Lawmaker: Marines killed Iraqis ‘in cold blood’
Democrat John Murtha has stated that US Marines murdered 15 Iraqi civilians in cold blood.
And the evidence from the scene appears to verify what he was saying as true, with many of the victims having suffered from close up shots to the head, and even a mother and young girl shot whilst apparently praying.
A video tape of the scene shows the blood stained floor and what appears to be bullet holes and bits of human flesh on the walls.
The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.On Nov. 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that on the previous day a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed eight insurgents, he said.
U.S. military officials later confirmed that the version of events was wrong.
Murtha, a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq, said at a news conference Wednesday that sources within the military have told him that an internal investigation will show that "there was no firefight, there was no IED (improvised explosive device) that killed these innocent people. Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them, and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood."
There is the obvious inference that revenge was the motive for the killing. Indeed a military official is on record as saying that this is the reason he suspects the massacre took place. "This one is ugly," he stated.
He has a gift for understatement.
It's not simply that this particular incident is ugly, the entire invasion and occupation of Iraq is a scar on the conscience of the US and UK governments.
Nor do I blame the children of the poor who don the uniform of those two particular country's who are sent into dangerous situations to protect the interests of the rich.
They risk their lives for what they hope will be a noble cause and there will always be times when pressure and fear cause them to hideously over-react.
The blame for this lies at the door of the men who needlessly sent them there.
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