Sorry here as well. I think its time for bed…I haven’t made this many mistakes in reading peoples posts in a while now. 
-XT
But that time Cpl. English only shot them the bird.
Fortunately for the rest of us, you are not employed in the justice system.
Video doesn’t lie, dude.
And they don’t always tell the whole story either. Dude.
Right, I guess the pictures didn’t capture that bazooka the prisoner was hiding up his ass.
What a horrible thing. This will set us back again as we try to win tis war.
My first reaction (as it so often is in cases of military law) was to have the Marine executed. (As an old soldier, I do not cotton to foolishness from soldiers.) But then I learned a bit more.
When the journalist that was with the squad told the trooper that the Iraqi was wounded and disarmed the day before, he said, “I didn’t know, sir.”
I give this spur-of-the-moment kind of statement a lot of credence. I suspect he was telling the truth. The shooter was going on about this guy “faking being dead,” he was obviously not aware of the overall situation. He seems to have made a mistake, a mistake by n armed soldier often results in death. Still, this is no excuse.
The matter needs to be investigated. It seems the Marine (mistakenly) thought he was under some sort of threat. If this was the case, it casts another light on events.
A wounded enemy can be a threat. Shooting a wounded man (gruesome as it is) is sometimes permissible. Is this one of those cases? Probably not. (Certainly not from the facts now known.) But was the shooting murder or a mistake?
In any case, I am pleased I am not in this guy’s chain of command.
It apparently didn’t capture the arguement you’re pulling out of your ass either.
The video is an incrimnating piece of evidence, not doubt. I’m not saying the guy is innocent. As you have done in the past, though, you are using your distaste for this war to proclaim every action a soldier takes over there to be a crime. You’re wishing it to be so doesn’t make it so. Sorry.
Not for a second do I condone this alleged murder, but let’s also remember that the circumstances are not what we encounter on a normal basis
We don’t know the context of why it happened–we just have file footage of a horrible act.
Have anyone of you on this thread ever been fired upon? Have you been in fear for you life because somebody is trying to kill you? That you have to kill the other person or persons before they kill you? For minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks?
Remember the Vietnamese General in the 60’s who executed the Viet Cong fighter in the streets of Saigon? I first saw the picture and later the film. I thought the General should have been executed the same way. Until I found out that the Viet Cong agent had executed the entire family of one of his aids. Did I say execute the General? It’s not so clear cut now is it? What would you do? I’m not talking about a family being murdered by a fellow family member, or even cold blooded criminals, but by groups of insurgents running around the countryside who will kill anybody who sympathizes with the enemy (Vietnam? Iraq?).
You’re patrolling everyday. And people are taking pot shots at you and trying to blow up you and/or your buddies. You want to find the people who did it, but those who know either hate you, or are too scared to talk. Worst of all, the lady who does your laundry by day, is supplying information to the insurgents at night. (Vietnam? Iraq?)
Did the soldier who shot the wounded Iraq loose any of his buddies in combat? Is it possible that maybe he saw someone in his company literally get blown to pieces by a booby-trapped body, or somebody faking that they’re dead?
Combat is the case of justifying the use of evil to destroy evil. The rules are continually twisted, torqued, and sometimes outright ignored in order to get the job done. People get caught up in this, intentional or not. I remember a section Studs Terkle’s book, “The Good War” in which Studs interviews a vet who remembered fighting in the Pacific. He was getting ready to shoot the penis off of a dead Japanese soldier. A chaplain came around and urged him not to do it because he would regret it. And the soldier decided not to do it. He stated in the interview that he was thankful that the chaplain had talked him out of it because of he said that he would have become like an animal (I’m not quite sure that was the exact answer, but I believe that I got the intent correct). This person who was talked out of the act, is it fair to say that had you told him five years before that he would even comptemplate such an act before Pearl Harbor? I bet you he would have been pretty pissed at the mere mention of the idea.
It was pointed out earlier in this thread that the soldier was highly stressed. I should think this might have played a role in this act. Of course you can argue that the prisoner was unarmed and wounded, but you think the soldier really cared at that point? Was it plain murder? “Combat fatigue?” Or did the soldier deem the person a real threat?
