Massacre in Iraq

The New York Times broke the story [1] today:

A military investigation into the deaths of two dozen Iraqis last November is expected to find that a small number of marines in western Iraq [2] carried out extensive, unprovoked killings of civilians, Congressional, military and Pentagon officials said Thursday.

SNIP

Evidence indicates that the civilians were killed during a sustained sweep by a small group of marines that lasted three to five hours and included shootings of five men standing near a taxi at a checkpoint, and killings inside at least two homes that included women and children, officials said. That evidence, described by Congressional, Pentagon and military officials briefed on the inquiry, suggested to one Congressional official that the killings were "methodical in nature."

One senior Defense Department official who has been briefed on the initial findings, when asked how many of the 24 dead Iraqis were killed by the improvised bomb as initially reported, paused and said, "Zero."

Of course, when this is all over, the Bushies will blame it on a handful of "rogue" marines, who will then likely face murder charges resulting in a slap on the wrist compared to a similar civilian atrocity. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for them facing responsibility for what they've done. But the real menace is the incompetent administration that sent these guys on multiple tours, pumping them full of lying proaganda, and then put them in such an untenable situation that they went literally crazy. Then they covered up the event, and when they got caught, lied about it and claimed they were killed by an IED. Wankers.