More massacres

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military is investigating the deaths of nearly a dozen Iraqi civilians during a U.S. raid near Balad in March.

The probe is one of several inquiries into the possible killings of Iraqis, including women and children, by U.S. troops. Among the incidents are an alleged massacre by Marines of 24 civilians in Haditha last November and the death of an Iraqi civilian near Hamandiya, west of Baghdad, on April 26.

Also under military investigation are reports that soldiers killed two women, including one who was pregnant, in Samarra on Tuesday. Witnesses said the women were killed when their vehicle drove through a checkpoint.

Apparently, the wingnut reaction to Haditha is that we shouldn't "Rush to judgment." They want to wait until the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud on this one, apparently. This cartoon from Colorado Springs looney Chuck Asay shows the approach:


So...many...things...wrong...

First, no specific Marines have been charged so far, much less been convicted without a trial. The evidence that a crime was committed seems overwhelming, and has been conceded by the military. And the suggestion that Murtha, or people on the left (which Murtha isn't), are engaging in some sort of collective punishment against the Marines by pointing out that this crime was committed, is ludicrous (even though the crime itself seems to have been an act of collective punishment, as is the entire war--for imagined crimes). And then, of course, the war itself is both an example of and a furtherance of the degradation of the Constitution.

BTW--Here's what Asay thought of fair trials back in November, 2001: