Remember in 2005 when Haditha was a word on everyone’s lips? Especially Murtha and his ilk. They intertwined Murder with Marine over and over and over again. The nightly news ran stories galore on the incident calling it the new My Lai.
Well, two more Marines have been cleared of wrongdoing:
The Marine Corps announced Thursday that it had dropped charges against Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt, who was accused of murdering three Iraqi brothers in November 2005.
Sharratt was one of eight Marines initially accused in the slayings of 24 civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha after a roadside bomb killed a Marine.
Four enlisted men were charged with the killings and four officers with dereliction of duty for not ordering a war crimes investigation.
Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis, commander of Marine Force Central Command, said he dropped the charges out of a belief that Sharratt acted within Marine Corps standards when forced to make a quick decision while searching a house for insurgents.
In a separate decision, Mattis also dropped charges against Capt. Randy W. Stone, who was a lawyer with the battalion involved.
And very little is said on the nightly news, in our newspapers.
Mattis also praised Sharratt for his service. Here is the complete statement from General Mattis:
"The events of November 19, 2005 have been exhaustively reviewed by Marine, Army, and Naval Criminal Investigative Service investigators. An independent Article 32 Investigating Officer has considered all the facts and determined that the evidence does not support a referral to court-martial for LCpl Sharratt. Based on my review of all the evidence in this case and considering the recommendation of the Article 32 officer, I have dismissed the charges against LCpl Sharratt.
"LCpl Sharratt has served as a Marine infantryman in Iraq where our Nation is fighting a shadowy enemy who hides among the innocent people, does not comply with any aspect of the law of war, and routinely targets and intentionally draws fire toward civilians. The challenges of this combat environment put extreme pressures on our Marines. Notwithstanding, operational, moral, and legal imperatives demand that we Marines stay true to our own standards and maintain compliance with the law of war in this morally bruising environment.
"The experience of combat is difficult to understand intellectually and very difficult to appreciate emotionally. One of our Nation’s most articulate Supreme Court Justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., served as an infantryman during the Civil War and described war as an ‘incommunicable experience.’ He has also noted elsewhere that ‘detached reflection cannot be demanded in the face of an uplifted knife.’
Marines have a well earned reputation for remaining cool in the face of enemies brandishing much more than knives. The brutal reality that Justice Holmes described is experienced each day in Iraq, where Marines willingly put themselves at great risk to protect innocent civilians. Where the enemy disregards any attempt to comply with ethical norms of warfare, we exercise discipline and restraint to protect the innocent caught on the battlefield. Our way is right, but it is also difficult.
"With the dismissal of these charges LCpl Sharratt may fairly conclude that he did his best to live up to the standards, followed by U.S. Fighting men throughout our many wars, in the face of life or death decisions made in a matter of seconds in combat. And as he has always remained cloaked in the presumption of innocence, with this dismissal of charges, he remains in the eyes of the law – and in my eyes – innocent."
So lets look at what we have here:
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For a great timeline and rundown of evidence in the case and against Murtha check out this Let Freedom Ring post:
- Murtha made these malicious accusations before he’d received an official briefing.
- Murtha initially said that his information came from “commanders” and other people “who know what they’re talking about.”
- A Marine spokesman said that Gen. Hagee briefed him but that didn’t happen until a week after Murtha went public with his accusations.
- Murtha said that Gen. Hagee had briefed him before Gen. Hagee had briefed him. I’ll let readers decide whether Rep. Murtha lied outright when he said that.
And from NewsMax comes this rundown of Captain Jeffrey Dinsmore testimony, the battalion intelligence officer, who testified for 8 hours some months back and whose testimony was declassified in June of this year:
- Intelligence gathered by Marine S2 officers in advance of the events of Nov. 19th, 2005, revealed that it was known that an insurgent ambush was planned for the day.
- Although exact details of the planned ambush were not known, some important details were revealed — most importantly, that some 20 insurgents would take part, and a white car would play an important role in the ambush.
- The intelligence was made available to the officers and men of Kilo Company including Sgt. Frank Wuterich who has been charged with, among other things, murdering the occupants of a white car that came on the scene following the IED explosion that killed one Marine and seriously wounded another. The evidence will show that Wuterich acted appropriately when he shot the passengers of the vehicle.
- Although the media continues to report that 24 innocent civilians were killed that day, the S2’s testimony shows that eight of the dead, including four of the five occupants in the white car killed by Wuterich, were known insurgents and the dead civilians therefore numbered 16, not 24.
- The insurgents whose communications were intercepted and which revealed the planned ambush were the same two men who were the sources of the fallacious and dishonest Time magazine story, which was the source of the accusations against the Marines.
As previously reported by NewsMax, the battalion S2 officer made a full and complete report based on his monitoring of the day’s events and the intelligence he and others had amassed then and previous days. As we wrote at the time, the PowerPoint after-action report he sent up the command ladder proved to all the higher officers that the incident warranted no further investigation. None!
It told the full story, was supported by photographic evidence, logs of all the day’s radio transmissions, and included an almost minute-by-minute narrative of the day’s events.
The eight hours of testimony and cross examination offered by Capt. Jeffrey Dinsmore, the S2 officer, gave full details of the intelligence passed on to the officers and men of the 3rd Battalion 1St Marine Regiment including the Marines of Kilo Company. It buttressed previous briefings which alerted the Marines of insurgent tactics such as the killing of seven reconnaissance Marines who were ambushed by insurgents in hospital beds with AK-47s hidden under the bedcovers.
According to Dinsmore, a 20-year up-from-the ranks captain reputed to be one of the best intelligence officers in the Marine Corps, as well as the unit’s only officer awarded a Bronze Star for his service in Haditha, the officers and men of 3rd Battalion 1St Marine Regiment were specifically alerted to the possibility of a white car being involved in the planned ambush.
But they trudged on with this witchhunt because of Murtha and the MSM. They have put and are putting these Marines through years of hell to satisfy their craving for another My Lai they can trumpet. Our Marines be damned.
UPDATE
Listen to Bryan from Hot Air calling Murtha’s office and being hung up on after asking if a statement was forthcoming:
See author page
Murtha’s a BF, maybe instead of calling some one a shit bird we can call them a Murtha?? He almost makes me ashamed of being a Marine. Could the Commandant burn all of Murtha’s records so it shows that he was never in our beloved Corps?? He is the anti-Marine, he goes against everything that Corps teaches us, he should be in the bible as an example of what not to do, or of how not to act. Disgusting that he would throw fellow Marines under the bus, and then pressure the Commandant to get convictions with his powers of pork. J Scum Bag Murtha.
I know readers are probably getting tired of hearing me say this, but the damage is already done and there will be no retraction of the hysteric “New My Lai” headlines.
Just like Scott Beauchamp and that ever lengthening list of phony stories and outright lies that are heralded as truth, the real truth never seems to catch up.
You’d think the “news” media would learn and show some judgement, but since they never pay any price for being wrong, why should they?
And the “news” media won’t force Murtha to apologize either. That would be too embarrasing for both Murtha and the media.