http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041115/wl_nm/iraq_marine_shooting_dc_2 LONDON (Reuters) - A television pool report by U.S. network NBC said on Monday that a U.S. Marine had shot dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Falluja. The Iraqi was one of five wounded prisoners left in the mosque after Marines had fought their way in on Friday and Saturday. There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon (news - web sites) on the report. U.S. forces launched an offensive one week ago on Falluja, and have gained overall control of the formerly rebel-held city, although scattered resistance remains. The pool report by NBC correspondent Kevin Sites said the mosque had been used by insurgents to attack U.S. forces, who stormed it and an adjacent building, killing 10 militants and wounding the five. Sites said the wounded had been left in the mosque for others to pick up and move to the rear for treatment. No reason was given why that had not happened. A second group of Marines entered the mosque on Saturday after reports it had been reoccupied. Footage from the embedded television crew showed the five still in the mosque, although several appeared to be already close to death, Sites said. He said one Marine noticed one of the prisoners was still breathing. A Marine can be heard saying on the pool footage provided to Reuters Television: "He's ****ing faking he's dead. He faking he's ****ing dead." "The Marine then raises his rifle and fires into the man's head. The pictures are too graphic for us to broadcast," Sites said. No images of the shooting were shown in the footage provided to Reuters. The report said the Marine, who had returned to duty after being shot in the face a day earlier, had been removed from the field and was being questioned by the U.S. military. Sites said the shot prisoner "did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way."
I've seen so many articles with the headline: "Militants behead . . . ." I think those headlines are more important than this garbage.
in the interim before this thread gets moved, its important because I have a much higher set of expectations for representatives of the US military (and me and you, necessarily) than I do for insane wacked out fundamentalist psychopath murderers....as does the US Marine Corps, I imagine.
2nd -- er, 3rd that. (It's almost like a poll!) IMHO, I shouldn't support the US just because of the accident of my birth -- I should support it because we (generally? ideally? supposedly?) do the Right Thing.
I agree and probably so does everyone else but you just can't control the actions of all your people. I've known ex-military and most of them seemed like nice, level-headed people, however, one guy I knew was a psycho. People were afraid of him. This has nothing to do with his tenure in the military - he was just a psycho. Unfortunatly the terrorists are actually encouraged to torture people. It's part of their strategy and accepted as a way of prosecuting their war. If that marine really did that and he gets caught he will be punished by OUR people. It's not a level playing field. They can fight dirty and we can't. Morally I want us to fight clean but I can certainly imagine that those guys on the ground are frustrated by the handcuffs. The enemy knows this and uses it to it's advantage. Heck, Saddam used it to his advantage. No one complained or protested when Saddam tortured people or started wars - just when the US tried to stop him.
The emotions of war are something that none of us here can understand. This truism was ignored during the Abu Ghraib "scandal" and is clearly being thrown out the window here. I have no sympathy for terrorists.
The name's Francis Sawyer, but everybody calls me Psycho. Any of you guys call me Francis, and I'll kill you. Also, I don't like no one touching my stuff. So just keep your meathooks off. If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I'll kill you. And I don't like nobody touching me. Any of you homos touch me, and I'll kill you.
This stuff makes it WAY harder in Iraq to get the people on our side. That Marine should be prosecuted. DD
Having members of the US military kill the unarmed is intolerable. It dwindles our standing amongst the people we are trying to liberate.
I'm not saying what he did was right, because it's not, but do we know if the guy he killed was a saint or not. I'd probably go with "not".
I served this country in war and I do have an idea of what probably went through the soldier's mind in doing what he did. That being said, it was wrong for him to kill someone that was wounded and unarmed. He should be prosecuted. Our military should send a message saying that we will not tolerate our men and women lowering themselves to the level of our enemies.
Doesn't matter, we are supposed to be doing the "right" thing and this was far from it. Why are they allowing news crews in there anyway...didn't they learn their lesson from Vietnam? DD
The problem with this war is how much under the microscope it is. The advances in communications has allowed a huge degree of cherrypicking scenes and stories the news can run. Shooting unarmed prisoner in battles was in general pretty common occurrences in past wars. But most of the stuff gets unreported. That's why going to war for "humanitarin" purposes nowadays is pretty stupid. You're just asking to be screwed in the court of public opinion.
I saw the video from that incidence and I can't blame the Marine. They were in a building where they had been taking fire they see some wounded men leaning up against a wall sudenly one of the men starts twitching and one of the Marines yell "he's faking it! Hes faking he's wounded!" At that point the Marine shoots him at almost point blank range. Probably the Marine might've been thinking what if he's got a grenade and is looking to pull the pin when the Marines get close enough to blow to smithereens? I fully expect our soldiers to be held to a standard not even in the same league with the terrorist or Baathists which is why those guards at Abu Ghraib should be held to the fullest account, but this was in the midst of a chaotic battle and to me clearly not something premeditated. I think when you're looking out for your immediate safety and those of your unit you'll make snap decisions that in hindsight might've been different. From my own standpoint given the same situation I probably would've done the same.
Except Abu Graib was premeditated cruelty where there was no danger to the perpetrators while this was at most a sudden snap decision in the midst of a battle. The two examples aren't comparable.
I'm not asking this in sarcasm. Have you ever been in a war? ( Honestly, how the hell am I supposed to know if you have or have not? )
