[...] Readers might remember the "Jenin massacre" from April 2002, when Israeli soldiers were accused by the Palestinian Authority of killing of thousands of innocent civilians, only for the world to learn later that the casualties were lower by orders of magnitude and that the soldiers besmirched by the press actually took extraordinary risks to clear a West Bank suicide bomb factory and avoid the kind of mass killings of which they were accused.

... The facts that emerged after the fact at Jenin did not deter many at the time from believing the figures from Palestinian propagandists during the week of the operation. The Arafat aid, Saeb Erakhat, first told the international press that 5,000 were killed. Then the number diminished to 500. When the United Nations finally finished its investigation, it concluded that 52 Palestinians died and 23 Israeli soldiers, a particularly embarrassing accounting for that body's Middle East Envoy, who had told Time Magazine soon after the first reports that Israel, in its war on terror, "had lost all moral ground."

... Like the west bank terror nest at Jenin, Haditha by last November was under the effective control of the Iraqi Jihadist-Baathist alliance. Here is the lead sentence of an August 22, 2005 dispatch from the city in the British Guardian newspaper: "The executions are carried out at dawn on Haqlania bridge, the entrance to Haditha. A small crowd usually turns up to watch even though the killings are filmed and made available on DVD in the market the same afternoon."

So when lawyers for the marines who have already been accused of wanton slaughter told the Washington Post Sunday that on November 24 their clients were returning fire and following their rules of engagement, they deserve some benefit of the doubt (as is anyone accused under American law, where the sole burden is always on the accuser. Here is what the lawyer for one of the accused, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, said, "It will forever be his position that everything they did that day was following their rules of engagement and to protect the lives of Marines."

... It is true that photos taken after the incident show the deaths of women and children that the after action reports did not match those of subsequent investigators.

... we also know that our enemies routinely stack bodies, spread false stories, and coach and intimidate "witnesses" to killings that have not occurred. We know that our enemy, as a matter of war strategy, seeks to exploit the press and participate in the political dimension of the war..

And in what I consider a harbinger of bad new for Congressman John "Cold Blooded Murder" Murtha and the Leftacrats (BTW - A lawyer for one of the U.S. Marines under investigation in the deaths of 24 Iraqis last year says a congressman has biased the public against the Marines.), the Washington Post, certainly no friend of the administration or the military, and very much a proponent of every drop of bad news about Iraq that can be found to put in print, actually had an "almost neutral" piece today about the Haditha incident:

Witnesses have said Marines opened fire on Iraqi civilians, killing 24 men, women and children in three homes and a car to retaliate for the death of their comrade in a roadside bomb. The Marines are expected to argue that the civilians died during a chaotic battle that followed the bombing.

'WE DON'T ANSWER SUCH QUESTIONS'

Time initially reported that the tape was shot by a "journalism student" the day after the incident and described Hammurabi as working with "the internationally respected Human Rights Watch."

The magazine subsequently issued a correction on its Web site, writing that Human Rights Watch "has no ties or association with Hammurabi."

Defense lawyers say the man described by Time as a journalism student, 43-year-old Thaer Thabit al-Hadithi, was in fact the founder of Hammurabi and one of only two employees.

"Not that a 43-year-old can't be a student or that an organization can't be two people, but these are the kinds of things that you would bring up" in court, the source said.

A lawyer for one of the Marines under investigation, who also declined to be identified, said that Hammurabi was not a known or registered human rights organization and had no track record of reporting any other abuses.

"And it turns out these two employees have family members spending time in local prisons for insurgent activity," the attorney said. "I think the origins of the tape would have been better suited if it came from somebody who really did have altruistic motives in their heart."

Abdul Rahman al-Mashhadani, director of Hammurabi Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring, declined to answer questions from Reuters about the organization.

Jonathan Keiler in his Opinion Journal piece, "The Truth About Haditha," writes, "Now that a Marine Sergeant and squad leader has, through his attorney, given his account of what occurred in Haditha, Iraq, on November 19, 2005, it is time to lay to rest the growing hysteria, in the media and in Congress, over the incident. The account of Sergeant Frank D. Wuterich, does several things which should put to rest much speculation on both sides of the controversy":

[...] First, Wuterich confirms that a number of civilians, including women and children, were indeed killed by Marine infantrymen in the wake of an attack on their convoy. Wuterich's account jibes, in general with the overall numbers of dead claimed by Iraqis at the scene, though whether all the fatalities were civilian remains to be seen. The civilian deaths were not caused by the roadside bomb that hit the Marine convoy and killed Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, or by subsequent U.S. air or artillery strikes. The only remaining question is whether Wuterich and his fellow Marines--as some Iraqis and Representative John Murtha (D-PA) claim--killed their victims in a cold blooded massacre, as opposed to an accident of war. Wuterich claims that the killings were an unintended and accidental. Based on all the available evidence so far in the public domain, the case the Sergeant makes is much stronger than that of the increasingly unhinged Congressmen, and his fellow travelers in the Iraqi insurgency.

