Did US marines massacre Iraqi civilians? Options

[*mipadi*]

From MSNBC.com:

Witnesses to the slaying of 24 Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the western town of Haditha say the Americans shot men, women and children at close range in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal in a roadside bombing.

Aws Fahmi, a Haditha resident who said he watched and listened from his home as Marines went from house to house killing members of three families, recalled hearing his neighbor across the street, Younis Salim Khafif, plead in English for his life and the lives of his family members. "I heard Younis speaking to the Americans, saying: 'I am a friend. I am good,' " Fahmi said. "But they killed him, and his wife and daughters."

The 24 Iraqi civilians killed on Nov. 19 included children and the women who were trying to shield them, witnesses told a Washington Post special correspondent in Haditha this week and U.S. investigators said in Washington. The girls killed inside Khafif's house were ages 14, 10, 5, 3 and 1, according to death certificates.

[…]

In Haditha, families of those killed keep an ear cocked to a foreign station, Radio Monte Carlo, waiting for any news of a trial of the Marines.

"They are waiting for the sentence—although they are convinced that the sentence will be like one for someone who killed a dog in the United States," said Waleed Mohammed, a lawyer preparing a file for Iraqi courts and the United Nations, if the U.S. trial disappoints. "Because Iraqis have become like dogs in the eyes of Americans.''

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[Retrogressive]

Personally, this just reinforces my disdain towards America.

What you don't think EVERY nation has killed innocent people in war? America is incredibly corrupt, yes, but is there a country that isn't?

[*mipadi*]

What you don't think EVERY nation has killed innocent people in war? America is incredibly corrupt, yes, but is there a country that isn't?

Does that make it okay? Is that to say that, since many countries have killed innocence, it's okay to let America do the same?

I think not. Since his Iraq-posseses-weapons-of-mass-destruction reasoning fell through, Bush has regularly said how attacking Iraq was a good thing, because it got rid of Saddam Hussein. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that was one of Bush's reasons. Is Iraq any better off? Do they have less violence than they did before in Iraq?

Let's look at these three families. At least under Saddam, armed men never ran through their home and shot their family members in cold blood.

America is supposed to be "liberating" Iraq. We're supposed to be bringing democracy to the country. We're supposed to be ridding it of the rule of fear and terror of Saddam. Yet here we are, murdering innocent civilians (and let's be honest—Fallujah alone saw far more massacres than just this one). Here we are, rounding up Iraq civilians and throwing them in jail for no reason and with no charges—and then abusing them. You have to ask, how much better are we than Saddam? Sure, maybe we're better, but none of these massacres, none of this prisoner abuse should be happening at all. This is not what America stands for.