So this is “winning the hearts and minds” isn’t it? Well I guess it is if the subject is terrorists (you name the group of your preference). They must love the US marines who do an excellent job for their cause. When I imagine myself an Iraqi, the first thought after reading this article would be: revenge. Do you think it’s unreasonable? Would anybody?

America shouldn’t be surprised that “winning the hearts and minds” isn’t happening and indeed the opposite sentiments gain support all around the world. America (and its people who elected Mr. Bush et al) is its own biggest enemy - in very effectively recruiting people for the terrorist groups.

Does it matter if the marines responsible (and indeed their commanders etc) were tried, found guilty and sentenced? No. I don’t think so.

I post this, not because I believe (yet) that this could be true, but to keep people abreast of all the different angles this story is taking. The “evidence” shown here is still circumstancial and focused more on the possible motives of the key people involved, rather than the event itself.

The investigation is still not finished (despite Murtha’s judgements) and not available to the public yet. But based upon some of the prior comments by high-profile military commanders in a position of direct knowledge, I’d still say that some improper and criminal actions were taken by some Marines. How many and how much, is yet to be seen.

have a nice day (enjoy your puppies!)

The central charge against Prescott Bush has a basis in fact. In 1942, under the Trading With the Enemy Act, the U.S. government seized several companies in which he had an interest. Prescott at the time was an investment banker with Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), which had funneled U.S. capital into Germany during the 1920s and ’30s. Among the seized companies was the Union Banking Corporation (UBC) of New York, which was controlled by German industrialist Fritz Thyssen. Thyssen had been an early financier of the Nazi party–in fact, in 1941 he published a book entitled I Paid Hitler. Ergo, Prescott helped finance the Nazis.

Prescott’s involvement with Nazi finance is more complicated. Though Thyssen had been an ardent backer of the Nazis in the early days, he broke with them in 1938 after the Kristallnacht pogrom against the Jews. He fled to Switzerland the following year, and Hitler confiscated his fortune and stripped him of his citizenship. In I Paid Hitler Thyssen confessed his role in financing the Nazis and denounced the Führer. Arrested in Vichy France, he spent the balance of the war as an Axis prisoner. Prescott Bush, for his part, owned a single share of stock (of 4,000) in UBC, the Thyssen bank. According to a 2001 Boston Globe piece, the New York Herald Tribune ran a story in July 1942 headlined “Hitler’s Angel Has 3 Million in US Bank,” in which Prescott and other BBH partners “explain[ed] to government regulators that their position [as directors of UBC] was merely an unpaid courtesy for a client.”

“So, did Bush and his firm finance the Nazis and enable Germany to rearm? Indirectly, yes. But they had a lot of company. Some of the most distinguished names in American business had investments or subsidiaries in prewar Germany, including Standard Oil and General Motors. Critics have argued for years that without U.S. money, the Nazis could never have waged war.”

Probably a lesson to be learned here for anyone who puts too much stock in any of the talking heads on TV, no matter what their political stripes are.

My gut reaction like Mr. Hackett was Murtha was out of line and it didn’t come from someone’s talking points. Therefore it’s not bullshit but reality!

Hardball 6/2/06

Hackett: I don’t think that speculation, I don’t think that Congressman Murtha’s rush to judgment and, frankly, over the top comments will help get to the bottom.

O’DONNELL: What was over the top, Paul, do you think? Because he came out before we had heard a lot about this and said that these Iraqi civilians were killed in cold blood by U.S. Marines?

HACKETT: I think that the language “cold blood,” “they committed cold-blooded murder,” that doesn’t allow us to get to the bottom of what happened here.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13106755/

As merely some broad additional comments, I mentioned that I hope all those truly guilty in this event receive the full punishment of the law. I don’t think I could have been much clearer about where I stand on that. I did also mention that as a human, you could only try to begin to understand the emotions and stress that these soldiers must deal with daily, that could potentially escalate into this type of violence (though even now it has still not officially been determined, though it seems likely). That statement is a far cry from any kind of tacit approval or acceptance. It’s simply acknowledging our humaness, and our limits in maintaining moral compasses in times of unending stress, anger and fear.

