Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 14 - The Haditha Massacre

Episode Date: August 27, 2018

On this episode we discuss the Haditha Massacre carried out by members of the US Marine Corps during the Iraq War in 2005 and the cover up that followed. Rate and review us on whatever platform you listen to podcasts on and thank you to everyone who donates to the show! Follow the podcast on twitter @lions_by Follow Joe @jkass99 Follow Nick @nickcasm1

I feel horrible for them. I think you get into a war zone like that and you get into situations, you get backed into corners and all you do is probably make split seconds decisions that you maybe regret. And I think it's, I don't agree with prosecuting them. I don't think that they did that on purpose. I mean, there's casualties in wars, both good things and bad things, but I just don't believe that. I don't believe our guys intentionally went in and shot civilians.

We have hearts here, a lot of us Americans and so forth, when we go in and try to help women and children, only to find out that as soon as we're in there they turn and they shoot us. It's not just that you're trying to protect your own life, but I'm trying to protect you. If you're with me and so forth, I don't know whether somebody's gonna shoot you or not. Well, there's really no excuse for it. What it is, it's gang hysteria.

You know, somebody tripped it off, one of them, and then everybody just took it up. And in that environment, I don't think that's a surprise. Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. Another. I'm Joe. I'm Nick. And, you know, last week we went the lighthearted route.

I feel like we kind of had to. Pallet cleanser. It was a pallet cleanser because we needed it before today. Felt really good. And I'm not, you know, unlike most episodes, I'm not just going to dive right in and tell you what the topic is. I'm kind of, you know, you cheated and you saw the title of the episode before you downloaded it. Listen to the intro, you know. Yeah, pretty much anything.

Well, the intro doesn't really give too much away. I'm going to kind of let you gather this episode and understand it as I tell it. It's going to be a little different today. I'm going to tell you a story. All right. But before we get there, before we get into this horrible, dark chapter of American history, and we are doing america today for yeah um i think maybe the second time second time i know uh i got a few hate messages like i don't

do enough about america and um it's not from like an american exceptionalism basis it's that like i'm really personally i'm really interested in world war one world war two um like the napoleonic war stuff like that so america only kind of comes in on the fringes from time to time. Um, so it's, it's not that we're actively dodging it. I promise. Oh yeah.

Our interests are just elsewhere. Yeah. I, yeah, it's, it's, it's not that we're actively dodging it because I love talking about failures and other insane stuff from America's military past.

Um, so before we get to that point, Nick has been slaving hard for the United States Army. Now that we're talking about the army. How are you doing with that? Fantastic. Yeah? Yeah. I think every night.

I sense a fair amount of sarcasm. You should. Yeah. How's your day going? How's your life so far? It's doing all right. It's the last's your life so far it's doing the last recording you know it's doing all right i'm you know uh the hooligans of kandahar is still sitting on the top of the charts in quite a few uh categories which is still absolutely blowing my mind um still getting my copy signed you just haven't brought it over i keep forgetting. I don't have a good memory. So with that, let's get into our story.

And today's story brings us to the American war in Iraq, otherwise known as Operation Iraqi Freedom, which is, you know, the wonderfully named invasion of the country of Iraq. So we're going to skip ahead a few years in the war. Cause we're not covering the whole thing. That would be like a 10 part going series. Uh, cause it's, it's really still not over quick in and out. Yeah.

Um, so at this part of the invasion, which is around two, the year 2005, uh, the province of Ellen bar is sadly a part of, um, the center of anti-Americanbar is sadly part of the center of anti-american militia groups and resistance these include islamists like al-qaeda and iraq the precursor of what would eventually

become the islamic state and a ton of bathis loyalists the bath party of course being the party of saddam hussein kind of like of like an Iraqi version of national socialism. Yeah, it brought a lot of untoward types into it. You see, one of the first things the U.S. occupation authority did when it disbanded what was disbanded the Iraqi military. So you suddenly create around a half million pissed off unemployed people who had weapons and training, and it did not take long for these soldiers to swell the resistance ranks. Fighting between the two sides had gotten so fierce and claimed so many lives, it eventually became known as the Triangle of Death.

This zone encompassed a large swath of land between Bakuba, Ramadi, and Tikrit. Ramadi and Tikrit. It also included a serious dangerous area such as Samara and Fallujah, the later being what amounted to a no-go zone for American soldiers and contractors. This was dangerous for U.S. troops for several reasons. One, it was a center for strong support for Saddam Hussein, which shouldn't come as a huge surprise since Saddam himself is from Tikrit, which is where he was born and where he was captured the invading American soldiers did not do much to endear themselves to the local population either when they first came through the area in 2003

they arrested several tribal leaders in front of their families, selling deep deep, deep feelings of humiliation one of that would require retribution like, it's one of those you didn't just shame me you shamed my entire family almost like some bruce wayne it's kind of like um when we talked about the the british retreat from kabul when we talked about like badal or like

blood revenge yeah that's pretty much what they swore like you embarrassed him in front of his entire tribe his entire tribe's gonna come after you yes um it didn't take long for these deep cultural misunderstandings to lead to increasing levels of bloodshed things didn't get better with time either and one situation the 82nd airborne killed 17 civilians who are protesting their presence at a local school so yeah you weren't exactly doing a whole lot to win the hearts and minds. This is one of the biggest problems with the regular war in general, or what has eventually become to be known as counterinsurgency operations, also known as COIN. Every time soldiers would shoot the wrong person, they would create an entire generation of new fighters, or at least sympathizers,

to the resistance. You can see this from throughout history, from the American revolution to the American war in Vietnam and Iraq. You could watch it happen in almost real time on TV or star Wars. It's not the branch I would look for there. Yeah. But there's like so many real wars that happened. Star Wars happened just long, long time ago.

That's right. Technically military history. And these type of situations were countless. I cannot tell you of all the stories that soldiers talked about or Marines I have to use the term interchangeably so I don't piss off

the wrong people, randomly firing at cars that got just too close to their convoys or their checkpoints. Sure, you weren't exactly killing anybody with these warning shots, but you, you're probably not likely to be a huge fan of a group of people who just took a shot at you while you're in the middle of a Sunday day trip to the local market.

Yeah. I know this happened. Nobody can tell me this didn't happen because I did it. The rules of engagement were the rules that govern, uh, why soldiers, uh, can and when pull triggers allowed it. Sources are hazy about what exactly the rules of engagement were at this exact time, uh, as they varied wildly depending on the unit and the area. But, um, I can, I do have some anecdotal evidence of when I was deployed only a few years later,

you were supposed to fire a warning shot at a vehicle, which means a shot in the air or at the ground in front of it. The next step was a shot into the vehicle's hood. And as you can imagine, as all soldiers are accomplished marksmen, this never missed. And then if that still didn't slow the car down or stop the car, you try to kill the driver. It made sense in theory.

