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Year End Loose Ends: Haditha

348 words.

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, since it was a story I was following with some interest throughout the year. I read recently that four Marines involved in the alleged killing of 24 civilians at Haditha are now being charged with murder.

I’ve waffled a lot on this one. Initially I thought they were guilty, then I thought they weren’t. Now it appears there’s at least enough evidence to try them.

But unlike that other case of Marines planning and raping and burning that 14-year-old Iraqi girl, who I have no doubt are guilty and I enthusiastically support publicly executing them with rusty fish hooks, the case of the Haditha Marines leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Mainly because the news reports have not yet convinced me of their clear-cut guilt. I haven’t seen any “smoking guns” (they haven’t even exhumed the victims’ bodies), which suggests this is probably a borderline case that barely crept over into the area of criminality. They may have killed people they knew were unarmed civilians, but I suspect the circumstances were such that it can’t be lumped into the categories of “revenge killing” or “cold-blooded murder.” I’m sure bullets were flying all over the place, one of their buddies had just been blown up, and they were probably confused as hell about who the good guys were and who the bad guys were. Maybe it was just a simple matter of survival instincts taking over and they erred on the side of caution. Who wouldn’t? I guess I’m saying I’m still giving them the benefit of the doubt; unless something else comes to light, I think they did the best they could in a bad, bad situation.

I’m not saying they shouldn’t be punished. In fact, punishment might be in America’s best political interests, to help smooth over any bad blood between us and the people of Haditha. But I don’t feel like these particular Marines are inherently bad people.

Thomas Krehbiel writes The Krehbiel Strikes Back, a generally centrist commentary on news, media, politics, and culture.

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