I'm in a Sterling-like fury about how the media is trying to spin this into a 'human rights abuse' story.

It's a war. These mujis are using every dirty trick in the book, including playing dead and using corpses as booby traps. A marine sees a guy faking dead? Shoot first and ask questions later.

It would be another thing if prisoners or wounded insurgents were being rounded up and executed, but that is not the case.

I'm not queasy about it. I expect the Marine acted primarily out of rage - terror and exhaustion were probably a big part of that rage. I'm sure that this sort of thing has been going on sporadically in Falluja, and went on during the initial invasion, also.

This time, the rules probably went out the window after an insurgent group raised a white flag and then fired on the U.S. Marines who came to accept their surrender. (I wouldn't be surprised if that tactic was deliberate to make it difficult for their comrades to surrender.)

If my suspicions are correct, my guess is that the Marine will be court martialed and discharged with some kind of less-than-honorable discharge. Maybe a little prison time, but probably not - it wasn't premeditated and it didn't involve a civilian.

The larger story is that the campaign in Falluja has broken the resistance, with few U.S. casualties. I hope the rapid fall of Falluja will serve as an example to other cities that defy the authority of the new central government.

These marines are uncovering slaughter houses. CARE just announced that hostage Margaret Hassan has indeed been executed. We're fighting some seriously twisted fucks. I think our casus belli is clear.

There's an issue of decency to be sure, but they execute people on tape and sell it as souveniers. The 'rules of war' argument gets a little thin. The number of displaced Iraqis and civilian causalties I absolutely think is a human rights story. You exectued Margaret Hassan? You want me to get in a dander about imperialism? What fucking ever. They need to understand that even as some portion of our populace is willing to engage the issue of what Dubya may have wrought with little foresight and less empathy nonetheless runs dry when you murder someone who has spent 30 years trying to better the lives of people you clearly care less about than even His Imperial Overlord. Not all us leftists are pacificists to the core. Some of us demand blood when it is due.

This is no doubt a tragedy at the end of a long line of tragic pragmatic decisions made by people will little ability to modify the circumstances in which they act. I don't lose sleep of over tactics, since it is the tail end of the snake. But I do reserve a great deal of judgement against those who make blithe decisions without understanding the inevitability of this event. Welcome to State, Condi.

As much as I agree that the execution of Margaret Hassan - among other incidents - was cowardly and dishonorable, it doesn't mean that all insurgents deserve to be stripped of their human rights based on the actions of a few extremist groups.

I'd be 100% on your side if this was an isolated incident, but considering the huge number of human rights abuses commited by the US in Iraq (and I say the US because it's been proven that a number of the abuses of which I speak were not due to poor judgement by one soldier or a group of soldiers but rather orders from high-ranking officials), the number of international laws broken... I won't condem that soldier personally, but it just makes this war look even worse.

I think it's fair to say that if international laws applied to the US - and you can't honestly say they do, because so many of them have been circumvented and the rest of the world is unwilling to do anything about it - several members of the Bush administration would be war criminals. Democracy is all well and good but a war criminal should not run a country, much less a superpower.

Actually, now that I think about it (thanks to someone else's insight), wartime stress is one thing, but since when does shooting a "body" in the head disarm any traps it may be hiding? And I think it's safe to say the guy wasn't in great shape. Admittedly, we don't know a lot yet, but it's safe to assume he wasn't that much of a threat. Yes, he proably could have pulled out a gun and started firing on the soldiers, but by the same token, anyone I bump into on the street could stick a knife in me.

The more I think about this, the harder it becomes to justify it.

I think the fear was that the guy was playing 'possum and was about to spring the traps himself. Just one hand grenade in an enclosed space could injure or kill a lot of people.

Even so, something nobody's mentioned yet is that according to the ABC news crew embedded with the marines, this was anything but self preservation. They say it looked like cold blooded murder, and they've been in the same situation as the marines since the Fallujah assault began.

I think you mean the NBC news cameraman. I believe it was one embedded cameraman.

I heard ABC camera crew, but I could definitely be wrong.

