JarHeadJim Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 From todays wall st Some 40 Marines have just lost their lives cleaning out one of the world's worst terror dens, in Fallujah, yet all the world wants to talk about is the NBC videotape of a Marine shooting a prostrate Iraqi inside a mosque. Have we lost all sense of moral proportion? The al-Zarqawi TV network, also known as Al-Jazeera, has broadcast the tape to the Arab world, and U.S. media have also played it up. The point seems to be to conjure up images again of Abu Ghraib, further maligning the American purpose in Iraq . Never mind that the pictures don't come close to telling us about the context of the incident, much less what was on the mind of the soldier after days of combat. Put yourself in that Marine's boots. He and his mates have had to endure some of the toughest infantry duty imaginable, house-to-house urban fighting against an enemy that neither wears a uniform nor obeys any normal rules of war. Here is how that enemy fights, according to an account in the Times of London: "In the south of Fallujah yesterday, U.S. Marines found the armless, legless body of a blonde woman, her throat slashed and her entrails cut out. Benjamin Finnell, a hospital apprentice with the U.S. Navy Corps, said that she had been dead for a while, but at that location for only a day or two. The woman was wearing a blue dress; her face had been disfigured. It was unclear if the remains were the body of the Irish-born aid worker Margaret Hassan, 59, or of Teresa Borcz, 54, a Pole abducted two weeks ago. Both were married to Iraqis and held Iraqi citizenship; both were kidnapped in Baghdad last month." When not disemboweling Iraqi women, these killers hide in mosques and hospitals, booby-trap dead bodies, and open fire as they pretend to surrender. Their snipers kill U.S. soldiers out of nowhere. According to one account, the Marine in the videotape had seen a member of his unit killed by another insurgent pretending to be dead. Who from the safety of his Manhattan sofa has standing to judge what that Marine did in that mosque? Beyond the one incident, think of what the Marine and Army units just accomplished in Fallujah. In a single week, they killed as many as 1,200 of the enemy and captured 1,000 more. They did this despite forfeiting the element of surprise, so civilians could escape, and while taking precautions to protect Iraqis that no doubt made their own mission more difficult and hazardous. And they did all of this not for personal advantage, and certainly not to get rich, but only out of a sense of duty to their comrades, their mission and their country. In a more grateful age, this would be hailed as one of the great battles in Marine history -- with Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Hue City and the Chosin Reservoir. We'd know the names of these military units, and of many of the soldiers too. Instead, the name we know belongs to the NBC correspondent, Kevin Sites. We suppose he was only doing his job, too. But that doesn't mean the rest of us have to indulge in the moral abdication that would equate deliberate televised beheadings of civilians with a Marine shooting a terrorist, who may or may not have been armed, amid the ferocity of battle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JarHeadJim Posted November 18, 2004 Author Share Posted November 18, 2004 My bad this was meant for the Political board Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dib Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 You cant 'win' a war on terror. But my philosophy is to make the terrorists sit up and take notice- you have to out-terror the terrorists. Make them scared sh!tless to show their faces or pull stunts like videotaping the murder of civilians. Lets have some muslim outrage about that. I dont want to hear any crap about the U.S. taking the high road and the moral side, history is written by the winners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 I'm no fan of Bush, but I support my troops 100%. They are in a no-win situation. They fight for Fallujah only to have the cowardly terrorists melt into the civilain population and slip away, only to set up shop in some other Iraqi sinkhole. As for the Marine shooting the wounded terrorist, I say "BOO-FRICKIN'-HOO!" These are people who cut peoples heads off with hacksaws, kidnap aid workers and shoot them, and they want to point the finger at us???? Where the hell is the Muslim outrage, the alleged religion of "peace and love", when they commit unspeakable atrocities??? These terrorists fight to the death, so the only neutralized enemy combatant is a DEAD ONE! PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PromoTheRobot Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 You cant 'win' a war on terror. But my philosophy is to make the terrorists sit up and take notice- you have to out-terror the terrorists. Make them scared sh!tless to show their faces or pull stunts like videotaping the murder of civilians. Lets have some muslim outrage about that. I dont want to hear any crap about the U.S. taking the high road and the moral side, history is written by the winners. 122993[/snapback] Didn't some other army way back used to dip their bullets in bacon grease? You don't get your 72 virgins if you got pig fat on ya. PTR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dib Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 don't get your 72 virgins if you got pig fat on ya. PTR 123005[/snapback] Did you ever hear Robin Williams version about 72 Virginians? I almost wet myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester43 Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 i don't blame the marine for being put in that situation and making a bad decision. anyone can panic and make a bad decision. i blame the immoral leadership in this country for putting him there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest_Fro_* Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 i don't blame the marine for being put in that situation and making a bad decision. anyone can panic and make a bad decision. i blame the immoral leadership in this country for putting him there. 