Tape showing US soldiers killing an unarmed and wounded Iraqi

[Kropotkin]

AH tried to conquer the world with his master. Didn't you know that?

[notyoueither]

I didn't think he was referring to CivII.

[Az]

Originally posted by Oerdin


There are certainly a lot of hypocrats running around.

I know only of the Hippocratic oath....

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Just saw more of the tape as they were entering the building and these guys knew these Iraqis were wounded and left by another unit for pick up. It doesn't look good because that changes the status of the Iraqis from battlefield wounded to captured prisoners, albeit too wounded to need guards 24/7. But it also appears to be a legitimate mistake brought on by the circumstances.

Also, the soldier who fired said the Iraqi was faking death and another soldier confirmed that he was breathing re-inforcing the shooter's perception of a threat. But I have to ask, these guys were just told there were Iraqi wounded in the building awaiting pick up. WTF! How could they see a wounded and breathing Iraqi and believe that was out of the ordinary? The Iraqis were left there by a unit that treated their wounds, of course wounded (and breathing) Iraqis were there! Oh well, put me in that situation and I would see Saddam clones coming at me from every direction, I'd be blasting away too.

They really knew about the wounded?
Yesterday it still sounded like despite the first team tending for them and plannuing for their transport behind friendly lines the second team wasn´t informed about them.

If this is true it will be even worse PR for the US and their Troops than it is already.
According to MSNBC this insurgent wasn´t the only one shot again.
Obviously three other of the five wounded insurgents were also shot at by the second team (but probably not filmed), which, if true, means that only one of the wounded was left unharmed by these marines.
See here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6502452/

[Dinner]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Oerdin you've been to Iraq and I highly value your opinion on this matter so I'll ask you too.

If we presume these things happen much more often -- which I believe is very likely -- at which point, at what number of similar incidents should a higher functionary be tried?

I can't really say how many other situations like this have happened because I don't know. I do know the Army spends endless hours drilling soldiers on the laws of war and the rules of engaugement. Granted this man is a Marine and not a soldier but I doubt the training is all that different. He knew what the rules were and it looks like he flagrantly broke them. If he did then he deserves to go to jail.

Usually a high ranking officer can be tried if 1) he doesn't provide the necissary training and so didn't properly guide the soldiers under his command 2) if a superior officer or NCO witnesses a war crime but doesn't take the necissary action to prevent or at least try to prevent it 3) If any soldier knows of war crimes but does not report it to the proper authorities.

Failing to do any of the above is grounds for a court marshel under the uniformed code of military justice (UCMJ).

[Ned]

If this Marine did what he was trained to do, kill enemy faking death, but is still tried and convicted of a war crime, then we have a problem. In the future, other Marines and soldiers will not shoot. This can only lead to many unnecessary deaths among our own troops who will be shot and killed by such fakers who unexpectedly rise up to shoot.

Somehow I really doubt this Marine will be charged. But, if he is, it has to be on some basis that it was manifestly clear that this enemy had either surrendered or was of no possible threat.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Ned
If this Marine did what he was trained to do, kill enemy faking death, but is still tried and convicted of a war crime, then we have a problem. In the future, other Marines and soldiers will not shoot. This can only lead to many unnecessary deaths among our own troops who will be shot and killed by such fakers who unexpectedly rise up to shoot.

But the total number of unwanted deaths (Americans + civilians) will probably be lower, which will help you accomplish the strategic goal - "Iraqi Freedom(TM)"

[SpencerH]

I think that its possible that the marines were not expecting to find any live Iraqis at that site. That would account for the comments "this ones still alive" before the shooting. It seems to me that they had been cleaning up bodies for at least a few days and had recently had a similar situation that had gone bad. Under those circumstances it would be justifiable to shoot someone who's faking "being dead". I still havent seen the video though.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin


You most certainly can crush insurgencies with brut force. Just look how Saddam crushed the insurgency against him in 1991 or how Asad crushed the insurgency in 1982. We just don't have the balls to do what is necissary as it would entail mass killings and group punishment.

Hence the mentions of Spanish and British strategies and Turkish actions.

We did it in the Philppine Insurection but I don't see any western power doing it again in modern times. That's probably good in the long run but it means we won't have the will to win in Iraq.

This was the same time for the British strategies in South Africa.

I agree the US won;t do it- but then, we have constraints that did NOT exist back in 1900- like a mass media that can show images of repression worldwide- and the very rationale of our invasion of Iraq is premised on the notion that we won't act like Saddam- for us to act like Saddam undermines the very rationale for our invasion.

[Gibsie]

Originally posted by Sinapus
Ah, that's your problem: you're treating it as a law enforcement problem and not war. No wonder you're confused. Sorry, but killing someone who appears to be faking death on a battlefield where similar behavior has been used to kill your comrades sounds rather prudent.

Again, judging from the camera view I'm wondering how you can apply the word "clearly" to it. You can barely see the guy in the background. Since I wasn't in that room, I don't see how I can "clearly" presume wrongdoing. That, apparently, won't stop you, but I can't do much about your prejudices.

Who knows? Maybe next time it'll be actual POWs being forced to dig their own graves and getting shot in them. Then I'd definitely call that illegal, and I'm sure you'll be all giddy about the whole thing.

I'm sure if footage of marines being forced to dig their own graves before being shot, you'll be the only one getting off to it. Hey, whaddya know? It IS fun to put words into peoples' mouths

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by VJ

Yes. I guess you're not too aware with the western values yet, kid.

Unfortunately, then, the courts around here don't seem to care much for Western values. They routinely jail people for murder.

