A Sad Day in Iraq...

[Winky]

"speeding tickets at the Indy 500"

wow that is truly profound
and so true
these things happen all the time in combat

The next bullet might be shot into the
reports head. Think they might want to
get the reporter out of there?

The marine should get a slap on the wrist
and be set free.

There is NO comparison between the pilot that accidentally bombed the Canuck troops and what this guy did. One was an accident the other something that happens all the time in combat.

 

[HeXp£Øi±]

There is NO comparison between the pilot that accidentally bombed the Canuck troops and what this guy did. One was an accident the other something that happens all the time in combat.

Well i would never attempt to compare the two but both happen plenty in war. Watch as the war goes on and the moral of the men declines. This type of incident will occur more frequently.

 

[Winky]

I guess the doods running the Phoenix
program in Nam didn't have embedded reporters.

Yep them embeds need to go.

 

[Gonz]

a marine who likely made a(n albiet) huge mistake in the heat of the moment

I haven't read the rest but I had to stop here.

That Marine was in the heat of battle. That Marine had been wounded in action the day before. That Marine had seen friends blown up just previous to this. How were they blown up? By the enemy sabotaging dead bodies.

The enemy is using white flags-an international symbol of surrender. They wave said flags & as Marine troopers approach, the illegal combatants open fire. This violates the Geneva Convention. This has happened many times in Fallujah. The illegal combatants are booby trapping dead bodies to explode when the bodies are moved. The Marine believed the man who was among enemy forces was faking death. This violates the Geneva Convention. The illegal combatants are pretending to be dead/hiding in piles of dead bodies & either opening fire or detonating explosives as Marine troopers check forwounded. This violates the Geneva Convention. Illegal combatants refuse to wear the uniform of a combat unit. This violates the Geneva Convention. The illegal combatants are using Mosques & other "safety centers" to fire upon Marines. This violates the Geneva Convention.

That Marine should have shot that man twice. This Marine may have saved his unit. This Marine deserves a medal, not an investigation. This is war and war is hell.

 

[Gonz]

I am blown away by the bullshit press this story has gotten. A bunch of old wankers trying to justify their anti-Vietnam youthful escapades with a lifetime of anti-Americanism seem destined to go out on a limb to hang a Marine but this story, a true tragedy & an example of the very thing we're trying to stop all but gets ignored in favor of wartime. I am so glad the US Military controlled the press during WW2.

*Disgusted*

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Margaret Hassan, the British aid worker kidnapped after decades of helping Iraqis, is believed to have been murdered by her captors, a British government official said Tuesday, based on a video that showed a hooded militant shooting a blindfolded woman in the head.

No other female hostage is known to have been killed in the wave of kidnappings that have beset Iraq.

More than 170 foreigners have been abducted this year, and at least 34 killed. One woman - a Polish-Iraqi citizen - remains captive.

That is a crime. Killing a war criminal is helpful.

Source

 

[freako104]

1. There are days in Iraq that are NOT sad?

2. It's a war. Troops are being ambushed left and right. Innocents die daily from cowardly acts like suicide bombs.

3. Guess instead of shooting them we should kidnap and behead them after making ridiculous ransom demands and further political propoganda.

4. I see no outrage at the dozens of American and other soldiers who are ambushed every day in Iraq and elsewhere. Holding a weapon and being blindsided is about the same as what happened here if you ask me. (And you didn't... ) If a soldier is ambushed/blindsided, his weapon is of no import to him. He may as well be unarmed. Soldiers on routine patrol who are killed when a car bomb goes off have as much of a fighting chance as this person had, yet no one seems outraged over their deaths.

Just callin' it like I sees it.

I agree. Though I do thnk the Marine does deserve some form of punishment for his actions.

 

[chcr]

I agree. Though I do thnk the Marine does deserve some form of punishment for his actions.

