Matthews reasoned that alleged Haditha victims "part of the bad guys"; touted "patriotic reasons" for alleged cover-up
SUMMARY: On MSNBC's Hardball, Chris Matthews asserted that there may have been justification for regarding as "part of the bad guys" Iraqi civilians living in the houses next to where an improvised explosive device that killed a U.S. Marine in Haditha was planted. Matthews also defended the military's reported attempt to cover up the details of the killings, stating: "I can see doing it for patriotic reasons."
On the June 5 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, host Chris Matthews asserted that there may have been justification for regarding as "part of the bad guys" Iraqi civilians living in the houses next to where an improvised explosive device that killed a U.S. Marine in Haditha was planted. Apparently speculating on whether there was an "impulsive" justification for the ensuing alleged killing of those civilians by U.S. troops, Matthews said that the fact that the civilians allegedly "knew that [the IED] was there ... [and] did not step on it" might, for the troops, have constituted "prima facie" evidence, or sufficient evidence, if not rebutted, that they were "part of the bad guys." During a discussion with former General Electric CEO Jack Welch about the incident, Matthews also defended the military's reported attempt to cover up the details of the killings, stating: "I can see doing it for patriotic reasons." He added: "You'd say, 'Why do we want the world to know we had a few mad dogs who went nuts in some house? Let's cover this baby up.' "
In response to Matthews, Welch asserted that "cover-ups don't work. ...[Y]ou can go through history." Matthews replied, "You don't know the cover-ups if they worked," adding: "The good ones we get away with, right?"
From the June 5 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: OK, let me tell you where you might have been, in a cover-up. Something went wrong; you didn't want everybody to know about it. A lot of people have those situations. Why advertise it? Apparently, the military had that situation.
WELCH: Yeah, but I --
MATTHEWS: Apparently, what happened in this case is they had a -- guys who went nuts, you know, they shot everybody in their family out of rage because the most popular guy in the unit had just been blown up, and then somebody said, "What good does it do to advertise this around the world?" I can see doing it for patriotic reasons, by the way. You'd say, "Why do we want the world to know we had a few mad dogs who went nuts in some house? Let's cover this baby up."
WELCH: Look, I wrote about this in crisis management. There are no secrets. So, in the -- the first rule of crisis management is get everything out on the table because there are no secrets. It's going to be out. Tell it your way; how it happened; define the situation.
MATTHEWS: But suppose its capital crimes involved? How do you tell it your way? We murdered these people because we were really angry about losing our buddy.
WELCH: Look, I'm telling you, cover-ups don't work. That's what I'm telling you. They don't work. And you can go through history.
MATTHEWS: Well, you don't know the cover-ups if they worked.
WELCH: Come on. Get out of here.
MATTHEWS: The good ones -- the good ones we get away with, right?
WELCH: No, no, no,
MATTHEWS: So, you feel, basically, you can look at this with clear eyes and see Abu Ghraib prisoners were systematically tortured by a bunch of people doing whatever they were doing.
WELCH: It was bad leadership.
MATTHEWS: They were not made -- clearly trained and they weren't clearly managed. In this other case, in an extreme situation in battle where somebody gets killed you really like and you just act on that impulse.
WELCH: That's a tougher call for me. I don't know if it is for you, but it's a tougher call for me.
MATTHEWS: Of course.
WELCH: It's one helluva a tough call.
MATTHEWS: I'm trying to see the impulsive, even -- justification for -- here's the way I look at it. An IED goes off here. There's two houses right next to it. They knew it was there. They don't step on it. That's prima facie. And therefore, they're part of the bad guys.
WELCH: That's why I'm not black and white on this one.
Try jingoism. Anyone stupid enough to be born in Iraq deserves whatever he gets, right? Matthews has been bought by the Rove machine. I have no doubt.
covering up atrocities is patriotic? so how can we blame china? or south africa? or iraq under saddam? the folks covering up the atrocities of those regimes were merely doing their patriotic duty
I've heard Matthews say some pretty partisan things but this is outrageous.
I put this to the outraged rightwing posters who were asking where all the outrage by the leftwing was over the "bullet between the eyes" comment. Where is the all the conservative outrage about these comments made by Matthews? I hardly think they are how the average conservative feels.
So this idiot sees women and children as the "the bad guys.
there is a disconnect in his own words... he talks about "a few mad dogs who went nuts" - while saying they may have been justified... which one is it? both can not exist... madness and insanity are hard to justify
cowardly, un-American statement that Matthews has ever made. Impulsive.. justification....for allegedly committing and then covering up a war crime?
How does he get away with saying things like this. If we are as he thinks we are, maybe the rest of the world is right about us.
But that's not the country that I am a citizen of.
Honestly -- I have often called Mathews a GOP whore on this site... But, he STILL continues to reach new lows. Karl Rove must have pics of him in bed with a llama or something.
A llama!
I cannot look at Matthews without seeing those lips attached to NEOCON butt.
An Iraqi official was interviewed on NPR today, and he actually said it...the average Iraqi was better off under Saddam than they are now. As bad as things were under Saddam, at least they could go about their business...working, shopping, etc. without fear of being blown up or shot.
