Debunking the Movie, Battle for Haditha

One of the favs at the Toronto Film Festival is the disgusting movie, Battle for Haditha, by Nick Broomfield. Reviewers are marveling at the "dramatization" and lauding the performances. BUT NOT ONE has questioned the events as depicted in this tripe of a movie. To rub salt in the backstabbing wounds, former Marines portray the real Haditha Marines to add realism to this piece of fiction.

You know you're a hit with the anti-war, anti-American, anti-military crowd when you get a review on the World Socialist website. The only good thing about the WSWS review is David Walsh spilling the beans about some of the scenes in the movie (because I refuse to pay my hard earned money to this purveyor of terrorist propaganda). So let's see how accurately reconstructed the events at Haditha were...

Battle for Haditha begins with one marine musing out loud, “I don’t why I’m here,” and expressions of alienation and demoralization continue throughout. “The marine corps don’t care, the country doesn’t care,” we hear. The individual marine has to learn to “act like a machine.” The Iraqis are “ragheads.” The marines chant, “Train, train, train, to kill, kill, kill.” They are indoctrinated to suspect and fear everyone: “This is a hostile environment.” Women and children, they’re told, are capable of carrying bombs.

Wow - sounds like the talking points from the IVAW and War Resisters League. There is no documentation or testimony to support this claim.

We see an Iraqi man carrying a shovel over his shoulder. Someone claims he could be on his way to planting an IED; permission is granted, the man is blown to bits.

An outright lie. There are no reports of such an event occurring in Haditha. This is an obvious attempt to throw in some of the claims from the Pendleton 8 hearings.

Meanwhile, Corporal Ramirez (Elliot Ruiz) is having nightmares and can’t sleep. He asks to see someone, a doctor. He’s told: not until your tour of duty is over. He explains he’s having bad dreams about the things he’s seen. Again: no doctor till your tour of duty’s finished.

Again a lie - not one of the Kilo Company Marines has testified or admitted to having an issue such as this. No MD reports, nothing. This is another one of those IVAW talking points.

It’s Ramirez who will lead the enraged attack on defenseless men, women and children when one of his favorites in the unit is blown up in a Humvee... After the IED goes off under the convoy, killing the one marine, a higher-up is consulted. His comment—“Take whatever action is necessary. I don’t want any more marines killed”—unleashes the atrocity.

It's obvious that Corporal Ramirez is supposed to be Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich. Not one single Marines or even the NCIS has made the claim of any such statement from a "higher up".

Ramirez and his marines have already pulled a group of Iraqi men from a taxi stopped nearby and executed them.

There is no confirmation that the white car was a "taxi" other than the journalism student nee terrorist sympathizer. Drone video and still photos prove that the men were attempting to flee the scene.

After the initial killings, in one of the most horrifying sequences, marine snipers laugh and joke as they pick off a man running through a field.

Another bald-faced lie. No one was gunned down while running through a field. The Marines in Haditha were fighting for their lives so I doubt laughing and joking was part of their day. They also watched one of their own blown up right in front of their eyes. The claim of Marines laughing was included in one of the Iraqis debunked testimony.

Broomfield claims to have used Marines involved in the Haditha incident for research into the events. He did not use any of the Marines charged - their lawyers would make sure of that. So who did they use? Walsh gives us a clue while he gushes over Broomfield...

Broomfield took great pains to represent the Haditha events accurately. Twelve of the performers playing US marines in his film are ex-marines. He also managed to speak to some of the marines involved in the Haditha incident.

The main marine character we focus on was this guy called Ramirez. The night he got back from Iraq he broke into a truck and basically had post-traumatic stress and ended up driving into a house. He was best friends with the guy who was killed by the bomb, and then had the job of writing numbers on the dead people’s heads and photographing them. They were extremely tough and had seen a lot of action.

Well that certainly narrows it down. Broomfield used Cpl Roel Ryan Briones as his main source for the "facts". Except Briones doesn't know what happened at Haditha. He even admitted it...

Shortly after 7 a.m. on Nov. 19, Briones, who received a Purple Heart during a previous tour in Iraq that included fierce fighting in Fallouja, said his team of five men was called to respond to a roadside bomb explosion about 300 yards outside Kilo Company's Firm Base Sparta, located in an abandoned school.

But Briones said he didn't see any of this.

"It was such a blur. Smoky and smelled like an explosion," Briones said. "I only saw T.J. because he was right there. I practically walked into him."

He said his team evacuated two other soldiers in Terrazas' unit who were wounded in the explosion, including one, whom he identified as Lance Cpl. James Crossan of Washington state, who was pinned under the wreckage.

Briones also reported that he was sent back to the scene to help remove bodies and take photos with his personal camera. And it is worth noting that Briones has not been called to testify at any of the Article 32 Hearings so his role at Haditha was obviously miniscule and of little consequence.

Yet Briones didn't come forward with his story until after he got into a bit of a legal bind and tried to use Haditha as an excuse for his bad behavior...

A marine who followed orders to photograph corpses after an alleged massacre by US forces in the Iraqi town of Haditha claims post-traumatic stress from the war drove him to commit felonies while on leave, his mother said.

Lance Cpl Roel Ryan Briones, 21, is accused of stealing a truck and crashing it into a house while he was on leave in April.

He was charged on Friday with felony auto theft, hit-and-run and drunken driving, according to Kings County District Attorney Ronald Calhoun.

But that's not all Briones has been up to since leaving Iraq...

Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones, 22, was charged by the military last week. He is accused of raping a nonmilitary person in the Camp Pendleton area last year and of stealing optical equipment worth about $3,820 in Iraq.

Briones is also charged with wrongfully trying to mail two guns from Iraq.

The Marine's father, Roel Briones, told The Fresno Bee he believes his son is being treated unfairly by the military for speaking out.

And THIS was Broomfield's source for the story. How ironic that Briones made himself the leader in the tall tale. A young man who can't take responsibility for his own actions is perfectly willing to throw his "brothers" under the wheels without a second thought.

Funny thing - the Haditha Marines are being exonerated while this little worm is looking at at least 3 years in prison - and that's just for the drunk truck incident.

But that's not all... It gets uglier...