Marine Testifies: Sergeant Shot 5 Unarmed Men Week Before Haditha Massacre

The U.S. Marine sergeant accused of leading a 2005 massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha gunned down five unarmed men who were standing next to a car after a roadside bombing, a Marine from his squad told a military court on Friday.

Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz also testified that, about a week before the incident at Haditha, another bombing prompted Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich to say the squad should "kill everybody in the vicinity" if they were hit again.

Read the whole story: Reuters

Comments

[JulieSA]

01:41 PM on 09/01/2007

There was guy who wrote a column last week on HuffPo. I don't remember his name, but he was whining about how veteran's groups tend to favor the Republican party, and he was wondering why?

Well, duh. Just read this comment thread. Everyone knows that the Left hates the military, and this thread is evidence of that.

[lornejl]

02:33 PM on 09/01/2007

You love killing, just spit it out, bitch.

[lornejl]

02:45 PM on 09/01/2007

Sweaty Marines, fit, tight, killing dark skins, that makes you hot, c'mon, you know it does.

[JulieSA]

12:02 AM on 09/02/2007

Is that your argument? Seriously?

Well, it's useful to know who the sexist/stalker types are on this site.

[Blutus]

12:03 PM on 09/01/2007

We have lowered the bar for recruits.
Nuts and felons.

Also, the first firefight, many will shit and piss themselves and never ever be the same.
As long as you are in country, you are terrified and remain terrified.
If not, then you are already a psychopath
and will have a good time.

Most importantly, in country you do not give a shit about why your country is fighting some other country. You are trying to stay alive.
You are not thinking about liberty and freedom and the founding fathers. You are just terrified and want to go home. That is it.

[StillAmused]

01:04 PM on 09/01/2007

Thank you!

I remember asking another kid, back from Vietnam (I was about 18 and would just barely luck out when Nixon ended the draft lottery) if he ever felt he was "fighting for his country."

His answer, plain and simple: "Hell, no. I was fighting to save my own ass."

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose." — Alphonse Karr, Les Guêpes 1849

[lornejl]

01:34 PM on 09/01/2007

I had a great friend that was in wwII,( POW twice) he said the same thing. There was no big picture,or noble cause, it was survival for them, the simplest and most basic of human and animal instincts, freaking survival.

[squareyellowpaper]

11:17 AM on 09/01/2007

If these war crimes happened, it is an unfortunate collateral casualty of war.

We had no control over what was happening in the field. We just didn't realize our own troops were capable of such mischief!

The only reposible party are those on the scene at that specifoc time and place. There is absolutely no culpability in the higher or highest of ranks.

[squareyellowpaper]

11:14 AM on 09/01/2007

I'm sorry. I did not have any knowledge that this was occuring under our government!

How could we stop them? He was the Fuhrer!

[Kalima]

08:27 AM on 09/01/2007

I would asume that most of you have never actually been
engaged in combat fighting,if I am wrong then please excuse me.Please ask your Vietnam Vets to fill you in
about the stress of fighting the "enemy."
I can only imagine that if you lost a fellow soldier on
that day or even a week ago your feeling for revenge
would over power reasoning.Soldiers are human too.
With that I don't dismiss the severity of their action,
but there are people who can not reason under these
hellish circumstances,and they for the most,kids.

[Kalima]

08:31 AM on 09/01/2007

and they are for the most part,kids. Sorry.

[Ammobob]

06:42 AM on 09/01/2007

Damning evidence coorberated by whom or what?

[truthoutdotduh]

03:12 AM on 09/01/2007

We may as well face the fact that a small band of wealthy psychopaths have gained control of the most powerful nation in history of mankind, and there is not much we can do about it.

[LastDaysCafe]

02:49 AM on 09/01/2007

Well all these guys wanted to be US Marines meaning only one thing: They wanted to train and learn how to kill people using a variety of weapons and thats what they've done and are still doing!
Personally I can't see how they try,let alone find any of these US Militay personnell guilty of murder and/or war crimes if the people who instigated this murderous oil war i.e. Bush & Cheney,obviously have total prosecutatorial immunity,at least as far as the US Justice Dept.is concerned!!

[truthoutdotduh]

03:33 AM on 09/01/2007

When ugly things like this are made public - which rarely happens, the powers that be seem to think they have a need to scapegoat at least someone who was involved.

I think it is merely an attempt to satisfy that 'pain in the ass' segment of our society who actually gives a shit enough to be shocked by such events. Then they can feel like there is at least some form of justice out there, which is all bullshit. There is none.

Much of our society seem to share various levels of apathy, simply because it is not in their back yards, or they have been brainwashed into thinking that even the children of Iraq or Afghanistan are all just little terrorists who haven't grown up yet. So why not just kill them before they do.

There is a large segment of very sick people here.

