War Crimes in Iraq: Photographic Evidence

How is the World Responding

Published on November 18, 2004 By Bahu Virupaksha In Politics

For a change an "embedded journalist" hascaught a most horrendous act of violence against an unarmed civillian on camera.In almost all our blogs we have had one refrain: the war is inflicting unacceptable levels of mortality on the civillian population,Now here is the proof. Some have started comparing this photograph to the famous picture of a partisan excecuted on the streets of Saigon in 1967. This comparison will not hold water, because the excecution was performed in broad daylight by a police chief. In the case of the killing of the unarmed civillian killed in cold blood, the man was on the groung wrthing in pain and as a signatory to the Geneva convention the USA has an obligation to protect the lives and dignity of the civillians and combatants in the war zone. This has clearly nothappened. The fact in that this is not an isolated example that can be swept under the carpet. The USA is using terror tactics to cow down the civillian population and is using dispropotionate force in dealing with the insurgency.

The response of Pentagon has been to say the least, disgraceful. It has ordered the marine to stay in the barracks and a military investigation has been ordered. The marine is not personally responsible for the behaviour, because the war is being waged with callous disregard to the lives of Iraqis.

The Arab world will issue its proforma statements of condemnation publically and privately they will line up before the State Department to request the US administration not to take note of their "moral Outrage". If Iraq is noq being ground to the dust and the fate of Palestenians so deplorable, the people to be blamed are the Arab leaders themselves who in their wanton corruption
completely ignored institution building and education.

The world will not reacr differently. A few leaders will express their shock and indignation and then all will be forgotten. It is time to
say that the war is taking a toll of human lives which is just impossible for any one to ignore for long. Since George Bush has just been re elected the outrage will be balanced with pragmaticism. Afterall who likes to annoy a "winner".

How many people will have to die to awake the conscience of the World/

Comments (Page 1)

Dr Guy

on Nov 18, 2004

They are coming to take you away, haha, oh ho, hehe. They are coming to take you away. To the funny farm where life is gay, and people laugh and sing all day.

Lee1776

on Nov 18, 2004

I guess, I'm going to have to start issuing Nurf guns to my soldiers now and teach them how to scream “You’re under citizen’s arrest” to please some people. (While my enemy gets to use RPGs, AK-47s, car bombs, beheadings relief workers, suicide bombers, high jacked planes full of civilians, etc….)

1. The soldier in question, repeatedly said that the wounded insurgent was faking death. By the way, faking death is also a violation of the rules of war.

2. The day before the same unit had a soldier killed by an insurgent that was booby trapped. That also violates that rules of war. I think the soldiers would have been risking their own lives, not reacting to a sudden movement.

3. There is NO sign that this person was an unarmed civilian. In fact all signs show that the man was in a location that earlier had been a very heavy fire fight between insurgents and troops.

4. Lets please remember that we were not there, the video tape is not complete and not all the facts are in yet. Let’s let the investigation be completed before we make our judgments.

That's My Two Cents

drmiler

on Nov 18, 2004

War Crimes in Iraq: Photographic Evidence

By: Bahu Virupaksha
Posted: Thursday, November 18, 2004 on Discussion on History and Politics
Message Board: Politics
For a change an "embedded journalist" hascaught a most horrendous act of violence against an unarmed civillian on camera.In almost all our blogs we have had one refrain: the war is inflicting unacceptable levels of mortality on the civillian population,Now here is the proof. Some have started comparing this photograph to the famous picture of a partisan excecuted on the streets of Saigon in 1967. This comparison will not hold water, because the excecution was performed in broad daylight by a police chief. In the case of the killing of the unarmed civillian killed in cold blood, the man was on the groung wrthing in pain and as a signatory to the Geneva convention the USA has an obligation to protect the lives and dignity of the civillians and combatants in the war zone. This has clearly nothappened. The fact in that this is not an isolated example that can be swept under the carpet. The USA is using terror tactics to cow down the civillian population and is using dispropotionate force in dealing with the insurgency.

The response of Pentagon has been to say the least, disgraceful. It has ordered the marine to stay in the barracks and a military investigation has been ordered. The marine is not personally responsible for the behaviour, because the war is being waged with callous disregard to the lives of Iraqis.

The Arab world will issue its proforma statements of condemnation publically and privately they will line up before the State Department to request the US administration not to take note of their "moral Outrage". If Iraq is noq being ground to the dust and the fate of Palestenians so deplorable, the people to be blamed are the Arab leaders themselves who in their wanton corruption
completely ignored institution building and education.

The world will not reacr differently. A few leaders will express their shock and indignation and then all will be forgotten. It is time to
say that the war is taking a toll of human lives which is just impossible for any one to ignore for long. Since George Bush has just been re elected the outrage will be balanced with pragmaticism. Afterall who likes to annoy a "winner".

