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May 29, 2006
Letter to the Washington Post
[ RELATED: Context. Also, I posted the below at Winds of Change, which prompted a huge debate going on there right now. ]
A year ago I was charged with two counts of premeditated murder and with other war crimes related to my service in Iraq. My wife and mother sat in a Camp Lejeune courtroom for five days while prosecutors painted me as a monster; then autopsy evidence blew their case out of the water, and the Marine Corps dropped all charges against me ["Marine Officer Cleared in Killing of Two Iraqis," news story, May 27, 2005].
So I know something about rushing to judgment, which is why I am so disturbed by the remarks of Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) regarding the Haditha incident ["Death Toll Rises in Haditha Attack, GOP Leader Says," news story, May 20]. Mr. Murtha said, "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
In the United States, we have a civil and military court system that relies on an investigatory and judicial process to make determinations based on evidence. The system is not served by such grand pronouncements of horror and guilt without the accuser even having read the investigative report.
Mr. Murtha's position is particularly suspect when he is quoted by news services as saying that the strain of deployment "has caused them [the Marines] to crack in situations like this." Not only is he certain of the Marines' guilt but he claims to know the cause, which he conveniently attributes to a policy he opposes.
Members of the U.S. military serving in Iraq need more than Mr. Murtha's pseudo-sympathy. They need leaders to stand with them even in the hardest of times. Let the courts decide if these Marines are guilty. They haven't even been charged with a crime yet, so it is premature to presume their guilt -- unless that presumption is tied to a political motive.
Jacksonville, N.C.
The writer served as a Marine enlisted man in the Persian Gulf War and most recently as a platoon commander in Iraq.
Judith | 05/29/06 at 09:17 PM | Categories: - Iraq
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Comments
"Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
The two parts of Murtha's statement directly contradict each other. If the troops "overreacted because of the pressure on them," then they were not killing "in cold blood." And if they did kill "in cold blood," then by definition it was a dispassionate, calculated, and premeditated act, and not an "overreaction" to any kind of "pressure" whatsoever.
This muddled statement is typical of the antiwar Left (think Kerry), who want to have it both ways: they don't want to be perceived as "anti-troops", but they go on to make the most outrageous allegations against our men and women in uniform. In other words, they do not want to be seen for what they are.
Asher - Dreams Into Lightning | May 29, 2006 04:58 PM
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