I'll guess I can give something resembling credit to the person who came up with this idea. At that point, they're obviously so committed to attacking soldiers with their vehicle, whether it be via, you know, drive by shooting or, you know,

a vehicle born suicide bomber. And both of those things totally existed at the time. Warnings just wouldn't be enough to stop them. And that much was obvious. People ran checkpoints a lot. The problem with the rules were at no point did they ever take into account how a normal person reacts

when they're getting shot at. I know these people live through a war zone. This is post-invasion. Some of these people probably survived the first Gulf War. Right. But you can't assume that everybody just knows how to react and they're

getting shot at. One, they don't know that warning shot is a warning. Right. They just hear a gunshot. Or if you shoot it in front of their car, they see, they see a gunshot.

They panic. They hit the gas. They swerve like crazy. I don't know. I mean, I've been shot at and if i got shot at tomorrow driving through tacoma i don't know how to react either i'm in a fucking prius not a humvee you know i might hit the gas try to like push through the kill zone right um i might slam i might slam on the brakes but more accurately i'm gonna try to try like a

crazy person to get away from the person trying to kill me no it's totally true that you bring that up nobody knows how they're going to react nobody knows what right fuck is going to happen right and but these people um i say these people i was one of them um the soldiers marines whoever operating in iraq or afghanistan at the time they just assumed when someone get to get the shot taken they're just going to stop. Right. Like, that's a pretty bold blanket statement to make. We shoot them and they'll stop. Oh. Yeah. Because, you know, when soldiers are the military mindset of like, well, when somebody's shooting

at you, you don't want to go over there anymore. No, you want to get away from the fucker who's shooting at you. You don't know where it's coming from. Especially when, if you've if you've uh if you believe the occupation authority and they're there for your good you why would you assume you're the one shooting it yeah um actually i remember a story uh from kandahar uh it's about the year before i got there in uh 2011 uh where uh they introduced this thing called the pen flare. It's a little thumb fired flare that would, you know,

make bright colors, blue, yellow, whatever. I don't remember the color before you find a warning shot to like, kind of give them a heads up. But soldiers being soldiers would aim the pen flare at people. Not surprising.

It's not at all. Cause we used to have fun with that just on field rotations, just for the colors. Right. And, what happened is, uh, as a eight year old,

a nine year old, uh, Afghan kid, uh, pen fly hit him in the chest, caught his, uh, his shirt on fire.

He got like 80% burns all over his body. Yeah. So like if you give soldiers rules, they're going to bend them that has been the case from now near 2018 i don't know when you're gonna listen to this podcast but 2018 now all the way from human hit the beginning of human militarized history um so moving on from that numbers of of how many civilians were killed or wounded in this way aren't really accurate or kept at all um but they're probably higher than the official

sources would like to admit like civilian casualties in general from any war in human history the excuse to explain why these checkpoints weren't working is so malignantly stupid it's hard to believe people actually believed it according to a classified sworn statement given

after such a shooting they said quote they could not understand why so many Iraqis just didn't stop at checkpoints and they speculated it was due to illiteracy or poor eyesight quote they don't have glasses and stuff end quote said Colonel John Ledoux

they don't have glasses and stuff yeah was stuff in there too yes I swear to god I swear to god this I swear to God. This is a sworn statement from a United States Army colonel. Yeah, they don't have, you know, stuff. They don't have glasses and stuff. They had a monocle maybe.

A fucking Monopoly man. So the U.S. scrambled to try to put a limb in this mess in one way or another. And in one case, they actually set up a local police force like an early prerequisite to the Iraqi police that almost every activity soldier who ever deployed there knows a little bit about so it was their attempt to bring law and order to

the troubled Providence it wasn't like a city police force as much as like a county police force this is their Providence how do you think this ended up surely they pacified the area right sure yeah the cops were quickly county police force. Yeah. This is their providence. How do you think this ended up? Surely they pacified the area, right? Sure.

Yeah. The cops were quickly disarmed and captured by insurgents. Afterwards, they dragged into the middle of the local soccer stadium and executed in front of cheering, growing crowds. It took a turn for the worse. There's about 17 or 18 of them. I couldn't, you know, of all the firsthand hand accounts I found the number kind of varied but it was greater than 15 less than 20 did they say anything about how many

of them had glasses I'm assuming zero glasses or stuff maybe a monocle we're not sure this would eventually boil over into what is now known as the first and second battles of Fallujah in 2004 and 2005,

the second commonly being known as Operation Phantom Fury. These operations killed untold thousands. Most of them were Iraqi civilians, and it did absolutely nothing to stop resistance in the area. At the time, General Mattis, who was bringing commander in the area said that the operations were pointless and all it would do is spread the resistance out that's exactly what it did it also swelled the ranks once again and after you chased thousands of fighters out of the city into the surrounding countryside and village villages is like playing a really bad game of

minesweeper where you like click a few times trying to clear the area and then just bombs appear everywhere. Yeah, I just click anything because I never got Minesweeper as a kid. I never really get it either. I just played it while I was in computer lab. I'm not going to lie to you when I just had that explained to me for this analogy. Oh. I mean, have you ever watched The Office?

Yes. Do you remember the episode? Love The Office. Yeah, you ever watch the episode where like Kevin brings his giant bowl of chili? Kevin's famous chili? Yeah, he roasts the ancho chilies himself. I roast the ancho chilies myself. Like, do you remember like he dumps it everywhere?

Yeah. And instead of cleaning it up, he ends up swimming in it and spreading it everywhere. Well, it turns out Kevin was actually the area commander for the United States military at the time. And that brings us all the way to where our story actually starts. And that is the story of a normal Marine patrol. Or what some people would want you to believe is a normal Marine patrol. On the fateful morning of November 11th, 2005, at around 7.15 a.m., a squad of Marines from Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines under the command of Staff Sergeant Frank Woodrich

were in a mounted vehicle control through the city of Haditha. Yeah, I think you're kind of picking up on where I'm going now. This being 2005, the trucks they were driving were hardly armored if reinforced at all, meaning other than looking at every window or door for barrels or

you know of barrels barrels weapons incoming fighters anybody who could be looking at them they're actually really worried about the most ubiquitous weapon of the entire iraq war and that is the improvised explosive device or ied ieds were made out of everything and anything from homemade explosives cooked together in somebody's backyard to repurposed military munitions. They were packed into everyday objects and disguised, so no military personnel could see them when they stumbled upon them, whether on a foot patrol or on a monopetrol like this one. The results of these weapons were devastating. One of those hidden roadside bombs touched off as one of Wodrich's squad's Humvees triggered it. The lightly armored truck was literally bisected by the explosion and killed a Lance Corporal Miguel Tazaris immediately.

The other two Marines in the truck were badly wounded and quickly medically evacuated. Both of them would actually end up surviving. Minutes after the explosion, Lieutenant William Collip, who was Wodrich's platoon commander, showed up and took command of the scene. The bomb was so large that 15 Iraqi civilians who were gathered in the area for one reason or another were killed. Insurgents waiting in the nearby buildings opened fire on the stricken convoy. Collip ordered Woodridge to take four other Marines and assault a cluster of three houses that they were taking fire from, and Woodridge did just that, charging into the cluster of houses and clearing the enemy in close quarters combat, killing eight of them. By 10am, the area was clear and all fighting had ended. At least that is what Lieutenant Collip's award citation for Woodridge said.

