The Haditha Charges: Symbol of a War Gone Bad


TONY KARON

Four Marines are charged with murdering Iraqi civilians. Even if justice is seen to be done, the result is unlikely to reverse the damage

The interests of the U.S. military in Iraq, right now, demand not only that justice be done over the Haditha killings, but also that it be seen to be done — by Iraqis as well as by Americans. That may help explain the extensive indictment, announced Thursday at Camp Pendelton, California — four Marines charged with murder in the killing of 24 Iraqis, and another four officers charged with dereliction of duty for not relaying accurate information about the killings up the chain of command. The charges send a sharp message of zero tolerance for abuses of civilians to U.S. uniformed personnel in Iraq, but also to Iraqis, whose Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, had branded the incident emblematic of a contempt for Iraqi civilian life on the part of U.S. forces. Altering that perception will certainly be critical to any prospect of success in the U.S. military's efforts to reverse Iraq's negative security trends.

The charges, which include 18 counts of murder against squad leader Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, 26, are the result of two separate military investigations that began after TIME first broke the story of the massacre that occurred on Nov. 19, 2005, when 24 Iraqi civilians were killed by Marines, allegedly in retaliation for a roadside bomb attack that killed one of their men. "As the result of a query by Time Magazine reporter in January 2006, there were several distinct but related investigations into the circumstances of the deaths of the 24 civilians, and into how the chain of command reported and investigated those deaths," said a military statement briefing reporters on the case.

Wuterich's lead civilian defense counsel, Neal Puckett, made clear that his client plans to mount a vigorous defense: "He did what he was supposed to do to protect himself," said Puckett. "Iraq is a very dangerous environment for our Marines. Any action they take can result in death. Everything Staff Sergeant Wuterich did that day was to protect his Marines and keep them from harm."

That sentiment was echoed by Theresa Sharratt, mother of Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, 22, from Carbondale, Pa. "There's no way that I believe what's being said about that day," she told TIME. "He did what he was trained to do. They're Marines. That's their job. We're at war... He just feels let down. He hasn't told us that; I can see it in his eyes. He did his job and this is what happened."

In Iraq, the Haditha revelations simply reinforced existing negative perceptions of the U.S. mission, and it's unlikely that even by throwing the book at the men responsible, the U.S. military will earn the goodwill of the civilian population — particularly the Sunnis, who were the victims in Haditha. What's more, graphic descriptions of U.S. soldiers allegedly gunning down innocents — 10 of them women and children — in an apparent frenzy of violent frustration at their inability to find an enemy camouflaging himself in the civilian population are unlikely to help raise the morale of a U.S. public grown weary of what their Commander-in-Chief calls the "slow pace of success" in Iraq. Opinion surveys right now routinely find two out of three Americans opposed to the war and pessimistic about its chances of success. The Camp Pendelton Haditha trial is unlikely to persuade them otherwise.

—With reporting by Jill Underwood/Camp Pendelton

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Has Britney Spears already snared a new man?


Britney Spears' charm has music producer J.R. Rotem singing her praise, informs The Associated Press.

J. R. Rotem has been dating the sexy star ever since her split with rapper hubby Kevin Federline and is besotted by her.
"I really, really care about Britney. She's such a unique person, and has an amazing personality. I think this will work out well, "a US magazine, quoted J.R. Rotem, as saying.
"J.R. is so clean and sober that he doesn't even drink coffee. He isn't impressed with Britney's hardcore partying. He wants her to take herself more seriously and spend more time with her two kids, "a friend said.
A few friends of the couple say that the abstemious Rotem is the right person to curb the pop princess's feral ways and J. R. Rotem is not all that impressed with the her wild partying habits, as he feels she should take herself more seriously and spend more time with her children.

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Inhabited Island Vanishes Beneath the Waves; Global Warming Blamed


For the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas. Environment Editor Geoffrey Lean reports.

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true.

As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.

Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.

It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, says "it is only a matter of some years" before it is swallowed up too. Dr Hazra says there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. The area's 400 tigers are also in danger.

Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.

Human cost of global warming: Rising seas will soon make 70,000 people homeless

Refugees from the vanished Lohachara island and the disappearing Ghoramara island have fled to Sagar, but this island has already lost 7,500 acres of land to the sea. In all, a dozen islands, home to 70,000 people, are in danger of being submerged by the rising seas.

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Godfather of Soul' Singer James Brown Dead at 73


James Brown, the legendary singer known as the "Godfather of Soul," has died, his agent said early Monday. He was 73.

Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia on Sunday at Emory Crawford Long Hospital and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said.

Copsidas said Brown's family was being notified of his death and that the cause was still uncertain. "We really don't know at this point what he died of," he said.

Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years. At least one generation idolized him, and sometimes openly copied him. His rapid-footed dancing inspired Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson among others. Songs such as David Bowie's "Fame," Prince's "Kiss," George Clinton's "Atomic Dog" and Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" were clearly based on Brown's rhythms and vocal style.

If Brown's claim to the invention of soul can be challenged by fans of Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, then his rights to the genres of rap, disco and funk are beyond question. He was to rhythm and dance music what Dylan was to lyrics: the unchallenged popular innovator.

"James presented obviously the best grooves," rapper Chuck D of Public Enemy once told The Associated Press. "To this day, there has been no one near as funky. No one's coming even close."

His hit singles include such classics as "Out of Sight," "(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," "I Got You (I Feel Good)" and "Say It Out Loud — I'm Black and I'm Proud," a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.

"I clearly remember we were calling ourselves colored, and after the song, we were calling ourselves black," said in a 2003 Associated Press interview. "The song showed even people to that day that lyrics and music and a song can change society."

He won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992, as well as Grammys in 1965 for "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" (best R&B recording) and for "Living In America" in 1987 (best R&B vocal performance, male.) He was one of the initial artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, along with Presley, Chuck Berry and other founding fathers.

He triumphed despite an often unhappy personal life. Brown, who lived in Beech Island near the Georgia line, spent more than two years in a South Carolina prison for aggravated assault and failing to stop for a police officer. After his release on in 1991, Brown said he wanted to "try to straighten out" rock music.

From the 1950s, when Brown had his first R&B hit, "Please, Please, Please" in 1956, through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs. He earned the nickname "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business."

With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince.

In 1986, he was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And rap stars of recent years overwhelmingly have borrowed his lyrics with a digital technique called sampling.

Brown's work has been replayed by the Fat Boys, Ice-T, Public Enemy and a host of other rappers. "The music out there is only as good as my last record," Brown joked in a 1989 interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

"Disco is James Brown, hip-hop is James Brown, rap is James Brown; you know what I'm saying? You hear all the rappers, 90 percent of their music is me," he told the AP in 2003.

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Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees Gets a second Chance

Former Miss Nevada USA Katie Rees asked for a second chance today, after being stripped of her title due to raunchy photos of her that surfaced on the Internet.
"This photographs were from an isolated incident during my teenage years," Rees said during a press conference Saturday. "This incident does not reflect who I am, or who I plan to be. I have no intention of further disgracing the state of Nevada, the Miss Universe organization, or Mr. Donald Trump."

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