Posted on 11/15/2004 3:56:58 PM PST by Kaslin
LONDON (Reuters) - A television pool report by U.S. network NBC said on Monday that a U.S. Marine had shot dead an unarmed and wounded Iraqi prisoner in a mosque in Falluja.
The Iraqi was one of five wounded prisoners left in the mosque after Marines had fought their way in on Friday and Saturday. There was no immediate comment from the Pentagon (news - web sites) on the report.
U.S. forces launched an offensive one week ago on Falluja, and have gained overall control of the formerly rebel-held city, although scattered resistance remains.
The pool report by NBC correspondent Kevin Sites said the mosque had been used by insurgents to attack U.S. forces, who stormed it and an adjacent building, killing 10 militants and wounding the five.
Sites said the wounded had been left in the mosque for others to pick up and move to the rear for treatment. No reason was given why that had not happened.
A second group of Marines entered the mosque on Saturday after reports it had been reoccupied. Footage from the embedded television crew showed the five still in the mosque, although several appeared to be already close to death, Sites said.
He said one Marine noticed one of the prisoners was still breathing.
A Marine can be heard saying on the pool footage provided to Reuters Television: "He's fucking faking he's dead. He faking he's fucking dead."
"The Marine then raises his rifle and fires into the man's head. The pictures are too graphic for us to broadcast," Sites said. No images of the shooting were shown in the footage provided to Reuters.
The report said the Marine, who had returned to duty after being shot in the face a day earlier, had been removed from the field and was being questioned by the U.S. military.
Sites said the shot prisoner "did not appear to be armed or threatening in any way."
And, subsequently, I heard that the guy was playing dead and was armed. The soldier had been shot the day before. The embeds are sometimes more trouble than they're worth.
In general, I don't think the terrorists in Fallujah qualify as illegal combatants if they carry their arms openly.
mark
Perhaps he was thinking about a Marine buddy who, a block away, was killed by a booby-trapped "dead" insurgent.
Or perhaps he was still in shock from being shot in the face the day before.
You've got that exactly right.
It is a mark of our pathological times to have a TV reporter accompany troops in battle. Decisions have to be made in an instant and can not always be correct. That is the chaos of war! The Iraqi would not be dead if he had not taken up arms against our guys. He made a bad decision that resulted in his death! We must stop second guessing our military.
I think the best idea I have seen on the whole thread is when one of the posters suggested that the Marine should have asked the REPORTER to go over and see if the guy was still alive.
He might have submitted a different report.
Another e-mail address for the NBC traitor:
kevinsites@hotmail.com
You can defend yourself if you feel threatened and can show cause for it. For instance, had I not been specifically warned that Iraqis could bear AK-47s and stand on their roofs watching our convoys, I guarentee I'd be up on charges. It sure looks threatening. A lot of stuff Iraqis do is unnerving and seems hostile, BUT, unless they point a weapon at you, you CAN NOT engage with lethal force. The military will prosecute you to hell and back if you disobey, and they're very clear on that.
The Marine, by his own words, states that he thinks the man is faking death, and then shot him. That simply doesn't meet the criteria to engage.
I'd be scared of booby traps and fake surrenders. I've entered strange houses in the middle of the night, and had to make split second decisions on whether or not to shoot someone suddenly appearing 3 feet away from me. It's stressful as hell, and $h#t happens.
That having been said, engaging a prone detainee who's been laying wounded in the same spot for 24 hours because 'he's playing dead' while an NBC cameraman is standing 10 feet away from you is an all around bad move. I'm normally 100% against Monday morning quarterbacking, especially from my now cozy armchair, but they've got the guy dead to rights on video. There definitely still needs to be an investigation, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence so far that this guy was justified in engaging the detainee.
Yep you sure do.
Unfortunately for them and the rest of the world, they're nothing but the equivalent of cannon fodder to the charismatic (I guess...why else would anyone fall for their lies?) overseers. I can't call them leaders, because they don't lead. They just order the gullible and mentally deficient to die for the overseer's personal glory.
There's a good reason to pity the lowest rent among them. They really don't have the capacity to understand that they're being used like Kleenex. I don't mean that we should try and understand why they hate us, pay them off and bend over for them...the Bush Doctrine, which I support wholeheartedly, is that through freedom and representative government will come education, through education hopefully enlightenment, through enlightenment hope, and through hope a willingness to work with others rather than kill them out of hand. Yeah, that's oversimplified, but I'm tired and it's Monday. I'm sure you get the gist though.
yeahhh! Maybe those bassturds (borrowed screen) will learn to surrender instead of playing possum and trying to stab a good guy in the back!
There are the ROE, the UCMJ, and the 10% rule. The Marine will have to answer to each of these. It was a f---ing shame the camera was around to document it, however.
War is hell. Welcome to hell, dirtbag
I know a lot of people think 'this is war', but it ain't. It's a heavily armed PR campaign, and the military isn't looking to fall on the sword for anyone who screws up on camera.
I still think he did nothing wrong. It is not worth dead americans.
Its great that we hold ourselves to such high standards, but there were booby trapped bodies all over the place.
It will get hundreds, if not thousands of our countrymen killed if the media is allowed to run with this.
It will also ecourage more bombing, innocents be damned....
I will say this - if the Bush administration caves in on this issue and starts "apologizing" all over the place, and railroads these Marines - then I drop my support. bring the troops home, they already allowed more Marines to die in this fallujah effort because they didn't want to use air power. If they cave on this, then they don't deserve to have these brave soldiers fighting and dying to this effort, let Bush go to the UN hat in hand and ask for their help.
This story will go nowhere. The MSM is dead.
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