Why no indignation in the US because of this?

[Sledge]

I was not there so I do not know.
I am not justifying them, what I am saying is that everybody is responsible for his own actions and if the enemy behaves not as they should this is not an excuse for you to do murders, unless it can be avoided.
So the question to ask is: was it really necessary to bomb them?

And the answer is "yes." They were enemy soldiers in a war. They hadn't surrendered. Therefore they were targets. What part of this do you either not accept or not understand?

 

[TragicMonkey]

Do let's try to make the next war a nonviolent one. It brings the tone of the thing down.

 

[Travis]

To me it's silly to even get worked up over the highway of death. That was a legitimate military tactic.

Now the Haditha thing. I remember that on the news. I remember the particulars were never verified. Until we know just what happened there there is nothing to be indignant about.

Were they all really civilians? Were they all really unarmed? If they were did the American soldiers know for sure that they were?

Establishing all those things considering the sparsity of evidence is hard.

 

[BenBurch]

This thread is about the (lack) of public indignation generated by the shooting of 20+ unarmed civilians in Iraq in 2005.

...

You mean the killings that come with each and every war?

You mean the killings I was marching in DC to try to prevent in 2002?

*sigh*

 

[remirol]

This thread is about the (lack) of public indignation generated by the shooting of 20+ unarmed civilians in Iraq in 2005.

It's almost 2013. There are very few things that happened 8 years ago that I will be indignant about today. If you had asked this question in 2005, I might have given you a different response, but I just plain don't give a **** now. Sorry if you feel I should, but there are problems facing us in 2013 that matter much more than this.

The war in Iraq was gotten into on flimsy pretexts, was an extremely poor use of our time and resources, and provided cover for no shortage of bad things to happen. That's now common knowledge; hopefully we will avoid making the same mistake again in the future.

The point I would like to make is why we had a US marine group that killed a number of unarmed, innocent civilians with none of them spent one day in jail and almost no US citizen, nor any citizen or the allied countries, made any fuss about it (save maybe few hundreds of people in a country of 300 million+).
(minisnip)
My point is why we did not hear big news, I mean, really big news stories in most TV shows, etc. about this.
Why actors and politicians (starting from the President down, ..) did not openly condemn the fact that Sgt. Wuterich did not spend one night in jail?
Why no marches for justice, no protests, people were not angry against Wuterich, why?

A famous man once said "War is hell." What that means is that things routinely happen during the course of any war that would be considered horrific in peacetime, and sometimes those things happen for what are actually valid reasons given the circumstances. Without knowing details of why and how all these men were acquitted I would not, at the time, have felt it appropriate for me to attempt to personally subvert the course of justice by raging over something about which I knew little to nothing. The correct solution to help prevent this from happening again is to stop getting into wars by playing world cop -- then there won't _be_ a circumstance where our Marines are blowing away anyone, much less civilians, and there won't be a need for court-martials and trials and the like.

It is indeed entirely possible that those acquittals were inappropriate, but I don't know and, eight years later, I just don't care. I don't understand why you think I should, either. Injustices happen every day constantly. Some I can prevent; some I can do something about after the fact; some I can only look at and think "that's a shame and it shouldn't have happened". This one would fall into the latter category. There is only so much time in my days, and getting myself worked up over something that happened eight years ago and that I don't know the _real_ facts behind is not productive. In addition, the effort required to learn all those _real_ facts is also counterproductive.

Part of successfully living in a society with a lot of other people is knowing when to step back and let other people do their jobs. Attempting to play "know-better" from such a large distance and time is a recipe for great personal failure and disappointment.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

It's actually somewhat less outrageous than what the U.S. did to retreating Iraqi soldiers in the first Gulf War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Death

That would be true if they were surrendering rather than retreating.

I would say that Generals and CoCs are obligated to continue fighting retreating troops becase an army (or soldier) that hasn't surrendered is one that you should presume is planning to kill you later.

And in the case of the Highway of Death the last thing they had done was scorch and burn Kuwait until we were killing too many of them for them to have time. Plus they appeared to be some of Saddam's most loyal troops. Not much reason to think anything short of surrender should have been taken as a reason to stop killing them.

(BTW I won't fault Bush on this decision. There is a lot of 20/20 hindsight involved plus he was right to be concerned with public opinion)

 

[12AX7]

I beg to disagree.
Failure of the enemy to do the right thing does not exempt you from doing all you can to avoid casualties as much as possible

Just curious. Have you ever served in a military force?

 

[Tricky]

Why aren't people still outraged over My Lai?

 

[John Mekki]

[..]Now the Haditha thing. I remember that on the news. I remember the particulars were never verified. Until we know just what happened there there is nothing to be indignant about.
[..]

Evidence collected in the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha supports accusations that U.S. Marines deliberately shot civilians, including unarmed women and children, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2006/08/02/haditha-investigation.html

So, the deaths of 24 unarmed civilians (or even the strong suspect) is nothing to be "indignant about" for you?
Then for what exactly shall we be "indignant about" in this world?

 

[John Mekki]

It's almost 2013. There are very few things that happened 8 years ago that I will be indignant about today.

