The Haditha Hoax?
Interesting...
Here's the conclusion:
Read the whole thing.
I'm not convinced yet that there wasn't a massacre in Haditha (just as I'm not convinced that there was), but the evidence suggesting that this is all a big hoax is mounting and certainly suggests that there need to be some very serious questions asked and answered before anyone says another word about our Marines being guilty of anything.
Update:
Allah isn't so sure about this, and thinks that comparisons to the forged National Guard memos from CBS is overstating the case.
He may be right. I'm not convinced one way or the other yet, but the fact that there's room for doubt here is a serious indictment of the media (and politicians like Rep. John Murtha) who have already concluded that there was a massacre and that our Marines are guilty of it.
Update:
Also worth noting:
Evidence accumulates of a hoax in Haditha. The weblog Sweetness & Light has done an estimable service gathering together the articles which cast substantial doubt on the charge of a massacre of civilians at Haditha . Because the blog is too busy gathering and fisking the news, I offered and the publisher accepted my offer to put what he has uncovered in a narrative form.
Having done so, I can tell you that the story has a whiff of yet another mediagenic scandal like the TANG memos or the Plame “outing.” While the Marines quite correctly will not comment on the case pending the outcome of their investigation, I am not bound by those rules, and I will sum up the story for you.
Here's the conclusion:
Take a reporter with an anti-Administration agenda, an interested group (think of the Mashhadanis as the VIPS in the Plame case or Burkett and Lucy Ramirez in the TANG case) and a story too good to be checked and circumstances where the people attacked are limited in what they can quickly respond to and you get a story which smells to me like it will soon be unraveled.
This time, I’m betting the consequences to the press which rushed to judgment will be more disastrous than it was to Dan Rather. I surely hope so.
Read the whole thing.
I'm not convinced yet that there wasn't a massacre in Haditha (just as I'm not convinced that there was), but the evidence suggesting that this is all a big hoax is mounting and certainly suggests that there need to be some very serious questions asked and answered before anyone says another word about our Marines being guilty of anything.
Update:
Allah isn't so sure about this, and thinks that comparisons to the forged National Guard memos from CBS is overstating the case.
He may be right. I'm not convinced one way or the other yet, but the fact that there's room for doubt here is a serious indictment of the media (and politicians like Rep. John Murtha) who have already concluded that there was a massacre and that our Marines are guilty of it.
Update:
Also worth noting:
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Presbyterian minister who was an embedded reporter with his son's U.S. Marine company, which is accused of killing 24 Iraqi civilians in Haditha, said soldiers in private moments gave no indication anything horrible happened in the town.
Rather, the young men in Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment talked about earlier intense fighting in Falluja and other wartime ordeals.
"I would think that if it was as bad as everybody is making it out to be, I'd have heard something about it when I was there," said the Rev. Ben Mathes, 53, whose son, 1st Lt. Adam Mathes, is Kilo company's executive officer.
The military is investigating whether some soldiers from Kilo company went on a deadly rampage in November after an explosive device killed one of the most popular members of the unit, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas.
The father spent 12 days with the unit in January in Haditha as a reporter with the Sacramento, California-based K-Love Christian Radio Network. He also ministered to the troops.
"It was freezing cold and everybody gathered around this kind of metal fireplace where we chopped up wooden pallets and burned them and we'd sit there and talk about home and family and the deepest things with these kids," he said in an interview on Thursday. "Not once did anything come up that something horrible had happened."
