Skip to main content

Haditha Massacre ‘Sentence’ Riles Iraqis, Seen as ‘Insult’ -- News from Antiwar.com

Haditha Massacre ‘Sentence’ Riles Iraqis, Seen as ‘Insult’ -- News from Antiwar.comHaditha Massacre ‘Sentence’ Riles Iraqis, Seen as ‘Insult’
Staff Sergeant Faces Pay Cut Over Butchering of Civilians
by Jason Ditz, January 24, 2012
| Print This | Share This | Antiwar Forum
In the mother of all plea bargains, Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who was charged with leading the US Marines’ massacre of 24 civilians in the Iraqi city of Haditha, plead guilty to a single count of “dereliction of duty.”

His “sentence,” such as it is, will amount to a demotion to the rank of private and a pay cut related to his loss of rank. He will serve no jail time.

The announcement has angered a number of Iraqis, particularly the relatives of the slain, who say the verdict is an insult. Khalid Salman, a lawyer for the relatives of the victims, and a cousin of one of the slain, condemned the decision. “This is not a traffic felony,” he said.

Even skeptical Iraqis weren’t prepared for this total dismissal. Saleem al-Jubouri, the head of the Iraqi parliament’s human rights committee, had already issued a condemnation on the assumption that Wuterich would face a three-month jail sentence, the maximum for the soldier’s plea bargain.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Israeli school segregated Ethiopian students » Ethiopian Review

Israeli school segregated Ethiopian students » Ethiopian Review : "The placement of four Ethiopian girls in a separate class from their peers at a Petah Tikva grade school has sparked accusations of segregation on Tuesday morning following a report in Yediot Aharonot. According to ‘Hamerhav’ principal, Rabbi Yeshiyahu Granvich, complete integration of the girls was impossible. The reason being, said municipal workers, was that the students were not observant enough, nor did their families belong to the national-religious movement that the school was founded upon. Among the differences in the daily school life of the girls, a single teacher was responsible to teach them all of their subjects. Worse yet, the four were allotted separate recess hours and were driven to and from school separately. Such action has been labeled by observers as “apartheid.”"
Post a Comment
Read more

  1 Million Dead in Iraq? 6 Reasons the Media Hide the True Human Toll of War -- And Why We Let Them    :      Information Clearing House: ICH

  1 Million Dead in Iraq? 6 Reasons the Media Hide the True Human Toll of War -- And Why We Let Them    :      Information Clearing House: ICH By John Tirman July 20, 2011 "Alternet" - - As the U.S. war in Iraq winds down, we are entering a familiar phase, the season of forgetting—forgetting the harsh realities of the war. Mostly we forget the victims of the war, the Iraqi civilians whose lives and society have been devastated by eight years of armed conflict. The act of forgetting is a social and political act, abetted by the American news media. Throughout the war, but especially now, the minimal news we get from Iraq consistently devalues the death toll of Iraqi civilians. Why? A number of reasons are at work in this persistent evasion of reality. But forgetting has consequences, especially as it braces the obstinate right-wing narrative of “victory” in the Iraq war. If we forget, we learn nothing. I’ve puzzled over this habit of reaching for the lowest possible estimates ...
Post a Comment
Read more