Say Anything Blog

This article over at Newsmax doesn’t pull any punches. It lays the responsibility for the vicious persecution of several Marines right where it belongs - in the laps of Time magazine and John Murtha:

Last week’s development in the Haditha case—the dropping of all the charges leveled against Lance Cpl. Stephan Tatum for actions related to Haditha, Iraq—drives another nail into the shameful accusations made by Time magazine and Rep. John Murtha.

Time magazine, with an assist from the Pennsylvania Democrat, sparked a legal and media inquisition against eight courageous United States Marines. Both Time and Murtha claimed these Marines committed cold-blooded murder in Haditha during a 2005 engagement.

They also alleged the Marines participated in covering up their alleged atrocities.

But after years of litigation and estimated $40 million in taxpayer funds expended, none of the Marines have been found guilty of committing murder or war crimes.

The article gives a brief history of the incident and then fires the big guns:

Months later, a Time story based on the testimony of two known insurgent propagandists and the stories of some Iraqi civilians falsely reported that the Kilo company Marines had wantonly murdered the dead Iraqis as an act of revenge after an IED explosion took the life of a fellow Marine.

On the basis of Time’s unsubstantiated allegations alone, Murtha publicly charged the Marines had gone on a rampage to avenge the killing of their comrade in the IED explosion and had committed cold-blooded murder. Time has been forced to issue four different retractions of details in their report.

Before any investigation had gotten underway Murtha went on a rampage of his own, attacking the Marines in venue after venue. In his original charges against the Marines, Murtha said there was no gunfire during the incident when there was in fact a daylong battle involving heavy insurgent gunfire directed at the Marines starting at the time of the IED explosion.

Typical of Murtha’s rantings were his comments on a May 28, 2006, ABC News broadcast. In response to George Stephanopolis’ comment that he claimed to have been briefed several times since Nov. 19 and said that that the evidence showed that the Marines had committed cold-blooded murder, Murtha said:

Time magazine committed journalistic malfeasance on an epic scale by running an unsubstantiated - and source biased - story that could have cost several of our Marines their freedom. And John Murtha committed slander in the purest sense of the word for damning those men as cold blooded murderers without any evidence whatsoever.

It’s a shame those people will never have to pay the penalties they tried to get our Marines to pay - for something they didn’t do.

The difference here is - Time and Murtha are guilty. I wonder if that bothers either one of them?