Sometimes things aren’t what they seem to be…
They genuinely sounded startled that the body was still alive. These combatants have been fighting from mosques, playing dead, and booby trapping dead bodies… so the soldiers there are understandably jumpy. This wasn’t done in cold blood like that movie from Vietnam of a prisoner being shot on the street and dying on film.
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Now I’m not calling for blood and vengence xtisme. I just know how this is going to play over. The war is on shaky ground here at home and is percieved much worse internationaly. This looks really bad. If we don’t look like we are going to punish this guy, this is going to come back in spades.
Now I just saw the video this morning. What struck me is that the soldiers didn’t look concerned when they entered the mosque. They just walked right on in. There was no evidence of weapons, though they heard gunshots coming from the area. Marines had already been through 2 days prior. The video shows little reason to be concerned and no reason why they should’t have tried to subue this man. The soldier in question says “He’s faking…he’s faking he’s dead,” raises his rifle to his shoulder and fires into the mans head.
Now to me this doesn’t look like a stupid mistake, but even if it is we cannot afford to treat it as such. This guy needs to be put through full military justice on this. No blood, no vengence. Just justice. There needs to be punishment.
Perhaps this was an isolated incident. Perhaps not. But this will definitely not play well to the man in the Arabian street. Many will wonder how many atrocities were not caught on video. Between this incident and the reopening of Iraqi torture chambers under new management, the United States has lost the war of public opinion. The good reputation that took two centuries to build has been destroyed by Bush in less than two years. And by the numbers that voted for Bush in 2004, the American public shares in the blame.
This soldier’s buddy had been killed when a booby-trapped body exploded and cut him in two! Really, I’m amazed at how much sympathy there is for these scumbags…they murder and mutilate the bodies of four civilian contractors, and everybody gets worked up when a combatant gets killed. Yes, I know, WAR IS HELL!
Nobody in the world batted an eyelash when Saddam Hussein gassed the Kurds, now ,because in a brutal battle, an American soldier loses it, everybody acts so outraged. Did the kid screw up? Possibly-its up for a court martial to determine. I don’t think the people we’re fighting bother too much about court martials…or else, they would not be sawing people’s heads off.
Another story i heard is that the soldier got shot the day before, but returned to duty. Whatever the case, it doesn’t give him the right to execute someone.
Actually, the US has a commanding lead in the death of civilians in Iraq during the war. If you take out the words “four” and “contractors”, a reader would not know if you were talking about the Americans or Iraqi insurgents.
Yes, and America brought HELL to Iraq for no good reason.
Are you kidding?
It doesn’t appear that the soldier has any defense under rules of engagement, just the extenuating circumstances of war which places nearly everyone in temporary insanity mode. Apparently, he believed the insurgent was faking his death which could easily construed as evidence of forthcoming foul play. Given the guy had been shot in the face just prior, probably lacking days of sleep, and had been fighting in an environment where insurgents were waving white flags only to start shooting upon the surrender-accepting soldiers on approach, I can’t say I blame him. The problem here is that cameras are catching the action and the media is willing to exploit it. If acts like this weren’t carried out everyday by both sides, I could understand it, but since they do, I don’t.
I also wanted to say that I’m glad to see there is no pit thread about this.
I take back what I said–he may have a defense:
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20041116/D86D08A01.html
Diogenes FTR, it was a different unit that disarmed them.
Both units were present when the prisoner was shot. The shooter overreacted.
I have no doubt that the insurgent in question that was killed by this soldier, if the tables were turned, would not have hesitated in murdering that soldier in a most brutal way, if given the opportunity.
In a war where two opposing, uniformed armies who both abide to the Geneva Convention rules, are in armed conflict, all rules should apply. However, in a conflict where one side blantantly disregards “ALL” references to these rules, I have no problem in playing by the rules the enemy chooses. The contractors burned and hung from the bridge certainly didn’t benefit from any Geneva Convention protocol.
What upsets me is the fact that so many here are ready to crucify this poor bastard without the facts even being fully presented, as of yet.
Shame… shame on all of you for so eagerly wanting to cast him to the wolves!! You have convicted him already.