When good people are asked to do bad things (2)

People don’t kill Marines, Marines kill people. Not really the Freedom and Democracy any of us were expecting in the contemporary sense of the words.

US Marine faces Haditha murder charges
WASHINGTON - A US Marine sergeant has been charged with 13 counts of murder in the killings of unarmed civilians in Haditha, Iraq, one of his defence lawyers said on Thursday.

Mark Zaid, an attorney for accused ringleader Staff Sergeant Frank Wuterich, said the military charges served against his client do not allege premeditated murder and carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.

"The death penalty is not on the table," Zaid said.

Other Marines investigated in the case had yet to receive word on any possible charges, Zaid said.

Wuterich was at the center of a US military investigation into what Iraqi witnesses have described as a massacre of 24 unarmed civilians on November 19, 2005.