Posted on 11/20/2004 5:11:48 PM PST by conservativecorner
Not being a subscriber to al-Jazeera television, I can only imagine what it has recently been playing on its news service - but I'd go bail it was clips of the US marine shooting dead a wounded Iraqi in a mosque in Fallujah. Indeed, it is probably on a continuous loop. Needless to say - for reasons of "sensitivity" - al-Jazeera is not showing the murder of Margaret Hassan.
The outcry over the killing by the marine passes all belief. Moreover, we actually know the context for the shooting. The marines thought the room in the mosque contained only dead bodies, not wounded. When the marine saw a "dead" man move, he cried out first, and then shot him.
Lance Corporal Ian Malone and Piper Christian Muzvuru, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, RIP, took no such precautions in Basra in April last year. They simply ignored the body of the dead fedayeen fighter as they dismounted from their Warrior armoured fighting vehicle - and it, being on a suicide mission, promptly rose up and shot them both, before itself being blown apart. Thenceforth, the "Micks" probably made it their business to re-kill every corpse they saw.
I agree it's not nice. War is not nice - and the US marine that the entire world has now seen kill a defenceless, wounded man, had probably spent the previous two days in street-fighting and house-clearing. This kind of warfare causes unspeakable stress, for soldiers are in danger every second, for hour after hour after hour. It is simply fatuous to sit in high moral judgment on the split-second decision-making of some 20-year-old in the middle of such combat.
In other words, I'm saying the marine who killed the Iraqi did the right thing - he put the lives of himself and his colleagues first. Ask Mrs Malone in Dublin or Mrs Muzvuru in Harare what they now fervently wish their sons had done.
No, the real issue here is the presence of the cameraman in the frontline and the decision to broadcast the footage he took. Supposedly, all material filmed by "embedded" cameramen - ones formally attached to a unit - is vetted by military commanders before transmission. I don't know whether this footage was vetted; if it was, then the commander who authorised it is an utter fool, and if it wasn't, then the cameraman responsible should congratulate himself on handing such a propaganda coup to the enemy.
What about the freedom of the media? Well, that is a question that only one side of this war will even begin to understand. To Islamic fundamentalists, such freedom is taking a liberty with common sense, self-interest and the very reason why they're fighting. Indeed, their war is against all such effeminate, self-indulgent weaknesses that so characterise Western society.
Even for democrats, the media cannot be free in war: the zaniest of media-libertarians understand that they may not disclose military secrets. If that principle is accepted, is it then so very wrong for the defenders of freedom to ensure that that freedom is not used as a weapon against them? For the media cannot have true freedom in a battlefront where their existence and their survival are only made possible by the presence of allied armed forces.
So what was an independent camera crew doing with frontline troops in the course of urban fighting - the filthiest kind of war there is? An "atrocity" of some kind is sooner or later bound to happen, the revelation of which can serve to assist only one side in this war. Why therefore allow cameras to be free to record what can only be of value to your enemy? Freedom's freedom is freedom's foe.
To allow such unfettered media access to the fighting is to forget the stakes being played for in Iraq. All the enemy has to do is to maintain the status quo: that is his victory. On the other hand, it is not necessary for the allies to force a surrender of the enemy, as in 1945, before they withdraw - as withdraw they must. But they do have to make the equivalent of the Rhine crossing, and allow the Iraqi security forces to get on with the job, meanwhile ignoring the largely narcissistic needs of the Western media.
Moreover, an unprecedented struggle awaits us when Iraq is done. We in the media must learn what our role in that struggle will be. Vicarious indignation at so-called atrocities is a moral frivolity: it proves that we are unaware of the scale of the crisis we face, now and into the foreseeable future. Our common enemy has vision, dedication, courage and intelligence. He is profoundly grateful for whatever tit-bits come his way: our media have a moral obligation to ensure that we are scattering absolutely none in his direction.
See. This journalist gets it. Use military combat correspondents, not embeds. If the miltary doiesn't have enough to go around ,take 30 minutes and train a grunt to use the camera. Journalism simply isn't that hard. Look at who does it and ask yourself if you'd trust those goobers to do even a brake job right.
Just found this, and how very true!
Why marines shoot "dead" people
You won't see video of this played over and over again in the MSM:
In Fallujah, where U.S. Marines and soldiers are still battling pockets of resistance, insurgents waved a white flag of surrender before opening fire on U.S. troops and causing casualties, Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert said Saturday without elaborating.
Or this:
U.S. troops in the northern city of Mosul found the bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers Saturday, all shot in the back of the head. Seven of them were also decapitated, Lt. Col. Paul Hastings said. American and Iraqi forces detained 30 suspected guerrillas overnight in Mosul, the U.S. military said.
