In case you forgot why Murtha is scum

From The Washington Post:

Four U.S. Marines were charged with multiple counts of murder yesterday for their alleged roles in the deaths of two dozen civilians in the Iraqi town of Haditha last year. The accusations set up what could be the highest-profile atrocity prosecution to arise from the Iraq war.

[. . .]

None of the murder charges carries a possible death sentence, because the Marines are not accused of premeditated murder. But the charging documents indicate that they did not properly identify their targets, did intend to kill the people in the houses and should have known that their actions could lead to the deaths of innocent civilians.

The 24 civilians were killed in a neighborhood near the spot where a roadside bomb killed a Marine who was driving in a convoy of Humvees. Early media reports suggested that the Marines went on a rampage after Lance Cpl. Miguel "T.J." Terrazas was killed, but they have claimed through their defense lawyers that they were following their rules of engagement when they responded to the attack.

[. . .]

Attention to the case increased earlier this year when Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) alleged after briefings from military officials that the Marines had killed civilians "in cold blood."

From what I've heard about the incident at Haditha nothing wrong was done. It was very tragic, but not criminal. If fact if the whole affair had not become a cause célèbre for the Left the men, based on an honest investigation of the incident, would never have been charged:

Wuterich has long claimed, through his lawyers, that he was responding to a coordinated attack on his unit and did nothing wrong that day. He and other Marines have told their lawyers that they received small-arms fire from the houses they attacked. They used standard house-clearing techniques to ensure that the threat against them was eliminated from two houses, they have said. The slayings of the civilians -- including women and children -- were an unfortunate result of the Marines' attack, they have argued.

Neal Puckett, one of Wuterich's civilian attorneys, said in an interview yesterday that the allegations do not contradict Wuterich's version of events. Puckett said there is no evidence that the Marines lost control or went on some sort of a rampage.

What happened was that the Marines took fire from some houses and proceeded to "clear" them by going room to room shooting into the rooms before entering in order to get the insurgents before the insurgents got them. Tragically there were civilians in the houses and some of them were killed.

Scenes like this were played out all across Europe during the Second World War by all the armies involved and no one even considered the possibility of charging someone with a war crime because of it.

What happened at Haditha was terrible, but not criminal, at least not on the Marines' part. If you want to charge someone with a crime for what happened then charge the terrorists who make war from in the midst of the civilian population. Just like they did in Lebanon when they launched their rockets from residential neighborhoods.