US Marine Kills Wounded Prisoner

[Asterix]

DITTO to wun,

For those who don't know/don't remember/don't want to remember,

FOX was implicated (still is, actually) in a scandal involvin "hushing down" news about Bovine Growth Hormone usage in USA (Florida I think) because they had lot to lose if they'd let the news on air.

Stoy can be found here

[wunarmdscissor]

its another part in the whole george bush propoganda machine.

Like the fact that americans seem to believe they have nothing to do with the destruction of a once great organisation (UN)

That your either with us or against us and if you dont agree with anything the monkey says your a terrorist sypathiser.

[Lochness_hunter]

Come on you guys can't we all just get along.

Every country does something wrong in there history no reason to hate each other for it.

I mean look at the UK, was the biggest colonial power in the world.

Russia and Germany all killed Millions of there own people during WW2.

France under Napoleon tried to take over europe more that one time.

Yes america is the only country in history to drop the atomic bomb and killed hundreds of thousands of people, but just think how many people would have died if we didn't. It would be in the millions

and the list goes on and on, so America is probably making more mistakes now than other countries right now, but in 10 years there will just be another country making mistakes and everyone will be hating them.

and as for the marine who shot that wounded prisoner, to tell you the truth i can see y he did it. I mean i would have yelled or something first to see if he would move, but if he didn't and i couldn't see his hands i would have shot him too, and wouldn't think twice about it.

[wunarmdscissor]

Every country does something wrong in there history no reason to hate each other for it.

I mean look at the UK, was the biggest colonial power in the world.

Russia and Germany all killed Millions of there own people during WW2.

France under Napoleon tried to take over europe more that one time.

Yes america is the only country in history to drop the atomic bomb and killed hundreds of thousands of people, but just think how many people would have died if we didn't. It would be in the millions

and the list goes on and on, so America is probably making more mistakes now than other countries right now, but in 10 years there will just be another country making mistakes and everyone will be hating them.

we're meant to learn form our mistakes tho not repeat them.

the american govt is ignorin the lessons of the past and the american people are allowing the govt to do it.

[twpdyp]

the american govt is ignorin the lessons of the past and the american people are allowing the govt to do it.

It is all in your perspective, perhaps we learned from history and the lesson we learned is just like former president Harry Truman said, check out my signature below this post. As for the American People allowing them to do it. The majority spoke, we are not allowing them, we elected them, knowing what they would do. So they are doing what the majority of the people in America want them to do.

[Lochness_hunter]

i really don't think that theres been anything in history about going after terrorist(if there is pls tell me so i can feel stupid), but what i don't think the rest of the world relizies is that the american people just think that we shouldn't have gone into iraq without killing bin laden first, or at least thats how they feel where i live.

If we had killed bin laden first then went to iraq i bet you would be seeing numbers like 80% to 90% of americans for the war in iraq, but there is just one of the many mistakes america made so far.

[Asterix]

like former president Harry Truman said, check out my signature below this post.

Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don't ever apologize for anything.

Harry S Truman

365728[/snapback]

Besides the funny coincidence that Truman was the president that used the atomic bomb, that was mentioned before, he had had another quote too..

"Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship."

Edited November 21, 2004 by Asterix

[wunarmdscissor]

Terrorism existed before 9/11 lochness , america just didnt care about it then , in fact it trained the very terrorists who are attacking it right now.

It was ok then bcause they were freedom fighters....hmm do i sniff th whiff of irony.

The IRA, ETA, PLO mujihdeen all existed way before 9/11 and we got no support form america IN FACT americans backed the IRA , sheletered and funded them to kill OUR children.

So you see why we think its rich when we get preached to about terrorism lol.

[Asterix]

Terrorism existed before 9/11 lochness , america just didnt care about it then , in fact it trained the very terrorists who are attacking it right now.

It was ok then bcause they were freedom fighters....hmm do i sniff th whiff of irony.