And this is the story that was passed up through his chain of command. Another victory against a disgusting and human foes who had put civilians in the way of their booby traps. It painted the U S government. I was actually painted by the U S government as anti insurgent propaganda. Like, look how little they care for you. They'll put you in the way of their weapons. Um,

and that probably have been where the story ended. And if it wasn't for a few things. For one, there are witnesses. Haditha is not a small town. Explosions and gunfire tend to attract attention. Almost immediately after the smoke had cleared, an Iraqi journalism student by the name of Thir Tabat El Hadithi, who only lived about 100 meters away from one of the houses was unseen in his hands,

a camera that documented everything that he saw. Saucy. Yeah. He, uh, he did not take his time getting there. No. Soon rumors began to spread about what really happened that day.

Rumors about how many insert, how many insurgents are actually were. Rumors about terrified civilians. Rumors about wholesale executions of families. Al-Hadithi tried to show the military authorities the footage that he had taken at the scene that day. The U.S. military, and the Marines in particular, dismissed them as outright insurgent propaganda. That's not hard to believe at all. What, that they believed it was insurgent propaganda, or propaganda like that existed? No, that at all what that they believe was insurgent propaganda or like propaganda like that existed no that they would say that somebody yeah that even with the evidence

on hand i'm not surprised by it either not at all like from people that i know it's not at all yeah i mean why would you believe anything bad about the guardians of freedom yeah you know Yeah. I mean, why would you believe anything bad about the guardians of freedom? Yeah. Yeah. Um, so eventually in March,

2006, this is several months later, a journalist named Tim McGurk got ahold of El Hadithi's footage and broke the story in an article called one morning and in Haditha, one of the sources for this podcast, um, which I'll link in the comments. Now with the story being made public,

the incredibly slow gears of military justice began to turn. And I wish this is where I told you the military got shit together. I'd be lying to you. The Navy began an investigation. And the reason why the Navy got involved is because even after Tim McGurk's article was published, the Marines said, we don't see a reason for an investigation.

And the Army-led investigation ordered by General Peter Chiarelli, the commander of all coalition forces in Iraq, fizzled out into pretty much nothing very quickly. That's when the Navy came in. The Navy ordered the

Naval Criminal Investigation Service, also known as NCIS, a few mom's favorite criminal show. It's not that show. I didn't really like it. I wasn't really into it. To begin an investigation of the incident. Once word got around,

the NCIS was involved in the matter. However, a unit that investigates criminal activity, like that's their thing is they investigate criminal activity um the military is quick to point out they didn't think anything bad had happened what yeah uh so in a statement on tv colonel michelle martin hing a spokesperson for the multinational forces of iraq which is like the coalition, the official title fully coalition mission in the country, told the Times the involvement of NCIS does not mean a crime had occurred. And she said, yeah. And she said, for the fault of the civilian deaths lied squarely with the insurgents who, quote, placed noncombatants in the line of fire as Marines responded to defend themselves, unquote.

NCIS did not sandbag this. They sent their two best investigators to the scene, a Tom Brady. No, not that. And Mike Maloney. Both were former Marines. Yes,

the goat. Yeah. He flew down from Foxborough, set aside his 36 Super Bowll rings and really got his, you know, his hands dirty. Um, so these two had actually written the NCIS protocol for tactical crime scene and examination in conflict zones.

Big Dick swinging. They were literally the subject matter experts, right? Um, they had actually gone to Eastern Bosnia and the Afrantha Srebrenica massacre and helped determine if what had happened was a genocide these guys were the best at what they did in the entire world but they had a ton of work to do right maloney and brady had tons of layers to sift through it after they arrived in

haditha in march of 2006 um as you can imagine it's been several months um the bodies aren't there anymore. Is Haditha still hostile while they're there? Oh yes. Very much so. They're carrying out an active criminal investigation in a war zone. Right. Unlike Srebrenica where they've been before,

people are still trying to kill them in Haditha. That's fucking insane. Yeah. And these guys went to the investigation zone so when they go in and i'll get in a little bit so the marines that uh escorted them there said um you know we might be able to buy you three hours that's how hot this area is um so yeah um the massacre had unfolded over approximately two hours and in three different buildings. There are multiple suspects, each providing different versions and events in their sworn statements.

The instruments of death also vary. Of the six Marines, it turns out who are directly contributed to the body count, five are wielding M16s and the sixth is armed with an M240 belt fed machine gun and a 90mm pistol. And several of them have thrown hand grenades. And of course, in there is the bodies. It had been months, so they were long gone.

In the Middle East, for the Muslim civilians in the Middle East, they have a custom where once somebody dies, you have 24 hours to bury them. Within 24 hours, they have to be in the middle east uh they have a custom where once somebody dies you have 24 hours to bury them oh yeah within 24 hours they have to be in the ground um but what did survive was pictures and you're probably thinking those must be the same exact pictures the marines have already dismissed as propaganda right wrong a marine lance corporal named andrew right arrived on scene right after the massacre had concluded he was a member of what is known as a human intelligence team or humant um whose job it was to take pictures of the grisly aftermath of combat which can be used to help identify insurgents which then can be used to identify their support networks i have actually worked with these guys. Uh, they fingerprint dead bodies,

get pictures of their irises, stuff like that. Um, you will not kill somebody in theater without these dudes showing up and they do not do a, like they don't pussyfoot around. Like they're very good at their job. Um,

so he had photographed the dead with his personal camera before they had been transported to the local morgue, right? Photograph each of the 24 bodies from different angles and the areas surrounding them. He rightly assumed the images would be used as evidence in a criminal investigation, but four months had passed before anybody had asked for them.

So he already knew he knew shit was going down. He was a fucking Lance corporal, which is a very lower he's lower enlisted he's basically e4 the fucking right he he is but you're an e4 in the army i was an e4 in the army for a very long time did you ever do anything that could be considered important no without anybody looking at your work no that's my point and that's the point that i'll make right now this means that the marines had evidence this whole time that showed the patrol story was a complete lie and no one ever thought to ask this these photos show that not only had not a single

iraqis feeling been killed by an ied day, which you remember they claimed that 15 were killed. Every single one of them had been killed via gunshot. Most of the time by close range shot to the head. It was then, as soon as Wright took those photos, the cover-up began. That's not something I'll say

lightly. I consider myself an amateur military historian, but I am a huge proponent for historical accuracy me too yeah um so this this has some anecdotal evidence in it which when i say no e4 ever does anything without it being checked by a higher nco, by NCO, I mean non-commissioned officer, or an officer. Right. And that is an absolute fact. The only way these pictures could have been taken

without anybody else looking at them was if he took that SIM card out and chucked it into a river. I mean, and I know in 2005 and 2006, Iraq was wild. Civilians and soldiers and Marines and whoever were getting killed left and right but never in a scene where there's 24

bodies being in what they call interrogated by these human teams is is no one going to look at these pictures right someone above them a sergeant or an officer anybody had to look at them whoever

looked at those pictures knew what they're looking at anybody with a fucking brain between the ears knew what they were looking at. And no one said a fucking word. And now with this evidence in hand, NCIS went to the crime scene itself. And soon they began to pin a picture of what had really happened that day. First off, I don't mean to minimize what really happened here.

