War Crimes Being Pinned on our Troops?

[linazelle]

Just saw this post on another board:

"My best friend's husband is a marine who is currently in Iraq...she received a call from her husband. He was supposed to come home relatively soon, but now he doesn't know because men from his unit and several other units are being investigated for war crimes. WAR CRIMES against the Iraqi people!

Apparently, these crimes that are and have been commited are so bad, the Jaguars (military lawyers)from Camp Pendleton have to be sent over there to investigate these situations.

My friend's husband could not specify over the phone as to what the nature of these crimes are; he can get in a huge amount of trouble... Aren't we supposed to be helping these people?"
**************

That was, of course, from a freeper/neocon as is obvious by the "helping these people..." comment.

MY QUESTIONS:

(1) Why aren't we hearing about it in the "liberal media"... I found this in Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0707-02.htm

(2) What's your take on this situation?

[Maple]

1. All the other countries

that signed on to the ICC assumed that was why the US was so adamant about not joining.

That either things had been done, or were about to be done, that couldn't stand scrutiny...because safeguards were in place so that a solely politically motivated charge would not happen.

On edit: sp.

[caribmon]

2. Bust em'

Put them all on trial including their commander in chimp (oh wait, he wiggled out of the G - Convention and international court didn't he?).

Sorry no sympathy here. Frustrated soldiers in the heat, wasting families in fear with taxpayer's bullets, too bad - they made the choice to be 'professional' soldiers -come- killers, they pay the price. Shot or be shot... well ok. It's just when you start getting Mai Lai in Iraq, there is going to be fucking big problems. And it is turning into a whirlwind of urban warfare at this point.

Bring em' all home before the face of America gets any more red than it already is.

[arcane1]

3. now you know why we bailed on the ICC, and demanded immunity

oh wait, these are just partisan lies to make Murika look bad, right?

[Unknown Known]

4. So many horrible things happening in Iraq and Afghanistan

that we will probably never know about, except through leaks of stories that have become uncontrollable like this one. We can only hope that there is someone like Daniel Ellsberg out there that has the goods and will blow the lid off Operation Iraqi Quagmire.

[JohnyCanuck]

5. Maybe the SOB's in the Pentagon

should make their give-away-to-impressionable-teenagers video war game more realistic by having a scenario where if the player guesses wrong and blows away the wrong vehicle, he kills a pregnant Mom, Dad and a couple of kids. He then gets charged with a virtual war crime and looses the game.

[Exultant Democracy]

6. Thats already in a lot of games

just so ya know.

[Postman]

7. The War Criminals are in Washington....

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Pearle, etc. etc...

Assuming this is not an urban legend story, my sympathies are with the Marines. They were put in a situation not of their own creation but of those chickenhawk cowards in Washington. Unfortunately for the accused, they will have to pay the price for any war crime, violation of Geneva Convention etc., etc.

At the same time, killing civilians, unarmed civilians SHOULD be a crime and those responsible should be held accountable. Soldiers and politicians alike.

Isn't that why we had trials at Nuremburg?

[ForrestGump]

8. No, the Nuremburg trails did not

investigate documented Allied war crimes, only those of the Germans. Different focus.