Murtha is trying to get all the mileage he can out of the Haditha incident, throwing his fellow Marines under the bus before they even get a chance to defend themselves. I say Murtha is a zero.

My motto; Never pre-judge/second-guess/arm-chair quarterback (etc) the guys in the field. It may all come out after an investigation that some Marines are guilty of some pretty serious crimes. But, I would never make a judgement (and so publicly) on sketchy facts and rumor.

Zero

ZERO.
Trying to make political gains on the backs of his combat Marine brothers.

he's friggin zero, prior Marine not with-standing. His polictical affiliations speaks for itself. This is what I have come to expect from those in that party.

He's less than ZERO.

Maybe Mr. Murtha should read this before making anymore pronouncements from on high:
***********************************************

By Kimberly Johnson
USA Today



RAMADI, Iraq — Allegations that Marines killed civilians in the western Iraqi town of Hadithah last year could undo efforts to win the cooperation of locals in the volatile Anbar province, some Marines say.

“All it does is make our jobs harder out here,” said Capt. Andrew Del Gaudio, commander of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. “Every Iraqi will assume Marines will act like that. It’s a perception that in this part of the world is hard to overcome.”

The allegations also highlight the rapid life-and-death decisions that soldiers and Marines make in the shadowy world of guerrilla warfare.

“It’s the young Marines who really make the difference out here,” Del Gaudio said.

Investigators are looking into charges that Marines killed civilians in anger after a colleague died in a roadside bomb attack in November. The investigations are still under way.

In his first statement on the case, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Tuesday expressed remorse over the deaths. “We emphasize that our forces, that multinational forces will respect human rights, the rights of the Iraqi citizen,” al-Maliki said in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp.

The Marine Corps initially attributed 15 civilian deaths in the November incident to a car bombing and a firefight with insurgents.

Hadithah is a village along the Euphrates River valley in Anbar province, one of the most dangerous regions in Iraq. The U.S. military announced Tuesday that it will send about 1,500 troops from its Kuwait-based reserve force to temporarily bolster forces in the province, which stretches from west of Baghdad to the Syrian border. It’s a heavily Sunni area where outsiders are viewed suspiciously.

Fighting an elusive enemy while trying to persuade citizens to cooperate with Iraq’s new government has proved difficult for U.S. forces in the region.

“With this going on still, we have to be more aware about how our actions may be perceived,” said Maj. Tom Hobbs, executive officer of 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment.

Del Gaudio said he made a tough call after a roadside bomb killed four of his men in April. While securing the scene, he was shot at by a machine gun in a follow-up attack. When he aimed his weapon to return fire, he saw that the gunmen had a line of children standing in front of them and two men filming with video cameras. He held fire until the children moved out of the way but was shot in his hand, which was only inches from his face.

“Restraint almost cost me my life,” he said.

Marine Commandant Gen. Michael Hagee recently traveled to Marine bases in Iraq to underscore rules of combat. “We do not employ force just for the sake of employing force,” Hagee said in a statement.

Cpl. Michael Compton, 22, of Kilo Company, said he was confronted with a tough choice when a colleague, Lance Cpl. Richard Caseltine, 20, was shot and injured.

A bullet went through Caseltine’s helmet, tracing the inner lining, then exited out the back of the helmet. Shrapnel from the bullet casing was lodged in the back of Caseltine’s neck. Compton had to remove Caseltine from the scene so he could receive medical care and be evacuated.

“My first reaction was to shoot everyone,” Caseltine said. “I was scared, p----- off — every emotion was running high.” He said it took about 10 seconds for him to settle down and return his focus on the gunbattle and getting to safety.

Marines regularly review the rules of engagement, Lt. Carlos Goetz said. People who can be viewed with “hostile intent” can include a military-age male carrying an AK-47, someone pointing a weapon at a Marine or placing an improvised explosive device, or even someone watching Marine posts with binoculars, Goetz said. “Every time we shoot someone, we make sure they meet that criteria,” he said.

Goetz said he emphasizes professionalism with his men. “The decisions that they make are split-second,” he said. “Sometimes restraint may make them hesitate.”

Weeks after the Humvee attack killed four members of Kilo Company, he found a poster in an Iraqi’s possession that showed a military truck destroyed by a roadside bomb.

“Every fiber in my being wanted to snap these people’s necks,” he said. Instead, the men were brought in for questioning regarding their display of anti-coalition propaganda.

“I showed professionalism, and so did my Marines, because they were also angry,” Goetz said. “It wasn’t justified for me to kill them.”

Murtha is a ZERO. I'll put him down in Al Anbar, see how well he does. What a jackass.

My platoon secured Haditha, Al Asad, Al Qaim, T2, Ar Muhammadi, Ubaydi, and Husaybah. We were the first ground forces "acknowledged" of being on the ground in Al Anbar. The 3rd ACR pioneered most of Western Iraq from April 2003-March 2004. Its not your nightly news report of whats going on in Baghdad. Its a completely different animal out there. There is a far more dangerous enemy lurking in Anbar, U.S. politics. I am well versed in the conduct of the enemy in that region, and U.S. Forces.

