Shooting Civilians in Nangarhar, No Gun Ri
From the WaPo’s Ann Scott Tyson and Josh White comes this depressing story about Marines running amok in the wake of a roadside bombing in the Nangarhar region of eastern Afghanistan: Excessive force by Marines alleged.
A platoon of elite Marine Special Operations troops reacted with “excessive force” after an ambush in Afghanistan last month, opening fire on pedestrians and civilian vehicles along a 10-mile stretch of road and killing 12 people — including a 4-year-old girl, a 1-year-old boy and three elderly villagers — an investigation by an Afghan human rights commission alleges.
The investigation, based on dozens of eyewitness interviews, found that Marines in a convoy of Humvees continued shooting at at least six locations along the road, miles beyond the site where they were ambushed by a suicide bomber in a van. They fired at stationary vehicles, passersby and others who were “exclusively civilian in nature” and had made “no kind of provocative or threatening behavior,” according to a draft report of the investigation obtained by The Washington Post.
[snip]
Shortly after the incident, the Marine platoon and its parent company were pulled out of the area and are in the Persian Gulf with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.
Gunnery Sgt. Michael Turner, a spokesman for Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune, N.C., said yesterday that the company commander and senior noncommissioned officer were redeployed to North Carolina after they were relieved of command on April 3. Special Operations officers “had lost trust and confidence” in the unit’s leadership, Turner said.
I’ve got no reason to think this is anything other than what it’s being presented as: A case of a small number of Marines overreacting to a roadside bombing, with their superiors neither encouraging what they did nor condoning it after the fact. It’s awful enough as an example of the horrors of war just as it is.
Horrible things happen in war. And it can be hard to know when we’re getting the real story. Even fifty years after the fact, the urge to bury the truth is strong. Consider the No Gun Ri massacre, an incident during the Korean War in which hundreds of refugees fleeing the fighting, women and children, were killed by US soldiers. The Army’s 2001 report on that incident declared that the killings were “not deliberate.” But now high-level documentation has come to light that makes a compelling case that the killings were actually official policy, that the soldiers who shot those refugees were following orders. What’s more, it looks like the investigators who issued that 2001 report were aware of that documentation, and chose not to mention it.
The details are available in this story from Charles J. Hanley and Martha Mendoza of the Associated Press: Letter reveals U.S. intent at No Gun Ri.
It’s not a pleasant story. But it’s the truth.
April 15th, 2007 at 4:02 am
If it were just Lies coming out of the US government, it would be a concern. But they are pathological Lies so it is a crisis (except few are awake yet.)
The lies cover for murders committed or to be committed, and the lies cover for billions (trillions) in wealth diverted from society.
Yet so may people continue to believe them even after significant lies have been partially or fully exposed, for example:
THE LIES COVER FOR MURDERS COMMITTED OR TO BE COMMITTED: the No Gun Ri massacre, or more recently the New York City massacres and the resulting “war on terra”:
“ The evidence that the government has covered up and whitewashed what really occurred on 9/11 is overwhelming.
The former director of the FBI says there was a cover up by the 9/11 Commission. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2005/11/17/122900.shtml
And the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials lied to the Commission, and considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements, yet didn’t bother to tell the American people. (washington post)
Indeed, the co-chairs of the Commission now admit that the Commission largely operated based upon political considerations…
…the rest (and there is much more) is here: http://www.911blogger.com/node/3494
April 15th, 2007 at 4:03 am
THE LIES COVER FOR TRILLIONS IN WEALTH DIVERTED FROM PEACEFUL SOCIETY (TRILLIONS = 1000 billions = 1000×1000 millions):
“On September 10, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that the Pentagon had lost, by the estimate he chose to use for his speech, $2.3 trillion dollars. Many of you good readers know about this and are asking where the money went? That’s a good question, but what really intrigues me is: Where did it come from?
If you add up the entire US defense budgets from 1996 to 2001, you only come up with circa $1.6 trillion. Yet, according to Rummy, not only was that much money lost, but an ADDITIONAL $700 billion dollars has disappeared. Remember, we’re talking about $2.3 trillion dollars missing…”
http://www.newswithviews.com/public_comm/public_commentary48.htm
April 15th, 2007 at 4:04 am
…PEOPLE CONTINUE TO BELIEVE THE LIES, but not everyone:
“…And new evidence is piling up around us, arguably strong enough to declare the whole War on Terror an undeniable fraud.
Virtually ignored by mainstream media, the Americans showed their hand this year with the new Iraqi oil law, now making its way through Iraq’s parliament. …”
http://www.winnipegsun.com/News/Columnists/Gleeson_John/2007/04/13/4002082.html
April 15th, 2007 at 7:29 am
This is sadly something that happens in every war. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. It was good to see this human rights group at least is reporting human rights violations by the Islamofascists, you of course would not have known that without turning to page two of the story, a little trick newspapers use all the time. It will also be interesting to see how aggressively this group is in bringing the Islamofascists to justice for what this group admits are much more serious violations. Will they use the Arab courts with the same vigor as the Western courts. Not unless they have a death wish.
Another thing to remember, the Marines would have an easier job identifying the enemy if they wore uniforms. Maybe we should hold a convention in Switzerland sometime to discuss this.
When the dust all settles, my guess is that the Marines were taking sporadic gunfire from gunmen hiding behind women and children. Real heroes these Islamofascists.
Of course all this would be moot if the neo-cons had not attacked Amerika on September 11, 2001.
April 15th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
chuckle