Shooting the wounded

[Blackhawk6]

I will reserve any comment on this situation until all of the facts are presented.

However, to those of you who feel that playing dead or booby-trapping the dead justifies the execution of wounded personnel on the battlefield, you should be aware that this is nothing new. Our Soldiers and Marines are trained to deal with this contignency and have been receiving this training for a very long time.

 

[Handy]

If we were fighting Austrians that were acting in the same way (booby trapping their own dead and wounded, kidnapping and beheading civilians, so forth and so on... ) -- I'd have absolutely zero problem with that Marine blasting said Austrian instead of said Iraqi.

If an entire people are to be judged by the actions of the most hateful and extreme, then we are the Ku Klux Klan of the world. This isn't the Third Reich, where the true crazies wear color-coded uniforms. You want to treat every combatant like he's part of the Gestapo.


You don't demonstrate the rightness of the democratic way in the middle east by shooting unarmed wounded. They might be boobytrapped? "Oh no, I guess an urban campaign might have some risks - we should have thought of that."

Either we can fight under the rules of war, or we can carpet bomb. I don't understand an argument for acceptable atrocities. If we are going to kill the wounded, make it policy and don't allow medical supplies to be used on the enemy.

 

[trapshooter]

You know what? I'm pretty sick of armchair commandos telling us how we need to fight according to the 'rules of war', like there was a Marquis of Queensbury out there refereeing every enemy encounter. Maybe this guy was a little quick on the trigger, but darn few of us (really) have been in his shoes, and therefore, most aren't competent to judge him based on a few seconds of film. Absent the camera and the bloodthirsty media pukes who probably peed themselves getting this off on the satellite feed, this would just be another statistic in a box on somebodies whiteboard.

Yep. To eat our own, we need more than what this film shows. Am I all broken up? Heck no. Fifty some-odd million of my fellow countrypeople wanted to elect a guy president who did no better in a (morally) similar situation.

Personally, tough s--t on this particular dude who was on the wrong side and didn't luck out enough to survive. The turkey would have probably cut my head off, given enough stupidity on my part and luck on his. This kind of stuff has happened throughout history, will happen again, and you all who don't get it need to get real. As wiser people than I have said before, there ain't no such thing as a fair fight, and dead guys are the only enemy who cannot hurt you or your buddies. Would I do what this guy did and take the shot? I really can't say, not being there at the time, etc., etc. But at least I can be man enough to admit that I might, and that if I did, I don't think I would lose much sleep over it, given the circumstances.

The duty of a soldier is to kill the enemy. Once you cross that rubicon, it's very hard to hug your way out of the mindset. Now we can all shake our heads at my bloodthirsty rantings and head to the fridge for our favorite beverage, and be glad we can.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Well, there is something of a double standard here. I went back and read the comments about what happened in Somalia and how our soldiers bodies were descecrated and then all the horrible things we should do to Mog. and to Somalis because what they did to our soldiers wasn't right. Of course, it wasn't right. Assuming the news reports are accurate, shooting a wounded and unarmed soldier would not be right either. Even if Iraqi was 'faking' being dead or if he was simply unconscious, shooting him isn't right. Part of the reason for this rule was to keep soldiers from walking the battlefield after a battle and putting bullets in the heads of the living wounded enemy and finishing them off.

Of course, if the soldiers are able to argue that the downed Iraqi was armed, then shooting the guy could be justified as he was apparently hoping to draw in US Soldiers, appear to be dead, then ambush the soldiers when they let down their guard. Then there is no problem.

 

[Danindetroit]

I am wondering why at least one MP was not stationed around a wounded enemy combatant? Why wasn't the person in charge of the patrol notified of a cache of soldiers from the enemy side were treated by americans, and left alone. Like the saying it is usually a group of errors that makes a tragic occurence happen. Hopefully this soldier will not be left out to hang if certain rules were not followed and he was caught up in the moment, thought he saw a weapon or whatever. It always seems that the public needs that one person to scapegoat when things happen. I guess it would be nice to know how old this soldier is, I always find it interesting that to be legally able to drink you have to be 21, to enter the military it is either 17 or 18. The trend to charge 8 to 12 year olds for murder seems to be increasing.

