Fw: MILINET Marine Says He Would Have Leveled Iraqi Home & Response

["Don Greenlaw" <dgreenlaw@cox.net>]

Forwarded.
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From: majusmcret@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 5:27 AM
Subject: Fwd: MILINET Marine Says He Would Have Leveled Iraqi Home & 
Response




ANTHONY F MILAVIC
AT (703) 297-6434 FOR REAL ESTATE IN VA, MD, & DC
****************************************************

13 January



MILINET: Marine Says He Would Have Leveled Iraqi Home & Response





Anthony -- It's a wonder that we can still get young men to volunteer to put 
their lives on the line when they know that their actions in combat with an 
un-uniformed enemy following no recognizable code of 'civil' behavior will 
be judged by Pentagon bureaucrats luxuriating in comfy leather & walnut 
sinecures while invoking standards more applicable to their living rooms in 
Maclean than in the seventh-century sinkholes of Iraq.

Ever wonder why II Corps was almost completely pacified in Vietnam?  That's 
because we gave it to the Koreans and didn't ask questions.  They understand 
the minds, culture, and motivations of their fellow-Asiatics better than we, 
and knew that the only way to to stop offensive action against their forces 
by the un-uniformed rag-tag insurgents of that day (the VC) was to bring to 
bear on the populations that harbored them -- provided, the shelter, 
concealment and sustenance essential to support their operations far from 
tenuous lines of support from the North -- a savage retribution more 
vicious, vengeful, and barbaric than that meted out by the VC on the 
surrounding resident populations that failed to support them.  Once the 
'word' got out among the resident populations previously intimidated by the 
VC, offensive operations in the Korean AOR came to a virtual standstill. 
Consequently, the loss of life among both the civil populations and the 
Korean pacifying forces was nil compared to areas where forces of the U.S 
(and our 'Western' allies) persisted under a polite variant of Marquess of 
Queensberry rules.

If we refuse to understand and apply the calculus of the 'mean streets' of 
insurgent warfare, in unknown lands harboring alien cultures that are 
essentially incomprehensible from Judeo-Christian points of reference, then 
we should not squander the national treasure and the lives of our young 
warriors yet another futile misadventure whose only lasting legacy will be 
body counts on both sides.

Les

------------------------------------------------- 
 Yahoo.com
 January 12, 2012


 Marine Says He Would Have Leveled Iraqi Home


 By Julie Watson, Associated Press


 CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.--A squad mate of a Marine sergeant on trial for 
killing unarmed women and children in Iraq testified Thursday that if he had 
to do it again, he would have called in an air strike to level a house where 
the group gunned down six people, including a man in a wheelchair.


 Former Sgt. Hector Salinas testified at the court-martial of Staff Sgt. 
Frank Wuterich that he believed small arms fire had come from the direction 
of the home shortly after a roadside bomb hit a convoy, killing a Marine.


 He conceded, however, that he did not know at the time that there were 
women and children in the dwelling.


 Wuterich, the squad leader, faces nine counts of manslaughter and other 
charges stemming from Marine actions that day that killed 24 Iraqis in the 
town of Haditha in 2005. The Marines stormed two homes for 45 minutes, 
killing unarmed men, women and children. They found no weapons or 
insurgents, squad members testified.


 Salinas testified that he was the first Marine to enter the house after 
the roadside bomb exploded. He said he shot a figure he saw near the stairs 
and later learned he had killed an elderly woman.


 He said he saw the man in a wheelchair after he went back to the home 
later. Four other unarmed civilians were killed there.


 Asked by a defense attorney if he would have done anything differently 
that day if he had the chance, Salinas said, "I would have just utilized my 
air to just level the house."


 Wuterich's attorneys have said Wuterich believed insurgents were in the 
home after the explosion.


 Military prosecutors have implicated him in 19 of the 24 Iraqi deaths. The 
Camp Pendleton Marine from Meriden, Conn., is the last defendant in one of 
the biggest criminal cases against U.S. troops from the war. One squad 
member was acquitted. Six others had their cases dropped. Salinas was never 
formally charged.


 Salinas was one of two squad members who testified Thursday. Both raised 
questions about testimony given Wednesday by another fellow Marine who said 
Wuterich had called for bloodshed of Iraqis if his squad ever was hit by a 
roadside bomb.


 Salinas said he did not recall such a statement, and former Lance Cpl. 
Trent Graviss said he never heard it.


 Salinas and Graviss also said they did not hear or recall hearing Wuterich 
ask them to lie about what happened that day, as Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz 
testified Wednesday.


 Salinas and Graviss told the all-Marine jury that they did not believe 
Dela Cruz to be a truthful person, and that they considered Wuterich to be a 
good Marine.


 The issue at the court martial is whether Wuterich reacted appropriately 
as a Marine squad leader in protecting his troops in the midst of a chaotic 
war or went on a vengeful rampage, disregarding combat rules and leading his 
men to shoot and blast indiscriminately at Iraqi civilians.


 Prosecutors in their opening statement painted a picture of a young Marine 
with no prior combat experience losing control after seeing his friend's 
body blown apart.


 Prosecutor Maj. Nicholas Gannon said the evidence will show Wuterich "made 
a series of fatal assumptions and he lost control of himself."


 Wuterich has said he regretted the loss of civilian lives but believed he 
was operating within military combat rules.