Online petition supports Marine accused of shooting wounded Iraqi

[Ironbarr]

The Marine Corps Times On-line has a petition to congress in support of the Marine's action... read story here:

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-510832.php

.

 

[Andrew Rothman]

Wow. Think that the Marine Corps Times reporter has an opinion on the shooting?

...backing a Marine accused of shooting a wounded Iraqi in cold blood during the battle for Fallujah...

 

[joeoim]

Thank-You for the link Ironbarr.

I signed.

77,333 signatures when I last looked.

Joe

 

[SMLE]

Here is the direct link to the petition

http://www.petitiononline.com/as123/petition.html

I've already sighend it.

 

[Sergeant Bob]

77,791 signatures as of now.

 

[Fred Thompson]

I signed...79,718 signatures.

He did the right thing.

 

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

80,216.

- pdmoderator

 

[Ukraine Train]

83769 here

 

[sigmaman]

heres another one
http://www.petitiononline.com/55ds49qt/petition.html
great article
like this part too

The petition was created by Alan Swinney, 34, a former soldier and veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, who posted it on a free Web-based service.

“I know a lot of people who [are] really upset about it and I’m just trying to find a voice,†the drug screening collector from Midland, Texas, said in a Nov. 19 interview.

 

[Tag]

99158

 

[R.H. Lee]

I signed. He absolutely did the right thing.

 

[JDThorns]

I Just Signed

It is now at 107493

 

[stevelyn]

113,524. I suggest sending the REMF(s) making an issue of it to the Marine's platoon for a fact finding mission...............walking point.

 

[Ironbarr]

Good article...

As published in TownHall.com

Self-defense on and off the battlefield
Diana West (archive)

November 22, 2004

In the space between the fog of war (confusion, peril and instant reflexes) and the edited news break (carefully scripted and produced filler between Viagra commercials), a young Marine hangs out to dry.

Maybe I should say he hangs crucified, although that particular metaphor these days isn't just politically incorrect, it's radioactive. But what I'm getting at, in this land of free speech and home of brave Marines, is my unequivocal belief that Marine X committed no "war crimes" in that fortified Fallujah mosque last week where he shot and killed a prone and wounded terrorist. He was just doing his job -- his hellishly dangerous job -- and thank God for him.

This is hardly the consensus view, at least not the one that is actually spoken out loud. And I don't mean just on Al Jazeera, where the NBC News "get" of the week -- a video sequence of the Marine in question shooting a wounded Fallujah fighter after shouting that the man was "faking" his incapacity -- has been airing at half-hour intervals as if it were the Lost Episodes of Abu Ghraib. "Enlightened" people everywhere are clucking -- but not over the heinous execution of CARE's Margaret Hassan, the mutilated bodies found on Fallujah's streets, the beheading chamber discovered by U.S. soldiers, the Taliban-like decrees threatening death for Fallujah women who don't "cover," or the bomb-making workshops seized before creating more craters of carnage. They emote over the death of a terrorist dedicated to all of the above.

Seeing may be believing, but a minute of video doesn't tell the whole story. And the whole story is not that an American soldier stormed a house of worship to shoot a pious Fallujah citizen in cold blood -- the "war crime" we are led to imagine has happened. The mosque served as a fort; the citizen was an apparently wounded, apparently dangerous combatant; and the Marine was fighting the urban war of his life.

Even so, Amnesty International is already tsk-tsk-ing that "this latest incident is just a further reminder that one cannot take it for granted that troops ... will strive to abide by the ... law," while the United Nations, naturally, has called for an investigation into alleged "abuses" by U.S. troops in Fallujah. (Anything to detract from the grostesqueries of the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal.)

Meanwhile, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., U.S. military commander in Iraq, has too quickly conceded that the shooting was a "tragic incident," while U.S. Ambassador to Iraq John Negroponte makes it sound as if the Marine now under military investigation is practically guaranteed a stretch of busting rocks at Fort Leavenworth: "The important point is that the individual in question will be dealt with," he said. "But I don't think that (the incident) in any way is a reflection on the quality and caliber of absolutely fine young servicemen" blah, blah, blah.

Frankly, I think it is. But that's a good thing. In other words, I have heard nothing, nada, zilch that indicates this Marine was doing anything besides trying to preserve life and limb in his unit while fighting to wrest control of Fallujah for liberated Iraq.

"In a combat infantry soldier's training, he is always taught that his enemy is at his most dangerous when he is severely wounded," commented Charles Heyman, a senior analyst with Jane's Consultancy Group in Britain. And the jihadist enemy we find in Iraq -- comrade in both faith and arms with the terrorists of Beslan, Bali, Jerusalem, Madrid and Manhattan -- are even more dangerous wounded than others.