The IRA, ETA, PLO mujihdeen all existed way before 9/11 and we got no support form america IN FACT americans backed the IRA , sheletered and funded them to kill OUR children.

So you see why we think its rich when we get preached to about terrorism lol.

365738[/snapback]

Well said wun.

In Afghanistan in particular, USA put there the mujahedin to oppose the Soviets, then the taliban to oppose the mujahedin, and then 2 years ago they did collaborate locally with mujahedin to oppose taliban.

Nuthouse...

[twpdyp]

i really don't think that theres been anything in history about going after terrorist(if there is pls tell me so i can feel stupid),

Don't feel stupid, the public school system does that to folks. President Thomas Jefferson in the early 1800's sent the navy to do battle with the Barbary Pirates. The pirates were preforming terrorist acts even then. President Jefferson would not bow to these pirates and would not pay them off either, they called it tribute.

America and the Barbary Pirates: An

International Battle Against an Unconventional Foeby Gerard W. Gawalt

Gerard W. Gawalt is the manuscript specialist for early American history in the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

Ruthless, unconventional foes are not new to the United States of America. More than two hundred years ago the newly established United States made its first attempt to fight an overseas battle to protect its private citizens by building an international coalition against an unconventional enemy. Then the enemies were pirates and piracy. The focus of the United States and a proposed international coalition was the Barbary Pirates of North Africa.

Pirate ships and crews from the North African states of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers (the Barbary Coast) were the scourge of the Mediterranean. Capturing merchant ships and holding their crews for ransom provided the rulers of these nations with wealth and naval power. In fact, the Roman Catholic Religious Order of Mathurins had operated from France for centuries with the special mission of collecting and disbursing funds for the relief and ransom of prisoners of Mediterranean pirates.

Before the United States obtained its independence in the American Revolution, 1775-83, American merchant ships and sailors had been protected from the ravages of the North African pirates by the naval and diplomatic power of Great Britain. British naval power and the tribute or subsidies Britain paid to the piratical states protected American vessels and crews. During the Revolution, the ships of the United States were protected by the 1778 alliance with France, which required the French nation to protect "American vessels and effects against all violence, insults, attacks, or depredations, on the part of the said Princes and States of Barbary or their subjects."

After the United States won its independence in the treaty of 1783, it had to protect its own commerce against dangers such as the Barbary pirates. As early as 1784 Congress followed the tradition of the European shipping powers and appropriated $80,000 as tribute to the Barbary states, directing its ministers in Europe, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to begin negotiations with them. Trouble began the next year, in July 1785, when Algerians captured two American ships and the dey of Algiers held their crews of twenty-one people for a ransom of nearly $60,000.

Thomas Jefferson, United States minister to France, opposed the payment of tribute, as he later testified in words that have a particular resonance today. In his autobiography Jefferson wrote that in 1785 and 1786 he unsuccessfully "endeavored to form an association of the powers subject to habitual depredation from them. I accordingly prepared, and proposed to their ministers at Paris, for consultation with their governments, articles of a special confederation." Jefferson argued that "The object of the convention shall be to compel the piratical States to perpetual peace." Jefferson prepared a detailed plan for the interested states. "Portugal, Naples, the two Sicilies, Venice, Malta, Denmark and Sweden were favorably disposed to such an association," Jefferson remembered, but there were "apprehensions" that England and France would follow their own paths, "and so it fell through."

Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America's minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, "I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro' the medium of war." Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: "The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both." "From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money," Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, "it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them."

Jefferson's plan for an international coalition foundered on the shoals of indifference and a belief that it was cheaper to pay the tribute than fight a war. The United States's relations with the Barbary states continued to revolve around negotiations for ransom of American ships and sailors and the payment of annual tributes or gifts. Even though Secretary of State Jefferson declared to Thomas Barclay, American consul to Morocco, in a May 13, 1791, letter of instructions for a new treaty with Morocco that it is "lastly our determination to prefer war in all cases to tribute under any form, and to any people whatever," the United States continued to negotiate for cash settlements. In 1795 alone the United States was forced to pay nearly a million dollars in cash, naval stores, and a frigate to ransom 115 sailors from the dey of Algiers. Annual gifts were settled by treaty on Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli.

