I’m writing this to vent about the situation with the soldier who is accused of shooting the insurgent in the mosque. I saw the video (although it had no sound), and as sad as it is, all I can think is “what do these people expect?” They are saying that it may have been in self defense because a severely wounded person could be the most dangerous, but even if that is not the case, how do they expect these soldiers to do their jobs always being questioned? They don’t even know WHEN they’re allowed to shoot and when not to. Also, I would imagine that since that soldier just saw a friend killed by these people, and suffered an injury to his face himself, I’d think he’d be a little ticked off and that may have had something to do with it. Now, I’m in NO WAY saying that it is right, but again…WHAT DO THEY EXPECT?? Isn’t this what John Kerry spoke about when he came home? The fact that good, decent men were being turned into something they are not? They send these soldiers out day after day to witness and even kill innocent women and children, do they not think that this sort of thing might affect them mentally??? Sorry for the rant, but it just sickens me that these soldiers were put in this position to begin with, and now they are creating even more problems for themselves. If Bush would have minded his own damn business, these poor, young soldiers would be home with their families.

Exactly. The media entrenched in the war is a double edged sword. Its there to document the realities of war, but shouldn't be a tool to incriminate our soldiers who are just doing their job. Thanks for ranting.

I agree with you both. I cannot begin to fathom what these young soldiers are seeing from day to day. Certainly it must affect them mentally.

With the young soldier in question, I can understand his fear. How would he know but what that injured man was booby trapped? This is door to door combat and it's both nasty and dangerous.

I am so opposed to this war, but there's not a thing I can do about it. Damn you Dubya!!!!!!

Would you feel the same if an Iraqi killed a wounded, unarmed American? If the answer is yes, then it was justified. If the answer is no, then it was not.

I agree, Kerry's words about what REALLY goes on during war are very relevant here. The actions of that soldier should NOT be evaluated in a vacuum. Both the micro and macro circumstances need to be considered, such as: He was trained to kill, he may be overextended through the back door draft and stretched beyond what any human could tolerate, he was in an urban warfare combat zone, he may or may not have been alerted that those men were unarmed prisoners, he reacted in the moment out of fear ("he's f--- alive! he's f---faking it!), HE WAS SENT THERE AND THROWN INTO THAT HELL BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION!

These things happen in war and they are NOT JUST THE FAULT OF THOSE IN THE HELL OF THE FRONTLINE! People need to be aware of these things and be vocal about the fact it's NOT JUST the fault of this soldier, if he is at any fault.

THIS INCIDENT IS ONE MORE REASON NOT TO SEND OUR TROOPS INTO WAR UNLESS IT'S ABSOLUTELY A LAST RESORT.

This situation creates a prime opportunity to speak out about what is going on in Iraq. Emails to the media and letters to the editor are ways we can have our voice heard. SPEAKOUT!

Methinks my answer would be yes, if Americans were pretending to surrender to Iraqi's then firing on them in suicide attacks and booby trapping American dead and dying to take out unsuspecting Iraqi's. Oh, wait a minute, that's not the way our Marines and soldiers fight, is it?

I would probably have to say yes too. It is so easy for us to sit here and analyze everything. We don't have Hummers driving around with armed guards, bombs going off daily, gunfire and bodies everywhere. What if the war were moved into the streets of the U.S.? How would we react then. We shouldn't be in that country at all. That soldier is just doing what he has to do in order to come home, and I don't really blame him.

What the clip also showed was another insurgent in that mosque laying down and clearly waving at the soldiers in a gesture of surrender. It is also important that those who can and want to save their own lives indicate such to their potential captors. You cannot make judgements for those in combat who, risking their lives, might be facing a boobie trap. If there are indeed massive war crimes at hand, like Abu Gharaib, you always face the risk of one of your peers or superiors disclosing this.

I blame the media - bringing this into our living rooms and before the judgement of viewers around the world. Should this be available to the general public or used only for military documenting?

It’s amazing how some are so willing to blame the media for showing the unholy war but not the Commander-in-Chief that started this unholy war in Iraq.

Then to top it off, the person who told the Commander-in-Chief not to execute this unholy war is given the boot and the person who was responsible to make sure we didn’t get into these snafus’ or that we’re not attacked is promoted.

What about the war in Afghanistan? Did we just stop searching for Bin Laden?

I blame the media too, why was it OK for them to show this footage, but not the beheadings? The soldier did not go into some peaceful town and shoot anybody he felt like, they went into an area that has been dangerous since day 1, and it was only getting worse.

Way to re-frame the question! This was NOT the situation at all. The prisoners had been captured and dis-armed a day earlier. They were by all accounts still disarmed when they were killed. Wanna try again?

Worked for me! In the context you put the question it was a perfectly valid answer, unless of course you've got an agenda that my answer won't support.

Oh? You KNOW this how? Were you there?