Some are rigged with suicide-belts to detonate in extremis. Booby-trapped corpses -- a Judeo-Christian taboo Muslim jihadists overcome, I suspect, in their perverse belief that killing infidels on Earth earns them virgins in paradise -- are a common hazard in hotspots.
Even one of our beheaded hostages in June, poor devil, was packed with explosives designed to detonate at an American soldier's touch. Who, among the global millions who have watched NBC's videotaped-shooting, realizes that a comrade of the Marine in question was killed by a booby-trapped corpse the day before? That same corpse-bomb wounded five others in the unit.

And who, among those same millions, realize that even as Marine X, NBC's global antihero, was shooting the enemy he suspected was playing possum, just a block away, another explosive-rigged corpse was killing another young Marine?

In that split second of fear and indecision, our guy made the right call. Think about it during the long, luxurious minutes of the next commercial break.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/dw20041122.shtml

 

[RRTX]

Signed 172096

 

[DavyR]

The camraman has his "Story" about the incident at

http://www.kevinsites.net/2004_11_21_archive.html#110107420331292115 if anyone is interested. Sign the petition

 

[Iain]

That's a very interesting article.

Bound to spark some debate.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

What issue do you have with the cameraman's account?

Is it that an explanation of the event from the guy who shot the footage is bound to cloud the issue further? Or is it that he's an obstacle to those who would prefer to see violations of the rules we're trying to wage war by go unpunished?

Read the article by the cameraman.

 

[Sleeping Dog]

178424.

Send Marine infantry into battle and the ask them to restrain the agression? BS. That's a good way to get the wrong folks hurt.

Regards.

 

[DavyR]

One problem is with the fact that I don't see pictures spread all around, nor do I read nearly as many accounts accounts of, the torture houses; didn't he see any of those?
Another problem is dealing with some of the tactics used by the insurgents, including shooting from the mosque, waving white flags and ambushing Marines, and laying as though dead and then shooting Marines.
If you are going to report fairly as the camraman says is correct, and I agree, then report it all equally.
I was an officer in the Marine Corps and I agree that the rules should be followed but sitting in an arm chair next to the server with only one side of the story is not where a judge should be.
Each of us here in the US can and should speak freely, but we should also be balanced.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

One problem is with the fact that I don't see pictures spread all around, nor do I read nearly as many accounts accounts of, the torture houses; didn't he see any of those?

We walked into this knowing that those we were up against were doing some evil things -- that's why we call them the enemy. From the cameraman's blog:

I interviewed your Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Willy Buhl, before the battle for Falluja began. He said something very powerful at the time-something that now seems prophetic. It was this:

"We're the good guys. We are Americans. We are fighting a gentleman's war here -- because we don't behead people, we don't come down to the same level of the people we're combating. That's a very difficult thing for a young 18-year-old Marine who's been trained to locate, close with and destroy the enemy with fire and close combat. That's a very difficult thing for a 42-year-old lieutenant colonel with 23 years experience in the service who was trained to do the same thing once upon a time, and who now has a thousand-plus men to lead, guide, coach, mentor -- and ensure we remain the good guys and keep the moral high ground."

I listened carefully when he said those words. I believed them.

Sounds like something a marine officer should agree with -- I wouldn't know, as I served in the Army.

I was an officer in the Marine Corps and I agree that the rules should be followed but sitting in an arm chair next to the server with only one side of the story is not where a judge should be.

I don't know that I've "judged" anything, and believe I've clearly stated here that this should be handled by a courts martial -- UCMJ exists for these purposes.

However, this thread is about judgment. The petition itself states

It is my opinion that NOTHING should happen to this American Marine. He should be returned to his unit or be given an honorable discharge. We don't need our young men and women taking an extra second to decide if its right to shoot an enemy terrorist when that could mean that one of our soldiers could lose their life. The lives of our soldiers should be the single most important factor in this war against terrorism. The rights of terrorists can come second.

This thread is full of "judgmental" quotes as well -- take "He absolutely did the right thing" as one example.

The problem I see here is a willful blindness to anything that might make our warriors look bad. Take steveln's comment as an example -- "I suggest sending the REMF(s) making an issue of it to the Marine's platoon for a fact finding mission...............walking point." Somehow it's a bad thing to expect our troops to abide by the frigging rules passed down their chain of command. Somehow, it's a bad thing to look into alleged abuses.

I don't get it. We're the good guys -- we should act like it. That means playing by the rules we've said we'd play by, and pruning those who refuse to do so from service.

As for those "REMFs" investigating this:

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.

 

[perry1963]

I signed, he did the right thing, as far as i'am concerned the insurgents in that building are no better than the insurgents beheading people.