You know, I don't think that's for us to say. We're not there, we don't know what actually happened. I give him the benefit of the doubt until (and if) doubt is removed. See, in America, you're innocent until proven guilty (unless the media decides they want you to be guilty).

 

[Thulsa Doom]

Killing a war criminal is helpful.

He was a war criminal? Glad you were on the scene to determine that. I just saw a PBS program about world war two allied prisoners who escaped in mass (77 of them) from a german prisoner of war camp. Hitler was so incensed by this act that he ordered all of them killed on the spot when captured. His SS men, seeing the end of the war was close and that certainly war crime trials would follow, managed to talk him "down" to "just" killing 50 of them. At close range. In cold blood. They justified it by calling them all "war criminals". How easy that was to do. And you want to give a new army this same power to kill indiscriminately against every aspect of the geneva convention? Hitler would be proud you know.

No, journalists on the ground are absolutely necessary. Someone earlier said imagine what earlier wars would have been like if we had had that kind of journalist saturation. well yeah exactly! it would have been a lot harder to fire bomb 100,000 civilians in one night time raid i think. Robert MacNamara himself said he would consider himself a war criminal because of the fire bombing he undertook in Japan which in fact killed MORE civilians then the two atomic bombs. But then one can make the argument it was the only way to crack the tough nut that was Japan at that point and get them to surrender. I dont know myself. It seems horrific. It seems beyond the scope of imagination. But war is hell and humans can be desperate animals if need be. Im willing to accept at this point that this guy snapped or just reacted out of fear and paranoia because of what hed seen up to that point. Thats the war is hell thing there. Certainly should be investigated. But if it comes out that he was acting out of true fear of death id actually be willing to accept that. but this silly nonsense about pull the reporters out is ridiculous. let them do what little they can. for the sake of history if nothing else.

 

[freako104]

You know, I don't think that's for us to say. We're not there, we don't know what actually happened. I give him the benefit of the doubt until (and if) doubt is removed. See, in America, you're innocent until proven guilty (unless the media decides they want you to be guilty).

while you are right we arent there, and yes the system here does say that, I think that it will more than likely come out that way and also wasnt it a POW he shot?

 

[Gonz]

TD...until you have one shred of evidence that these illegal combatants in Iraq, or anywhere for that matter, are anything but war criminals, STFU. They habitually break the GC. It's in their code.

Don't ever compare the US Military to the Nazi filth of Germany. My father in law was a German POW. I'm quite aware of their attrocities. I'm unaware of any attrocities committed under order for the US.

 

[Gonz]

wasnt it a POW he shot?

Stop it. Just stop it.

 

[freako104]

why? the paper here said it was a POW. besides how would you feel if it was the Muslims who did it to an American>?

 

[Gonz]

You misread the paper or it lied. We don't shoot POWs.

 

[PT]

You misread the paper or it lied. We don't shoot POWs.

Oh my Gonz. We don't shoot POW's. That is true, but it certainly appears that this young Marine did in fact do just that. Try reading it again with your head tilted just a bit less to the right.

 

[Gonz]

it certainly appears that this young Marine did in fact do just that.

How do you figure? He wasn't a POW by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[PT]

he U.S. military is investigating the videotaped fatal shooting of a wounded and apparently unarmed Iraqi prisoner

Yeah, fuck. Guess I read that last word wrong, huh?

 

[BeardofPants]

Just cos he's a prisoner, don't make him a prisoner of war, like....

 

[freako104]

How do you figure? He wasn't a POW by any stretch of the imagination.

so he was just a prisoner then?

 

[Gonz]

Prisoners must be held. He was in a mosque that had been firing on our guys. That does not constitute a prisoner.

 

[Gato_Solo]

Prisoners must be held. He was in a mosque that had been firing on our guys. That does not constitute a prisoner.

Gonz...another group of marines had gone through that mosque, and they said it was clear. Evidently, this guy is from the second group going through. He sees the wounded man twitch, and opens fire. Not a smart move, but it was effective in making him look bad...