When Jefferson became president in 1801 he refused to accede to Tripoli's demands for an immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000. The pasha of Tripoli then declared war on the United States. Although as secretary of state and vice president he had opposed developing an American navy capable of anything more than coastal defense, President Jefferson dispatched a squadron of naval vessels to the Mediterranean. As he declared in his first annual message to Congress: "To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean. . . ."

The American show of force quickly awed Tunis and Algiers into breaking their alliance with Tripoli. The humiliating loss of the frigate Philadelphia and the capture of her captain and crew in Tripoli in 1803, criticism from his political opponents, and even opposition within his own cabinet did not deter Jefferson from his chosen course during four years of war. The aggressive action of Commodore Edward Preble (1803-4) forced Morocco out of the fight and his five bombardments of Tripoli restored some order to the Mediterranean. However, it was not until 1805, when an American fleet under Commodore John Rogers and a land force raised by an American naval agent to the Barbary powers, Captain William Eaton, threatened to capture Tripoli and install the brother of Tripoli's pasha on the throne, that a treaty brought an end to the hostilities. Negotiated by Tobias Lear, former secretary to President Washington and now consul general in Algiers, the treaty of 1805 still required the United States to pay a ransom of $60,000 for each of the sailors held by the dey of Algiers, and so it went without Senatorial consent until April 1806. Nevertheless, Jefferson was able to report in his sixth annual message to Congress in December 1806 that in addition to the successful completion of the Lewis and Clark expedition, "The states on the coast of Barbary seem generally disposed at present to respect our peace and friendship."

In fact, it was not until the second war with Algiers, in 1815, that naval victories by Commodores William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur led to treaties ending all tribute payments by the United States. European nations continued annual payments until the 1830s. However, international piracy in Atlantic and Mediterranean waters declined during this time under pressure from the Euro-American nations, who no longer viewed pirate states as mere annoyances during peacetime and potential allies during war.

For anyone interested in the further pursuit of information about America's first unconventional, international war in the primary sources, the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress holds manuscript collections of many of the American participants, including Thomas Jefferson, George Washington (see the George Washington Papers), William Short, Edward Preble, Thomas Barclay, James Madison, James Simpson, James Leander Cathcart, William Bainbridge, James Barron, John Rodgers, Ralph Izard, and Albert Gallatin.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/je...s/mtjprece.html

[vimjams]

Wun…That was a valid point about the BBC being ‘State funded’ and critical of the government…Interestingly less ‘mucky’ than Mr Vandealy’s favoured news agency but, considering his attitude and knowledge about the world, what more can we expect.

Fox's staggering political bias has been oft-discussed (not to mention thoroughly exposed in the recent documentary "Outfoxed"), but also worth noting is the sheer meanness, vulgarity, and vacuous stupidity of Rupert Murdoch's propaganda machine. The "reporting" on this network is consistently sloppy, sophomoric, laced with ad hominem, and generally as unprofessional as a mock news cast in a high school journalism class.

Come on you guys can't we all just get along.

Every country does something wrong in there history no reason to hate each other for it

Usually we do get along Lochness…And some of us can be in total opposition to each other as well but Art Vandelay has something foul about himself that he chooses to accuse others of. Maybe it’s his paranoia and xenophobia?

And with regard to the topic of this thread…I’ll say it again: Why have the media focused so heavily on this particular (questionable) incident and blatantly ignored several other more controversial ‘illegal’ killings by US forces?

Terrorism existed before 9/11 lochness , america just didnt care about it then , in fact it trained the very terrorists who are attacking it right now.

Careful Wun…You’ll upset the flag wavers.

Vimjams

[Art Vandelay]

LOL, it's more reliable the the 'venerable' BBC 

the BBC IS the most respected and least biased news agency on earth.

