What actually happened at Haditha?

There is a really interesting piece in FrontPageMagazine titled, Haditha: Reason for Doubt, by Andrew Walden.

Mr. Walden makes some interesting observations about the Haditha incident. For one the only eye witnesses are Iraqi civilians who live in the area and are under daily threat from the terrorists. Mr. Walden notes that one eye witness, 13-year-old Safa Younis, has changed her story and another, Ali al-Mashhadani, an Iraqi journalist, has been arrested, for the second time, for suspected insurgent ties.

The article notes that the families of the dead have refused to allow the bodies to be exhumed, leaving the question of whether they died by gunfire or the explosion of the IED an open one. The death certificates, prepared by local Iraqi doctors who live under constant threat from the terrorists, are the only evidence that they died from gunshot wounds.

In addition to the fear of retribution from the terrorists if they don’t “play ball” the witnesses may have a financial motive for lying:

A British case which speaks directly to the credibility of tribal witnesses and to the Islamic tribal tradition of “blood money” collapsed November 3, 2005. On trial were seven British soldiers charged with murder stemming from a May, 2003 incident in Ferkah, Iraq. All charges were dismissed after it became clear that the key witnesses were lying in order to gain “blood money”.

The concept of “blood money” is explained in this way:

A February 2, 2004 BBC article explains the workings of the blood money system in a case involving only Iraqis:

On the side of a road in a ramshackle tent tribal elders have gathered for a court case, but it is not an ordinary law court, it's a tribal court. The case defies logic - one brother has killed another, but the tribe they belonged to is blaming a rival tribe for the killing.

Their argument is that if there had not been a feud with the other tribe, the killing would not have taken place; they are now demanding $20,000 in blood money….

At the tribal court, the discussion is heated, but not about guilt or innocence. Through a complex network of tribal support, both sides know where they stand,
now it is just a matter of agreeing the money.

Eventually the price is knocked down to $4,000 and a woman, her value to be
determined in later negotiations.

For many Iraqis it's a system that works, and in a violent region recompense appears much more practical than locking someone away.

The logic in the British case and possibly in Haditha is simple: If the coalition did not have a fight with the insurgents, the deaths would not have occurred. The deaths cause a loss in the resources of the tribe. The tribe cannot file a claim with Zarqawi--he might chop their heads off--therefore it is the coalition that owes blood money. In the eyes of tribal people such as Haditha residents, this debt is owed regardless of who actually killed the 24 people in Haditha or the circumstances of those deaths. The payment of blood money is not an admission of guilt; it is a balancing of tribal obligations.

Furthermore:

What tribal Iraqis would understand as blood money has in fact already been paid by US military representatives in Haditha. According to the May 31 New York Times payments totaling $38,000 were made “within weeks of the shootings” to the families of 15 of the 24 dead.

The military ruled that the other nine were engaged in hostile actions against US forces and thus ineligible for compensation. The timing of the decision not to compensate some of the families coincides with the release of the video which started the whole controversy.

It is entirely possible that the accusations of a massacre committed by US Marines were cooked up as a scheme to get a cash payment from the United States government.

This would not be the first time that Muslims have exploited deaths for financial or political ends (see the case of Mohammed al-Dura) and it is unlikely to be the last. US contractor Stephan Holland says:

I’ve been in Iraq for about 18 months now performing construction management. It is simply not possible for me to exaggerate the massive amounts of lies we wade through every single day. There is no way - absolutely none - to determine facts from bulls*** ….

It is not even considered lying to them; it is more akin to being clever - like keeping your cards close to your chest. And they don’t just lie to westerners. They believe that appearances--saving face--are of paramount importance. They lie to each other all the time about anything in order to leverage others on a deal or anipulate an outcome of some sort or cover up some major or minor embarrassment. It’s just how they do things, period.

I’m not trying to disparage them here. I get along great with a lot of them. But even among those that I like, if something happens (on the job) I’ll get 50 wildly different stories, every time. There’s no comparison to it in any other part of the world where I’ve worked. The lying is ubiquitous and constant.

Unfortunately unscrupulous politicians like Jack Murtha and a partisan media which is actively working to bring about the defeat of US forces in Iraq combine with Arab/Islamic culture’s undervaluing of the truth to form a kind of “perfect storm” of deceit which will harm the war effort, undermine the troops morale and embolden the terrorists.