An IED attack really did happen and it really did kill a young Lance Corporal and wound two others. That actually happened. I'm not taking away from that. What didn't happen next was an ambush. The investigators found absolutely zero evidence of an insurgent ambush present at the scene. The only weapon that was found that day

was one legally owned AK 47 weapon commonly owned for home defense in the area, which had not been fired. Right. At all. And with the home defense, how does that work? Is it like one,

is it one rifle or one AK for the household? It's one per like military aged male. You're allowed to own one AK 47. Right. And, uh, there, I one AK 47. Right. And, uh, there, I believe there's some arbitrary aluminum ammunition,

but they could legally own it. They had the right to bear arms. Hmm. Um, but what really did happen next was five Iraqi men, a taxi driver with four teenage fares aboard was ordered out of their car and shot dead in the street by Woodridge himself. Pictures of this scene exist

on the internet. You can find them if you Google Haditha. Almost immediately after these killings, one Lieutenant Collip showed up on scene. Collip reports taking small arms fire, which we now know to be a total lie. This is the point where he orders Woodridge

to storm the cluster of three houses that order really did happen woodridge was following orders right um during the war when coalition troops arrived at the house or arrived at any house and this is still generally the case in afghanistan for the most part it was standard procedure for male occupants to greet american soldiers at the door by women and children hid in a back room um about their honor system the male dominated society you weren't supposed to see their family um based on forensic evidence maloney believes that was precisely how the family in house two responded when woodridge's fire team appeared on their doorstep. Ada and her sister Huda took Ada's five children to a back room. Ada's husband,

a local police officer, was then shot seven times as he approached a metal and plexiglass door in the kitchen to greet Woodridge's squad. The Marines proceeded to clear the home as they were trained to do, pying corners with the rifle at the ready and tossing grenades into doors. They did not look inside. Not all of which actually exploded, which isn't super uncommon. I know several soldiers have thrown grenades with pins still in them. Yeah.

It's embarrassingly common. Yeah. At some point, at least two Marines, this is known by the events because two different weapons went into the room and fired, entered the back room and began shooting. Quote, this is from the forensic report. Quote, as fast as they could pull a trigger while maintaining accuracy. Unquote, according to Maloney's report.

Quote, there is no evidence of birth mode, which is normal. You normally don't use birth mode unless it's for suppressing fire. The shots were precise and efficient, aimed squirrelly at the heads and chest. Huda was killed first, followed by Ada, who was laying in the bed. Ten-year-old Mahmoud was most likely hit next

as he crawled up towards his dead mother. Although, Maloney noted in his report, there's a possibility he was killed immediately after Aisha, who was three years old. Mabud's twin sister Sabia died on the far side of the bed, behind which their oldest sister Noor was already hiding. Evidence suggested Noor had been hit, possibly from two different angles, when she popped her head up to see what was going on. The last bullet, quote, evacuated the skull of five-year-old Zinaib. Maloney likened the slaughter to, quote, shooting ducks at the county fair.

Aman Walid, a nine-year-old child, witnessed the incident. He described the U.S. Marines entering their house, and she said, quote, I couldn't see their faces very well, only their guns sticking in the doorway. I watched them shoot my grandfather first in the chest and then in the head is what is known as a failure drill in military training. It was ingrained into our heads that this is how you engaged in close quarters combat um in case your enemy is wearing body armor um this shows that this was not some unhinged orgy of violence perpetrated by a rogue squad it was by a group of professional soldiers reacting on what is known as muscle memory when you when you do something so many times that it just becomes second nature.

Yeah. And that's pretty obvious in their actions. This being executed as a military operation will become importantly. Yeah. Using this cold, efficient killing pattern, they would end up killing 24 people, some as young as two years old

before it was all over. Maloney also found evidence that someone had returned to the houses afterwards and shot several of the bodies to ensure that there were no survivors. He was never able to determine who and nobody ever admitted doing it. Afterwards,

Marines loaded the 24 dead bodies up in the back of some Humvee and dumped them at the local hospital. The direct, and now that isn't super uncommon. Um, we would dump dead bodies off at, uh, Afghan hospitals.

Uh, it was, we weren't going to bring them back to their base. Right. Granted, these were dead Taliban, whatever, but,

um, it, this part isn't shocking. What is shocking is how they fit 24 bodies inside of a Humvee. Yeah. It leads me to believe that they kind of just stacked them up like cords of wood.

So the bodies were brought to the Haditha Central Hospital where the local hospital director, Dr. Waheed, said that the 24 bodies were brought in two American Humvees to the hospital around midnight on November 19th, which, if you've never seen the inside of a Humvee, tells me there wasn't a lot of space left over. While the Marines claim that the victims had been killed by shrapnel from a roadside bomb and that the men were saboteurs said Waheed said there was quote no organs slashed by shrapnels in any of the bodies

this is clean shrapnel right like phantom shrapnel which also like the marines threw hand grenades like that's an incontrovertible fact that day but there's no evidence of the hand is actually wounding anybody I don't understand

that but I'm going to trust the opinion of a forensic scientist and a doctor over myself he further claimed that it appeared that the victims were shot in the head and chest from close range one important thing that their investigation showed beyond a shadow of a doubt was that everybody in the squad and chest from close range. One important thing that their investigation showed beyond a shadow of a doubt

was that everybody in the squad had cleared the cluster of houses, was involved in the massacre. They moved through the houses as a cohesive team. Like they were clearing a room out of training. Like it's something that they have worked through a thousand times before they deployed. And this is something that separates this from an incident like the massacres at My Lai, which everybody likes comparing it to.

I saw this called Bush's My Lai or the Iraq My Lai all over the internet. And it isn't a fair comparison. My Lai was without a doubt an uncontrolled orgy of violence, not a tightly ordered military operation like what Urch's squad carried out. At My Lai, you see things like rapes, mutilation, and torture. You don't see any of that at Haditha other than the shooting of the bodies

in the second go-around. You don't see anybody raping anybody. You didn't see anybody being bayoneted. There's no forensic evidence of that. So what was it? What situation could you see? What is supposed to be a disciplined squad doing this? So Mila had that chaos, and I figured Haritha had that.