365683[/snapback]

Sorry, but the BBC is the MOST biased news agency on the planet. Now granted EVERY agency is biased but the BBC takes the cake. Just do a 'google' on "BBC bias"......especially when it deals with the palestinians and Israel......

[wunarmdscissor]

lol i know vinjams but if they would only open their eyes they would see its not as black and white as bush tells them it is.

[wunarmdscissor]

Sorry, but the BBC is the MOST biased news agency on the planet. Now granted EVERY agency is biased but the BBC takes the cake. Just do a 'google' on "BBC bias"......especially when it deals with the palestinians and Israel.....

LOL

you mean because it doesnt give you the israeli sugar coated version lol.

Biased towards who?

Which part of the BBC?

DO you have any Idea what your talking about?

The BBC is a state run Organisation , that isnt just a news service lol.

How could it possibly be biased if our govt is american friendly, could it be that it just gives both sides as much coverage as each other??

LOL please dont enter into the israel / Palestine debate lol.

Americans have been fed so much porpoganda bull**** on that subject its firghtening, your currenmt govt has invested so much money in trying to prove that somehow al queada wasnt created by them but that the palestinians in fact are behind it somnehow its frightening.

How many americans actually know that al qaeuda was fromed by the CIA ???

lol

[wunarmdscissor]

i really don't think that theres been anything in history about going after terrorist(if there is pls tell me so i can feel stupid), but what i don't think the rest of the world relizies is that the american people just think that we shouldn't have gone into iraq without killing bin laden first, or at least thats how they feel where i live.

If we had killed bin laden first then went to iraq i bet you would be seeing numbers like 80% to 90% of americans for the war in iraq, but there is just one of the many mistakes america made so far.

And there is the crux of the problem.

Lochness you mean to tell me that youd never heard of The IRA or ETA or even the PLO before today.

I mean how many other americans without this knowledge voted in the last election?

this is why we can seem exasperated at times.

Twdyp

you quoted some story about the barbary pirates , which of course is part of american history but you left out FAR more relevant examples of terrorism like The IRA , i mean seriously cant you understand why people like myself feel the way we do.

[gollum]

The following is an Email sent by a young US marine serving in the area of Fallujah to his father prior to the current US led attack on the city.

I think you will all agree that it is a very sobering read.

Email from Dave - Nov 3, 04

Dear Dad -

As you have no doubt been watching, we have had our hands full around Fallujah. It would seem as if the final reckoning is coming. The city has been on a consistent down hill spiral since we were ordered out in April. It's siren call for extremists and criminals has only increased steadily and the instability and violence that radiates out of the town has expanded exponentially. If there is another city in the world that contains more terrorists, I would be surprised. From the last two years, I just don't see a way that we can succeed in Iraq without reducing this threat. The cost of continuing on without taking decisive action is too high to dwell on.

The enemy inside the town have come to fight and kill Americans. Nothing will sate their bloodlust and hatred other than to kill everyone of us or at least die trying. It is hard to fathom as a Westerner as rational thought would dictate that we will only be here for a relatively short blip in their history and while we are here, billions of dollars in investments will pour in and opportunity that is beyond comprehension will open up for anyone willing to work. This is not Kansas and this enemy does not think like that.

If we build a school or clinic, they destroy it. They would rather deny medical care or education for the children of the citizens who live nearby than to have any symbol of the West in general and America specifically among them. It is hard to comprehend. Frankly, we are done trying.

For eight months, we have been on our chain. The enemy has fooled itself misinterpreting our humanity and restraint for lack of will and courage. For eight months, we have watched Marines, Soldiers and Sailors maimed and killed by invisible cowards hiding behind some wall or in a canal as he detonates another IED. For eight months, we have been witness to suicidal sociopaths driving vehicles laden with explosives into crowds of Iraqis and into our own convoys.

