On April 17, 2007, the Marine Corps dropped all charges against Sgt. Sanick P. Dela Cruz in exchange for his testimony. Seven other Marines involved in the incident have also been granted immunity.[48]
On August 9, 2007, all charges against Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt and Capt. Randy Stone were dropped.[35] On October 19th, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt's commanding officer decided the charges should be lowered to involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment and aggravated assault..[11]
On September 18, 2007, all charges against Captain Lucas McConnell were dropped in exchange for immunity and his cooperation with the investigation. [49]
On March 28, 2008, all charges against LCpl. Stephen Tatum were dropped. [50]
On June 17, 2008, all charges against Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani were dropped citing unlawful command influence.[13]
[edit]

As of June 2008, Wuterich is charged with nine counts of manslaughter.

They were not dropped because it didn't happen, they were lowered or dropped because they are rolling on the seargent.

Your first sentiment is spot-on. Your second is pretty much horse*****. Both sides often lead with their opinion and then regard or disregard the facts as they see fit.

I like to strike a balance in my posts.

Having the charges dropped doesn't mean it DID happen either.

"The root cause of the over reactions to the incident lie with the initial report about an IED being inaccurate. Whoever sent out the first PR statement from the Marines started all of this."

Absolutely amazing....you STILL blame the Marines. If you had a shred of decency or intelligence you'd read Jeff's post above and take it to heart.

But I'm not holding my breath....

You do a poor job, Jeff. Your cogent remarks outnumber your silly-ass hasty conclusions by a margin of at least 6 to 5.

with one abstention?

Yeah, but I get to write both opinions...

pleas do hold you breath with such an inane comment like that, I would prefer you kept your mouth closed.


A US military statement said: "A US marine and 15 civilians were killed yesterday from the blast of a roadside bomb in Haditha. " "Immediately following the bombing, gunmen attacked the convoy with small arms fire. Iraqi army soldiers and marines returned fire, killing eight insurgents and wounding another."


The official version was changed to say that, after the roadside bombing, the 15 civilians had been accidentally shot by marines during a gun fight with insurgents.

if I discount truth or fantasy... at least there's a few guys who step forward and have the brass to somewhat defend the mass-media.

no comment on the others

Sorry,

I'll tone it down.

Bingo!

No, but photographs, video and eyewitness' usually does.
You probably think Oj is innocent too.

Good. I hope the devil dog can extract a pound of flesh from murtha's ass.

Murtha should know better!! He should have waited for the investigation to run its course. It really bugs me that a Marine O6 would not have the wearwithall or the patience to allow these devil dogs their constitutional protections! His record indicates that he has had the experience to know the impacts of such preliminary statements. It hurt the Corps and he has not appoligized for this terrible lack of judgement or leadership. For that he is a POS. Until such a time that he acknowledges his damage to these men and the Corps he will remain a POS. His past performance, record or reputation do not answer the mail, he owes these men for what he put them through. And until such a time as he acknowledges that he is a POS.

And the above rant is the main reason that we need real beer in Ramadi!

DAnimal,

There are many who firmly believe that Rep. Murtha is not accurately called a Marine or a former Marine.

A Sea Bee should know the more accurate description is EX Marine.

I am shocked that a Sea Bee hasn’t been locate the adult beverages.

S/F, FOG

FOG,

From what I can find out Murtha did serve with honor. But again, he may have had a brain fart on this one, who knows. All he can do is get things right with those devil dogs. I recommend he heat up the oven as crow goes down easier when you heat it up.

As for the beer, this is a war like no other, it is he11!!! We know the Kurds have some up north but the darn army had first dibs. The mission is ardous, and we need to find other ways to suck up to the soldiers. Maybe we should build them a club??? Thats it, we build them a club and the beer will show up.

Also, everytime we get the darn still running the scavangers steer our copper coils!!! Those guys are good, but when we told the Marines about our plight and how the thefts were inhibiting production they increased the patrols. This solved the bad guys messing with the still but we needed cooper tubing.

The Air Force said they would help but we needed to fill out a form. So we did.

We are considering other measures but the G2 said that we can't discuss that on PPOT as it is classified and AQI monitors this net.

It is a screwed up war, no copper, no club, no beer! But by God we are not dismayed as there is hope. We found a beer bottle opener in the desert.

(It was a long hot day yesterday and it is either PPOT in the morning or a beer)

Fog,

Your right about the use of the term EX Marine. My dad was a three war USMC veteren First Sergeant. Got your meaning and concur. Murtha sure hurt those guys.

DAnimal,

Maybe nosing around TQ and Al Asad will reduce the hell a little bit… Best I can do open source to help with location. The SOF and CAG bubbas also have access on occasion.

On Murhta this appears to be normal conduct.

Stay safe.

S/F, FOG

What is colleteral damage exactly?