Posted on 11/17/2004 8:05:47 AM PST by Luis Gonzalez
What happens when you send an anti-war activist to Iraq with our Marines? You get an ordinary wartime incident blown out of proportion and presented in such a way that a good soldier ends up accused of war crimes.
One of our fighting men has come "under investigation" for shooting a terrorist who was pretending to be dead in a mosque. of course, the media is spinning this as a "shooting of a wounded, unarmed Iraqi". Fact is that this was a terrorist playing dead, hoping one of our troops would get close enough to kill, or hoping to escape to kill other soldiers. Instead, this marine killed the enemy.
As we took Fallujah back from the terrorists, several of our Marines who approached the supposed dead or wounded terrorists were wounded or killed; this Marine was in a situation where he felt he was in danger and his fellow soldiers were in danger. This is war, and this Marine did his duty.
FACT: Kevin Sites is an anti-war activist. His pictures are on display as part of a "visual statement against the war" on Images Against War"...the name speaks for itself.
wow, when I signed the petition last night it had less than 300 signatures. It now has more than 1400...way to go! There ought to be thousands more signing this. How can we expect the troops support if we are unwilling to support them when we have an opportunity?
'kevin@kevinsites.net' Send him your thoughts. I have.
You can comment at Kevin Sites blog:
http://www.kevinsites.net/2003_11_16_archive.html#106917887631987959
Betrayal
So in some ways, embedded in this unit, I begin to feel I've betrayed the people that depend on me to be skeptical; to question the dominant powers and institutions of my nation and the actions it undertakes in the name of its citizens. I am not a military or American cheerleader, not a mouthpiece signed on to some institutional agenda whether I believe in it or not. I am here to ask the hard questions of the people who make the hardest decisions; ones that result in people dying or people being killed. I must remember as one journalist advised, "write in your notepad every day 'I am not one of them.'"
http://www.quicktopic.com//25/H/n76WwMtFFaw
In a society of couch potatoes, that is of innocent bystanders, the passive producers of titilating entertainment, like the Rodney King arrest video, the Abu Ghraib prison pix and now this, are held in higher esteem that those who act in those dramas. The actors make mistakes, cannot entirely avoid them, while the photographers recording the mistakes of others cannot go wrong. Or can they? The couch potato nation has decided the answer for us.
Huh? All he did was shoot his video - exactly what he was embedded to do.
He looks like a drugged out scumbag.
Where's his water bong?
That pic calls for photoshop.
UPDATE: In April of 2003, while working for CNN in Iraq, Kevin Sites and his crew were allegedly kidnapped by "The Iraqi Fedayeen -- Saddam's loyal Baath Party militiamen" and were "harassed and stripped of their broadcast gear before they were let go outside Tikrit in northern Iraq."
P.S. All this information is being fed to me via e-mail by an anonymous source.
Get his butt out of the country!
USMC Public Relations mailbox is full.
Thanks. Please keep us informed.
Be careful. I put in my 2c and ended up with a stalker. Just a little warning.
=0(
No he wasn't. It is well established that he was a seriously wounded prisoner of war who had been left behind by s different group of U.S. military personnel for later pick-up. It is also nearly certain that the Marine who killed him didn't know this, and reasonably believed he was "playing dead" and a genuine threat to our personnel.
Thanks, I've been stalked by a few tough customers. I can handle myself. Thanks for lookin' out just the same.
In other words...he was a terrorist playing dead.
Get the word out...far and wide.
No, he was a dying man, not a "playing" anything -- he was probably a terrorist, but also possibly one of the unfortunates who was forced by the terrorists to take up arms against coalition forces. Terrorists do that, you know.
His discussion forum is not accepting any more posts. I also see that many of the ones that were there have been deleted. Hmmmm....could be some folks are unhappy with Mr. Sikes?
Boy, you sure can come up with lots of excuses for this dead terrorist, can't you? And based on absolutely no concrete information about him. Interesting.
Why am I not surprized. I've had my tagline up since this story broke. I see I'm correct in my assumption and my feelings.
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