U.S. Marine spared from jail time in Iraq killings

If you read about any war, civilians died. It is an ugly part of what happens that "polite" civilians never want to think about. Most of the time it is because of the type of warfare being waged where enemy forces are part of the population, dressed like everyone else and attacking from the crowds of innocent people. That is what happened in Iraq as well as Afghanistan, just as it happened in Vietnam.

The men and women we send to fight these wars never know who is a simple bystander and who wants to kill them until it is too late for second guesses.

Did these Marines snap or was it more a case of everything else that happened in Iraq? None of of us really know because we weren't there. These memories will be with them for the rest of their lives.

U.S. Marine spared from jail time in Iraq killings


By Mary Slosson
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif
Wed Jan 25, 2012 7:13am EST
(Reuters) - A U.S. Marine accused of leading a 2005 massacre of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha was spared jail time when he was sentenced on Tuesday for his role in killings that brought international condemnation on U.S. troops.

The harshest penalty Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, 31, now faces for his guilty plea on Monday to a single count of dereliction of duty is a demotion to the rank of private, the lowest rank in the service, as recommended by a military judge.

As part of his guilty plea, Wuterich accepted responsibility for giving negligent verbal instructions to the Marines under his command when he told them to "shoot first and ask questions later," orders that resulted in the deaths of civilians.

In his court statement on Tuesday, Wuterich added that when he gave that order, "the intent wasn't that they should shoot civilians. It was that they would not hesitate in the face of the enemy."

He said that he and his fellow Marines behaved honorably under extreme circumstances, and that he "never fired my weapon at any women or children that day."
read more here

Marine sues Congressman Murtha for Hadithah comments

Marine sues Murtha for Hadithah comments

By Ramesh Santanam - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Sep 26, 2008 18:00:52 EDT

PITTSBURGH — A former Marine lance corporal sued Rep. John Murtha for slander Thursday, saying the Pennsylvania Democrat damaged his reputation by saying Marines killed women and children “in cold blood” in Hadithah, Iraq, in November 2005.

The federal lawsuit claims Murtha violated Justin Sharratt’s rights to due process and presumption of innocence with comments on various news shows in May 2006. Sharratt, who was honorably discharged last year, said he received hate e-mails and has been called “baby killer” when he has gone out in Canonsburg, about 15 miles south of Pittsburgh.

“Sharratt, in being labeled repeatedly by Murtha as a ‘cold-blooded murderer,’ and by Murtha outrageously claiming that the Hadithah incident was comparable to the infamous (My Lai) massacre of Vietnam, has suffered permanent, irreversible damage to his reputation,” the lawsuit states. American service members killed as many as 504 Vietnamese villagers in the My Lai massacre.

Military prosecutors have said 24 Iraqis, including women and children, were killed in Hadithah on Nov. 19, 2005, after one Marine was killed and two others wounded by a roadside bomb. Murtha, a former Marine and decorated Vietnam War veteran, blamed the killings on troops under too much pressure in Iraq.
click post title for more