It was almost like a controlled chaos in the squad where they just carried out there. It's like hard to fucking. Well, it's hard to put you. I'm like, it's hard to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who does something like this. And I see it as like what they saw as like a controlled chaos and almost like. Yeah. But you've heard and I have heard um people not only defend this oh yeah of course but say i get it like like somebody has said like i i know a lot of of people who

are in the military and just like it when you listen to the intro um those were people right outside of camp pendleton which is a huge Marine base. If you weren't aware of, um, effectively defending what these people are doing. Um, because like, it's like, I get it, but I, I, I don't, um, I have been involved in firefights. I've been involved in situations, seeing people hurt and wounded and everything. Um, obviously tensions run high, but there's, there's a difference between being pissed off and the the like the cold

calculated slaughter of 24 people right and that is that is where the the the saying you hear a lot of people say like you can't let your buddy down you can't let the guy next to you down um i'd rather be uh tried by six or tried by 12 and carried by six, that sort of thing. And that, and that is something that Maloney also picked up on. And that is, uh, why his theory kind of got shit can. And that is the military. Um,

at least the, the United States military of their day, which is my day. I joined around this time, um, effectively creates a culture where this is acceptable and it's easily explained away um and maloney maloney's theory is one that we're going to get into a little bit later because we have to get to um what the investigation found um so finally with this investigation

concluded in december 21st 2006 the united United States military charged eight Marines in connection with the Haditha incident. Four of the eight, Frank Wutterich, Sanic P. De La Cruz, Justin Sherratt, and Steven Tatum, were accused of unpremeditated murder, which I think is fair. Tatum was further charged withmeditated murder, which I think is fair. Right. Um, Tatum was further charged with negligent homicide and assault while Della Cruz was also charged with making a false statement as they all were because they all lied in their statements. Uh, squad leader,

Frank Woodridge was charged with 12 counts of unpremeditated murder against individuals. And one count of murder of six people while quote engaged in the, in an act inherently dangerous to others. Quote, I'm not sure what the legalese of that is. Killing people is inherently dangerous.

Yeah. Battalion commander, Jeffrey Chesani was charged with one count of violating a lawful order and two counts of dereliction of duty. First Lieutenant Andrew Grayson was charged with obstruction of justice, dereliction of duty, and making a false statement while captain Randy stone and captain Lucas McConnell were charged with dereliction of duty.

Stone also faced an additional count of violating a lawful order. I'm assuming these, it never really says what these lawful orders were. I'm assuming the lawful order is, you know, reporting things truthfully. So during the article 32 hearing, which is the military version of a civilian grand jury, Lieutenant Calip still insisted that the rules of engagement were followed and no mistakes were made.

So we're up and down old, bold move cotton. Yeah. Um, so no, no one is accusing Colop of pulling any triggers there's no evidence to suggest Colop pulled any triggers he wasn't even in the houses when the killings took place but he showed up on scene so

soon after Wodrich had killed that taxi full of people that the bodies were still warm and probably fucking twitching and he had to have known he was getting shot at. He was not getting shot at. This is not something you get confused about. He stepped out of his truck and was not taking small arms fire.

But he stated in his report he was. And then he stated on the stand he was taking small arms fire. These are all lies. These are lies he knew were lies. So did anybody else support that they took that ambush taking small arms fire these are all lies these are lies he knew were lies so did anybody else support that they took that ambush in small arms fire in the squad or nobody backed down from their story okay effectively um he also would have seen that none of the dead bodies in the ground from that taxi were armed right like i mean when you in an irregular war like this when you inflict casualties on the enemy you move the weapons away from them in case they're just grievously

wounded and they might reach for them but you stack them up together uh calip knew that there was no weapons he saw zero weapons um calip is absolutely lying on the stand and that is perjury. It's also making a false statement because he's a soldier or a Marine, right? He's an enlist. He's, he's in the military. It is around this time that the Navy took a good look at that huge case.

The NCIS team had wrapped up for them. Then promptly threw that shit out the window. All of this evidence, all of this thing pointing to that the entire squad was guilty and more than that, maybe a larger element of the Marine Corps was guilty. That's not what happened.

So on May 9th, Sergeant Sanic de la Cruz received immunity for his testimony. He testified that he watched Staff Sergeant Frank Woodridge shoot five Iraqis for attempting to surrender. Cruz further testified that both he and Woodridge fired into the bodies of the five after they were dead. At that, he urinated on one of the Iraqis. All charges against Captain Stone were dropped, despite the fact that the charges he was facing

were not investigating a fucking massacre. Stone didn't kill anybody, but he helped everybody cover their own asses. Like, Nick, if you went out and killed someone tomorrow, and I covered your ass, I would be going to prison. Yeah. Without a doubt.

No, yeah. Even if I did something as simple as saying you were at my house, I'd be going to prison for sure. Without a doubt. No. Yeah. If I get, even if I did something as simple as saying it, you're at my house, I'd be going to prison for sure. Right. This is an effect. What stone did. And he walked away a free man.

It gets worse. It gets a lot worse. I imagine. So on April 17th, 2007, the Marine Corps dropped all charges against Sergeant Santa Della Cruz in exchange for his testimony. Now,

I guess nine, 2007, all charges against Lance corporal, Justin Sherratt and captain Andy stone were dropped on October 19th. On August 9, 2007, all charges against Lance Corporal Justin Sherratt and Captain Andy Stone were dropped. On October 19, Lance Corporal Justin Sherratt's commanding officer decided that the charges should be lowered

to involuntary manslaughter, reckless endangerment, and aggravated assault. On September 18, 2007, all charges against Captain Lucas McConnell were dropped in exchange for immunity and his cooperation with the investigation. On March 28, 2008, all charges against Lance Corporal Justin Tatum were dropped.

On June 17, 2008, all charges against Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Dasani were dismissed. The highest authority that had been charged in the investigation. The judge said it unlawful command influence. The Marine Corps appealed that ruling in 2008. Unlawful command influence effectively means that Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Tasani's entire organization, everybody above him, everybody below him, everybody to the left or right of him, destroy the investigation and covered for him.

And also, somebody above him who would be a full-bred colonel or somebody above him who would be a general used their power to make sure the investigation didn't happen. And because of that, they had to dismiss them. It doesn't make any sense. On March 17, 2009, a military appeals court upheld the dismissal of the war crimes charges against Shasani. Facing an administrative board of inquiry, it also found no misconduct and recommended that Shasani be allowed to retire without loss of rank.

None? None. Holy dicks. That motherfucker was just allowed to walk out the door with full benefits. It still gets worse. On June 5th, 2008, First Lieutenant Andrew Grayson was acquitted of all charges stemming from the Haditha incident. He had been charged

with deleting photos of the deceased Iraqis in order to obstruct the investigation. There is no doubt that Lieutenant Grayson deleted these pictures. Zero.

Yeah. I mean, there's such thing as digital forensics. Everything pointed to him deleting these photos. He walked away. The only person that would stand trial would be Frank Woodridge himself, and he did

in January 2012. This is a full six years later. Cruz, San Icdeli Cruz, that is, would take the stand against him. Cruz testified under oath that after describing how Woodridge shot the passengers of the taxi

himself from close range, which is where I got the thing from before, quote, Sergeant Woodridge approached me and told me that if anybody asked,

the Iraqis were running away from the car and the Iraqi army shot them, end quote. There was no elements of the Iraqi army there that day.

He then talked about how Woodridge, after taking part in the mass killing of an entire family whipped his dick out and pissed on the corpses. There's no evidence of this actually happening. This goes in contrast

of the forensic evidence that was actually taken by the NCIS team. Because remember, they're not using this evidence that the NCIS team actually gathered. At this point, you've been listening to us long enough. You know us. You probably already know what happens next.

