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Yesterday, the New York Times printed excerpts of a five-page memo drafted by four marine officers in response to inquiries from Time magazine reporter Tim McGirk. McGirk's questions hinted that he believed an atrocity had been committed at Haditha, where a group of marines killed 24 people after a roadside bomb killed an infantryman in late 2005.

The Marines charged three enlisted men with murder for the Haditha killings late last year. This memo was an internal communication sent to the Second Division from its Third Battalion in response to McGirk's inquiry, which came in early 2006. It became public after a hearing for an officer charged with dereliction of duty in the incident.

The memo offers a rare glimpse into the distrust that some military officers have for the press, and it's an amazing document. Much of the excerpts show the authors outlining what they believe to be McGirk's view of the world and his possible intentions. "In the reporter’s eyes, military officers may represent the U.S. government and enlisted marines may represent the American People," they write.

Later, they add: "We must be on guard, though, of the reporter’s attempt to spin the story to sound like incidents from well-known war movies, like 'Platoon.'” This is followed by a description of "Platoon" and a discussion of how a reporter could adapt the movie's storyline to characterize the Haditha killings, "which could be expanded by the general press as a testament for why the U.S. should pull out of Iraq."

Not that I should write the word "killings," according to the memo: the term, which McGirk used in his inquiry, is an "attempt to stain the engagement with [a] misnomer." The response to this question – "Were there any weapons found during these house raids — or terrorists — where the killings occurred?" – begins like this: "Again, you are showing yourself to be uneducated in the world of contemporary insurgent combat."

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The Skinny Today: Story of Marines charged in connection with Haditha killings crowds front pages. Plus, Nancy Pelosi congratulates herself, nation's Governors do the same, and Democrats save their at-risk members. Also, Denver and London are shrouded in travel woes. The Skinny is Hillary Profita's take on the top of the news and the best of the Web.

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"What happened at the Iraqi My Lai?" asked an editorial printed in the Los Angeles Times yesterday. The Times was referring to the alleged murder by US Marines of unarmed civilians, including women and children, in Haditha, Iraq on Nov. 19, and the alleged cover-up that followed. The incident is now being investigated by the U.S. military. "If the worst charges in this Haditha case are borne out by the investigation, it could have more damaging implications for U.S. presence in Iraq than even the Abu Ghraib prison scandal," according to CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer.

The My Lai comparison has been invoked quite a bit in recent days. "My Lai on the Euphrates?," asked the Guardian Unlimited. "Massacre in Iraq just like My Lai" said the Daily Telegraph. In the New York Times, Maureen Dowd called Haditha a "My Lai acid flashback." There are many more such examples.

But is the comparison legitimate? The My Lai massacre, as it has come to be known, refers to the killing of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians by U.S. soldiers on March 16, 1968, during the Vietnam War. What began as a "search and destroy" mission ended with the massacre of more than 300 apparently unarmed residents of My Lai, among them women, children, babies, and the elderly. Some were reportedly tortured and raped. The incident, notes PBS, "sent shockwaves through the U.S. political establishment, the military's chain of command, and an already divided American public."

There are some obvious similarities here, should the allegations in Haditha bear out, chief among them the fact that both incidents involved the massacre of apparently mostly unarmed innocents by an occupying U.S. military force. There is also the fact that both involved an apparent cover-up of the facts, and both are the types of incidents that can have a serious impact on public opinion, both in America and abroad.

There are also differences. For one, even if the worst of the allegations are true, this was not a massacre on the scale of My Lai. That does not lessen the horror, but it should also not go ignored.

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