Anyway, I was just re-reading the comments, and I noticed this again:

"These mujis are using every dirty trick in the book, including playing dead and using corpses as booby traps. A marine sees a guy faking dead? Shoot first and ask questions later." - Jame

A somewhat fitting observation from Abbas Kadhim:

ìWhen a few Muslims do something horrific, the entire Muslim world is called barbaric. When a few American soldiers commit war crimes, they are called "bad apples" from a civilized nation.î

DAG

Why would you trust ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN news crews since those organizations have abundantly demonstrated they have an anti-Bush agenda? They often use war-event opportunities to shame Bush, but really hurt U.S., and the troops. And are sparce on reporting positive aspects of the conflict.

Ther embedded pool reporter was Kevin Sites, a war junkie and blogger who is all into new media. Too lazy to find the quote, but he said the situation was confusing, and that he could not make a judgment on the marine's actions.

"In the particular circumstance I was reporting, it bothered me that the Marine didn't seem to consider the other insurgents a threat -- the one very obviously moving under the blanket, or even the two next to me that were still breathing. I can't know what was in the mind of that Marine. He is the only one who does.

But observing all of this as an experienced war reporter who always bore in mind the dark perils of this conflict, even knowing the possibilities of mitigating circumstances -- it appeared to me very plainly that something was not right. According to Lt. Col Bob Miller, the rules of engagement in Falluja required soldiers or Marines to determine hostile intent before using deadly force. I was not watching from a hundred feet away. I was in the same room. Aside from breathing, I did not observe any movement at all.

Making sure you know the basis for my choices after the incident is as important to me as knowing how the incident went down. I did not in any way feel like I had captured some kind of "prize" video. In fact, I was heartsick. Immediately after the mosque incident, I told the unit's commanding officer what had happened. I shared the video with him, and its impact rippled all the way up the chain of command. Marine commanders immediately pledged their cooperation.

We all knew it was a complicated story, and if not handled responsibly, could have the potential to further inflame the volatile region. I offered to hold the tape until they had time to look into incident and begin an investigation -- providing me with information that would fill in some of the blanks.

For those who don't practice journalism as a profession, it may be difficult to understand why we must report stories like this at all -- especially if they seem to be aberrations, and not representative of the behavior or character of an organization as a whole. The answer is not an easy one.

In war, as in life, there are plenty of opportunities to see the full spectrum of good and evil that people are capable of. As journalists, it is our job is to report both -- though neither may be fully representative of those people on whom we're reporting. For example, acts of selfless heroism are likely to be as unique to a group as the darker deeds. But our coverage of these unique events, combined with the larger perspective - will allow the truth of that situation, in all of its complexities, to begin to emerge. That doesn't make the decision to report events like this one any easier. It has, for me, led to an agonizing struggle -- the proverbial long, dark night of the soul."

Ah, yes, I see he has made a much more comprehensive post on his blog. Here is the link. pretty riveting reading.

Having absorbed more information about the incident, I think my initial response was off the mark. Comparing an errant Marine's actions to Islamofascist terrorism (well YOUR actions are worse than OUR actions) and using that as justification for something that looks to be wrong is a bad idea. We are not supposed to be a lesser evil; we are supposed to be above such dirty tactics; our personal conduct and comportment is supposed to be professional. Whether the Marine is guilty of a crime, I do not know, but the Marines are right to carry out an investigation. And I would add, the Marines are doing that. Whatever the reality on the battlefield, killing unarmed prisoners is not US military policy.

True Jame. Remember also another unit went in the day before and behaved quite differently, and that this mob actually shot five of them, not one. Big problem. Having made that observation - I wouldn't want to sit on their courtmartial unless I'd been through their dilemma.

What does bother me, though, in the kind of moral probity we hope US forces take, is that it is well established that the medical system in Fallujah was taken out before the attack by
1. the Iraqi army, supported by Americans, occupied and emptied the hospital. (The Americans subsequently released the staff that the Iraqis had arrested - a bit creepy in itself).
2. A smaller hospital and a clinic were destroyed by rockets and bombs. One at least leaving doctors dead in the rubble.

No-one seems to worry about this because it is not on television. But I can imagine how the Iraqis feel about it..