Posted on 11/19/2004 12:26:59 AM PST by Former Military Chick
The video of a Marine fatally shooting a man in a mosque was played over and over in Arab media and the act widely denounced. It eclipsed coverage of a hostage aid worker's apparent slaying.
BEIRUT - The chilling video of a U.S. Marine shooting and killing a wounded and apparently unarmed man in a mosque in Iraq dominated the Arab world's media Wednesday, overshadowing the slaying of a British aid worker who had been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents.
The U.S. military said it was expanding its investigation of the Marine shooting in Fallujah to look into whether other wounded men in the mosque were also shot and killed. The probe will try to determine whether the Marine acted in self-defense.
The shooting was played and replayed in Arab media, debated and portrayed as ''evidence'' of what many Arabs believe: that the United States is destroying Iraq and Iraqis. Frames of the Fallujah shooting appeared on many newspaper front pages Wednesday and Arab satellite stations repeatedly aired the footage taken by an American television crew.
Al Jazeera was among the stations airing the Marine shooting. The station said Tuesday it also had received a videotape showing a blindfolded woman believed to be Margaret Hassan being shot in the head at close range, but had chosen not to broadcast it.
''We don't show acts of killing,'' Jihad Ballout, Al Jazeera spokesman, said of the decision not to show the slaying of the longtime director of CARE in Iraq. ``We've never done it before, outside war.''
Adnan Abdul-Rahman, a 34-year-old Syrian government employee, was one of those loosely linking the two killings and placing blame for both at the feet of the United States. He said Hassan's death was ``a normal response to the crimes which the Americans are committing in Iraq.''
''Violence breeds violence,'' he said.
Some Arabs portrayed the shooting by the Marine as a war crime committed by trigger-happy Americans, and the video as revealing the true face of the U.S. invasion. Others saw it as another debacle in the Iraq war that hurts America's image and efforts to restore stability in Iraq.
One Lebanese newspaper, As-Safir, called the shooting a ''cold-blooded'' killing.
A Saudi pan-Arab daily, Asharq Al Awsat, warned of ''another Abu Ghraib,'' a reference to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by some of their American jailers.
Where's the pictures of the mutlated body of the Care female who was executed?...Why not run that 24/7 over there?
Thank you, NBC, in advance for every American that is killed by some crazy Muslim who watched your film on Al-Jezarra. You sweethearts, I hope you're proud.
I hope Kevin Sites is happy now that the Muslim world is using his video to incite Muzzies against America
This imagery will impact big on the illiterate Arab world
Iraqi's know who's killing them.
Arab media? Sounds like our media.
You have a point. It seems like they're both working toward the same goal.
The most frustrating thing is that this comes right after our swift and triumphant victory in Fallujah. The media couldn't stand seeing US morale high, so they latched on to this video tape and have done their best to make our military look bad. Disgusting pigs.
I think at some point the West is going to have to stop pandering to this myth of the arab street. That is all it is, a myth. Enough of the taking of of shoes going into mosques,that are filled to the brim with arms and munitions.
The more we pander to these sensitivities the more we appear weak. The arab street understands one thing....BRUTAL FORCE. We have to display it as ruthlessly as we can. That approach,they'll understand.
It is really ridiculous for the US Military to think that they can somehow wage a war over there that will be covered fairly.
If there is an incident,they'll blow it up.
If there isn't one, they'll make it up.
When they get thrashed in battle, they just invent that killed so many soldiers, and shot down tens of helicopters.
The Israelis have understood this a long time ago,they don't give a c$$p what Al Jazeera is going to say. Or Amnesty INTL,and in my view it's working.
They built the wall, the arab street screamed and yelled. Terrorists attacks in Israel are way down.
You don't listen to vermin,you exterminate it.
Sorry for the rant,you summarized my point very well.
Do you have a doubt that he feels like a hero?
He's no doubt fielding calls from Michael Moore and all the other America-haters of the left who wish for nothing more than the total destruction of the most benevolent country, by far, in the history of the world.
What sick bastards.
He documented something that occurred. Let's wait for the investigation to find out the details before jumping to conclusions.
At the very least the video should have been declared evidence in a possible criminal trial and seized. Worst casing it, the Left-Wing ghoul who took it should have been detained until the contents of his camera disappeared.
Since we cannot control al-Jazeera and the other Arab TV stations I think we should look at the bright side. Bin Laden miscalculated when he thought America was "weak" and could not stomach TV images of war. Three years after the 911 attacks millions of Arab jihadists can see for themself that America is still taking the fight to their home turf.
Thank God we have a president who says what he means, and means what he says.
Yeah, we need to show many more killings of terrorists. Force is the only thing these sociopaths understand.
*Documenting* it is not the issue. BROADCASTING it is.
If he felt that something he had filmed was done improperly, he could have "documented" it by referring it to the US military brass. If the brass whitewashed it, *then* he could blow the whistle by airing it.
But to air such an obviously inflammatory piece of film without proper context is quite simply irresponsible at best, and "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" at worst, and will almost certainly result in more American deaths, *and* more Iraqi/Arab deaths.
Whether the Marine was in the right or not, the "reporter" is going to have blood on his hands.
Ooookay...
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