Were people indignant back in 2005 then?
There was already internet back then, we can check

A famous man once said "War is hell." What that means is that things routinely happen during the course of any war that would be considered horrific in peacetime, and sometimes those things happen for what are actually valid reasons given the circumstances. Without knowing details of why and how all these men were acquitted I would not, at the time, have felt it appropriate for me to attempt to personally subvert the course of justice by raging over something about which I knew little to nothing.

Then, if you do not know, why do not spend 5 minutes and get informed?

The correct solution to help prevent this from happening again is to stop getting into wars by playing world cop -- then there won't _be_ a circumstance where our Marines are blowing away anyone, much less civilians, and there won't be a need for court-martials and trials and the like.

But unfortunately war happened
So, let aside the fact whether the war was right or wrong, shall we consider what happen in Haditha or just blame all on George Bush or Saddam Hussein?

It is indeed entirely possible that those acquittals were inappropriate, but I don't know and, eight years later, I just don't care. I don't understand why you think I should, either. Injustices happen every day constantly.

Well, it does not happen so often that an US citizen kills 24 unarmed civilians and gets away with it.

Some I can prevent; some I can do something about after the fact; some I can only look at and think "that's a shame and it shouldn't have happened". This one would fall into the latter category.

I agree with you.
My point is that I saw many people protesting many things in the US, but not many going out in the streets to call for Wuterich to be hanged or to be sent in jail for life.

 

[John Mekki]

And the answer is "yes." They were enemy soldiers in a war. They hadn't surrendered. Therefore they were targets. What part of this do you either not accept or not understand?

That enemies that do not have surrended (or are assumed not to have surrended) must be killed under any circumstances.

But we are getting off-topic

 

[Sledge]

So this incident happened and was investigated. Six men had all charges against them dropped while a seventh was found not guilty. One man was convicted of negligent dereliction of duty and punished accordingly. You presumably believe that Frank Wuterich was guilty of more than he was tried for. Feel free to explain why.

 

[Sledge]

That enemies that do not have surrended (or are assumed not to have surrended) must be killed under any circumstances.

But we are getting off-topic

Then you are wrong. And I don't believe this is off topic at all, we're addressing the difference between how you think the military should behave and how everyone else thinks it should behave. That seems pretty relevant to the thread.

 

[John Mekki]

Why aren't people still outraged over My Lai?

This is not the question I am asking.
The question I am asking is why people did not protest in January this year when Wuterich was acquitted in January this year.

"He was convicted of a single count of negligent dereliction of duty on January 24, 2012, receiving a rank reduction and pay cut but avoiding jail time.[13]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haditha_killings#Trial_of_Wuterich

We are not talking about decades ago

 

[John Mekki]

Then you are wrong. And I don't believe this is off topic at all, we're addressing the difference between how you think the military should behave and how everyone else thinks it should behave. That seems pretty relevant to the thread.

I have received two warnings for going off-topic recently.
This thread is about the lack of indignation about the Haditha killings
The people murdered were civilians.
This has nothing to do with what you say.
Please open a separate thread

 

[remirol]

Were people indignant back in 2005 then?

I don't care.

Then, if you do not know, why do not spend 5 minutes and get informed?

Because it happened in 2005, it's currently 2013, and it would take far more than five minutes to get properly informed to the level required for second-guessing the decision of a military court; time which you yourself clearly have not spent (see also where you say "i assume..." or "I was not there so I do not know"...) on the subject.

So, let aside the fact whether the war was right or wrong, shall we consider what happen in Haditha or just blame all on George Bush or Saddam Hussein?

You have failed to understand the point of this sentence:

"A famous man once said "War is hell." What that means is that things routinely happen during the course of any war that would be considered horrific in peacetime, and sometimes those things happen for what are actually valid reasons given the circumstances."

The point is that if you want to stop horrible things from happening during war, stop going to war. The people killed in 2005 cannot be returned to life and due process of law acquitted those who killed them. The correct area of concern is the future, not the past.

My point is that I saw many people protesting many things in the US, but not many going out in the streets to call for Wuterich to be hanged or to be sent in jail for life.

That is because most people are rational, and rational people do not throw tantrums in the streets to second-guess the decision of a military tribunal without knowing all the facts.

 

[John Mekki]

So this incident happened and was investigated. Six men had all charges against them dropped while a seventh was found not guilty. One man was convicted of negligent dereliction of duty and punished accordingly. You presumably believe that Frank Wuterich was guilty of more than he was tried for. Feel free to explain why.

I do not understand the question.
Should I explain why I do not feel justice was being done when a group of people that killed 24 unarmed civilians went away without one day in jail?
Is this what you are asking me?

 

[John Mekki]

I don't care.
[..]

Pardon me, this is the point of this thread.
If you do not care about the OP, please feel free to post in another thread

Note.
The acquittal of Wuterich happened in January 2012

 

[remirol]

That enemies that do not have surrended (or are assumed not to have surrended) must be killed under any circumstances.

Have you _any_ conception of how military operations work?

I _do_ come from a military family. Enemies who haven't surrendered are either trying to shoot you or waiting until you turn your back so they can shoot you.

 

[remirol]

Pardon me, this is the point of this thread.

That topic is precisely what I'm talking about. You want to know why there was no indignation. I told you why: I don't care. You may extrapolate my opinion as desired to all the others who did not exhibit indignation too.

The acquittal of Wuterich happened in January 2012

So I should be throwing tantrums in the street in an effort to second-guess a military court from the bleachers because of why exactly?