'Good Kills'

The New York Times Magazine ^ | 04/20/03 | PETER MAASS

[Pokey78]

Dear Peter,

War is hell.

[ancient_geezer]

It was war as it has always been, war at close range, war as Sherman described it, bloody and cruel.

So was the rule of Saddam Hussien.

Removal of a cancer, often takes desparate measures. The cost must be measured in light of the result achieved.

[okie01]

To Mr. Maas, the point evidently is not the millions who have been liberated from an evil, bloodthirsty dictator but the few civilians who met a tragic and unfortunate end.

I wonder if Peter Maas ever ate an omelette...

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

PETER MAASS IS AN ASS.

[solzhenitsyn]

They served in our stead, and liberated a nation.

[Cicero]

Maybe they should have sent Peter Maas on ahead to check out which ones were the real civilians, which ones were the suicide bombers, and which ones were snipers in civilian clothes.

"The Third Battalion had a consistent strategy as it moved toward Baghdad: kill every fighter who refused to surrender."

What else does he expect? This reporter must have been hand-picked by Howell Raines.

[blu]

Ok. let me see if I understood this article correctly:

The Marines killed scores of civilians, and only 2 military-type Iraquis.

The Marines rained hellfire on the civilians. Mortars, bombs, bullets.

The Marines were getting off on killing civilians. "Good kills"

Some Marines felt (and the author believes rightly so) guilty about their slaughter of the civilians.

The Iraqis used a suicide bomb to kill 2 Marines, and a lucky shot got a Marine from Vermont.

So, the Marines used too much force against an obviously unarmed civilian populace.

You did catch the part about Maas watching the fight from the rear, right? He was in the rear, and yet he saw it all, the unfairness of it, the Marines' intent. Makes himself rather omnipotent, don't you think?

If I were Mr. Maas, I'd be watching my back. Only a fool would piss off Marines!

Someone already said the obvious: Maas is an ass.

[Joee]

Memories! In 1953, I was the Commanding Officer of "G" Company, 3rd BN., 4th Marines, at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and later Nara, Japan. The 4th Marines (also known as the China Marines), was a major part of the 3rd Marine Division (reinf). We shipped out to the Far East in 1953, to be used, as necessary, to pressure the North Koreans/Chinese on the peace talks taking place at the time. It worked, as a truce was signed while the Division was mid-way to Japan. Later the Battalion formed the backbone for returning Chinese Commie POW's to Taiwan and in the process lost 11 Marines drowned in an accident at Inchon.

It is nice to read of their current exploits and know they are still practising the Regt. motto, "Hold High the Torch."

[Paradox]

The author of this piece tried soooo hard to paint those boys in a bad light. Check out this piece of drivel, if it wasn't so bad, it would almost be funny:

When I visited the kill box down the road from Diyala bridge the morning after the battle, I noticed that the destroyed cars were several hundred yards from the marine positions that fired on them. The marines could have waited a bit longer before firing, and if they had, perhaps the cars would have stopped, or perhaps the marines would have figured out that the cars contained confused civilians. The sniper knew this.

This from an idiot who has no combat training. Hey, why not let them come across the bridge and just ask them if they are military or civilian? Woulda, coulda, shoulda. The people responsible for these deaths are Saddams regime. This is the very reason that it is a violation of the Geneva Convention for military soldiers to dress up as civilians. These people CHOSE to use their own civilians as human shield, and these poor people died because of it. We should never forget whose fault this is.

[Chairman Fred]

Good kills Evil.

Forget the PC bullcrap.

[Mr. Lucky]

Doesn't it seem to you that if this reporter were really there, he wouldn't have made so many basic mistakes in Marine nomeclature and organization? Marine doctors? Marine medics? Marine fatigues?

[dighton]

The annoying undertone: "I, Peter Maass, am morally above the Marines, the generals, the politicians, and my readers."

[Uncle Miltie]

The blame is Saddam's:

1) If Iraqi combatants wore uniforms as required by the Geneva Convention,
2) If Iraqi combatants segregated themselves from civilians as required by the Geneva Convention,
3) If Iraqi combatants used military marked vehicles not civilian vehicles as required by the Geneva Convention,

Then perhaps the writer would have a point. As it is, Saddam's war crimes (see list above) resulted in the death of civilians.

Our boys did right, when presented with evil.

[spunkets]

Yep, it's a sleazy propaganda piece for the Times readers. Very little accuracy and lots left out and some imaginary fact tossed in for effect.

"These Iraqis were apparently trying to escape the American bombs that were landing behind them,...The civilians probably couldn't see the marines, who were wearing camouflage fatigues and had taken up ground and rooftop positions that were intended to be difficult for approaching fighters to spot.

Yea, right all the firing of the battle stopped before these cars showed up. None of the folks in the cars knew where the lines were? The cars were within rifle range and posed a threat from that alone, notwithstanding any bomb threat. There was a fight for the bridge going on. The pickup with the armed Iraquis knew that. I wonder why this bozo didn't question why the pickup was present with those particular occupants and why he didn't note it's position in the caravan? Where were the white flags? The lack of this man's concern for detail and jounalistic integrity here, betray his real lack of concern for both the Iraquis that were liberated and the few nations of the world that had the moral strength to remove there oppressors.

"We should never forget whose fault this is."

Ditto, it's sodom and his band of murderous devils and the dishonest cowards like this, that paint the action to arouse as much negative emotion as they can muster. A 1000yds behind during the action and he doesn't bother to get the story straight afterwards.

[oyez]

bfl

[The Brush]

''We've got to be concerned about our safety. We dropped pamphlets over these people weeks and weeks ago and told them to leave the city. You can't blame marines for what happened. It's bull. What are you doing getting in a taxi in the middle of a war zone?

I think this says it all.

[Movemout]

You are an ass! Give me a warrior every time who looks at killing the enemy as a job that has to be done. You don't have to like it; you just have to do it.

[Kevin Curry]

I believe blu agrees with you. Re-read the post.

[yodel hound]

Did it not come out later that Sadams forces were purposly placing non-combatants in front of combatants? This would explain why these two categories were in such close proximity. Obviously Sadam and his boys studied our rules of engagement and were trying to exploit it for two reasons. The first reason is that in that split second our troops might hesitate or even worse, let them get a little closer,close enough to hit a marine with an inacurate ak. Nice try.The second reason to use such an evil tactic is that if the first one doesen't work, hopefully there will be some liberal spinmaster from the press reporting from the rear to give you a p.r. benifit. One out of two aint bad.

[300winmag]

The civilians who were killed -- a precise number is not and probably never will be available for the toll at Diyala bridge, or in the rest of Iraq -- paid the ultimate price. But a price was paid, too, by the men who were responsible for killing them. For these men, this was not a clean war of smart bombs and surgical strikes. It was war as it has always been, war at close range, war as Sherman described it, bloody and cruel.

And this was brought about by Saddam's policy of having his pathetic troops and suicide volunteers fight illegally in civilian clothes. He had zero concern for "his" troops and "his" civilians. He merely wanted them to throw themselves into the American tree chipper, and push some of their own civilians in front of them. We obliged.

The writer is trying to make war sound horrible, and it is. But he's trying to hang civilian casulties on us, while never mentioning the war crimes the Iraqi military brought on their own citizens by the methods they used.

Actually, this is a damn good article, once you recognize the spin. It shows the islamic attitude of "get your 72 virgins", versus the American principle of "killing is my business, and business is good." This is what you get when you mess with pros.