Today's article in the New York times, while not being able to find any fault with the operation at Haditha, still managed to find at least two "John Murtha Kerry" types to "leak" that there were some discrepancies in the investigative questions.

My friend, Herschel Smith, over at Captains Journal has been writing for a couple of weeks now of the new strategy being put into play by the terrorists: Create some atrocities and blame it on U.S. forces.

Our enemy in the Global War on Terror has learned to play the American News Media like a well worn fiddle. Report an atrocity, attribute it to American forces, then sit back and watch the gullible news media "expose" the story with very little, if any, factchecking.

This tactic worked well at Haditha. Time Magazine and Newsweek Magazine splashed the incident on their front pages in June of this year. After much factchecking by the blogosphere, it appears that the whole thing is a hoax, as I said in my original article.

The Major News Media (MSM)will have plenty of egg on it's face when the truth comes out. They know this and are already trying to blunt the harsh criticism which will follow by quoting any source at all to find someone, anyone to blame for their stupidity. The story line now appears to be: "lets hang some officers", by claiming to know what was in a confidential report and that the officers were deficient in their questioning of the Marines involved. According to their new tack: There may have nothing which was out of line or regulation which happened at Haditha, but there has to be something wrong and someone must be blamed, otherwise the media will be blamed.

Congressman John Murtha has already called the Marines involved "Cold Blooded Murderers" and will most likely be censured by the House when all is said and done. That is the least that should happen to the old fool.

I find it hard to believe that the American Public is dumb enough to be duped by the News Media, but there at least 40% of the voting populace who is willing to believe anything the media says so long as it hurts President Bush.

It will be interesting to see how the Haditha Incident plays out and whether the News Media will be held accountable if the accusations against the Marines were a hoax. It will probably be ignored by the major media outlets, but it will not be ignored here and on thousands of other web pages.