Just last week, we lost another nine Marines killed and an equal number of wounded as the result of some ignorant extremists who was able to convince himself that killing himself and as many Americans as possible would send him to paradise where he could finally get his virgins.

Now, their own ignorance and arrogance will be their undoing. They believe that they can hold Fallujah. In fact, they have come from all over to be part of its glorious defense. I cannot describe the atmosphere that exists in the Regiment right now. Of course the men are nervous but I think they are more nervous that we will not be allowed to clean the rats nest out and instead will be forced to continue operating as is.

Its as if a window of opportunity has opened and everyone just wants to get on with it before it closes. The Marines know the enemy has massed and has temporarily decided to stay and fight. For the first time, the men feel as though we may be allowed to do what needs to be done. If the enemy wants to sit in his citadel and try to defend it against the Marine Corps and some very hard Soldiers... then the men want to execute before the enemy sobers up and flees.

It may come off as an exceptionally bellicose perspective but where the Marines live and operate is a war zone in the starkest reality. When the Marines leave the front gate on an operation or patrol, someone within direct line of sight of that gate is trying to kill them. All have lost friends and watched as the enemy hides within his sanctuary that has been allowed out of what one must assume is political necessity. The enemy has been given every advantage by our sense of morality and restraint and by a set of operational rules that we are constrained to operate under. The Marines feel like their time has come and we will finally be ordered to do what must be done and be given the latitude to do it. Even though the price will be high, there is not a man here that would chose status quo over paying the price.

Every day, the enemy takes more hostages, assassinates developing Iraqi leaders and savagely beats suspected collaborators. I will give you just one recent example that happened last week. One of our patrols was moving down a street when they saw what looked like a fight. The Marines closed with the scene. It was a family that had come to Iraq on religious pilgrimage that was taken hostage and was being taken into Fallujah. The muj stopped for some reason and the father began fighting. The Marines interdicted and captured two of the kidnappers. Two more ran and the Marines could not get a shot without fear of killing/wounding others.

Every day, insurgents from inside Fallujah drive out and wait for Iraqis that work on our bases. Once the Iraqis leave they are stopped. The lucky ones are savagely beaten. The unfortunate ones are killed. A family that had fled Fallujah in order to get away from the fighting recently tried to return. When they got to their home, they found it taken over by terrorists (very common). When the patriarch showed the muj his deed in order to prove that the house was his, they took the old man out into the street and beat him senseless in front of his family.

Summary executions are common. Think about that. Summary executions inside Fallujah happen with sobering frequency. We have been witness to the scene on a number of occasions. Three men are taken from the trunk of a car and are made to walk to a ditch where they are shot. Bodies are found in the Euphrates without heads washed downstream from Fallujah. To date we have been allowed to do nothing.

I have no idea the numbers of beheadings that have occurred in Fallujah since I have been here. I have no idea the number of hostages that have ended up in Fallujah since we have been here. I just don't know that Americans would be able to comprehend the number anyway. Unfortunately, the situation has only gotten worse. There is no hope for any type of reasoned solution with an enemy like this.

Once again, we are being asked by citizens who have fled the city to go in and take the city back. They are willing for us to literally rubble the place in order to kill the terrorists within. Don't get me wrong, there are still many inside the town that support the terrorists and we cannot expect to be thanked publicly if we do take the city. There is a sense of de ja vu with the refugees telling us where their houses are and asking us to bomb them because the muj have taken them over. We heard the same thing in April only to end up letting the people down. Some no doubt have paid with their lives. The "good" people who may ultimately buy into a peaceful and prosperous Iraq are again asking us to do what we know must be done.

The Marines understand and are eager to get on with it. The only lingering fear in them is that we will be ordered to stop again. I don't know if this is going to happen but if it happens soon, I will write you when its over,

Love,

Dave.

Now we all have a little bit more of a perspective of what is actually happening in that city.

May God bless them all and keep them safe.

[wunarmdscissor]

nice article gollum,

like i said previously , i cannot condemn the man this thread is regarding

when i know had i been placed in those circumstances i wouldev done EXCATLY the same thing.