(Both quotes from this story.)
Exactly. The "C" students are betraying the ideals of our country in a way that was unthinkable a few generations ago. It's now about "me, me,me" not "we, we, we," and these "journalists", blinded by liberal (democrat) ideology and hatred care not for ideal. However, in their zeal they are forgetting that a victory by islam will mean the end of their "jobs" and in fact their lives. We are not playing patticake here, we are in a war to the death against an implacable enemy who will not negotiate, will not surrender, and will not accept anything other than our subjugation or our death. A free media is not part of their thinking.
a defenceless, wounded man
Excuse me? This was a terrorist and needed to be shot, wounded or unarmed. That Marine just helped him on his way to his 72 virgins
Here's my favorite quote from the week:
"Some 40 Marines have just lost their lives cleaning out one of the world's worst terror dens, in Fallujah, yet all the world wants to talk about is the NBC videotape of a Marine shooting a prostrate Iraqi inside a mosque. ... The al-Zarqawi TV network, also known as Al-Jazeera, has broadcast the tape to the Arab world, and U.S. media have also played it up. The point seems to be to conjure up images again of Abu Ghraib, further maligning the American purpose in Iraq. Never mind that the pictures don't come close to telling us about the context of the incident, much less what was on the mind of the soldier after days of combat. Put yourself in that Marine's boots. He and his mates have had to endure some of the toughest infantry duty imaginable, house-to-house urban fighting against an enemy that neither wears a uniform nor obeys any normal rules of war. ... When not disemboweling Iraqi women, these killers hide in mosques and hospitals, booby-trap dead bodies, and open fire as they pretend to surrender. Their snipers kill U.S. soldiers out of nowhere. According to one account, the Marine in the videotape had seen a member of his unit killed by another insurgent pretending to be dead. Who from the safety of his Manhattan sofa has standing to judge what that Marine did in that mosque?" --The Wall Street Journal
He gets it.
Everyone gets it except the people who pretend not to.
excellent article.
If they are supposed to be dead, make sure they are dead.
I don't know whether this footage was vetted; if it was, then the commander who authorised it is an utter fool, and if it wasn't, then the cameraman responsible should congratulate himself on handing such a propaganda coup to the enemy.
And THIS is what we are facing. The maindream media are attempting to (with some success) tear down our own military, and in so doing, are aiding and abetting the enemy. They will lose in the long run, but in the process, they will inflict much pain on our Nation.
"It is simply fatuous to sit in high moral judgment on the split-second decision-making of some 20-year-old in the middle of such combat."
This is true, but these 20-year-old US Marines are showing a hell of a lot more restraint than 50-year-olds (like me) would. Once one hits middle age one becomes more risk averse ... I don't think there would be very many prisoners at all if the Marines were comprised of middle-aged men.
A double tap to the torso followed by a still head shot is far more humane than a live beheading with a butcher knife, which is how the terrorist prefer to process their prisoners. The terrorists need killing, and want to die anyway.
These 20-year-old Marines are men to be admired for their remarkable self-restraint and willingness to take prisoners.
Great article. The question is indeed what an independent camera was doing in that spot.The conceit of the Geneva Convention is that both sides have reason to abide by its terms for the benefit of its own people. But false surrender and the use of human shields are done not to help fellow humans get better treatment but to practice on the humanity of the other side and to prevent the other side from exercising that humanity freely.
Anyone who condemns the Marine in this case must have already been on record as condemning the use of mosques and hospitals and schools as military positions, and of the use of human shields and false surrenders. Those who have no voice to condemn egregious violations of the Geneva accords by one side have no standing to criticize people who, being on the receiving end of such barbarism, do not trouble overmuch with what the Geneva conventions would require if in fact they were in force.
I hope the president stands up to this issue, and calls out any who claim the accords bind one side only for the slanderers they are.
ping
I dont think our age has to do with it.
I havent seen too many references to it, but this is just like fighting Japan.
In the Island Wars, there were not too many prisoners taken, and that is because of Guadalcanal, where the Japs played some tricks on our troops and got them killed while pretending to surrender.
Not too many Japs taken prisoner after that.
on any island.
And not a peep out of the media, because back then, they understood the risk.
Entrenched media = fragalicious.
Semper Fi
The first article I've read questioning the idea of putting photo "journalists" with the troops. This is NOT WWII! Journalists don't give a damn about the troops...Only the "story". They aren't Americans first...They just whine about showing a "truth" devoid of significant context. The pentagon needs to UN-en-bed these dangerous creeps.
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