 

[gifted]

Why wasn't the person in charge of the patrol notified of a cache of soldiers from the enemy side were treated by americans, and left alone.

As I've heard, someone was. The message got lost somewhere, otherwise the poor fool probably wouldn't have been present to be shot. I doubt it's standard procedure to leave ANY wounded laying around on a battlefield for that long.

 

[progunner1957]

Amen, Trapshooter!!! A-freaking-men!!!!

You got it right, my man!! These youn Marines are HEROES, plain and simple.
They risk their lives on a daily basis. Fallujah is a snakepit of Islamic terrorists and extremeists with but one purpose in life: Kill Americans. Soldiers, civilians, men, women, schoolkids, babies - if they're Americans, kill them all.

To those who are trying to paint these brave men as war criminals, I say: First walk a mile in their boots - if you have the guts.

Put yourself in that situation: An enemy fighter is faking death. You decide to let him live. Five seconds later, he sits up and -BANG!!- puts a 9mm bullet through the face of the man next to you - your friend, a guy you've been friends with since boot camp. A mom buries a son, a fiancee' buries her beloved - BECAUSE OF YOU.

Before you sit safe and warm at home and judge these men, THINK ABOUT IT. Think about their sacrifices so that YOU can sit in your comfortable home while they sleep in the dirt.

As the Vietnam vets used to say: If you haven't been there, shut your mouth.

 

[Handy]

"Arm chair commando"? Before you start throwing the insults around, why don't you think about what I was writing about. It wasn't tactics.

US soldiers follow orders. If we are actually in Iraq as a start to secure peace in the middle east, rather than just there to "kick ass", then we order our troops to choose the high road. Whatever the personal justification that comes out, that soldier has risked ALL OUR PEACE to shoot an unarmed man (in front of a journalist, no less).

The war on terror IS NOT a pogram to kill anyone who might ever raise arms against the US. The war on terror is to kill the leaders AND alleviate the social causes of terrorism in the Muslim world and make terrorism unpalatable.

The US can not win a war against all of Islam, just like we can't win a war against drugs. These are black eyes we can't afford. We are the good guys. Why is that so hard to remember?

 

[Handy]

As the Vietnam vets used to say: If you haven't been there, shut your mouth.

This is exactly the kind of reasoning that lost Vietnam. Hearts and minds was working. Battles won at any cost did not. This war doesn't need a My Lai.

 

[PsychoSword]

I really don't know what to think about this. When you see the video, it looks bad. But when you take the totality of circumstances into consideration, you really can't judge this one unless you were there. There's alot of conflicting information. Hopefully the marine will get treated fairly and won't be another casualty of politics.

 

[Kaylee]

Heck. from the video I saw, it din't even look bad. I'd have done exactly the same thing in that situation... precisely because of concerns such as raised by progunner1957.

When our guys really do go beyond the pale, like at Abu Graib, sure I'll be the first to call for 'em to be hanged in a Bangdad public square, as an example of what Americans Don't Tolerate, Even (Especially) Among Our Own. But this? Jeez..

"If an entire people are to be judged by the actions of the most hateful and extreme, then we are the Ku Klux Klan of the world. "

The comparison fails. When our guys get out of control, we clean up our own mess. Here though, we are talking about a combatant -- as in was wounded trying to KILL American soldiers... belonging to an orgazination which appears to find it fine and dandy to kidnap civilians and saw their heads off.

If you have Al Jazeera footage of the leaders of their side condemning their own who've been acting like animals, and putting them to justice, I'll happily apologize and retract my statement. Until such time as you can demonstrate such, kindly drop the KKK bit, 'kay?

Far as I'm concerned, the terrorist nut punched his own ticket the instant he chose the company to hang with. Sure I wouldn't give the marine a medal for his actions (*ahem*) but at the same time I wouldn't even think of condeming him. Heck, I'd invite him over for dinner.

