Blogoland

Six months ago, Glenn Reynolds interviewed Peter Beinart, who assured us that Haditha was an "opportunity to show that we're different from our enemies because we bring our own people to justice." Prof. Reynolds cooed: "That's right, and I note that it has been the pattern of the U.S. military in this war."

The military was self-correcting. Just like the blogosphere!

Er, no, says the military.

On 20 November 2005, 2nd Marine Division issued a press release stating that 15 Iraqi civilians were killed in an IED explosion, and Marines and Iraqi Army soldiers killed eight insurgents in a follow-on fire-fight.

We now know with certainty the press release was incorrect, and that none of the civilians were killed by the IED explosion.

As the result of a query by a Time magazine reporter in January 2006, there were several distinct but related investigations into the circumstances of the deaths of the 24 Iraqi civilians, and into how the chain of command reported and investigated those deaths.

In other words, as we noted here six months ago, this whole incident at Haditha would have been shrouded to the world had it not been for the very persistent efforts of Time magazine, who were blown off consistently by the military as "falling for al-Qaeda propaganda." Of course, had Glenn Reynolds and his "Nothing to see here" ilk been paying any attention, they would have realized such a thing all along.