A few words on Haditha

I haven't commented on this yet...and that's been deliberate.

Unlike a certain congressman (I'll get to him later) , I don't believe in prejudging these things. That's what a military court of Inquiry is for, and the military justice system. There have been several marines who have been unjustly accused and acquitted of infractions of this kind.. and a couple, in my view, who have been overly stigmitized and punished far beyond what their actual deeds called for, like some of the guards at Abu Ghreib, strictly as political fodder by the Bush Administration.

If in fact a couple of isolated individuals went beyond the pale of military conduct, there is a legal system in place to deal with it, and they will be judged as they should be - by their peers. The military is like any other occupation. It has its criminals, people who fail to maintain standards in a tough situation....but I would bet the percentage is a lot less than in the average cubicle farm, especially given the increased stress of combat.

What makes me absolutely livid is the attempt by leftist politicians and some in the media to use this as a tool to libel our entire military and their efforts for political purposes.

That, of course, was what was behind one time marine Congressman John Murtha referring to these marines on ABC News as `murderers'...before the inconvenience of a trial.

You have to wonder about Murtha. Obviously, his new status as Code Pink's poster boy , Cindy Sheehan's snuggle buddy and the Angry left's favorite attention junkie is more important to him than any loyalty to his fellow marines.

Now, some people would ascribe a higher motive to Congressman Murtha. Some would say that he is merely outraged at some of his fellow marines being guilty of atrocities.

Horse manure.

In the first place, Murtha is hanging around with far too many questionable people and making far too many questionable statements these days to put an innocent spin on this.

In the second place, these marines have not been convicted of anything yet! Where does he get off referring to them as `murderers'? Who made Jack Murtha judge, jury and executioner?

How do you get to that place I wonder? How do you go from being a decorated veteran to going out of your way to diss your brothers in arms and help the enemies of our country, just to do some political grandstanding? What turns an eagle into a snake?

Semper Fidelus? More like Nil Fidelus.

al-Jazeera and the rest of the Arab media are having an orgy over this story, as you would expect. So is the Iraqi government, which has already told us that they will side with Iran over the US if it comes to a showdown, and who have now surfaced with numerous other allegations of abuse of civilians. This is just more evidence that our time in Iraq is approaching its end, that Bush's `Arab democracy' is pretty much a failure and that we will likely end up at the end of the day with `thank you very much, Americans for your time and money..now get the hell out so we can bond with our jihad brothers!'

As for those marines, I say let the wheels of justice turn...without the public spotlight, so they can be tried fairly and punished if necessary.