Nick, what do you think happens to Staff Sergeant Frank Woodridge? I would only imagine he more than likely doesn't get what he deserves. Woodridge was acquitted of all charges of assault and manslaughter. Instead, he was found guilty of a single count of dereliction of duty and was demoted.

Woodridge was allowed out of the Marines as a private with a general discharge. The only real punishment that everybody got, other than Woodridge himself, was they were kicked out of the Marines. Holy fuck. self was they were kicked out of the Marines. Holy fuck. And a general discharge, you can appeal that in six months for an honorable discharge, meaning Frank Woodridge

is as much allowed to dip into his benefits that you are when you get out. I've known people to get worse for drugs in the army. Yes, me too. I actually know somebody who got a dishonorable discharge for lying to somebody. He didn't even get a dishonorable

discharge. So, there's a few important things to take from this trial. At no point during the trial was the argument that Woodridge didn't kill any of these people. The trial pretty much said, now this is not a real quote, I'm saying it myself.

Yes, we understand you killed all'm saying it myself yes we understand you killed all these people yes we understand the entire marine corps did their god damnness to cover up the whole thing yes we understand that as an institution we all seem very comfortable protecting people who gun down children but we don't see the problem here i mean that's that's pretty much what they said along and i mean there's there's problems with the investigation there's a ton of problems there's as many problems with the investigation. There's a ton of problems. There's as many problems with this investigation as there was

with the My Lai investigation. And that's like the only place where these two things interlock. My Lai, one guy stood trial too. Yeah. But he was at least found guilty. And that was Lieutenant William Calley.

But Calley spent like three months in house arrest. But he was at least found guilty of murder. Um, as, as much bullshit as that trial was just like me lie. Um, the military did everything they could to discount the idea that an entire

unit took part in something and said, try to push it all on one guy. Um, so there's a documentary called house two that named after the second house yeah from the massacre uh maloney is interviewed in depth and he gives his theory of why this investigation the one that showed a single marine squad worked as a team to massacre 24 people and that almost every level of the chain of command up to and possibly including current Secretary of Defense James Mattis was fully involved in the suppression of information and the outright obstruction of any investigation. Now, from my understanding, from my understanding at the time, he was the Marine Expeditionary Unit leader.

Like he was the commander of the Marine Expeditionary Unit leader. He was the commander of the Marine Expeditionary Force. Which means he's the highest level of the convening authority of the UCMJ. Right. Which is the Uniform Court of Military Justice. Now, we cannot say, and Maloney cannot say, I won't quote Maloney here because he didn't say it, but I can say that I'm not saying that Secretary of Defense Mattis was involved in a cover up. I can't say that.

That would be libel. There's no there's no evidence to show that he took part directly in a cover up. But what can be said is that he has been known from throughout his career for being very in tune to what his command is doing. He's been nicknamed the warrior monk, you know, chaos, all these other nicknames that he's gotten for being super, super involved and very well read on everything that is going on under his command. Right. And it has been explained away effectively that, you know, civilian casualties is nothing that he would concern himself with.

And that I would say it's probably correct, but 24 people allegedly being massacred by his Marines is something he would absolutely look into. Yeah. I feel like that's something you'd want to look into and find details on. Yes. There's any general who did not do that

would be guilty of negligence. Right. At least, at least if not guilty of covering it up or obstruction of justice. Right. It would require the problem at the base of the massacre of this massacre was more than a rogue squad or a single rogue Marine, because that's obvious. Maloney's investigations show that the problem was the Marine Corps itself, its training, and its culture.

The Marines and the U.S. government as a whole toss us at a wealth of forensic evidence to instead cut deals for everybody to try to pin the entire massacre on one man. And that's Frank Woodridge. Um, if they had succeeded, the Marines could walk away, condemn the apparent one crazed person, despite all the evidence,

the contrary. And I feel like that's all like a military thing. You have that one scapegoat, like that's a total, like that's some shit you still see till this day like the whole handle what your ring can handle that's another

scapegoat that the military still uses not the same but it kind of is in that like they effectively tried to quote unquote, handle this at the lowest level because this requires,

so I'm not saying Maloney was correct. I can't, I can't say Maloney was correct because a lot of his investigation is conjecture outside of his forensics. But, um, he makes a lot of good points and any government institution, let alone a military institution will never accept that there is a systemic issue.

I mean, that would, that would require the Marines like sitting around a table and that the army is not innocent in this. They've had their issues as well. There's been entire books written about it. There's a documentary about it called, I think, Kill Team. Really good. You should watch it. There's entire books written about it.

Staff Sergeant Robert Bales killed a dozen people in Kandahar when I was over there. And he is in love with the rest of his life for it. The army is not guilty of the same toxic culture. I can attest that it exists um but the military is never going to look inward for its answers they're they're going to look for something else to blame and in this situation that is frank woodridge um and i'm not going to say i never did anything fucked up at the order of a staff sergeant. I did.

I never killed an innocent person, but I know plenty of people that probably would. And that is kind of evident by the fact of all the people who tried to defend them. And that's, I think, and Maloney goes into why this is the case. And before we get there, I have to go back to our Liberian Civil War episode. And that's because these war victims are the less than dead. And they simply don't matter as much because they were killed by us. I mean, it's the same reason why these things blip up in the news media than vanish because people don't people just don't mind when americans do it and that's kind of a blanket statement and i apologize if i'm hurting

anybody's sensibilities but they but the fact remains is that you know up to if not more than a half million civilians were killed during Operation Iraqi Freedom. But that's not the conversation that you hear. Just like this episode of 24 people being killed isn't the thing that people talk about. And it's because the 5,000 and some change, it might not even be that much. I'm just pulling it out of my pocket. Of Americans that died in Iraq is more important. I'm not even be that much. I'm just pulling it on my, my pocket of Americans at Dynarack is more important. I'm not saying American lives aren't important,

but when we've killed a half million people, you know, the scales aren't exactly equal. Right. And that's why I call them the less than debt. That's the middle East is the 21st century africa effectively for our our mission um i mean a lot of the ways that just like you heard in the intro and i'm sure you've heard some people talk about i've heard some people talk about so these people don't really matter so much because

they're probably related to some insurgent oh yeah you know they're they're all related it's some giant family tree of resistance and And that isn't always wrong, but these people were unarmed, right? Like it doesn't matter if their brother was, you know, Saddam Hussein, right?

It just doesn't matter. Um, and I'm not just making this shit up. This is in effect what army major general Eldon barge balls investigation concluded. He said, quote, and I swear to God,

this is a quote, statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation taken as a whole suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives. Their deaths are just the cost of doing business and that the Marines need to get the job done no matter what it takes. These comments had the potential to desensitize the Marines to concern their concern for the Iraqi populace and portray them as the enemy, even if they're non-combatants, end quote. The commander of the entire El Anbar province, General Steve Johnson, said in a sworn fucking statement, this kind of attitude was just quote a cost of doing business in quote. What the cost doing business?

Oh yeah. Or business. Like when your business is stacking bodies. Yeah. Like, come on. And, and one media outlet known as Newsmax.

