If this is accurate, I believe that firing squads are in order.

A four-man team of United States Marines led the killing rampage in the Iraqi town of Haditha which resulted in the deaths of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians, military investigators believe.

The troops went from house to house shooting their occupants after a roadside bomb killed one of their comrades, an internal US military report, which may be completed as early as this week, is expected to conclude. Some of the victims were killed, execution style, by shots to the head.

Shock at the full extent of the killing, reported by The Sunday Telegraph last weekend, has been compounded by photographs taken by a marine intelligence team which show bullet wounds to the upper bodies of the victims, who included several women and six children, some shot in the head and some in the back.

One US government official said the pictures showed that marines from Camp Pendleton "suffered a total breakdown in morality and leadership, with tragic results", according to yesterday's Los Angeles Times.

As horrific as these charges are, let one thing be clear -- even if true, such misconduct in no way reflects upon the justification of the war or the propriety of continuing to fight the Jihadi terrorists wherever they may be found.

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