[gollum]

Could'nt agree more Wun.

Here is another report by Raymond Perry. I think he sums this soldiers actions and the part played by the media quite well.

Be Most Careful in Judging This Marine

By Raymond Perry

The current media blitz on the shooting of an injured Iraqi insurgent by a Marine in Fallujah last Saturday highlights the current inability of the news media today to provide informed and accurate background to a story (for example, see “Military Investigates Shooting of Wounded Insurgent,” CNN.com, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004). It is of vast importance that in the initial coverage of a story of this kind that the media intelligently and accurately place this story in full context, but so far, this has not occurred.

First the Geneva Conventions impose limits on warfare to reduce unnecessary suffering and protect combatants and noncombatants alike. These conventions were written to constrain organized armed forces that are subservient to a sovereign and will obey organized laws.

In the present case in Iraq, the insurgents not only are not subservient to a sovereign but have made it eminently clear that they will not abide by any set of laws. They have chosen to exercise a level of inhumanity unseen since the Mongolian Hordes overran much of the known world. Just consider their kidnapping and likely murder of Iraqi civilian aid worker Margaret Hassan.

As an organized and humane nation, the United States nevertheless holds itself to these standards regardless of the opponent’s adherence or lack of it. This is not because of any threat of penalty of international law but because of what we think about ourselves as a free and courageous nation.

Second, the Geneva Conventions proscribe further destructive or injurious actions by individuals or formations when an opponent has become hors de combat. The alleged killing of an injured and apparently incapable insurgent by this one Marine is the crux of the issue.

What the media has ignored in the hullabaloo over this potentially criminal act and its videotaping is the obligation of the insurgent or the insurgent forces under that same international code.

The Geneva Conventions impose on those that become hors de combat the obligation to cease all combatant actions. The booby-trapping of insurgents’ bodies to cause injury or death to coalition soldiers is clearly in gross violation of these conventions. Similarly, the secreting of a weapon so that an injured insurgent may “take one more Marine with them” is equally in violation.

There is an obligation for the fourth estate and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International to understand the full scope of the Geneva Conventions and apply them equally to both sides. That it is enormously easier to tell only one side of the story is no excuse for effectively slanting the story and discredits these organizations.

Finally, the context in which these Marines or any other member of the armed forces of this nation operate must be effectively communicated. In this case, this Marine – like the other troops in Fallujah – was operating in a combat environment where he and others must make life-or-death decisions in a split-second.

The Iraqi insurgents, like their counterparts throughout the world, have themselves asserted the right to do whatever inhuman acts that appear to suit their cause. In the case of these young Marines in Fallujah, that means that they booby-trap bodies and conceal weapons for a final attempt to kill.

The crux of this issue is that if this one Marine, in his heart, saw something that he felt was a threat to him or his team, he was fully justified under the Geneva Conventions in acting as he did. In reviewing his actions, Marine Corps and Central Command officials must search for the full truth of what he was thinking in the minutes or seconds preceding the shooting.

In my experience, when a criminal acts, he shows certain characteristics. In this kind of case, it would be to isolate a victim followed by the act of demonstrating power over that victim. From what I have seen in the videotape excerpts, these elements were missing. The Marine acted immediately after entering the room and discovering the wounded insurgents.

Employing the ruse of injury to deceive our soldiers into coming within deadly range of a weapon is a patently illegal act. The insurgents have chosen this tactic and the news media must clearly provide “equal time” in news coverage to confirming the illegality of the insurgents’ choice. The acts taken by those such as this Marine to protect himself and his team must be viewed with this lens and no other.

When organizations such as Amnesty International do not seek to hold both sides of the conflict fully responsible for their part of adhering to the Geneva Conventions they are effectively advancing the interests of the favored side – the Iraqi insurgents who have already ignored the laws of war. In one recent online news article presenting Amnesty International’s assessment, it is clear that the group has chosen to ignore the responsibility of the insurgents to proscribe continued warlike acts by those that become hors de combat. In ignoring this key element, the human rights activists themselves lose credibility over this issue.