The troglodytes have lost their last wisp of justification for the Iraq nightmare which THEY created. Expect more twisted, insane rhetoric as it collapses around their ears.
" As bad as things were under Saddam, at least they could go about their business...working, shopping, etc. without fear of being blown up or shot. "
Well, they don't have to worry about being shot or blown up by Saddam and his family. Maybe you didn't see the news story about the bus load of kids who were shot, on their way to final exams? Who shot them? Everyday Iraqis going about life as usual and kids are lined up and executed. I wonder why there isn't any outrage about that one, here in liberal land? Oh, I know, because it wasn't the Americans who did it! Imagine that, Iraqis trying to live a "normal" life are gunned down, but only Haditha makes the "news" in liberal corners of the world.
That general wasn't an ex-employee of Saddam was he? If so, that would explain his opinion of life after Saddam and why the left admire him so.
I should have said "official" not general.
I guess we're just supposed to ignore our Marines executing little 4-year old children in cold blood and whine about whatever Iraqis may do, eh?
By the deaths of any civilians in this senseless war. Where do you get your information that no one one the left cares about atrocities committed by Iraqis against innocent Iraqis? We're all outraged by senseless killing by cowards who blow up buses and police stations. We've let it be known here and elsewhere. This savagery between Shia and Sunni has been brewing for hundreds of years. We have no control over what these terrorists do and what they do, does not reflect on us, our mission or our troops. Alleged massacres of civilians by our troops does harm us, our values and our troops still involved in the war.
If you have something to add, please do. But if you're just going to toss out inane accusations with no facts to back them up, go somewhere where that's appreciated.
MATTHEWS: I'm trying to see the impulsive, even -- justification for -- here's the way I look at it. An IED goes off here. There's two houses right next to it. They knew it was there. They don't step on it. That's prima facie. And therefore, they're part of the bad guys.
Prima facie evidence? More like primal fascist. By his same warped logic, the fact that Chris Matthews wasn't killed on 9/11 shows that he was part of the bad guys.
Agreed. Imagine you live in some fictional country called "Ameristan" and this country is being ruled by a dictator or a "decider" if you will. Another country who wants the resources of Ameristan, lets call them "Canuckistan" decides to invade and, of course, uses all kinds of reasons to rationalize it. You as an Ameristani, hate the invading force for what they have done to your country but haven't yet taken up arms against them because... the former decider of Ameristan was, in fact, a douchebag. Now, you hate the Canuckistanis and want them to go home. So when you see the IED in the street (presumably placed by some militia from the prvince of Montansul) you decide to ignore it....now you are dead because the Canuckistanis went ballistic and some sociopathic pundit in Canuckistan now feels better about your death because of prima facie. The end. Good night. Sleep tight.
When you kill innocent civilians during a counter-insurgency there is a military cost, and of course a political one. This is part of Max van Creveld's paradox of modern war: "In other words, he who fights against the weak - and the rag-tag Iraqi militias are very weak indeed - and loses, loses. He who fights against the weak and wins also loses. To kill an opponent who is much weaker than yourself is unnecessary and therefore cruel; to let that opponent kill you is unnecessary and therefore foolish. As Vietnam and countless other cases prove, no armed force, however rich, however powerful, however advanced, however well motivated is immune to this dilemma. The end result is always disintegration and defeat"
Could we be headed down the same road in Iraq?
I am curious how you know that the families knew that a bomb was in the house next door?
The answer is you don't know you pathetic excuse for a human being. And of course we will never know because they're all dead.
just like he always does. or he may have been intimate with the llama mentioned above...
Matthews has turned into Bill O'Really & Sean Hamnity. I wish he would just go over to Faux (news?).so I can at least enjoy Kieth Olberman. . I'm sure he is getting good ratings with his anti left rhetoric ,but he had to sell his journalist credentials & his soul to the neocon devils.
Based on my understanding of what the Iraqi police found, and the videotape evidence of the crime scene, the victims' hands and feet were bound, and most of them were shot in the head execution style.
This screams premeditation to me. This was no "crime of passion" as some have suggested.
There is no need to wait until the military brass thinks we have forgotten about this to "rush to judgment". Everyone knows the military will drag their heels on this investigation. Why wouldn't they?
Explain to me please, Mr. Matthews, how the little 1-year-old toddler whose brains spilled out when her body was picked up, was "part of the bad guys".
"defended the military's reported attempt to cover up the details of the killings, stating: "I can see doing it for patriotic reasons."
Patriotic cover-ups? The founding fathers are probably rolling in their graves.
"here's the way I look at it. An IED goes off here. There's two houses right next to it. They knew it was there. They don't step on it. That's prima facie. And therefore, they're part of the bad guys."
Wow, I guess all Iraqis are either psychic or members of the insurgency. I'm just glad Mathews isn't a judge or something, "You lived near the bomb - death for you!"
Only a devil could find the coverup of a mass murder an act of patriotism. Way to go Satan!
The phony colloquy, transcribed here, has as it's intention one thing:
To Fan the Flames.
Why do that?
