Posted on 11/18/2004 1:19:03 AM PST by kattracks
BAGHDAD - A Marine who killed an unarmed wounded Iraqi in a Fallujah mosque "will be dealt with," the U.S. ambassador in Iraq said yesterday, as the military said it was looking into other deaths at the scene of the shooting."No one can be happy" about the incident, Ambassador John Negroponte said, "but the important point is that the individual in question will be dealt with."
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's office said he is "very concerned" about the killing, but backed the U.S. efforts. "Unlike others, the prime minister will await the outcome of the investigation before commenting any further," his office said.
The shooting was filmed Saturday by an NBC reporter embedded with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. Military investigators also are looking to see whether other wounded insurgents were shot, said Maj. Francis Piccoli.
Two other men in the video appear to be suffering from what NBC called fresh and fatal gunshot wounds.
The footage, aired repeatedly on Arabic television, has sparked argument across the Arab world, with most saying it fuels anger against America. But some also blame insurgents for waging battle from mosques.
Despite the furor, Gen. Michael Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, defended placing journalists with troops.
At a House Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday, he rejected the claims of Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), who said, "We should not be providing the Al-Jazeera with the kind of propaganda that they've had."
Hagee said "embedded reporters have actually worked very well. They inform the American public about what these great young Americans are doing over there."
Richard Sisk with News Wire Reports
Originally published on November 18, 2004
Arabs are cowards? wow, thats new to me!
If you dont respect your enemy then you wont beat him!
Arabs are such cowards that thousands of them stayed and fought in Falluja even though they knew that the US army, the most powerful in history, was going to batter the place down to bedrock. Arab suicide bombers have struck the most devastating blows in recent years, and if killing yourself for a cause you beleive in is cowardice then id hate to know what a definition of bravery is.
Dont dismiss terrorists as cowards, just dismiss them as scum
The press more often than not gets comments completely wrong, or leaves out other comments which make the few they do quote sound harsh and at odds with what was actually meant. They've done it with Condi, Powell, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Bush, etc. (Remember the "imminent threat" and "Iraq bought uranium from Niger" quote they falsely attributed to Bush; the "mushroom cloud" quote they twisted of Condi's, the conveniently cropped quote they used from Wolfowitz to imply he said the war against Iraq was only for WMD, etc.)We should all know to read everything from the press with extreme caution by now.
Would killing an innocent civilian who might be a terrorist be a breach of the GC?
Negroponte should be dealing with the embedded reporter. Get his butt out of there away from our boys.
Yeah ... I've heard that can happen in a WAR.
Morons...
So now NBC is implying the Marine is a spree killer. Even for NBC this is a new low.
The point of the ICC was never to interfere with the US or any country that has a functioning justice system. Every country has first crack at trying someone. As long as they make an effort the ICC will keep its nose out.
If we captured Kim Jong Il, we couldn't send him back to Korea for a trial. Hell they'd probably just put him back in power. We couldn't really prosecute him in the states, everything he's done is outside our jurisdiction. It would look like a kangaroo court. The only thing with any legitimacy would be something like the ICC.
I'm pretty sure: No American soldier is going to see the ICC.
1) First off we've forced the UN to make us an exempt from the court(we threaten to block peacekeeping efforts). So basically America is above the law.
2) Even if we hadn't done that, the only way to wind up at the ICC is someone put you there. There are lots of evil SOBs wanted by the ICC that nobody will bring in. A US soldier would have to commit a war crime, be captured, and then be delivered to the Hague.
The innocents were given the chance to get out and some of the big terrorists snuck out as innocent civilians. Big men, huh?
Plus, the Geneva Convention mainly deals with warfare between armies. The terrorists aren't an army, they represent no legal government in Iraq, they don't wear standard military uniforms, etc.
The solider was totally justified in that he was shooting an enemy terrorist who he thought was playing dead, who might have killed the solider and/or his fellow soliders. The terrorist didn't have his arms in the air in surrender, altough another terrorist did have his hands in the air and he was NOT shot.
In Negroponte's mind, we need to look at the larger picture...the Arab 'street'. So the fact that Marines risk life and limb to free the same Arabs has no meaning. This is nuts.
That soldier needs a medal and maybe a special commendation! Maybe even a parade in his hometown on his return!
A shortage of common sense and a surplus of testosterone is no substitute for courage. If it were we'd think of LA gangs as being courageous. We don't.
Hiding in a mosque is not courageous. Hiding in schools is not courageous. Evicting Iraqis from their homes to provide places of refuge for terrorists to hide is not courageous. Dressing as civilians in order to avoid becomgin a target- and in the act making it increasingly likely a real civilian will be mistaken for an insurgent is not courageous- that's just using one culture's humanitarian nature against them. Setting bombs beside a road to kill Iraqi civilians is not courageous. Taking hostages is not courageous. Making videos of decapitations in order to recruit for testosterone filled idiot jihadis is not courageous. Lopping off the heads of female humanitarian aide workers is not courageous. Hunting down the families of Iraqi guardsmen to 'punish' them for working with Americans is not courageous. Hanging Iraqis who don't embrace foreign arabs invading their city to impose Talibanlike Sharia law is not courageous.
