TPM's Spencer Ackerman was there:
Soldiers and Marines said that they routinely carried "drop weapons" to plant on the bodies of dead Iraqi civilians to cover up accidental deaths. They said that their chains of command encouraged brutality and falsified casualty statistics. They showed video from 2006 showing off-camera Marines firing for a solid minute on the minaret of an Anbar Province mosque, which is, if unprovoked (as the Marine who provided the footage said), a war crime. They talked about how used they felt as bodyguards for unaccountable contractors who used the war to line their pockets.
The Washington Post sent a single reporter, then buried the story in the local "Metro" lifestyles section of the paper.
The New York Times ran nothing. The Los Angeles Times ran nothing. CNN ran nothing. MSNBC ran -- you get the idea....
NB: Rupert Murdoch wants you to know that
the USA is a great democracy and we Aussies should try to be more like them. Oh, and Obama has a "year-round suntan".
