Our “security contractors” are also mercenaries. Hired killers.
No he didn’t. Here is his testimony before Congress:
You are so desparate to condone war crimes you would falsely accuse a man just to make a political point. God have mercy on your soul. Or not.
I don’t buy it either. To finish my quote from earlier… “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.”
My hunch, and I of course have nothing to base it on, is that this happened several if not many times. Perhaps the unfortunate outcome will be to ban journalists. If not caught on video, there would be no repercussions whatsoever.
I think there are precisely provisions in the Geneva convention to avoid this kind of situation. A prisonner should be moved away from the front lines, and not be left behind, if I’m not mistaken.
Anyway, as soon as he was captured, he was a prisonner of war and was under US custody. There’s no opting out.
That is assuming he would be protected by the Geneva convention. Which IMO is legally dubious, and anyway not aknowledged by the USA, AFAIK. Which doesn’t mean that said rules shouldn’t be nevertheless appied by the US army.
Does anyone know for sure that, in fact, the insurgent was still alive? The video does not reflect this. If he was already dead, is there still a problem?
The idea, IMO, would be, not that he was booby trapped, but could have had some cancelled weapon, or grenade, and was faking death so that he could use the device when the soldier would come close.
Your level of outrage is higher than mine. Is there any behavior on the part of our soldiers that cannot be condoned by such logic? With an “anything goes” rule of war, you will have to destroy every man, woman and child in the country to subdue it, because even the once sympathetic Iraqis will recoil from your methods. And that makes them all enemies, and subject to your scorched earth policy. Freedom is pointless when you’re dead.
True, however I believe the contractors are hired to protect…not attack!
There is a grey area for non-uniformed combatants in the Geneva Convention, so I think ‘legally dubious’ about hits the mark. However, by our own code, unless this insurgent was clearly threatening the marine, the marine in question is clearly at fault and will be prosecuted. There may be extenuating circumstances (battle fatigue, emotional stress, etc), that MIGHT mitigate things…but clear and simple its spelled out in the code that you can’t shoot an unarmed prisoner, or even a disarmed and wounded combattant.
As I’ve said, we don’t know all the facts yet on this case and its instructional that some folks are so willing to knee jerk jump on the ‘he’s guilty as hell’ bandwagon and scream for blood (figuratively). Its also instructional to see other folks already setting up excuses paths for the marine…all this, again, before we REALLY KNOW ANYTHING.
I will await developements, and the only ‘excuse’ I will grant to this marine based on the sketchy stuff we currently know is…this kid is a KID. He’s a very young man in a difficult and stressful situation. I think SOME slack could be cut him while still acknowledging what he did LOOKS wrong (from what little we know now), and also acknowledging that he WILL be tried by a courts martial…who will, presumably know a hell of a lot more about what really happened than WE do right now.
Yes. Sort of like the insurgents waving white flags then firing upon the troops coming up to take their surrender. Its not THAT much of a stretch to think that someone could be faking their death to lure you in close enough to kill you…not over there with the way things are going these days in Iraq. Whether this was the case HERE though is still pure speculation…we simply don’t know right now.
-XT
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic
And couldn’t ANY man, woman, baby, cat or dog conceivably be mined? Does that mean we should shoot literally everything that moves just to be safe? [/QUOTE]
That’s already been going on for a long time- mainly when cars are approaching checkpoints - there have been plenty of cases of families being shot by troops who had previously been under attack from insurgents
(but there are plenty of other cases here,[here,](http://www.victorynews.net/
ShiaFamilyKilledDetailsClassified.htm)here, here,and here for instance)
So I doubt this incident will make any difference to the image of US or coalition troops in Iraq
… right, he had surrendered… or did y ou miss that part? O_o
Oh, well! That makes it all right then! :rolleyes:
(this is my first use of the rolleyes in my SDMB career)
Was he faking dead or was he surrendering?
Perhaps he was bleeding in a potentially aggressive fashion.
Is that a response to what I just posted??
Better shoot him just to be sure, Tigers2B1.
IS THAT - supposed to be a response??
Look, whether he was surrendering or whether he was faking dead jjust might be material once the investigation begins. If after investigation the conclusions indicate that there were no mitigating factors, and the soldier murdered the insurgent with the requisite malicious mind, then he should be punished as a murderer.
Why don’t you fellas just give up the rope, get back on your horses, and go home — there ain’t going to be no lynching today -
He had surrendered two days before and been disarmed. He was already a prisoner in US custody.
He was faking dead while in custody for two days or only when this particular soldier shows up? If for two days, that might create an imminent danger of burial. If at some point but not another – the question becomes why? If he had been in actual custody for those two days, as your post implies, and this soldier, knowing this, kills him without reason - than that is certainly material. I say - let the investigation occur - I know I know, it’s hard to wait that long -