1115.org

When the Haditha story broke in March 2006, it very quickly became clear that the Marine officers who had chain-of-command oversight of the marines of Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines had exhibited a marked disinclination to ask the most obvious and basic of questions, or to conduct any kind of meaningful investigation, although the marines of Kilo Company had given two completely different accounts of the incident.

First, the marines of Kilo Company claimed that all 24 Iraqi civilians who were killed at Haditha had been killed by an insurgent bomb. An investigation was launched after Time magazine gave a video of crime-scene footage and witness testimony to Colonel Barry Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. The video clearly established that the Iraqi civilians were not killed by an insurgent bomb. The marines of Kilo Company then changed their story. Now, the 24 Iraqi civilians had been caught in the crossfire as the marines battled insurgents; their deaths resulted from collateral damage.

The Marine officers who had chain-of-command oversight of the marines of Kilo Company — as well as the commanders up the chain of command who had chain-of-command oversight over the lower level officers — never thought to ask even the most obvious question: if the deaths had resulted from collateral damage, why would the marines of Kilo Company make up an entirely fictitious account, and try to ascribe the deaths to an insurgent bomb?

All this was clear, as I say, right at the very outset. It appeared in the very first post I wrote about Haditha, in May 2006. The one question raised by this determined disinterest on the part of the Marine officers in immediate command of the marines of Kilo Company was: “WTF were they thinking?”

The NYT now provides us a little window into the minds and hearts of these officers:

… the episode might have gone unexamined if not for Tim McGirk, a reporter for Time magazine. In January 2006, he sent an e-mail message to the Second Marine Division in Haditha, asking questions that clearly conveyed his suspicion that an atrocity had been committed.

The Second Division wanted a response to each question from its Third Battalion, which was responsible for fighting insurgents in Haditha. So on Jan. 29, 2006, the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani, gathered his executive officer, Maj. Kevin M. Gonzalez, Capt. Lucas M. McConnell, the commander of the company involved in the shootings, and First Lt. Adam P. Mathes, to hash out answers.

(Note: Chessani and McConnell were both charged with dereliction of duty in connection with the killings.)

The NYT goes on to quote several excerpts from the five-page memo drafted by this gang of four. Well worth reading. But the last little excerpt exemplifies the mindset with which Chessani, Gonzalez, McConnell and Mathes approached McGirk’s questions:

McGirk: Are the marines in this unit still serving in Haditha?

Memo: Yes, we are still fighting terrorists of Al Qaida in Iraq in Haditha. (“Fighting terrorists associated with Al Qaida” is stronger language than “serving.” The American people will side more with someone actively fighting a terrorist organization that is tied to 9/11 than with someone who is idly “serving,” like in a way one “serves” a casserole. It’s semantics, but in reporting and journalism, words spin the story.)

It was all about spinning the story. And you’ve got to love that “tied to 9/11″. Chessani et al are just glove puppets; the long arm up their asses (nullus) is that of Prick Cheney. They weren’t just idly serving their country. They were serving up their spin casserole as a devotional offering to that exalted presence who has risen above being a mere entity (to presumably become a deity?). True patriots first, soldiers second.

But I do want to end with some sober analysis. As the excerpts quoted by NYT make clear, faced with McGirk’s questions, Chessani and his band of merry men immediately hunkered down. They gave no thought whatsoever to what the facts might be. It was classic organizational group-think. They had obviously, a long time ago, identified the media as an enemy. McGirk’s questions drove them immediately into an us-versus-them mindset. At the very outset — this was before the first mickey mouse investigation led the marines of Kilo Company to change their story — they defined their role as defending their marines, and they embraced this role wholeheartedly. Evidently they clung to this role as the Haditha affair progressed through two mickey mouse investigations to the first real investigation. Presumably, at some point they realized they were totally up the creek. Presumably, at that point they felt it was way too late to start living up to the notions of honor and leadership that their marine training had sought to instill in them.