(Speaking of, if you end up reading this, whoever you are, I'll cook steaks and apple pie for your whole darn squad when you get home, just ring. )

 

[Handy]

I didn't see the video, so I didn't realize the unarmed, bandaged man was wearing his "Kiss me, I'm a terrorist" t-shirt.

If not, I'm sure he moaned in a threatening manner, or bled like a terrorist.

 

[Kaylee]

I didn't see the video, so...

Well that explains a lot.

Here's the rundown...

Approaching US Team (US1) : "They're [the tanks] are telling us there's people in here, and told us to come in here"

In Place US Team (US2): "Yea, we had two in there"

US1: "You shoot them?"

US2: "Yea man"

US1:"They have any weapons on 'em?"
US1: "Same guys from yesterday?"

(Both teams converge, go inside building)

US2: "Yep"


US1: "Alright"
US1: "These are the ones from yesterday."

"These are the wounded they never picked up"

After this, I'm not sure which marine is from which group, but the rest happens pretty fast:

"He's ****ing faking he's dead!" (urgent shout)
"Yeah, he's breathing!"
"He's faking ****ing dead!!"

*shot*

"Dead now"



In case it's not bleedingly obvious.... the marines knew who they were shooting, presumably from an engagement the previous day.

 

[k_dawg]

My grandfather's brother was seriously wounded on Okinawa. A dying Japanese soldier had rolled over on a grenade or other small explosive, and just waited for a yank to come along.

When an enemy has violated all common decency in war, and pays no heed to the Geneva Convention.. and has proven to kill to his last dying breath.. a badly wounded soldier is STILL a deadly threat that must be taken care of.

 

[Fred Hansen]

When an enemy has violated all common decency in war, and pays no heed to the Geneva Convention.. and has proven to kill to his last dying breath.. a badly wounded soldier is STILL a deadly threat that must be taken care of.

Bingo!

 

[gburner]

Handy,

Save the Chamber of Commerce brochure for another thread. We're not talking about what Iraq used to be, but what it is now...Sadaam's Hell Hole. And while you're at it we can do without the jive about 'Iraqi patriots' and the US deliberately shooting prisoners for reasons of expediency. We have taken scores of prisoners over the past 10 days campaign and guess what??? The great majority of them ARE NOT Iraqi nationals. There are Iranians, Saudis, Jordanians, Sudanese, Egyptians, Yemenis and one prisoner who's nationality could not be determined but who spoke FRENCH. Their friends bought the farm there in 'this most modern country in the Middle East' so that they would not have the opportunity to kill me and mine here in my little patch of America.
No amount of mercy or restraint will quell their desire to see us dead. Your naievete only serves to reinforce their ambitions.

 

[MeekAndMild]

I remember the last one of these videos that was making its way around the Web. It showed some troops killing an unarmed wounded enemy. But it had been edited so you didn't see him shooting at our troops, getting hit by a round, dropping his rifle, and reaching to pick it back up.

It may be time to end the free ride for journelists.

 

[Handy]

G,

So you're saying the Marine was trained to recognize Sudanese moaning? Or did he execute him on suspician of being Sudanese?

 

[joab]

As I understand it.

The insurgents have been luring GIs in by playing oppossum or booby trapping bodies, and that had happened to members of this unit or another with them.
The urgency in the Marine's voice that was saying that he was faking dead lends some credibility to that.

If he shot a guy that was playing dead, the guy was playing dead for a reason and the Marine may have saved himself or others some misery.

If he shot a dead guy, he wasted ammo.

If he was wrong and the guy wasn't faking but simply semi comatose or in his death throes. Oh well, war is hell

 

[joab]

Iraqis condemned the act as "cowardice" and "something forbidden in Islam."

Now this is rich.
Six men screaming Allah is great while cutting a guy's head off while he is tied up and helpless , murdering a helpless woman by hanging because she waved to American troops these are not acts of cowardice.
But this is.
The more these people talk the more I think I was wrong about Abu Gharib. The more I wonder why there isn't a big glass parking lot where Falluja is now