[truthoutdotduh]

02:22 AM on 09/01/2007

Somehow we have allowed a group of highly antisocial psychopaths to infiltrate our government. And these people occupy the offices of president, vice-president, the former defense secretary, two former attorney generals, members of Congress, and many other former and current high level positions.

Any one of these 'people' can make Charlie Manson look like a choir boy. And Charlie Manson is doing life in prison. That's LIFE in prison! And for what? Being involved in the murders of a small handful of rich white folks?

And just like Bush, he did not commit murder physically with his own hands, but in fact recruited others to carry out those dirty deeds. And deeds that vastly pale in comparison to those perpetrated by the current and former leaders of this Administration, and it's regular and private military arms!

And Charlie Manson is doing LIFE in prison!

Well if Charlie Manson deserves life in prison for his crimes - limited as they were, then what penalty would or could ever possibly fit the crimes of our current leaders and their many accomplices?

I am against the death penalty, but in their case, I feel it would be too kind. And their crimes have well exceeded that punishment way back before the year 2003. In other words, if the punishment is to fit the crimes, the death penalty would not fit. Because their simple deaths would never be harsh enough for true justice to be served. You would have to kill them thousands, perhaps millions of times each, and that is impossible.

And there is no level of torture conceivable to the sickest of human minds that would suffice either. Therefore, their crimes have vastly outgrown any punishment that any human entity could ever execute against them.

And more simply put, there is no level of human punishment on planet earth that would be large enough to fit their crimes. So if there is no God, then real justice will never be served.

Guess mom was right. Sometimes life is not fair.

[helonias]

09:21 AM on 09/01/2007

But god told George what to do.

And satan told Charlie what to do.

Or something like that.

[Ranta]

02:12 AM on 09/01/2007

It's as though My Lai never happened. Where's the outrage.
This sort of thing is going to keep happening as long as our civilian military leaders and the military itself continue to sanction it.
The buck isn't even being passed to the lowest ranks as was done at Abu Ghraib.

"Military authorities have dismissed charges against two Marines, Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt and Capt. Randy Stone, citing battle conditions against a "shadowy" insurgent enemy."

And it's all trickling down from the top.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

01:36 AM on 09/01/2007

Will he use the Bush defense?

You know: They might have had WMDs (or might have been thinking about them).

If he truly wants to get off, he should grin and say that he's a Republican. Then they'll know that he's nuts.

[IMPRISONBUSH]

11:47 PM on 08/31/2007

IS this soldier being set free if he testafies against another soldier. ?

[godlessclif]

11:27 PM on 08/31/2007

It is not only combat. Cheney shot a guy in the face and he was a draft dodger.

[speakingtruth2power]

10:25 PM on 08/31/2007

This kind of thing will only get worse as the tours of duty become longer and more frequent under the surge mad puppet decider. Take it from a vet from Vietnam with only one tour and maybe some mild PTSD, these terrible things stay with you.

Then these poor guys will come home and the ones who can work will get preferential jobs at the post office and police departments around the country. The nightmares will continue and many of them will find employers unwilling to take a chance on them. I made it through all this fairly well but some will fail tragically to adjust to civilian life.

[sparkey]

10:34 PM on 08/31/2007

And when they come home and somebody cuts them off in traffic or simply bumps into them at a store,will they suddenly be back in Iraq? The same things happened to those who came back from Viet-nam. It's called flash backs. It has already started to happen with the wife beaters and the ones who commit suicide. Many of them will have guns with them and won't even realize they shot someone who dropped a can on the floor at a supermarket.

[grainger5]

10:54 PM on 08/31/2007

IRAQ WAR VETERAN SNAPS, SHOOTS SHOPPER

Sioux City, IOWA - (AP) The Associated Press has learned that former Marine Staff Sargeant Frank Wuterich, who was cleared last year of murdering Iraqi women and children in Haditha, was arrested this morning by the Orange County sheriff (there is only one).

At approximately 2:30 am local time, a drunken Wuterich entered a Piggly Wiggly store, where a shopper, apparently there to buy porn, dropped a can of beer. Wuterich demanded that the patron pick up the can, and when the man refused, Wuterich allegedy shot him once in the face with a BB gun.

The sheriff is not commenting about reports that at the time of his arrest, Wuterich was dressed in a schoolgirl uniform and wearing spiked heels. The Pentagon also had no comment, saying only "Well, he doesn't work here anymore. What do you want me to say? Get lost."

A separate investigation revealed that the Piggly Wiggly store had not aquired the necessary permits to sell pornography, and the White House stated in a briefing that a Congressional Committee will look into the matter immediately.

[KBAR]

10:23 PM on 08/31/2007

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1559309,00.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-08-11-beheading_x.htm

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17639-2004May11.html -

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/21/iraq/main644707.shtml

english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C6F93CE0-8FCB-425E-BD40-672B38CF68B1.htm

www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/09/20/iraq.beheading/index.html