Because just as when the American People are under attack, the U.S. Marines come immediately to their defense, so does it happen that if the U.S. Marines should come under attack, the American People will come to their defense...
...and in the process, to the defense of their operation in Iraq (the reason they are in Iraq), and quite inadvertantly to the defense of those who both proposed, and still support, that operation.
Just look at who it is who's fanning these flames, and tell me it is not as I say.
And the phony colloquy transcribed here serves as a coming attraction, a pre-view, of much more.
From an AP article titled "Senate to hold hearings on Iraq massacre":
""We've got our duty and we'll do it. We'll go wherever the facts lead," Sen. John Warner, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, said of ...Haditha"
"The Virginia Republican told reporters he wanted to hold the first of what he expected to be a series of hearings ...soon"
"In a letter to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Tuesday, Warner requested the Pentagon tell him "the earliest possible date that the department could provide witnesses" for the first hearing."
"His counterpart in the House, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., also has pledged to hold hearings in the House Armed Services Committee."
You may not agree with what I think are the political consequences to such a public airing of this alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians, but I would ask you, are the above-named Senate Chairmen in the business of embarrassing the administration, or of supporting it?
Did they vote for the invasion of Iraq, or against it?
Whatever one might think of the alledged massacre, I can hardly find any sensible reason to make it a matter of intense public scrutiny; the kind of scrutiny that Congressional Hearings, when held in public, are by design meant to result in.
I would hope that should such hearings be held in public, that every single Democrat on those Committees (none of whom I hope are calling for those public hearings) would let any opportunity to participate in those hearings pass in silence; as there being nothing constructive to say in public on this tragic matter, and as Republicans are calling for these hearings, I would hope the Democrats would remain silent.
It's the least I would hope for, that this matter be dealt with outside the glare of public scrutiny; it's the least that the Corps deserves, they coming to the defense of the American People, so often and so sacrificial.
How are Marines defending the American people by executing little children in a land that never attacked or even threatened us?
It is a normal reaction to not want to put out for public consumption stories that will reflect negatively upon you. It also tops PR 101’s top ten things not to do. Welch was correct get the bad news out and get it out before the other guy does—it is the difference between managing a public relations disaster and being buried by it. Having said that I want to make a distinction between those that attempted to cover up what happened with false information and those that once it was discovered and an investigation was underway made the decision to not put it out to the general public. The cover-up is a serious infraction the decision not to disclose was just a bad PR move. I also don’t think we should compare the allegations at Haditha to what happened in Abu Garab. One was the result of the administration’s torture policy and the other—if true—is several soldiers basically “losing it” on the “battlefield”. While I can barely stomach to watch Mathews anymore I think it is natural for him to try and understand what happened and how it could have come about but where he is going wrong is you can’t find rationality in an irrational act. Sadly I am more surprised by those soldiers that manage to keep it together (it is one of the reasons why they are so deserving of our honor and respect) then the ones that succumb to the psychological pressures of fighting in a war zone.
Chris you officially earned last year's title as "worst newsperson" and my own loathing for your being a complete media whore for the dark empire.
I just cannot get over the fact that our soldiers are the only ones at war. If it is a war, there must be an enemy. So they knew the bomb was there, what are their choices?? Tell the Americans so the other bad guys kill them or let it go and kill the Americans? Next time you are around a two(2) year old, pose this question to them...then follow the childs logic. Covering up a stolen pencil is one thing, covering up a possible murder is another. Matthews might not know the difference
The US "media" is showing the same racist attitudes that sent little Jewish children to the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Matthews has now lost the right to be called "human"....he's an orc.
Marine Miguel Terrazas's killing set this incident into motion. He had acted heroically in at least two incidents saving a child and then saving a family, himself and other marines. His family and his country grieves. But because his friends reacted to his death by allegedly killing innocent people, including children, his heroism and death will always be marred by this alleged atrocity.
I'm amazed that Matthews can gloss over this tragedy. Excuses and justification seem to be his only area of expertise. My God, he can even see patriotic reasons for killing a child.
Evidently, these two loons have WWHD bumperstickers on their cars. What would himmler do?
Once again, you have taken something Chris Matthews said out of context. Just because he said, "I can see doing it for patriotic reasons" doesn't mean he is justifying the cover up. Chris is saying he can see why the cover up happened; what might be going on in the minds of those covering up, but it is in no way an endorsement for cover-up.
And we should probably apologize to the families of the Nazis we had executed after WWII who thought they were doing things for patriotic reasons. Patriotism is more than just something you can hide behind.
ALL cover-ups of atrocities are in the name of patriotism. Make no mistake: patriotism is poison. Last I check, the world is round and we are all human.
Time to stop praying to the empty sky and to start looking your neighbor in the eyes.
I'm begining to realize that Matthews, the MSM, and the right-wingers/REpublicans idea of "Patriotism" is similar to an 15 year old, blonde-dyed, annorexic cheerleaders idea of self esteem.
They think it is something you get by giving up your identity and mind to. Just like that young, misguided girl thinks self-esteem is only had by desperately needing the approval of others....the right-wingers believe patriotism and freedom are only gained by shutting up, not asking questions, and never questioning politicians who should be working for you.