US Authoritarianism

When U.S. Marines killed twenty-four people in an Iraqi town, they also recorded the aftermath of their actions. For years, the military tried to keep these photos from the public.

The killings came to be known as the Haditha massacre. Four Marines were charged with murder, but those charges were later dropped. General James Mattis, who went on to become Secretary of Defense, wrote a glowing letter to one of the Marines, dismissing his charges and declaring him innocent. By 2012, when the final case ended in a plea deal with no prison sentence, the Iraq War was over, and stories about the legacy of the U.S. occupation rarely got much attention. The news barely registered.

The photos are graphic. They show men, women, and young children in defenseless positions, many of them shot in the head at relatively close range.