By some reports, but not all of them and, as consistently reported, not by this squad of Marines.

Wanna try again?

It really impresses me that most of these brave people here sitting comfortably safe behind the anonymity of their computers passing moral judgements on, criticizing and/or throwing brick bats at our service members serving in combat do not seem to have experienced combat themselves. Interesting that no such judgemental posts are coming from those who have served.

I think the question that should be asked here is why did the media release this video at all? Doesn't the Pentagon have carte blanche with regard to war news to say what gets released, and what not? Could it be that it was released to further anger the "insurgents"
so they would escalate the war, and give Bush a solid reason for a draft? It is something to think about.

Well, in another topic I bumped into you saying exactly the same thing. Do you spread this one comment around to all the topics? When I responded to you earlier, I thought you were really saying something about what we were talking about in that topic, but I must have been wrong. It was only a cookie-cutter response on your part, I guess.

Come on now, have something original to say!

Rather than cover the same stuff here let me just refer you to target='_blank'>this post.

I didn't see that thread, my comment is covered there also.

Apparently since you were there and have all of the answers why don't you come on into your nearest Marine Corps base or installation and fill them in so they can save a lot of time investigating.

If there isn't a Marine base or installation handy to you, I'm sure any other service would be glad to take your report.

If the Jihadist had an unarmed wounded American to kill they would call in Al Jazerra and perform a beheading for your enjoyment.

I was wondering how many of the American sericemen killed in Iraq that you have bothered to read their bios on? I would guess not to many, I've read a lot of them and quite a few have cause of death "Shot by insurgent pretending to surrender".

If you have never been in combat you don't know what that young Marine was faced with. I'm not going to explain it to you what that young Marine was faced with because if you ever got into a combat situation like he was, we wouldn't have to worry about conversations like this.

I dont now if you got to see the whole catastrophy ower there, in the morning news over here i saw more ethan enough to tell me

A. they couldn't have been the same marines as the day before!

B. two of the marines in Q sounded ekstremly stressed out, maybe battle fatigue?

C. it was by any standard coldblooded murder, and the excuse that he might be hiding a bomb beneath him, when he had been laying there since the day before don't hold no water to me whit the circumstances in mind.

D. the rebels (Some are terrorist but not a few of then 'only' nationalist, they are not one organisation) had been hiding in the mosque and got wounded there the day before, it is amazing that nobody thought to mention that 5-6 wounded opponents lay in there for a full day & night to their relief forces, that those sound like one major SNAFU.

E. This can be a even bigger abu gharib in terms of alienating yet more off the population, especially if it's true that 4 more were killed at the same time?

anyway it sucks for all off the involved

Numerous reports indicated they were not the same group as the day before and there'd been no communication between the two groups. A couple reports indicated this second batch of Marines (looked like a fire team) had come under fire from the mosque, had suppressed it and entered to evaluate what had happened.

Speaking from experience, having folks shooting at you from concealed positions can be very stressful. It was not something I ever learned to ignore or get completely comfortable with.

Two Marines from another company in that same battalion recently had two men killed when Iraqi's playing dead until Americans were within the kill zone exploded grenades. Methinks that would cause people to watch for insurgents playing possum. I strongly disagree with your assertion and expect it was made due to ignorance of these type situations.

The Marine Gunny everyone around here is having conniptions about saved my life in 1968 when he shot and killed a young Vietnamese boy whose life I was trying to save that pulled out a pistol he'd hidden and pointed it at my head. That made a definite impression on me and I never felt safe around supposedly seriously wounded enemy personnel again.

That statement is a perfect example of criticism of people in a combat scenario by someone who has never experienced it themselves. Speaking from experience, the longer a battle goes on the more FUBAR it gets. Anyone who thinks complete communication and coordination can be maintained at all times is living in a dream world.

It can be anything people with an agenda and means choose to make it.

The "fog of war" is real! In battle confusion reigns, mistakes are made and normally the side that screws up the least wins.

You didn't say anything in this note, does that mean you've got nothing further to say?

Nope but my connection went the highway just as i checked out if i got it right
Irritating but true.

These dastardly computers can be a real pain!

Will get to your question in the Vets Issue forum as soon as I can, but this forum has kept me busy and I've still got most of my daily reading (The Scotsman, Times of London, International Herald Tribune, Straits Times, Korea Herald, Asahi Shimbun, Manila Times, Sydney Morning Herald and New Zealand Herald) to do.

'A wellnformed man is a dangerous man'

glad to see you are keeping check whit the world at large.

This just proves that we don't have enough troops. If in fact, the solider had suffered emotional trauma by seeing his friend killed and getting injured himself, there's no way in hell he should have been out there. But because we don't have enough troops they sent him back out there. I'm not going to defend him, because I haven't watched the tape, and I want more facts to come in. He may or may not be guilty.