NY Times Reports Haditha Non-News
242 words.
Blogspot readers: This was originally posted August 18, 2006, 11:14am, but didn’t make it to Blogspot the first time.
I heard about this NY Times report on the radio this morning: Marines May Have Excised Evidence on 24 Iraqi Deaths. This is another story about the alleged revenge murder of 24 Iraqi civilians by marines in Haditha. We haven’t heard much about Haditha since we last learned that one of the investigations was complete. That investigation concluded there had not been a deliberate cover-up, only that some people didn’t use very good judgment. The report has not been made public, and there is still a gag order on everyone involved in the case.
Not surprisingly, David S. Cloud’s NY Times story doesn’t reveal anything particularly newsworthy. There’s certainly nothing new about the events in Haditha. Apparently, though, Cloud wasn’t satisfied with the official report’s findings that there was no cover-up, and sought out some “anonymous sources” to put a more suspicious slant on the story. He learned that there were some missing logbook pages from the day in question and that a video from a drone was harder to get than usual. That’s basically it. Cloud thinks that’s enough to start implying that the marines “may” have deliberately disposed of evidence, even though he provides no corroborating evidence and the official report concluded otherwise. It’s a nice bit of sensationalism.
In a related story, monkeys “may” start flying out of my butt.
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