Er, well, remember that who Abu Ghraib incident?
One of the interesting things to me is that catching something like this on video is rare - it means that it is probably happening fairly frequently.
I agree that there may be mitigating factors, and we should wait until the statements of the people that were in the mosque are made public to pass judgement.
That said, the insurgent is prone on the ground, his hands at his sides, with an M16 pointed at his head. The video, the fact that marines had just been in the building, and the fact that no one says anything like “he has a gun”, or even “watch out”, makes it hard to belive the guy was a threat.
The scariest part of the video is that fact that the marines that were already in the building claim to have already shot 2 of the people inside. When asked if they had weapons, they don’t give any (audible) answer. Personally, I hope it turns out there was a huge pile of RPG’s and AK-47s in there, because if not this might be a worse case then it first appeared.
Being an old guy who didn’t start breeding until fairly late in life we can conclude that if our involvement in Iraq lasts for another 15 years my grandchildren might well serve in the army of occupation. I have younger friends whose children have served there in this go around, at least two have been wounded but thankfully none killed. I’m reasonably sure that my father did not expect that his son would be part of an occupying force in Europe some 25 years after he landed in France. The possibility that my country will still be trying to restore some sort of order in Iraq in another twenty years is not an alternative reality. Stuff like this incident makes it all the more likely that it will happen or that the US will suffer a humiliating defeat in the meantime.
The legalities of the shooting just don’t matter. There will be people who refuse to accept the plain evidence of the video, just as there were people who refused to accept the plain evidence of a police riot in Chicago in 1968 or in the Rodney King incident or the photos of ditches layered with the dead bodies of women, children and old men at Mai Li. When the clear demonstration conflicts with preconceptions in which there is a substantial emotional or political investment some folks will refuse to believe the evidence of their own eyes. But as I say, the legalities don’t matter. Apologists and true believers can conjure and speculate all the alternative scenarios they want but the fact remains that the image of a US Marine ( Semper Fi, Mac) shooting an apparently incapacitated, disarmed, gravely injured man in the head at point blank range has and will do the ability of the US to establish civil order in Iraq and through out the Middle East grievous harm. Surely this kid can concoct and excuse; posters here have speculated and conjectured any number so far. That however does not change the fact that this is one more verse to a litany that has and will persuade even reasonable Iraqi’s and other Arabs that the US is a brutal and capricious overlord that is better to resist that to accept.
We saw the same sort of thing with the Mai Li Massacre. Once the facts were out and the prosecutions started the facts became irrelevant and the apologists were all over the place with excuses for what was major horror and an unacceptable breech of the soldier’s code and an astonishing break down of command leadership.
It is worth saying again that the fact that your adversary does horrific things does not justify you answering in kind. For one thing, our adversary is trying to terrorize. We are trying to persuade. Terror is not persuasive. All terror begets is a spiral of vengeance and vendetta.
Interesting line of reasoning. I assume that if it had never been filmed, that means that it happens every time.
Or perhaps it is rarely filmed because it rarely happens. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Nor is it proof of presence.
All this is assuming the video was not doctored in any way, or presented so as to be misleading. I think I am the only person in North America who has only seen the Rodney King video in its unedited form. And when I first saw it, I couldn’t understand why the police were indicted.
Regards,
Shodan
John Mace:
Of course I want tyhe dude to get a free trial and to have the opportunity to present any evidence in his defense. But I also think that because the video shows a prima facie war crime- i.e., the killing of an unarmed and wounded prisoner- that the burden of proof has shifted to the defendant to show why it wasn’t a war crime.
Congratulations. “Bush stinky douche” turns up 1100 hits on google. Big deal. I don’t suppose you can actually specify what part of the UCMJ defines battle stress as a defense to murder.
Because the marines had already been in there and checked things out, because if they were worried about the possibility of a mined body they wouldn’t have waited for a body to move and because shooting a body with a bomb wired to it is not going to disarm the bomb and might even set it off. If he really thought he was shooting at a bomb then he was actually putting himselfand his buddies in more danger, not less.
And no one on the tape says anything about a booby trap, nor do they seem to even check for one. If that was the fear then why would they assume they were out of danger just because the body was dead?
Not in a legal sense it hasn’t. The guy will have defend himself against the charge, and the evidence might be strong against him. His lawyer will almost certainly try to use the tactic of proving his innocence, but if your statement were true, all the prosecution would have to do is show the video. I strongly doubt that that tactic by the prosecution would work.
One could argue the act of “pretending to be dead” is suspicious.
Alive or dead, he could be booby traped. Alive, he can trigger it himself, which is a lot easier than rigging up a body so that it goes off just when you want it.
Unfortunately, it’s conceivable that these guys could use women or children to deliver bombs, etc. Palestinian terrorists do it. The Viet Cong did it. That puts a soldier in a very difficult position, because literally anyone is a potential threat, and the whole concept of what a “noncombatant” goes right out the window. I think fighting an enemy, in such a manner is despicable and at least as attrocious as anything in this war we have seen. What options do you leave your adversary, when you are willing to commit suicide, or to use bodies as traps? Perhaps the American soldier in this incident broke the rules, but the fighters in Falujah have shown they respect no rules of engagement of any kind. They don’t surrender; rather, even when they have no hope of survival, they play cat-and-mouse with soldiers and force pursuit into civilian targets, which must essentially be destroyed; otherwise, they have to be rooted out from the cover of a structure, which is extremely dangerous for the adversary, and serves no purpose but to kill as many as possible before being taken down. This is the reality for soldiers engaging in urban guerilla warfare in Iraq, and I think these issues do deserve mention, since we don’t have all the facts in the case.
