Defining Atrocity Lost
NYT mourns the loss of its “defining atrocity.” Gateway wonders why, in a war so full of atrocity, NYT is at such a loss.
The New York Times
October 6, 2007Last year, when accounts of the killing of 24 Iraqis in Haditha by a group of marines came to light, it seemed that the Iraq war had produced its defining atrocity, just as the conflict in Vietnam had spawned the My Lai massacre a generation ago.
But on Thursday, a senior military investigator recommended dropping murder charges against the ranking enlisted marine accused in the 2005 killings, just as he had done earlier in the cases of two other marines charged in the case. The recommendation may well have ended prosecutors’ chances of winning any murder convictions in the killings of the apparently unarmed men, women and children.
That’s The New York Times special way of saying “I’m sorry” for condemning the Haditha Marines to hell for the “apparent” cold-blooded murder of innocents before their trial even started.
And, isn’t it interesting how The New York Times is still searching for an atrocity to define the War in Iraq?
An Al-Qaeda atrocity like the Yazidi bombings, the murder of a brave young Sunni Sheik, or torture chamber drawings just won’t do.
Good point, Gateway. Whole thing here.
All I have to say is it’s easy to condemn soldiers for killing, to call it murder, to imagine with what clarity one would perceive a situation and act, at a distance of thousands of miles and worlds away. Haditha isn’t the first time that happened. It would not be that hard to understand why, if the politics weren’t a part of it, in their utter ignorance of the realities of combat and their horror of it, they might rush to condemn the killing of innocents. But it is hard to understand, even given the politics, why when faced with utterly unambiguous atrocities, they actively try to set the conditions for more. I hope they choke on this.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:18 pm on Saturday, October 6, 2007
5 Responses to “Defining Atrocity Lost”
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October 7th, 2007 at 12:38 am
“The recommendations may well have ended prosecutors’ chances of winning any murder convictions in the killings of the apparently unarmed men, women and children.
Geez. Too bad they “may well” have lost their “chances of winning” murder convictions just because there is apparently insufficient evidence of an apparent crime. Apparently, however, there is enough evidence for the apparent professionals at the NYT to wipe out any kind of “apparent innocence” for the Marines.
What a shoddy and morally debauched bunch of people.
October 7th, 2007 at 12:38 am
Well done, Gateway.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
Damn, they must get their shorts in a real big knot over there at the nytimes when a “defining atrocity” shoots craps.
Such an arrow piercing the heart of the self- anointed cultural élite.
October 7th, 2007 at 2:28 pm
And while the cultural elitists cry in their beer over the loss of The “defining atrocity”, Obama , in the spirit of pinnage, continues the self-righteous rant.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8S4FCKG0&show_article=1
February 20th, 2008 at 1:42 am
[...] particularly interested in what the anti-war faction has to say. Tough dealing with the loss of a defining atrocity though I suppose it can be dismissed as old news at this [...]