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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings, Torture and Big Money |
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July 14th,
2007 - US Marine Corps Works on Battlefield Ethics |
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US Marine
Corps Works on Battlefield Ethics after Civilian Deaths Overseas Associated Press July 14, 2007 San Diego - Stung by
criticism over the deaths of Iraqi civilians and the news of some enlistees
facing murder charges, the U.S. Marine Corps is increasing training in values
and battlefield ethics. The most notorious active
case is the 2005 killings of 24 Iraqi civilians, including women and
children, at Haditha. A Marine squad used grenades and gunfire on the Iraqis
after a roadside bomb killed a Marine. Three enlisted Marines are
charged with murder, and four officers are accused of failing to investigate
the deaths. The defendants say they killed the Iraqis because they believed
they were under attack. Fewer than half of 447
Marines surveyed by the Pentagon last year said they would report a member of
their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian. Only 38 percent said
noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect. In response, the Marines now
require more hours of lessons on the values and ethics than any other branch
of the U.S. military does. The Marine Corps commandant,
Gen. James T. Conway, ordered the initiative in November, and a more rigorous
diet of ethics training was introduced in May at the San Diego recruiting
depot - one of the service's two training centers for enlistees, graduating
about 20,000 Marines a year. "No one is prematurely
judging guilt or innocence," Conway said in a speech Tuesday in San
Francisco. "But the very convergence of all these events concern me and
so we're examining as a corps how we prepare our young squad leaders." Conway routinely tours
Marine bases and shares with the troops his concerns about the pending
criminal cases, said a spokesman, Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson. "He wants to make sure
we are making Marines the way we used to," Johnson said. "If you
look at the respect the American public has for Marines, each one of these
incidents is a withdrawal from the bank of respect." At nearby Camp Pendleton,
hearing officers have been reviewing evidence against the Marines charged in
the Haditha case. They recommended this past week that charges against one
enlisted Marine be dropped but that the highest-ranking officer should face
court-martial. Special forces Marines also
are being investigated for the shooting deaths of several civilians in
Afghanistan, and a separate investigation is under way to see if Marines
killed unarmed insurgent captives during a firefight in Fallujah in 2004. No
one has been charged in those two cases. David Brahms, a retired
brigadier general who was formerly the top lawyer in the Marine Corps and now
is a civilian lawyer, said criticism of troop behavior is unfair. "You can't rule out
women and children as noncombatants, everybody becomes the enemy," said
Brahms, who has a client in the case of an Iraqi civilian killed at the town
of Hamdania. "Sometimes you act in ways that upon reflection turn out to
be inappropriate and inadvisable." But for a Marine
spokeswoman, Maj. Kristen Lasica, there are no gray areas. "Honor, courage,
commitment. You can't separate them from anything else," Lasica said.
"If you get it, you are going to make the right decision no matter how
hard it is." During 12 weeks of boot
camp, Marine trainees get 38 hours of values training, up from 24. The Army
provides about 24 hours of instruction on core values and ethics, the Air
Force 7 1/2 hours and the Navy about five hours. The lessons start off
simply: do not drink and drive, never sleep on guard duty, do not fraternize
with officers. Then tougher issues are
introduced, including what it means to kill someone. "At the beginning, we
are like puppies being trained up," recruit Juan Baldelomar, 23, said a
few days before he graduated. "Now, we are more accountable." In one recent class, Gunnery
Sgt. Celestino Casias asked recruits what it meant to have integrity. Never stealing, one recruit
responded. "Doing the right thing even when no one is looking,"
said another. "It's about having the
moral courage to do the right thing all the time," said one of the drill
instructors, Sgt. Michael Dequatrro, 26. External link: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/14/america/NA-GEN-US-Marines-Ethics.php |