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Defend Our Marines
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Defend Our Marines September 2, 2007
We’re so used to leaks in the Haditha Marine case that they now go unnoticed. But CNN’s broadcast of evidence in the SSgt Frank Wuterich case is particularly disturbing.
CNN obtained an edited video taken by a surveillance drone flying above Haditha on the day of the incident. The video, CNN reported, would be introduced as evidence for the defense.
JAMIE MCINTYRE: The bombing and strafing seen on this aerial video obtained exclusively by CNN shows Haditha was a hotbed of insurgent activity, back on that day of November 19, 2005. Early in the morning, a US Marine died in an IED attack.
Shortly afterward, 24 Iraqi civilians were killed by Marines hunting the attackers, leading to murder charges a year later. A small, unmanned spy plane called Scan Eagle arrived about 30 minutes after the initial attack on the US Marine vehicle, focusing on a house from which the military suspected, insurgents triggered the bomb, and showing the aftermath of the blast here, some 1,000 yards away.
Just up the road is a white sedan and the bodies of five Iraqi men who Marines say refused to lay down and were shot while running away…. The video will soon be evidence in the case of squad leader, Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, accused of doing some of the shooting.
Who leaked the video? Suspicious minds notice that CNN credited the US Defense Department onscreen.
Regardless, CNN hired military law professor Gary Solis to “interpret” the video as evidence. He thought it was crap.
GARY SOLIS (shaking head): If I’m a juror, I’m not going to be impressed.
Fascinating. This expert in military law doesn’t seem to realize that there is no jury in SSgt Wuterich’s hearing.
Solis and CNN have no idea how the defense would actually use the video so they just make things up…
SOLIS: It tends to prove that this was a violent place where you had enemy fighters. Where it was necessary to bring in air support….The defense can say, ‘Hey, look, you had to do this later in the day, what’s the difference between what happened later in the day and what our guys did earlier in the day?
McINTYRE: And that might help explain why, so far, prosecutors have had trouble making murder charges stick. Charges have been dropped against two Marines, another is awaiting a decision.
Jamie McIntyre is either misinformed or is deliberately attempting to misinform the audience. So far, prosecutors have had trouble making charges “stick” because there was no evidence that a massacre ever took place.
And no lawyer in any of the hearings has used the Solis’ “hey, what’s the diff” argument (thank God).
CNN rolls on…
McINTYRE: Is there a tendency to give Marines, soldiers in combat the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these kind of split-second decisions?
SOLIS: You have a military jury, probably most of whom, if not all of whom, will have been in Iraq.
Now Solis’ imaginary jury has had service in Iraq.
In keeping with the make-believe theme, CNN closes with images courtesy of the long-exposed-as-bogus Hammurabi Human Rights Association.
McINTYRE: But while prosecutors may have a hard time winning convictions… Gary Solis believes someone should be accountable for the 24 civilian deaths in Haditha.
SOLIS: It be would be difficult to say justice has been served if no one is convicted.
And on that note, CNN ends its report. Never mind the actual finding of fact that the judicial process represents. No convictions, no justice, says CNN’s hired sockpuppet. Disgracefully, even when CNN has proof in their hands that Murtha was lying, the massacre must go on.
Congressman Murtha, CNN, May 30, 2006: There was no enemy action at all.
Care to watch a video, Murtha?