First of all, these wounded terrorists were NOT prisoners - they were not restrained, confined under guard, or secured in any way from the time they were shot the day before until the Marines came back on them the next day. Someone could have come, during that time, and boobytrapped the bodies, as the terrorists had been known to do, as they had not been secured under guard.
This is the best argument for why I think there was a horrid misunderstanding.
And, BTW, there was another wounded terrorist there who was not seen as a threat and he was NOT shot as he appeared to be cooperating with them.
There were SEVERAL wounded insurgents (not sure if they were terrorists or not), not just one. The conversation on the video clip seems to indicate that these Marines didn't realize these insurgents were known to be alive...as the cameraman said. Else why would the one say "playing dead"? A severely wounded man might not be able to "surrender" (especially if he thinks he already did, the day before), yet is still hors de combat...and it doesn't make him more of a target than a less wounded man who can surrender again.
Again, it seems to be a misunderstanding.
Malicious motives should not be applied to this young Marine.
And as I have indicated repeatedly, I suspect a mistake, rather than malicious motives. However, there's too little information available to conclusively (a) Hang the Reporter, or (b) Hang the Marine.
You may be right that there was some confusion, but that seems to be beside the point as the young Marine PERCEIVED a threat and he acted on it in self defense as he thought the guy was faking death. He knew the terrorists and their SOP and he made a reasonable judgement that there was a threat and acted on it accordingly - and, to me, correctly. As Col. John Lewis said tonight on the Joe Scarborough show, the marine had an inherent right to self defense - and we cannot deny our troops that right.