Newsmax (scooping the MSM news outlets) has revealing new information concerning the alleged Haditha incident.  As it turns out, an ultralight vehicle videotaped everything, including the insurgents’ retreat into nearby homes and finally to an escape car.  The actions of the Marines on site were house-clearing maneuvers in self-defense.  The entire article is a good read.  For instance, the article has more information similar to the information I provided in Haditha Roundup #2, where I showed a picture of the unused and unoccupied police station in Haditha.  I said that Haditha was the second most dangerous place in Iraq, just behind Ramadi.  Seems that this was just about right.

I have also discussed the Camp Pendleton 8 in earlier posts, and recently posted on the charging of two Gaurdsmen with a civilian death near Ramadi (in this incident with the Gaurdsmen, one is apparently being charged with putting an unloaded gun near the head of someone and threatening jail; I will comment on this in a minute).

Now.  All of this is building on a post I made concerning “New Taliban and Al Qaida Strategy.”  In it, I pointed out that there will be a proliferation of charges coming against GIs for all sorts of “atrocities.”  It is part of the new strategy.  Earlier, I posted on the “Common Man’s Perspective on Haditha,” and said that the common man (i.e., most everyone except for the lunatics over at Daily Kos) does not believe that Marines lined up unarmed non-combatants and shot them execution style.  The common man believes that there was a fight and that Marines defended themselves.

As it turns out, this is the correct perspective.  It will be fun to watch the left implode (along with Murtha) over the unraveling of the Haditha charges.  But there is a far bigger problem to deal with.  The Haditha incident was one of the first salvos in a war of propaganda.  The U.S. brass is falling for it hook, line and sinker.

I cited a Marine spokesman at Camp Pendleton who said that the charges against the 8 “showed the rest of the world our standards.”  I responded that I don’t want to show the world our standards — I want to show them that we win wars.

Let me go on record in this post and say that I would be willing to bet everything I own that there are thousands of Sunnis in Iraq and more thousands of Taliban sympathizers in Afghanistan who would be willing to be “witnesses” against U.S. troops for  “atrocities” (do my words drip with sarcasm?).

We can play their game if the brass chooses to in order to “show the world that our standards are different.”  It will paralyze the troops.  Or, we can see this for what it is.

Finally, back to the Gaurdsmen and away from the Haditha incident, let me go on record and say that if these Guardsmen had reason to believe that this individual had intelligence regarding a credible threat to their safety or the safety of other troops, I do not object to their use of an unloaded gun and the threat of jail.

This is a war, Okay?  Does everyone get it?