... Many factors give credibility to Wuterich's account, none more so than the fact that his attorney saw fit to publicize it in the midst of a criminal probe. What this suggests is that Wuterich gave his account of what happened in Haditha to his superiors, and presumably to Marine investigators, shortly after the incident. Wuterich's attorney would not, and could not have released this account, unless it was entirely consistent with what Wuterich previously told investigators. This suggests that Wuterich is not dissembling or creating facts in the wake of an incident that gained increasing attention and importance over time. Additionally, attorneys representing other suspect Marines have seconded Wuterich's account, suggesting that his recollections are consistent with that of other Marines in his unit.

... Wuterich's account is also consistent with accounts of urban combat as it has been waged in Iraq since the U.S. invasion. Particularly noteworthy is Wuterich's recollection that a Marine who had previously fought in Fallujah, led his squad in the room to room clearing operation that resulted in most of the civilian deaths. As many accounts of the Fallujah fighting have pointed out, (including my own January 2005 piece in Proceedings Magazine "Who Won the Battle of Fallujah") a large percentage, if not most Marine losses have occurred in such operations, where suicidal insurgents wait behind closed doors hoping to trade their lives for the first Marines to enter a room. An experienced Marine might well be reluctant to enter a room occupied by a suspected insurgent, without firing first or tossing in a grenade. This appears to be what occurred in Haditha. Whether this was a technical violation of the rules of engagement (which remain classified) remains to be seen; but in any event, it is certainly not a cold blooded massacre. (Three lawyers involved in the emerging defense say they intend to argue that small-arms fire from insurgents triggered a military response from the Marines in Kilo Company that led to the unintended deaths of the civilians.)

... Finally, any Arab account of an alleged massacre has to be taken with a large grain of salt, or maybe an entire salt lick. By now it ought to be clear to any clear headed observer, that fanciful descriptions of mass killings and massacres, particularly when allegedly committed by American or Israeli troops, are a cultural commonplace, with the actual truth or falsity of the claims being almost entirely irrelevant to the locals.

... Witness the following recent incidents involving Israeli troops: the proven false accusation that Israeli troops killed young Mohammed al Dura; the proven false accusations of a massacre at the Jenin refugee camp; and most recently the proven false accusation that an Israeli artillery shell killed seven Gaza beach-goers. In all three cases, either neutral journalists (al Dura), pro-Palestinian international organizations, e.g., Human Rights Watch (Jenin), or Palestinian authorities themselves (the recent Gaza explosion), have demonstrated that Arab claims were simply lies. In Iraq we have seen much the same thing, from Saddam's demented claims of victory as U.S. tanks rumbled down the streets of Baghdad, to false claims of massacres in Fallujah, to dismissal of charges against Marines like Lieutenant Ilario Pantano (falsely accused of killing two Iraqi prisoners).

So, in the light of facts such as presented here and elsewhere, one has to admit, at the very least, that Murtha and the MSM have jumped the gun to further their political agenda, and it is they who deserve to be lanquishing in the brig, not the eight Marines that they more than likely have falsely accused on the basis of corrupt and inept journalism and enemy propaganda.

Hadithagate? Jenin? The media and the liberal Left have finally managed to out do themselves, and actually created a combination journalistic atrocity - a Hadithagate(Time magazine) used in conjunction with a Jenin, to aid and abet the enemy in a time of war and to crucify eight innocent United States Marines who had risked their lives fighting fot their country - now shackled in a cell.

Time magazine, Congressman John Murtha, and most of the MSM have crucified those eight Marines before they've even had their day before Pontius Pilot, and because of thr actions of Murtha and the MSM, those eight Marines sit languishing In the brig, while the Hadithagate/Jenin investigation proceeds:

The sad aspect of the entire episode is the Marines who had to fight in that Iraqi hell hole have seemingly been charged, tried and convicted of the atrocity without the benefit of any trial. Eight Marines are currently being held in the brig at Camp Pendleton, California. They are under 23 hour lockdown, only being allowed to leave their cells for one hour each day. These men--who were willing to sacrifice their lives for our country--are put in handcuffs and leg irons when outside of their cells.

The question is: Since the Pentagon claims the incident is still under investigation, why are these Marines being treated like convicted serial killers awaiting punishment on death row?

Related coverage:
WorldNetDaily - Arab newssite had false 'Haditha massacre' photo
NewsBusters - Networks Which Hyped Haditha as 'Massacre' Show Little Interest in Marine's Version
Conservative Voice -THE UNTOLD STORY OF GAZA (AND HADITHA?)
Sweetness & Light - Washington Post Presents Marine's Side of Story
Gateway Pundit - Bad News For John Cold Blooded Murtha
Bear Creek Ledger -Haditha Marines Respond- Tell A Very Different Story Than Murtha
BlueStar Chronicles - Marines Followed Rules in Haditha
Obsidian Wings - Piecing Together Haditha (very good summary)
Blue Crab Boulevard - Marines Description of Haditha Events Denies Wrongdoing
Stop the ACLU - Marine Says Rules Followed at Haditha
Caos Blog - Haditha; not exactly as the msm is reporting it
Dr. Sanity - Not Anchored To Reality
Dinocrat - Can the MSM Be Put on Trial for Getting Our Men Killed
BlackFive - Haditha - This is Gonna Get Ugly