" July 2003-excerpt AP Report(Haditha Dam, Iraq) MSNBC:
The U.S. Army's 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's investigation on an unlawful shooting in the Anbar city concluded today with dramatic results. A Staff Sergeant and Sergeant from the 2nd Squadron's Fox Troop, were relieved of duty for engaging an insurgent... During the firefight, the insurgent used a crowd of people as a shield when the soldiers opened fire.... Stray bullets from the fight struck and killed an 8 year old Iraqi boy, and wounded several others. ...Both soldiers were reprimanded for breaking the Rules of Engagment and wrongful death..."

It happened there more than once. It still will. We aren't cops that think about their "backdrop" or consequences of stray bullets. In Anbar, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander. If they aren't part of the solution, they are part of the problem. I hope the Marines skate, I bled on that sand, too. I hope Murtha has a Marine skull drag him.

Murtha is a class assclown in my book, needs to shut up until the investigation is completed.

On CNN today the anchor ACTUALLY said:
"...the allegations, I mean to say, the atrocities..."

Unfortunately, I was in the office, in one of the shared breakrooms with a TV. There were a few people offended. I apologized and told them I suffer from Tourettes. It's brought on by stupidity and dumbass statements from anchormen.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 4, 2006

Rushing To Judgment

Shame on John Murtha for presuming Marines' guilt in Haditha

By Jack Kelly

Jesse Macbeth, a self-styled "special forces ranger," regaled moonbat audiences with tales of the atrocities he committed in Iraq:

"Fallujah is where we slaughtered people in mosques," he said. "We would dig holes and leave mass graves of children, women and old men."

Unfortunately for Mr. Macbeth, he made a video which was seen by actual veterans. In it, he is wearing his beret improperly ("like a pastry chef," said an Army spokesman). He's wearing a Ranger beret, but it has a Special Forces flash. The sleeves on his battle BDU jacket are rolled up the way the Marines do it; not the Army.

In short, Mr. Macbeth was a fraud so obvious even the moonbats should have seen through him, but they didn't because they wanted so badly to believe the terrible things he was saying about U.S. forces in Iraq.

In every war America has ever fought, a few soldiers have committed war crimes. In no war has their behavior been representative of our soldiers as a whole, or been sanctioned by their superiors. But the moonbats think smearing our servicemen and women discredits the war effort.

To his everlasting shame, Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat from Johnstown and a retired Marine reserve colonel, is playing to the same crowd. He's accused Marines of having committed "cold-blooded murder," and their superiors of covering it up.

"It goes right up the chain of command right up to Gen. [Peter] Pace [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]," Mr. Murtha said on ABC's "This Week" program last Sunday.

Something horrible did happen in Haditha on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005. A powerful roadside bomb destroyed a Marine Humvee, killing Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, 20, and injuring two other Marines.

The incident report filed by Lance Cpl. Terrazas' unit said the IED was accompanied by small arms fire, which the Marines returned, killing eight insurgents and wounding another. The report said 15 Iraqi civilians were killed in the blast.

That wasn't true. Autopsies indicated the 15 civilians -- four of them women and four of them children -- had all suffered gunshot wounds.

The civilians were killed inside two houses near the blast site. An Iraqi journalism student videotaped the bodies in the morgue and the scene in the two houses. It was shown to reporters for Time in Baghdad.

Time gave a copy of the tape to a military spokesman in January, which triggered an investigation which is now nearing completion.

Residents of Haditha told Time they were pleased with the thoroughness of the investigation.

"They asked detailed questions, examined each bullet hole and burn mark," a relative of the victims told Time's Aparism Ghosh. "It was a very professional investigation."

Criminal charges are likely to be filed against the 13 Marines in the squad involved in the shootings.

But in our system, it is customary to hear the evidence before rendering a verdict. The Marines have yet to be charged, let alone convicted.

"Cold-blooded" implies emotionless premeditation. From what little we know of the case, it seems the Marines were guilty of a hot-blooded over-reaction. Perhaps some Marines committed murder. But perhaps it was manslaughter, or criminally negligent homicide.

And maybe they're innocent. Haditha's a hotbed of insurgent activity. Perhaps the Marines were receiving fire from the houses, as they claimed.

If the Marines under suspicion are found guilty of murder or manslaughter, they should be punished severely. But they deserve the presumption of innocence until then.

Rep. Murtha's accusation of a cover-up clearly is false. The Marines under investigation apparently lied in their report of the incident, but as soon as their superiors were made aware of the discrepancies in their story, they ordered an investigation which the Iraqis say is thorough, and which is about to result in criminal charges.

But if there is no cover up, it is harder to turn the incident into a broad indictment of U.S. policy in Iraq.

News media that haven't reported much on the heroism of U.S. troops in Iraq have been playing this incident up, as they did the appalling conduct of a few guards at Abu Ghraib prison. The incident routinely is described as a "massacre," a term journalists don't use when insurgents bomb a mosque or a marketplace.

Smearing our troops gives our enemies a propaganda victory. But whatever happened at Haditha on Nov. 19, 2005, has nothing to do with the wisdom or justness (or the lack of it) of the war in Iraq.

Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio.

probably why I don't shed too many tears when I read or hear about this reporter and his camera man or sound man was involved in IED incident or such......

Since there is as much evidence and statements to suggest there was no violation of ROE as to suggest otherwise, I vote (if I may have a vote) ZERO. Whatever his behavior and achievements as an active duty Marine, his performance as a politician is cheap, shabby, and unworthy. Just my .02.