"Marines to Face Charges in Iraqi's Death", trumpets The Guardian this morning.

No, this is not related to the Haditha story. This is a new development. It tells the story of an alleged murder on April 26 in Hamandiya, complete with allegations of a frame and cover up plot. And, of course there is talk of 'motive'; or the lack of it.

When the Pentagon announced it was investigating the death it provided no details about the incident other than to say that "several service members'' from the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment were suspected of involvement. The servicemen were "removed from operations'' and sent back to the U.S. pending the results of the criminal investigation, it said.

Sullivan said the eight men are being held in solitary confinement.

"There's concern about the publicity of Haditha having a detrimental impact on the case,'' he said. "My concern is the whole politics of this. There's an assumption that these guys are guilty before there's been an opportunity for a thorough, impartial investigation.''

And then there is "US probes new Iraq massacre claim" video also fresh in this morning. Again, talk is of "rounding up and deliberately shooting 11 people in the house, [in Ishaqi], including five children and four women, before blowing up the building". We also learn, that "the pictures came from a hardline Sunni group opposed to coalition forces. It has been cross-checked with other images taken at the time of events and is believed to be genuine".

I can just hear the editors the world over screaming their heads off: "GET ME ANOTHER MARINE MURDER STORY IN IRAQ. I DON'T CARE WHERE YOU GET IT, JUST GET IT."

And they are right to ask for it. This is big news and cranks up circulation. This stuff sells papers.

Is it what we want to hear? No, it's not, but hear it we must, you say; if for no other reason than to help train Marines on their way to Iraq; The political angle is clear:

The accelerating media feeding frenzy over the alleged killings of twenty-four Iraqi civilians in Haditha by US Marines last November is about to overwhelm American politics. Propelled by their most irresponsible war critics, the left will try use Haditha as it used My Lai thirty years ago: as a political tool to take apart America's support for the war and to shatter the legitimacy of our cause and the morale of our troops.

The anti-war protagonists will not be satisfied until the President is brought to his knees for dragging us into, what they are now calling, an unnecessary war, admit his purported mistake and issue a time-line for withdrawal. All but one of which he will thankfully never do. Glad to know the Bush derangement syndrome is alive and well.

Does it reflect what's going on in Iraq? Are these stories the tip of the iceberg - you know, 'where-there-is-smoke-there-is-fire' sort of reasoning? No, it does not.

On the contrary. These reports are evidently isolated incidents. If they weren't and our finest were indeed systematically and in large numbers killing innocent civilians, women and children, we would surely hear about it - satisfying the ferocious and insatiable hunger of our editors.

How else could it be that a society far from being neutral, but a society, which is allegedly consumed with rabid anti-American sentiment, doesn't flood news agencies with similar stories - each of which is worth its weight in gold for the MSM.

The only rational conclusion, given our huge numbers in theater, is that in the absence of literally hundreds and hundreds of similar stories, notwithstanding the bogus ones, the U.S. troops in Iraq must be highly disciplined, brave and loyal service-men, trying their level best to help rid Iraq of ruthless killers and murdering thugs in the thousands, in a heroic effort to help fulfill America's pledge to the Iraqi people that they will have a real chance to create a lasting democracy and a life for themselves, free from oppression in whatever form

Of the some 150,000 U.S.-led troops there, Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the U.S. combat commander in Iraq, said "99.9% of them perform their jobs magnificently." Yes, and 99.9% of them, after all they've been through, will deeply resent the clear inference they lack "core values." Is that different than standard "Corps values"? [...]

The missions in Iraq and Afghanistan grew from the moral outrage of September 11. U.S. troops, the best this country has yet produced, went overseas to defend us against repeating that day. Now it isn't just that the war on terror has proven hard; the men and women fighting for us, the magnificent 99.9%, are being soiled in a repetitive, public way that is unbearable.

The greatest danger at this moment is that the American public will decide it wants to pull back because it has concluded that when the U.S. goes in, it always gets hung out to dry.

Two major military reports will come out soon on the Haditha incident, and no one will gainsay justice if that is required. But the atmosphere around this event is going to get uncontrollably manic, and that will feed the dark, inward-turning sentiments already poisoning the country's mood over issues like the immigration debate.

Good for Democrats? Don't count on it. After this, the public appetite for a Democratic president's "humanitarian" military intervention in a Darfur or East Timor will be close to zero.

One suspects that U.S. troops were party to some awful events in the Pacific and European theaters of World War II, all gone in the mists of history and the enemy's defeat. Not now. Gen. Chiarelli's magnificent "99.9%" notwithstanding, it's the phenomenon of the so-very-public 0.01%--at Abu Ghraib, on an Afghan street, at Haditha--that is breaking America's will this time.

It is the absence of these hundreds of stories, which stands as an overwhelming testament for the irreproachable ethical and moral code of conduct by which our finest live and die. And that's that. No apologies offered and none expected for the thousands of our finest who have been murdered, killed and butchered in their honorable line of duty. As for the isolated cases, the system is in place and will deal with them in the appropriate manner, fair and square, I have no doubt about that.