But that wasn’t really the point of the initial posting so I didn’t dwell on it.

I also made a off-hand comment about how I felt some people (Murtha, not you John!!) were rushing to use the blood of civilians to make political points. Again, it wasn’t the focus of my comments.

So, to say or imply that I put the purposeful death of civilians on an equal or lesser scale of moral outrage with Murtha’s spouting off on the incident before investigations are complete, is simply an incorrect assessment of my post.

And now, two more side points:

The moral relativism game is played equally skillfully by those on either side of the political spectrum. I am reminded of this every day when I read about the now many thousands of civilians who are targeted, purposeful victims of insurgent bombings, shootings and beheadings, which don’t garner a peep of indignation and outrage from those against the war.

Also, I would disagree about Murtha risking political standing by making his comments. He is, after all, a Democrat (and we know that vast majority’s feelings on the war issue), and has taken a point of view now (i.e. immediate withdrawal) that a growing majority of people agree with in a broader sense (i.e. that they want to see a reasonable timeframe for getting the U.S. combat troops out of Iraq). He can certainly read the writing on the wall, as far as public opinion on the war goes. So, I don’t see any great risk being played on his part, unless the truth about the Haditha events are not as they are being described (which seems unlikely at this point).

“When the fantasy of liberator meets the reality of occupier, bearings are lost. When one of your own is killed by some faceless, unrecognizale enemy, everyone becomes an enemy. Women and children are killed. Our sons and daughters are killed. Our sense of who we are as a fair and just people is killed right along with it. This isn’t a war. This is chaos.”

-Curtcon at http://unbearablebobness.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/05/bullets_through.html

For the record, I think your prospective on Murtha is spot-on, too.

http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/
(scroll down until you see “Bill O’Reilly Scumbag”)

Watch Keith Olbermann rip Bill O’Lie-ly to pieces for saying American troops in WWII slaughtered unarmed SS POWs at Malmedy. This is exactly the opposite of what happened. Not just once did the rightwingnuts favorite bloviator say it, but twice (once to justify Abu Ghriab, then again for Haditha). Even after being corrected (but of course never saying he was wrong), BillO says it again to seemingly say “so what? it happens”.

We are not Nazis. The USA fought and died and bled and sacrificed to defeat real tyranny, evil and stupidity. It was pusch’s grandpappy who bankrolled part of Hitler’s rise to power (until ‘42). Look it up.

I don’t know that political spin by either side is necessarily “a more serious affront to our collective sense of decency” than “a few intentional killings of innocent bystanders with an ensuing coverup,” however. On any scale, I think we’d all agree that the intentional killing of innocent civilians then covering it up trumps most other transgressions I can think of at the moment. Politics is talk. Dead is dead.

Basically, the focus on Murtha in this case is just the echo chamber repeating the right wing’s talking points. It’s bullshit. And referring to Murtha as having a “left wing extremists vendetta” betrays either dishonesty or ignorance as to the kind of politician he, in particular, is.

leftbehind, that BBC video actually relates to a _different_ civilian massacre by US Marines. Thanks to the right’s moral relativism, I’m sure we’ll hear about how the _real_ outrage in this new case is that the person who provided the video to the Beeb is a Muslim activist who wants the US out of Iraq. Clearly that’s a much more serious affront to our collective sense of decency than a few intentional killings of innocent bystanders, with an ensuing coverup.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5039420.stm

Bottom line John Murtha obviously has a problem with the Bush administration and the Iraq war. Fair enough. But he should leave the troops out of his left wing extremists vendetta.

But thanks to these voices, America doesn’t completely come off as an oil addicted killing machine that wants to destroy the islamic world.

At this point Murtha has setup the media guns that the second the Investigation is completed and charges are brought forward it will be a media frenzy and any notion of “fair” trial is gone!