'Course it’s a thin line between playing possum and being passed out on the floor from blood loss.
That’s the essential question here. If an apparently unconcious enemy is found, should the soldiers be required to take the risk to approch him and see if he’s really out? There’s always a thin chance he could be faking and sitting on a grenade or something. On the other hand, do we really want our soldiers just to shoot every unconcious enemy they come across?
I really don’t know which I’d choose, it’s a tough choice.
On an unrelated note, did anyone else find it kind of bizarre that in footage showing the Marines occupying a mosque full of the dead and dying and then shooting one of them in the head, the news networks edited out the swear words?
and is that what you see what US forces are doing in Germany, France and anywhere else in Europe? You really see them as an occupying force?? You really think that US troops in Germany are there to quell the masses, maintain order, root out insurgents and force the germans to live in the american way? Take a look out your streets and watch the Volkswagens and Mercedeces and BMWs zip by. US troops arent there as occupiers. Check out you local recruiting office. Germany is considered a posh service stint.
Thats because reality can never be condensed or explained in 10 to 20 seconds. Reality is not summed up in a pivotal picture or video. Thats like learning all you need to know about the war in Iraq by listening to a 10 minute news broadcast in CNN. Things happen before, things happen after. The video is only part of the evidence. On the stand in a court of law, they make you tell the truth, the whole truth an nothing but the truth. That video is just part of the truth. Mistaking it as all of the truth is as good as a lie.
It is also worth saying that when your enemy does unspeakable horrible acts that are in blatant disregard of any rule or law of conduct, then strictly following predictable patterns of conduct will definitely get you killed. We may not be justified to answer terror with terror but we will be damned if we act like british toy soldiers and line up in formation in an open field in bright uniforms while the enemy takes cover among civilians and fires upon us from far away. Smart tactics dictate we take no chances. smart tactics keep us soldiers alive.
And I will not apologize for the My Lai incident. It is also worth saying that My Lai was an isolated incident and not an indication of what good soldiers did in Vietnam.
X~Slayer
No one is asking that you apologise, at most we simply want to insist that you not forget it. It is a harsh lesson at a terrible price. It is an obscene waste of innocent lives to ignore. Even the best and brightest of the most advanced nation can become brutal and callous killers.
Your characterization of My Lai as an “isolated incident” buggers the question: in what way was it exceptional? What unique circumstances prevailed at My Lai, circumstances you are confident were not repeated?
I did hear one story, from a VVAW vet, who had heard rumors before the story broke, rumors that someone had screwed up and created a unit made up almost entirely of “vigins”, men just arrived who had not seen combat, so there was no one to “steady” them. It is the oldest axiom of military history that men panic on their first incidence of actual combat. Beyond his hearsay testimony, I have no special knowledge.
Of course it is not an indication of what “good soldiers did in Viet Nam”. Its not an indication of what good soldiers do anywhere, anytime. The question is more what happened so that our young men ceased to be good soldiers.
I see that a lot around here.
Clearly you have never been to Hoensfeld, Groefenwehr or Wildflicken, in the winter. As we use to say, in song
Oh, there’s no flicken
Like Wildflicken,
It’s like no flicken I know.
Although there was a nice little gasthaus in Groefenwehr town. 16 DM/night, including breakfast when the Mark was four to one. The only posh thing about the East-West border was that it was no place close to the Central Highlands
Its a posh place compared to south-central Fallujah. Climatic harshness or not, the US military arent there to occupy anyone.
I find it fascinatng that some people on this board are willing to overlook the horrors the insurgents are committing, and always seem to give the other side the benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to an American soldier, the board erupts in outrage.
But why don’t you listen to what a Marine in Iraq has to say about it:
So did the “story that nobody hears” actually happen? It’s not clear from the link. If insurgents faking injuries to lure marines in close so that they can blow themselves up is a regular tactic, then the marine involved in the shooting has a much stonger case. I haven’t actually heard a case of this happening, though.
Where does it say that induction into the US military removes all criminal elements. History tells us that every army of every nation in any conflict since the beginning of history has had some atrocity commited in one form or another. That is not to say that the entire military force is made up of nothing but murderous criminals. There will always be a percentage of people, whether in the military or civilian, that will be nothing less than bad people. The US is not an exception to that. There were atrocities commited in world war I and II, in Korea and in vietnam. There will be atrocities commited in the future. Harsh lesson? What harsh lesson? That there are a small amount of murderers in the military? Or that people like you like to assume that one bad apple means all apples are bad.
well, that sounds a like a sure trigger to an automatic lookup into snopes.com
I believe the phrase you are looking for is “permanent bases.”
It’ll be interested to see if the US administration is yet ready to give up on that idea.
Well, it sure couldn’t be because we’re supposed to hold the United States (and its servicemen and women) to a higher standard, now would it? :rolleyes:
Why do the Bush-lickin’ apologists feel that “At least we’re not as bad as _____!” is something to be proud of?
And Sam, if you’re looking for testimonials from Iraq veterans, try this one on for size:
Yeah, but he’s in the minority, because Bush has something like 60-70% support among active duty military.
Typical Republican attitude – “You don’t count, since you’re in the minority.” :rolleyes:
But then, what did I expect from a party that thinks a 2% lead is a mandate?