Posted on 11/17/2004 5:54:30 AM PST by shortstop
The Marine was right.
He was, after all, in a war.
I’m talking about that deal Saturday in Fallujah. What you’ve heard is that a United States Marine shot a wounded, unarmed enemy in the head and killed him.
Some NBC guy caught the whole thing on videotape.
And people have been screaming since.
They’ve said that the Marine was a butcher, that he violated the Geneva Conventions, that he needs to be court-martialed, that this is an example of the evil America is doing in Iraq.
There has been all sorts of crap like that.
And that’s what it is – crap.
Because that Marine did the right thing. And instead of selling him down the river, we should be defending him. We should be sticking up for him the same way he stuck up for us.
They shouldn’t be investigating this guy, they should be giving him a medal. We shouldn’t be condemning him, we should be understanding what he and his comrades face in Iraq.
And we should remember what war is. It’s about killing the other guy before he can kill you. It’s not an episode of “COPS” where everybody gets read their Miranda rights, it’s an all-or-nothing gamble we ask our military men and women to face.
To better understand what happened and why, it’s necessary to know a little bit of how the enemy has been fighting in Iraq.
Like the booby-traps being set on the remains of enemy fighters. The same day this Marine killed the wounded enemy, another Marine in Fallujah was killed – and five of his buddies were hurt – by an explosive rigged to a dead fighter. Some of the enemy wounded have been fitted with suicide vests, to detonate when American troops come to their aid. And some able-bodied enemy fighters have hidden among their wounded comrades in order to attack our soldiers and Marines.
Think that through.
What that means is that what appears to be a bunch of dead and wounded guys to us, is a very real threat to a GI.
The training and experience of that Marine told him that those enemy combatants lying on the ground were a potential threat to him.
That’s why he yelled what he yelled.
He’s faking! He’s not dead!
That’s a paraphrase, the original language was a little strong, but that’s what he said.
He felt it necessary to yell to his buddies that one of the enemy combatants was pretending to be dead, but was really alive.
He shouted it as a warning.
And he immediately shouldered his rifle and fired. He struck the man in the head, killing him instantly.
Why?
Sadism? Cruelty?
No. Neither his words nor his actions indicate that. He did it to protect himself and his buddies.
That’s his job. He’s a warrior.
He didn’t know this man’s intentions. He didn’t know if in the next moment he would detonate a suicide bomb or set off a hand grenade. He didn’t know if he had just stepped into a trap.
All he knew was that the man was pretending to be dead. And other such men, pretending the same thing, had tried to kill Americans.
So the Marine fired.
He fired to stay alive. He fired to come home to his wife and child. He fired because he had to keep his buddies and the NBC photographer alive. He fired because it was his duty.
And if he didn’t, he could have been dead.
So who was that man on the floor?
He was an enemy fighter who had been holed up in a mosque from which sniper fire and rocket-propelled grenades rained down on United States Marines.
He was a bad guy.
He was a man who had tried to kill Americans.
One way of looking at it is that this Marine just finished the job that hadn’t gotten done the day before.
Another way to look at it is that the American media can’t be playing a game of “gotcha” with our military. Imbedded reporters have to serve some purpose other than to be waiting to catch GIs in a hiccup in order to broadcast it around the world and embarrass the American cause and the American people. The imbedded reporters have to be working for American broadcasters, not Al Jazeera.
The bottom line is we’ve asked this Marine and hundreds of thousands of others to go fight for our freedom and safety. We owe it to him and them to support them as they do what they have to do to come home safely to their families.
We are not impartial in this.
We have a stake.
Those troops are fighting for us. And fighting a war isn’t about being nicey-nice. Fighting a war is about erring on the side of making it home safely.
The Marine in that mosque Saturday didn’t know the man he shot was unarmed and wounded. He just knew that, in the various explanations for the man’s actions, there was the real possibility he meant the Americans harm.
At that point you don’t ask questions.
You don’t get politically correct.
You do what you have to do.
This Marine did that.
And for that he should be supported and praised, not attacked and punished.
No charges should be brought against this Marine. No punishment should be administered against him.
He was only doing his duty.
And America supports him.
Well written. We need to get rid of these embedded reporters.
...but, we can't say the same about the news media who embellished the story and lied by omission for the sake of editorializing and sensationalism.
He did not do a thing wrong except shoot the wrong guy. Any good soldier knows that he is suppose to protect his buddy's and that was what he was doing.
I may be mistaken but when I viewed the video it seemed that his buddy was the one who shouted the warning and he reacted to it
One other thing of note from the video:
when the second Iraqi gestured with the universal sigh of surrender - hands palms up, extended from the body - he was NOT shot
Sheesh
sigh = sign
Good article.
Take no prisoners. Leave no wounded. Just exterminate the vermin so that they can go find their 72 virgins. Stick a pork sausage in their mouth, pour bacon grease on them and feed them to the hogs. Good riddance....
"He was, after all, in a war."
Yes he was and that should be clear from the background noise on the tape. If you listen to the tape you can hear all kinds of gunfire in the background. Thats because there was a battle raging.
What we can't produce, we'll just have to live without. Let the rest of the world blow themselves up, kill themselves off, and when it's all over we'll be the only remaining functioning society. I've had it.
Oh yeah, and anyone within our borders who doesn't like America will be shown the door.
Kerry shooting in the back a fleeing enemy kid in pajamas is called a hero and given a medal.
i dont see anything wrong in the video..
its obvious these guys laying around were muhummad miltia men.. the marine did his job.
thank God for the marines
In combat, a soldier must make shoot-no shoot decisions from the time the battle starts until it is finished. This Marine had been in combat for several days and had probably made hundreds of these decisions before he made the split second decision to shoot the terrorist in the mosque. If a soldier makes several hundred shoot-no shoot decisions, in all likelihood some of these decisions could be considered by some to be bad decisions.
But who can be the impartial judge and determine after the shooting whether the shooting was justified or not? The answer to this question can only come from the man who pulled the trigger. If the soldier feels threatened, shoots, and it turns out that he really wasn’t threatened, then it was an honest mistake. If the soldier feels threatened, doesn’t shoot, and it was a threatening situation, then the soldier is dead.
Sorry, but you don't kill your enemy's wounded in a war because your enemy hasn't been fighting a clean fight. A pre-meditated murder charge is ridiculous, but that video is strong evidence that the soldier is a war criminal. We're better than they are. And that soldier has done his buddies and his cause a hell of a lot of harm by his actions.
Nah. We need embedded reporters who are sympathetic to the troops and not to the commie pinkos in the media.
Hate to burst your bubble joe but there were civilians trapped in the city. The real bad guys got to the point where they were torturing and shooting people who were trying to escape ... so some of them stayed behind.
These folks, however, aren't running around outside. They are typically holed up in their houses and are usually cowering in corners, scared sh1tless, when the Marines find them.
So, put away the broad brush.
"I want you to remember that no b*****d ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb b*****d die for his country"
- General George S. Patton
this is gonna fuel up kerry again with is ganghus chan speech
hanoi jane might even pop up
Sorry, but I don't agree with you. The wounded Iraqi had not surrendered and thus was not a POW. He was playing possum and by doing so, signalled his intentions - he had no intention of surrenduring. An enemy soldier, wounded or not, who does not overtly surrender, is still in the fight and should be considered an active participant. Too bad for him.
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