Um, it's not a very well-known media outlet it's one of the ones that your shitty cousin shares on facebook for like racist reasons um and they dabble in just outright lies uh actually said the whole thing was staged by insurgents that's right they went full crisis actor on the entire situation i swear swear to God. What the fuck? There was literally pictures. So James Joyner wrote an article for The Atlantic, which is a much more well-known publication that was titled, Why We Should Be Glad the Haditha Massacre Marine

Got No Jail Time. What? There's absolutely no question that this case was ruined from the beginning. Actually, you know, before we get there, let's go back to Mr. Joyner here this is a disturbingly common

trope that you hear on things like this like like we said before we all know people who kind of give the who have been known as the Haditha Marines now they give them a pass.

Like you heard it in the intro, and that was just a couple because we don't want our intro to be fucking six hours long. This is common. Everybody to this day on a certain spectrum defends these people

from their families, their loved ones. It happens. It's all apologia of the same thing. People that outright don't even know them. Don't even know them. They just assume that they're good people and they can never do such a thing. And I hear from people that I know of that either in the army or just

friends from back home defend them till this day. Yeah. And it's like this blanket amnesty that's given to anybody who puts on a uniform. Right. And then they're also the same people say, Oh, we need these psychopaths or in the,

in the military to get the job done. And that's a whole toxic thinking of, yeah, who cares? And that, that is like this realm, yeah, who cares? And that, that is like this realm of thinking from like the epic bacon whiskey veteran who rants in his fucking pickup truck. Like we need this Spartan mentality for violence all the time.

And, you know, there was a period of time that existed. There was a period of time where like when Houston formation, everybody around you is a combat veteran. And there was a period of time where like when houston formation everybody around you is a combat veteran and there's a period of time where shit like this happened and that is the inevitable outcome of i mean so soldiers aren't meant marines you know i you have to forgive me i say i say soldiers like because i'm a i was a soldier he still is but military personnel are not meant to undergo this kind of stress for as long as they did.

In recorded history, outside of the medieval times and the ancient regimes where people fought wars for 50, 60 years but never saw combat that often, we're in a unique period of time where everyday soldiers are fighting a lot for a very long time um i mean this is the longest conflict in american history right and this is where we find ourselves is i mean this is early on in the global war on terror well you already see the desensitization happening of who our enemies are supposed to yeah they're already subhuman they're already okay to be slaughtered. Institutionally, they already accept that that was okay. Right.

And that's the issue some people use. It still is. Like, oh, they're Hajj. Yeah. Who gives a fuck? Exactly. And I'm sorry that's an offensive word. It's just...

It's in common usage to this day, and I hate the fact that it is. Right. It's just... They're Hajj. It's fine it's like during world war ii you saw uh soldiers and marines collecting skulls and teeth from the japanese but it was okay because the japs yeah yeah the the campaign of desensitization has been so successful and you see that to this day with young people who have never deployed nick has never deployed and he still sees it along the people that he serves with and they've never deployed they're in their

what you're 23 yeah yeah and they're his age or younger and they're force fed spoon fed the same line of thinking that they're less than us so in a situation like this when they take one of ours so it's fine if we take 24 of theirs. And they're supported by the support system back home where we cannot stand up and say, we will not accept this from the people in uniform. And we shouldn't. I was in Afghanistan, Robert Bales killed all those people. And I was actually in the talk was watching the the nipper net i think it's called all these little text messages come up about like nobody knew what the fuck was going on because there's all this gunfire coming from this village and he was like 20 30 miles away from us um you can read more in my book the hooligans of kandahar if you haven't bought it yet but uh

you know you can read i'm watching all these things happen and when all the reports are coming back like, no, these are all civilians. I was one of few people who was like, holy shit, what just happened? You know, like, did we just do

this? There was a lot of people who were okay with it. Which isn't really surprising and it's just not like that's why i hold a really unpopular opinion with a lot of the people that i work with and a lot of people that i'm around oh me oh absolutely i did the same thing um i think the i don't know it's it's hard to explain how I feel on a lot of things these days because I'm pretty conflicted about my service. But, you know, I fall under the tree of belief that the people in uniform represent the country that they serve. that they serve.

And if you allow a group of Marines or a group of soldiers or whoever to go out and do these things and, and you, and they're given a pass, that means that's something that we're okay with as a society. And I mean, by and large, historically, that is correct.

Um, there's very few times in history where you see, um, a society that's objectively stands against what their own military does right and we certainly don't see that now um we certainly didn't see this then it's it's kind of fucking makes me speechless um that people give these these guys a pass and but when when I was looking back at the My Lai Massacre, to this day, people forgive William Calley.

And sure, William Calley was a scapegoat, just like Frank Woodridge was made a scapegoat. They all should have stood trial. Agreed. Instead, they were given a slap at the wrist and just went on their merry fucking day, man. And there's just simply no way that with all the obstruction,

all the destruction of evidence in this case, that anybody was ever going to successfully stand trial and face justice for this. And my belief is the entire military made sure that from the second it happened. And my opinion on this kind of matches up with Maloney's opinion, which are opinions.

They're not, you know, scientific fact, but evidence says that the military made sure this is never going to pan out. Right. And this is part of us military culture. And this isn't military history per se, but it will be in 20 or 30 or a hundred years,

um, to lie, to bet the truth and to cover for the guy next to you. Actually remember, um, way back in the day when I was doing my first pre-deployment training, um, one of the first things that was taught that after a firefight was to get all

of our stories, right. Get all of our accounts straight. Make sure we all say the same thing. Yeah. That was something we were trained to do. Like no shit. I went out into the field,

a captain and a Sergeant first class line us all up and taught us how to lions when statements. And it was very, very clear to me that the Marines apparently go through the same train. Um, was very very clear to me that the Marines apparently go through the same train it was ingrained into your head

that no and that under no circumstance can you let the guy next to you down when the time came up whether that be in combat or like we've talked about before kind of light heartedly about contagious firing okay yeah you don't leave a dude standing you go you go

balls deep with them you know it almost reminds me of when we were training back when i was at my old duty when i was at my old duty station and our old first first sergeant commander would come and say hey we're about to go into this yada yada we want to kill yada yada kill all this stuff just kill kill kill kill kill yeah i remember we were fucking taught to cheer that right and that's what we were all pretty much brought on with our all of our senior leaders every single one of them yeah you you're trained to i mean i was a junior leader i was a fire team leader and And, you know, you're, you're taught to generalize their spree to core or their will to work as a team.

And for the mission at no point is like, I mean like battlefield law and everything else is kind of an afterthought and super flexible when you get down to the nitty gritty. Yeah. So another thing that was pointed out in Maloney's report was how the military in general thought of the Iraqi populace. And if you were thinking they think of them as high functioning members of society, I hate to disappoint you. He found at best, the Iraqis were not trusted.