The Arab interlopers in Fallujah aren't courageous. They're ignorant. Stupid makes them do things a well-informed person would never do no matter how courageous that person is. Most don't grasp what it's like to be on the receiving end of US weapons until they get trapped in a city and can't leave it because their own terrorist buddies will shoot them in the back or slit their throats just like they did any Iraqis who didn't take up arms alongside them.
Most are first-time wannabe foreign jihadis whose "courage" is no greater than that of a cornered animal- indeed, can't be called courage so much as desperation. They either die fighting or they just die.
Dying to accomplish nothing isn't courage- it's just stupid. Welcome to the Arab world. They die for nothing all the time. They've never had anything noble to fight for until now, and the noble ones aren't those holed up in fallujah- instead the noble ones are those who in spite of the terrorist's threats against their families are joining up to help bring their country to the point where they can have free elections. Those are the ones who have something to fight for. The insurgents are just unemployed scumbags who have nowhere to go- going home offers them nothing, Afghanistan is no longer a safe haven for them, and the Iraqis don't like them in Iraq either. The Baathists can no longer rule in Iraq and even they now know there are plenty of Iraqis who would like nothing more than to hoist them on a lightpole, and they have nowhere to go since Syria really doesn'tr want to tick us off right now.
The hotheads among them have piddled in their own pools so long they've turned their countries into cesspits. They are without hope now and have nothing to live for so they die, like wild rabbits do when you try to keep them in a cage.
The jihadis have been fed crap by their mullahs and some of it did have some roots in the truth- namely, our leadership's act of cowardice in retreating from Somalia and leaving it to al Qaeda and the warlords. They were told and they accepted the idea that we wouldn't fight them man-to-man, that we'd run away if they can kill some of us in front of a camera. They didn't come to fight in Fallujah because they had courage- they came to fight in Fallujah because they didn't have anywhere else to go and thought they could pull off another Somalia. They were recruited thinking they could kill a US soldier or two and go home, job done. For a while there Kerry and his kind gave them some hope to keep on fighting, but now they are stuck in an Iraqi city whose residents want them to leave so they can get on with their lives.
Dealt with can mean many things. Negroponte has been a good guy up til now, why change his spots? The young Marine is being "dealt with " as we speak, ie , Article 32 investigation and the works. So, do we condemn the Marine Corps for "dealing with" this young man? No, Odds are he'll be cleared. That's "dealing" with it as well.
The purpose of the Geneva Convention was SPECIFICALLY to discourage terrorism and the kind of fighting we see the "insurgents" engage in now, by REWARDING nations, militias and other organized groups for abiding by the rules of war. The reward was fair treatment for those who might be captured and repatriation at the conclusion of the conflict. The GC was intended to protect civilians by making it disadvantageous to use civilians as human shields or civilian structures such as hospitals, schools and religious buildings to shield or conceal weapons and men.
For that reason "insurgents and terrorists" - those without a responsible chain of command, those using civilian dress to hide their status as combatants, those who countries will not cliam responsibility for - they are deliberately and rightfully excluded from the protections of the GC. There are no accomodations made for unlawful combatants because the unlawful combatant was the whole problem the GC was intended to correct from the very beginning.
To treat terrorists and other unlawful combatants as if they are the same as lawful combatants is to blur the distinction and defeat the entire purpose of the GC. No good can come from blurring this distinction, no good from elevating the terroist to the status of soldier or from demoting the soldier to the level of a terrorist. It will only further endanger civilians.
Unlawful combatants are what is referred to in the Law of Nations- not international law but a code which precedes it and one on which our law also rests- as bandits and pirates. These were to be hung, not to be kept unharmed and repatriated as a soldier should be. Unlawful combatants must be treated as outlaws and NEVER as well as soldiers; they must be severely and harshly treated so as to discourage that method of warfare which uses civilians as shields.
Oh, really? Now that wasn't a very diplomatic way to put it, was it, Mr. Amabassador?
He will be dealt with????...How about finding a way to deal with people who leave a womens torso without arms or legs in the street???.....
I'm sorry not to agree with you Lefty, but the ICC has yet to determine it's parameters. Already the idea was toyed with by the Dutch to bring charges against the Pope for his statements about the Gay Day Celebration in Rome.
Everyone has signed onto the ICC without the ICC having restricted itself, it's been vague and elastic, as to what constitutes a crime, and what will come under it's jurisdiction.
And it really doesn't matter that the USofA hasn't signed, a citizen can be brought to trial before the ICC if the U.N. presses the charges, at least that is the way I read it.
Funny how the press ignores the fact the "insurgents" were war criminals because they were not wearing uniforms or insignia to distinguish themselves from civilians, have been hiding arms instead of carrying them openly at all times, and have no responsible chain of command to take charge of them in battle or in defeat, to investigate or discipline them when they violate the rules of war, or provide ID and contact information for their families should they be captured. Not to mention they were violating another GC biggie by taking up positions in the mosque, etc.
Not that the insurgents were evera party to the GC to begin with.
Coulter's a writer; that's all she'll ever be.
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