123123[/snapback] I would have shot the iraqi myself. Its you or them on a battle field. You have family and kids at home. Why wait and risk a chance of the iraqi hiding a gun and blasting you..possibly leaving your children unfathered. You guys that buy into the media frenzy and support Iraqi instead of your own are worthless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jester43 Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 you're missing the point...i'm not picking on the marine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VABills Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 i don't blame the marine for being put in that situation and making a bad decision. anyone can panic and make a bad decision. i blame the immoral leadership in this country for putting him there. 123123[/snapback] Again condemning. The Marine (yes it is captalized), didn't make a bad decision. It's so nice you can forgive him for his bad "decision". You need to get your facts stright, and then come back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mediaman Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 Maybe the networks should show the unedited videos of the beheading of the innocent hostages taken in Iraq. You know, equal time. I can't blame the marine, I don't agree with everything we've done, but we are there and there is no easy out. Has anyone seen the documentary on HBO "Last Letters Home" I could not sit there for its entirety, it was way to difficult to listen to these families read these letters of their loved ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 I saw that show on HBO as well, very well done. Very hard to watch and listen to. I like that the show did not take sides, it doesn't matter if you think the war is justified or not, the fact is that brave men and women are dying every day. Most of them don't want to be there, but it is their job and they should have our support and respect while they are putting their lives in danger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bills_fan Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 JHJ - Very well put. I couldn't agree with your position more. To the person who said it was a "bad decision," wrong. Civillians were given time to leave Fallujah, most of them did. If this Iraqi was a civillian he should have left with the rest of them. The Marine was simply doing his job. Every mosque, hospital and dead body conceals a weapons cache or a booby trap. Our job, or rather our Marines job (Thank God for them), is to clear out Fallujah from all terrorists. The particular Marine was simply doing his job. On a side note, NBC ought to be ashamed of itself. That tape should have been destroyed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mickey Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 I would have shot the iraqi myself. Its you or them on a battle field. You have family and kids at home. Why wait and risk a chance of the iraqi hiding a gun and blasting you..possibly leaving your children unfathered. You guys that buy into the media frenzy and support Iraqi instead of your own are worthless. 123258[/snapback] Since there is always a chance that any Iraqi could be hiding a gun or is secretly a terrorist, shouldn't we just kill every Iraqi everywhere? Why take the risk? We can't possibly save this country if we don't secure it first by killing everyone. This incident is going to get investigated and once the facts come out, then we can reach intelligent conclusions. Until then, this is all just angry rationalizations on one side, and unfounded angry allegations on the other. I don't know if what that soldier did was, under all the circumstances, the right or wrong thing to do and neither do you. By the way, this is hardly a media frenzy and frankly, why shouldn't there be? You see, if some gutless terrorist kills an innocent person, it isn't news at all. It is what people expect of them and it is why they are universally condemned. If one of the good guys goes haywire and shoots someone, terrorist or not, under questionable circumstances, it is news. That is because, thank God, people do not expect that of us. It is upsetting not because anyone is losing a wink of sleep over a dead terrorist. It is upsetting because in the long run, that little tape may cost us lives as it convinces even more Iraqis that we are the enemy, not the insurgents. You want to get mad at someone, get mad at the idiot who thought "embeds" were a good idea. Lastly, I can support the troops, the war and my country perfectly well and still not condone each and every act by each and every US soldier day in and day out. The Marines are investigating the incident and that doesn't mean they have sided with anybody against their own. Am I un-American because, like them, I think they should investigate? I am willing to wait for them to finish their investigtion before climbing up on a soap box, wrapping myself in the flag and proving my patriotism by questioning that of others. Why is it so hard to just let the investigation finish and see where the facts go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erynthered Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 Why is it so hard to just let the investigation finish and see where the facts go? 123511[/snapback] This is a no brainer Mick. Do you really think they're going to reprimand that Marine? Honestly?. Think of the repercussions with regard to the other men and woman fighting there. In about 6 months, the facts will find that this Marine did his job. You dont need our men and woman second guessing themselves on when to protect themselves or their fighting brethren. Think what could happen to moral. I could give you plenty of other examples, and I'm sure many of the Veterans here could too. This isn't a rush to judgment, we're supporting out troops. Get off the fence counselor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VabeachBledsoefan Posted November 18, 2004 Share Posted November 18, 2004 This is a no brainer Mick. Do you really think they're going to reprimand that Marine? Honestly?. Think of the repercussions with regard to the other men and woman fighting there. In about 6 months, the facts will find that this Marine did his job. You dont need our men and woman second guessing themselves on when to protect themselves or their fighting brethren. Think what could happen to moral. I could give you plenty of other examples, and I'm sure many of the Veterans here could too. This isn't a rush to judgment, we're supporting out troops. Get off the fence counselor. 123571[/snapback] I promise you that somebody up high will call for an investigation in accordance with the code of military justice....thank the press for all the coverage..no press..this would have never been a front page story Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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