And at worst, they were considered subhuman. The evidence of this can be seen by the Marines outright dismissal of actual physical evidence that showed the truth early on. And you know, this is still true. Like whenever we were taught, told anything, but the Afghans or whoever it may be like,

whatever, they're probably lying. You know, like it could be intel it could be what it doesn't matter like it was never trusted and I mean sure there's bumps along the road and there still is absolutely issues with this

with violence on both sides of Taliban joining the Afghan military and there was certainly issues with Al Qaeda in Iraq and the other resistance groups joining the Iraqi military, the Afghan military. And there was certainly issues with, uh, Al Qaeda and Iraq and the other resistance groups joining, uh, the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police.

But, you know, that's why they did it. That was their goal was to make that whole institution completely untrustworthy. And they clearly succeeded. Um, and in case you were wondering, you know,

just, just in case you thought you sat back in your chair, a little bit relaxed or in your car on your commute to work or however you listen to us, that this couldn't possibly get any worse. I have to shatter that. I have to make it worse. It's my job. In case you're wondering if the Marines felt any remorse or sympathy for what happened that day. They don't. for what happened that day.

They don't. And I know this because on the stand, Woodridge explained that regardless of what happened that day, they, and bear with me here because like wincing when I say this, this is a quote,

that they had the best intentions. What? That they had the best. For who? I don't know. They had the best, it doesn't matter because like somebody died on both sides. I don't know. They had the best. It doesn't matter because like somebody died on both sides. I don't know what the fuck the best intentions are.

Yeah. In his written apology, he did not actually apologize and said he regretted that people died that day. He did not regret that his squad murdered them. Yeah. That was outright murder. Yes,

that is second degree murder at best. Worse than that is Charette, the guy that was actually murder. Yes, that is second-degree murder at best. Worse than that is Charette, the guy that was actually given a pass for his testimony in trial. During an interview for the documentary House 2, which comes out soon, by the way, you should watch it. I got a little bit of special treatment and got to watch it ahead of time.

The documentarian, a guy named Epstein, asked him, quote, Please help me understand what happened in Haditha. Please help me. To which he answered somewhat bafflingly, quote, From the beginning of this interview, you said that you wanted the American population to know what this war was like and what happens in war. Well, this is a clear definition of what happens in war. There's good kills, there's bad kills. And when you start classifying the good ones from the bad ones and you just turn this war into another Vietnam, there isn't going to be a winner, end quote. But that was the whole point. Like, and it gets worse.

When the interviewer, Epstein, held out a picture from House 2 that showed the bed full of dead bodies, mostly children, that he had cleared and he had absolutely pulled triggers in and asked him, are these good kills or bad kills? Which, good on him for not backing down from sure that's outright insanity sure at looked at him without breaking eye contact

and without blinking he said quote those are just kills oh not good or bad those are just kills oh okay everyone involved remains a free man to this day everybody everybody's free and everyone involved remains a free man to this day. Everybody, everybody's free.

And that is the quite possibly the most depressing episode we've ever had. To my understanding, there is a movie. Yeah, there's several. Uh, so there is a, the battle in Hadith.

I believe it was on Netflix for a little bit. It might still be there. It's not a documentary. It is horrible. Watch house two. It comes out soon. It was at Tribeca film festival. Not that long ago.

I had somebody send me the file and I'm not going to say who, uh, so I get to watch the whole thing. Uh, and I did not pull a ton from the movie, so I didn't kind of out them because there's only so many press versions of it floating around but to me it seems like there is

without a doubt some outright cold blooded murderers that are still floating around in the world I'm sure out among them somehow he made Frank Woodridge look good and I'm not giving Woodridge a pass. And at no point did I insist that nobody killed anybody this day. What I am insisting is that the military allowed all these people to get a pass,

probably promising them, you know, you'll just get kicked out. Yeah. And honestly, I am not even sure I was not able to find any records and we do not have enough time for me to send out freedom of information requests and what their discharges are. But there's a, it's a good bet. They're all general,

but they were all given a pass to try to pile all this on Woodridge. And I fully believe they did all that. The pilot on Woodridge because they knew fully believe they did all that to pile it on Woodridge because they knew what a rich was going to get off. Like what the fuck? I, I actually, uh,

so when we picked this episode, we picked the Hadith episode. I did not know I was going to find all this. Honestly, I had a, it's not a, I knew what Hadith was and I knew of it. I didn't know how deep it went.

I knew the idea of Haditha massacre. And I knew because I follow a former amazing writer for Task and Purpose that they put out a quite damning article about it which was a major source for this episode and i will uh attach it in the episode notes um but i never read through the whole thing because it's like 15 10 15 pages long i know i started reading it and i haven't gotten the chance to finish it but i I started reading it. It's an exhaustive article, but it's amazing. It's a must-read for sure. So is Tim McGurk's original article. So is the Irish

Times article about this whole thing. I didn't say this before, but the Irish Times had a correspondent actually find the vast majority of these sworn statements in a dumpster in Iraq. They found them sitting in a dumpster.

And these are all top secret documents, which I never had top secret clearance, but I'm about 90% sure that in order to dispose of a top secret document, you have to burn it or shred it. I would imagine so. Not just chuck it in a random dumpster. I mean, I never had to handle one, so. Right, me either. But you do more than chuck it in a random Iraqi dumpster. But that's exactly what happened, and that's why we have so many of these.

Take amazing classes and play video games online. What you're supposed to do on. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess we have like negligence to thank for pretty much all of this. But yeah, we could go on and then we're already, you know, over an hour. So we'll wrap it up. Thank you for sticking with us for what I think is our most serious, but probably most important episode. There's episodes out there from various podcasts that we both follow that

cover a lot to do with the global war on terrorism, but I have not seen any episodes on Haditha and I hope we did it justice. Right. And there will be some people that might be mad. There will be, there will be. And it's okay. I'd like to think that a lot of our followers think like us.

Maybe. So I'd like to think that they won't get mad, but I'm not too sure. You know, if I make somebody mad, that's all right. As long as I make somebody think, I'm fine. Yeah. So thank you for sticking with us on this. Maybe the next one will be a little bit more lighthearted. Hopefully.

We'll think. We'll look at our whiteboard. We'll put our thinking caps on, which are pretty much just beer helmets. So, again, you can follow me on Twitter, jcast99. Follow me on NickcastM1. You can follow the podcast at lions underscore buy. Thank you, everybody, for donating to the Patreon. Yes.

For all of you out there. And thank you for everybody for donating to the patreon yes for all of you out there and thank you for everybody joining our book club yes i cannot wait to learn about roman legions with everybody um we haven't really decided on how that was going to look whenever we're done we'll probably just do like a bonus episode or we talk about that like a not so long but a nice little light-hearted little and it's mike duncan it's not like we're diving into some like deep like ancient philosopher tome here which is which is why i picked it um but please if you if you haven't seen us on twitter and you only follow somewhere else we're reading um the storm before the storm by mike duncan and it covers the entirety of roman

history from the rise of the republic of Roman history from the rise of the Republic of Rome to the fall of the Roman Empire and I cannot wait to finish it. It's going to be great. So write and review us on iTunes. Follow us on all the shits on all the things that we just gave you and thanks for stopping by. Do that stuff.