Wednesday, November 17, 2004

Great Minds

From http://booleanwombat.blogspot.com/

Marine Shooting in Fallujah
JQP: Here's my take on the Marine shooting in Fallujah...In war there are seldom clear-cut situations, but politically this is indeed a big, fucking mess.The real problem was that there was a failure by command in the rear to follow up and get the enemy wounded out. Had that happened, the shooting wouldn’t have occurred in the first place, but again, there are few clear-cut situations in warfare.

Who knows how many buildings held wounded insurgents? It’s not like these guys had time on their hands to go around and pick up wounded insurgents. They were still being shot at. Still are.If an enemy is wounded, it doesn’t matter if he’s armed or not, he’s still dangerous, and I would have put rounds into each of those cocksuckers to make sure they were dead. Better them than me.

Two days before, the Marine who shot this jihadi turd saw one of his friends get killed by a booby-trapped insurgent body. If the dead can kill you, are you going to allow a wounded man to possibly do the same? I don’t think so.Finally, the Marines were under the SEVERE stress of a week of continuous combat. Go ahead and get shot at for a week straight, operate on virtually no sleep, and then try to recite the rules of the Geneva Convention.

It’s not reasonable to expect that a soldier can critically think about the rules of war under these conditions, especially in house-to-house combat.I don’t think this Marine should be court-martialed. These insurgents are not soldiers in disciplined armies who are wearing uniforms or who adhere to any kind of reasonable human conduct. It’s a bad situation, and in bad situations, shit happens. I’d rather be alive than second-guess my decision and end up dead.