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WHY all the fuss about the recent killing of an unarmed Iraqi in a mosque by a US marine? We are only outraged because the murder has been captured on film, and the US army is only appalled because the marine was stupid enough to commit murder in front of a camera. This is war, and in war this sort of abhorrent behaviour continues every minute of every day all over the country. Check the facts. The US army is able to provide a reliable estimate of the number of insurgents killed (about 1600), but has no idea of the...

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November 19, 2004 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- By now, almost everyone in the world with a television has seen the videotape that appears to show a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded Iraqi terrorist inside a mosque in Fallujah. For the record, here are the facts, because facts -- not rumors or emotions -- really are important. Here is what those who were there told me: On Friday, Nov. 12, U.S. Marines were fired upon by terrorists armed with AK-47s, RPD machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades from a mosque and an adjacent building. The Marines returned fire, first with M-16s and 240G...

Once again the blogger world has stepped up to the plate to do job the mainstream media is supposed to do - but seldom bothers anymore. While U.S. and Arab media went-pedal-to-the-metal with the NBC video of a Marine in Fallujah committing the "atrocity" of defending himself and his platoon against a wounded terrorist, PowerlineBlog.com has helped put the incident in perspective, by publishing a letter from a brother Marine who describes just what our guys are up against. The moving account is beginning to make the rounds on talk radio, with WABC host Mark Levin sharing it with his...

Only a few have seen the footage shot the day before -- providing irrefutable evidence that the mosque was a well-defended arms depot. And fewer still have viewed the very next sequence after "the shooting," which shows two Marines pointing their weapons at another combatant lying motionless. Suddenly, one of the Marines jumps back as the terrorist stretches out his hand, motioning that he is alive. Neither Marine opens fire. According to the Marines, a Navy medical corpsman was then summoned to treat the two wounded prisoners. In his original written report, Sites, the correspondent who videotaped the shooting, doesn't...

<p>A Marine shot an unarmed insurgent in a Fallujah mosque on Saturday. We know this because we saw it. The digital video footage of the shooting—recorded by NBC reporter Kevin Sites, who was embedded with the Marines—is running nearly continuously on cable news channels worldwide. We heard it, too. A Marine says: "He's fucking faking he's dead. He's faking he's fucking dead." The Marine comes into view with his rifle shouldered. There is a rifle shot. An Iraqi leaning against a wall slumps, leaving a blood stain behind. According to CNN, another Marine says, "Well, he's dead now."</p>

This is just one story most don't hear: A young Marine and his cover man cautiously enter a room just recently filled with insurgents armed with AK-47s and RPGs. There are three dead, another wailing in pain. The insurgent can be heard saying, "Mister, mister! Diktoor, diktoor (doctor)!" He is badly wounded, lying in a pool of his own blood. The Marine and his cover man slowly walk toward the injured man, scanning to make sure no enemies come from behind. In a split second, the pressure in the room greatly exceeds that of the outside, and the concussion seems...

Anyone who has ever been in combat -- not just in a combat zone, but gun-in-hand against an enemy trying to kill you -- needs no investigation to know exactly what happened in that Fallujah mosque last Saturday. The anonymous Marine who is seen shooting and killing a motionless and seemingly unarmed Iraqi in the television footage, was in that special state of temporary, chemically induced compulsion to kill that makes hand-to-hand combat possible at all. Before the fighting there might be tension or not, depending on situations and personalities. But when the body receives the message, right or wrong,...

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...

One U.S. Marine, a cameraman, and a terrorist. The marine, acting in complete self-defense, fired the round into a terrorist pretending to be dead. Seconds later, the terrorist was dead, and now part of the mosque’s décor. What do you get when you add all of that up? A compulsion to run with the tape. The mainstream media had President Bush now. This will get him impeached. They knew this ‘Cowboy’ was sending troops over to Iraq to murder innocent civilians. The Dennis Kucinich theory was in full swing. Somehow, the liberal press would have you believe that this poor,...

American warriors of the past knew this. Michael Lee Lanning wrote in his account of "Vietnam, 1969: A Company Commander's Journal" that Viet Cong or North Vietnamese army fighters regularly feigned surrender, incapacitation or death in order to lure GIs into grenade or rifle range. Even the actual dead were booby-trapped. The average GI learned quickly to "shoot and throw grenades at the body" rather than risk enemy treachery. And I have a friend who was a Marine at Iwo Jima. As he put it: "After the second time a Japanese soldier faked being dead only to kill one of...

No sooner than I had heard the story on the six o'clock news it was on the Internet. The story boils down to something like this. Fifteen insurgents had been using a Mosque as a fortress from which to kill marines. The marines killed ten of their enemy and apparently wounded another five. The following day another group of marines came upon the five wounded insurgents and one of the marines thought that one of the insurgents was faking being dead and shot him dead to make sure. Unfortunately, there was an embedded camera crew from NBC which filmed the...

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...

Newsman Who Taped Marine Shooting Captive Keeps Silent By ROBERT F. WORTH EAR FALLUJA, Iraq, Nov. 18 - The American photographer whose videotape of what appears to be a marine shooting a wounded Iraqi is generating a storm of outrage in the Arab world maintained his steadfast silence on Wednesday, saying he wanted to continue reporting on the incident before commenting. "As sensitive as this is, we want to make sure the world has an accurate picture of the events," the photographer, Kevin Sites, a freelance cameraman working for NBC News, told a reporter at the military base near Falluja...

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"In the age of mass media and instant news, if we don't see images of something how long will our memories of it last? Our troops fighting in Fallujah have reportedly discovered several slaughterhouses--places where terrorists killed innocent civilians in brutal, disgusting fashion--around the city. But have you seen any pictures of those slaughterhouses? I haven't, and I think it's important that we do. We need to see what our enemy has been doing that led to the fighting there. We need to see why the Marines needed to be sent into that hellhole. The terrorist butcheries are part of...

"Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity." EZEKIEL 9:5 What would I do? In a mosque. In Fallujah. With the battle still ringing in my ears. With my face still stinging from yesterday's wound when that booby-trapped body of a dead enemy fighter blew up, killing one of my fellow Marines. When the body by the wall in that rubble-strewn room moved. What would I do? How many million times in the long annals of war has the blurred moment in some small corner of a battlefield brought death...

Slandering Private Ryan – in Fallujah By David D. Perlmutter November 17, 2004 It's an irony that the week that some American television stations pulled "Saving Private Ryan" because of harsh language, many others aired parts of a video that purports to show an American Marine shooting a wounded and unarmed civilian in Fallujah. The link between Steven Spielberg's fictional (but realistic) film about World War II and a real event in the Iraq war is a reminder that, with so few of us having combat experience or studying warfare in school, the historical context of modern combat needs to...

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Following is an E-Mail I sent to the Marine Commandant today: Pertaining to the following release, is it at all possible to get an address where I might E-Mail or write a letter to the young Marine involved and, the rest of his team? I am so upset with the way some are trying to condemn this young man I'd like to ask them to step into the alley for a "chat". Pretty brave for a senior citizen- right!? Anyway, it wouldn't be necessary for the names - I would address each and every "Dear Marine" - but would like...