In a DefenseWatch article in August 2004 (“On the New Front Lines”), I wrote that the ongoing War on Terrorism will be partly won or lost as the sum of many, many small decisions by those Americans serving in law enforcement. In the same vein, our soldiers must feel that their decisions, taken in the split seconds of deadly combat, will be supported and defended. If we do not do this, they will slowly learn to avoid making them. This nation cannot allow such a self-defeating process to begin.

Since the Iraqi insurgents have chosen to attempt to continue combat actions after injury or even death, under the Geneva Conventions it is irrelevant that this particular insurgent was incapable of further action. By the previous actions of the group, the insurgents have given up those protections.

Injured insurgents must now be proven, one by one and with great care, to harbor neither intent nor capability of inflicting injury to our soldiers. Until that is proven, our soldiers are fully justified in reacting instinctively to perceived threatening acts of whatever nature.

Based on a careful reading of press accounts thus far, I believe that this nation must find it in its heart to sustain this young Marine’s decision as it stands, unless officials investigating the incident can confirm a clear case of criminal intent on the Marine’s part.

It is of equal importance that the news media learn to understand the whole of the issue – in particular the severe choices confronting this one Marine – and fully and intelligently inform the American people of the full context of this tragic incident.

Finally, it is incumbent on the rest of us to take with a grain of salt – or where appropriate, ignore altogether – those international organizations that do not equably apply the Geneva Conventions to both sides in the bitter Iraqi conflict.

[vimjams]

Very good articles Gollum...

But, like I’ve been saying. Why is there such a furore over this incident? Under the circumstances it can be argued that the soldier felt justified in his actions. However, as I have pointed out, there have been several incidents where justification does not exist (or at least should be discovered)…Why has the media largely ignored those?

Vimjams

[Art Vandelay]

However, as I have pointed out, there have been several incidents where justification does not exist (or at least should be discovered)…Why has the media largely ignored those?

Vimjams

365831[/snapback]

which ones are those?

[gollum]

which ones are those?

I can remember one example Vim may be refering to.

It was during the actual war itself when this incident happened, times and dates elude me but I'm sure peoples memories are not so short as to forget this incident.

The incident occures in the back of a 8 tonne truck transporting US troops along a road at night in a part of Iraq.

The camara shot is from the back of said truck and is looking out of the rear of the vehicle.

The 8 tonne truck is being followed closely by a civilian vehicle and the US troops are calling on the civilian vehicle to "back off" by waving there arms and shouting from the rear of the truck.

The civilian vehicle driver either does not understand or is ignoring the US troops........... then all hell breaks loose and the US troops open fire on the civilian vehicle and slaughter everyone inside.

Now can anyone give me areason for the killing of these people?

[Art Vandelay]

which ones are those?

The 8 tonne truck is being followed closely by a civilian vehicle and the US troops are calling on the civilian vehicle to "back off" by waving there arms and shouting from the rear of the truck.

The civilian vehicle driver either does not understand or is ignoring the US troops........... then all hell breaks loose and the US troops open fire on the civilian vehicle and slaughter everyone inside.

Now can anyone give me areason for the killing of these people?

365849[/snapback]

I hate to say it, but I know why they were killed. How were the U.S. troops supposed to know if their intention (the people in the car) was hostile or not? How many car bombings have we seen during the war? Even the USS Cole got bombed by a boat. It's war and it happens. They were killed because they were percieved to be a threat. It's 'harsh' I know, but that's why.

[wunarmdscissor]

percieved to be a threat in their own country driving along their own roads in a war they didnt deserve or understand.

Liberation is a beautiful thing

[Art Vandelay]

Liberation is a beautiful thing

365860[/snapback]

It certainly is.

[wunarmdscissor]

u think the killing of innocent iraqis is a beautiful thing

or is it that u simply dont care?