[Sinapus]

Originally posted by Gibsie


I'm sure if footage of marines being forced to dig their own graves before being shot, you'll be the only one getting off to it. Hey, whaddya know? It IS fun to put words into peoples' mouths

It also appears to be fun to seize upon one remark to avoid the main point: how you can "clearly" see anything.
But you're right, I should damn you with what you actually say and not what I believe you think based on it.

Let's review in case people were wondering why I have some doubts of how "clear" this all is.

At Reuters there is some raw footage. Get to the part right before the shooting, pause and take a look. (Requires IE6 and latest Win Media Player and has no rewind or search function, which is annoying.)

In the foreground, there is some old man, might be alive, might not, (but where's his right arm exactly? Not that it matters since the video didn't end at that point or show to the camera being thrown by a great force so I'm guessing he didn't have a bomb on him.)

Waaaaay in the background are two human forms. The one closest to the camera looks like a body under a blanket. Behind that, barely visible is another body. That's the one that is shot. You can't see much of that body except for part of the legs and maybe part of the head. Perhaps this is a different definition of clear which means "I can't see much" or something.

Yet it is presumed the Marine was evil to shoot the poor hapless member of a group that routinely uses false surrenders and other tricks (like, oh, faking death or wounding) to kill their enemies. Riiight. It's not as if you can't see it from where the Marine was standing since he was right next to the camera... oh wait, he wasn't. He was way on the other side of the room when it happened, and just might have seen something not obvious from the camera's point of view. Darn. Guess they need to put cameras on helmets like that Aliens movie.

Not that any of that matters since it's Clear to some truly Illuminated folk What Really Happened.

Mr. Horse:
That's nice to hear you have no problem with it. Alas, the sanctimonious prattle I was referring to was that part you wrote about how people who support wars "have very unrealistic ideas about the reality of the battlefield" and (my favorite) "if people knew what war is really like there wouldn't be any wars". That is rather unlikely, but I guess it's nice to have dreams. HTH, HAND.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
So, did you set up refugee camps to house the civilians while you bombed their homes? Or did you expect them to take care of themselves, walking in the desert, eating scorpions and drinking river water? Why would anyone leave his home if he has nowhere to go?

I honestly don't know.

[Arrian]

Not that this should come as a surprise to anyone...

By SAM F. GHATTAS, Associated Press Writer

BEIRUT, Lebanon - The chilling video of a U.S. Marine shooting and killing a wounded and apparently unarmed man in Iraq (news - web sites) dominated the Arab world's media Wednesday, overshadowing the slaying of a British aid worker who had been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents.


The Marine shooting in a mosque in Fallujah was played and replayed, debated and portrayed as "evidence" of what many Arabs believe: that the United States is destroying Iraq and Iraqis.


Frames of the Fallujah shooting appeared on many newspaper front pages Wednesday and Arab satellite stations repeatedly aired the footage taken by an American television crew.


Al-Jazeera was among the stations airing the Marine shooting. The station said Tuesday it also had received a videotape showing a blindfolded woman believed to be Margaret Hassan being shot in the head at close range, but had chosen not to broadcast it.


"We don't show acts of killing," Jihad Ballout, Al-Jazeera spokesman, said of the decision not to show the slaying of the longtime director of CARE in Iraq. "We've never done it before, outside war."


Adnan Abdul-Rahman, a 34-year-old Syrian government employee, was one of those loosely linking the two killings and placing blame for both at the feet of the United States. He said Hassan's death was "a normal response to the crimes which the Americans are committing in Iraq."


"Violence breeds violence," he said.


The U.S. military said Tuesday it was investigating the shooting in the mosque to determine whether the Marine acted in self-defense.


Some Arabs portrayed the shooting by the Marine as a war crime committed by trigger-happy Americans, and the video as revealing the true face of the U.S. invasion. Others saw it as another debacle in the Iraq war that hurts America's image and efforts to restore stability in Iraq.


One Lebanese newspaper, As-Safir, called the shooting a "cold-blooded" killing. A Saudi pan-Arab daily, Asharq al-Awsat, warned of "another Abu Ghraib," a reference to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by some of their American jailers.


Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor who is an expert on Arab media, noted that at one point an anchor on Al-Jazeera "was almost having a heart attack, he was so angry," about the video showing the shooting by the Marine.


"He said, "Where are the Arabs? Where are the Arab states, why is nobody complaining about this?" Cole noted, speaking on the Public Broadcasting Service.


The pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat cited both killings as images of what is happening in Iraq now, Cole noted, calling it unfair for the Marine, whose case remains under investigation, to be compared to those who killed Hassan.


Amman car rental clerk Youssef al-Atoum was so disgusted by the pictures of the Marine shooting that "I switched off the TV."


"The Americans are criminals, they don't distinguish between a mosque and their places of battle, they want to exterminate Arabs and erase Iraq and its people from the map," the 29-year-old said.


Jordanian businessman Isa Samawi, 42, said: "Exterminating the Americans is the way to combat international terrorism."


Both declined to comment on Hassan, saying they had neither seen nor heard news of the killing of the 59-year-old aid worker who had been an opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. She was abducted in Baghdad on Oct. 19 on her way to work, the most prominent of more than 170 foreigners kidnapped in Iraq this year.


A Lebanese Shiite Muslim cleric, Sheik Afif Nabulsi, said both the killing in the mosque and the shooting of Hassan were "barbaric acts that cannot be condoned."

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Sinapus
Yet it is presumed the Marine was evil to shoot the poor hapless member of a group that routinely uses false surrenders and other tricks (like, oh, faking death or wounding) to kill their enemies. Riiight.

Routinely? Do we actually know that they routinely do that? Or is it just something that reportes come up with when they are bored and don't know what to write.

As for all assumptions, do we even know that the person that was shot was even an insurgent? Let's face it. We don't have much of a clue at all. No matter if our initial reaction is that the marine is satan in human form or that he's an all american hero.