What's newsworthy these days?

I actually debated whether this was newsworthy enough to even comment on it. Just some more wanton killing of innocent civilians by American troops. Happens every day. Ho hum. I see someone was shot in the South Bronx too. So where's the news there?

What's shocking is that we've come to the point where news of this sort is just run of the mill.

From the beginning, Iraqis in the town of Haditha said U.S. Marines deliberately killed 15 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including seven women and three children.

One young Iraqi girl said the Marines killed six members of her family, including her parents. “The Americans came into the room where my father was praying,” she said, “and shot him.”

On Wednesday, Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said the accounts are true.

Military officials told NBC News that the Marine Corps' own evidence appears to show Murtha is right.

A videotape taken by an Iraqi showed the aftermath of the alleged attack: a blood-smeared bedroom floor and bits of what appear to be human flesh and bullet holes on the walls.

The video, obtained by Time magazine, was broadcast a day after town residents told The Associated Press that American troops entered homes on Nov. 19 and shot dead 15 members of two families, including a 3-year-old girl, after a roadside bomb killed a U.S. Marine.

On Nov. 20, U.S. Marines spokesman Capt. Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that on the previous day a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gunbattle, U.S. and Iraqi troops killed eight insurgents, he said.

Predictably, the right-wing nutballs are outraged (not at the actions of the Marines, of course, but at Murtha). Here's California Conservative:

John Murtha’s said some extremely outrageous things the past 6 months but nothing as outrageous as his latest pack of lies. He was barely tolerable when he was hurling lies about conditions on the ground. This latest tripe is the stuff that should get him expelled from the House…

Frankly, this is the actions of a traitor or a sellout. He deserves to be ridiculed, excoriated and frog-marched off Capitol Hill, then remanded to jail. No bail. Doesn’t this idiot know the type of damage this inflicts on the Marines? Or is it that he’s so intoxicated with the thought of becoming the next chairman of the House Armed Services Committee that he’ll say anything?

I must say that, though I certainly wouldn't go so far as California Conservative, I do think Murtha may have spoken a bit prematurely here. I'm inclined to think that the trial of these guys should proceed to a conclusion before Murtha speaks his mind. Unfortunately, most of these trials have made a mockery of justice, with the military exonerating everyone, no matter how compelling the evidence against them may be.