How many people will have to die to awake the conscience of the World/

How many American soldiers have to die before people like you cease to jabber nonsense?

Daiwa

on Nov 18, 2004

Tuff titties.

The Marine in question took a bullet in the face the day before & was back on duty.

He was completely justified in his actions given the tactics being used by the terrorists. He should be commended for possibly saving the lives of his fellow soldiers and the newsman who shot the video.

This Bahu has no problem with the terrorists murdering Margaret Hassan, no problem with them beheading innocents on video, no problem with them booby-trapping their own dead to kill Americans who come to attend to their bodies. No shame there. No demands for Al Qaeda to investigate their own.

Get over it. War sucks and people die.

It's time to get the job done and the Marines, Soldiers and Airmen are doing just that.

Cheers,
Daiwa

kingbee

on Nov 18, 2004

while it's true the incident wouldnt have occured if the us hadnt invaded iraq, in light of the cowardly way in which hussein's republican guard/sunni insurgents have conducted themselves--by which i mean donning civilian clothing and using iraqi women and children as shields, targetting suicide bombings at locations where iraqi non-combatants, especially children, are most likely to be victims, exploiting & defiling mosques by using them as bunkers and sniper positions and boobytrapping the bodies of their own wounded or dead--the marines have nothing for which they need apologize.

drmiler

on Nov 18, 2004

I think you will find yourself in a VERY small minority on this one.

Solitair

on Nov 18, 2004

This Bahu has no problem with the terrorists murdering Margaret Hassan, no problem with them beheading innocents on video, no problem with them booby-trapping their own dead to kill Americans who come to attend to their bodies.

Bit over the top here. Absolutely no issue with Bahu condemning what he sees as wrong actions on both sides. Why demonise everyone who disagrees with you? I'm fairly sure Bahu also abhors terrorist violence.

Paul.

Eastern Diamondback

on Nov 18, 2004

Bahu, do everyone a favor. Learn what "innocent," "unarmed civilian," and "killing in cold blood" mean.

Moderateman

on Nov 18, 2004

Oh my God another bleeding heart ass----, trying to bring down america, if you dont like they way things are done here please move to iraq, where you can be venerated just before these moron muslim fanatics cut your head off on tv,

drmiler

on Nov 18, 2004

Reply #7 By: Solitair - 11/18/2004 5:11:41 PM
This Bahu has no problem with the terrorists murdering Margaret Hassan, no problem with them beheading innocents on video, no problem with them booby-trapping their own dead to kill Americans who come to attend to their bodies.

Bit over the top here. Absolutely no issue with Bahu condemning what he sees as wrong actions on both sides. Why demonise everyone who disagrees with you? I'm fairly sure Bahu also abhors terrorist violence.

Paul.

I don't think so. While Bahu may have a problem with terrorist violence, he also clearly has a problem with our military defending itself from the same.

drmiler

on Nov 18, 2004

Maybe before Bahu runs his mouth, he should read this.

Semper Fi
The story of Fallujah isn't on that NBC videotape.

Thursday, November 18, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST

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

TheFazz

on Nov 18, 2004

It is also a war crime for troops to hide within their mosques and attack those on the outside, isn't it?

I know, that if I were a Marine and I had just had my face almost blown off I'd be none too merciful to these insurgents. On top of that, all it would've taken for his ENTIRE UNIT to be destroyed was one grenade from that "dead" "unarmed" "civilian." He only shot this terrorist to save the lives of his fellow squadsmen; or is that a war crime?

Next time, maybe he should walk up to the insurgent, gently nudge him, give him a flower and some chocolates, and give him plenty of time to pull out his AK-47 and blast the Marine to pieces.

Daiwa

on Nov 18, 2004

I'm fairly sure Bahu also abhors terrorist violence.

I'm sure Al-Jazeera does, too. Just not enough to mention or condemn it, like Bahu.

There's absolutely nothing "over the top" about my comment. This sorry-ass article is what's "over the top."

Cheers,
Daiwa

Daiwa

on Nov 18, 2004

For the record, I'm not demonizing Bahu the person, but I make no apology for criticising the premise of the article, which is built purely on preconceived prejudice and which shows wanton disregard for truth (by not bothering to ascertain it).

To his (or her) credit, at least commenting wasn't disabled - some others seem to have raised the drawbridge.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Bahu Virupaksha

on Nov 19, 2004

I did expect a response, but I'm afraid many have got me wrong. I do not accept violence in any kind and I have little sympathy for those who kill innocent people. Yes killing Margret was a gave crime and I condemn it. Ifeel that some like Draimler feel that it is justified to kill in cold blood. I do not think so. Civilized warfare imposes certain conditions on the occupying forces. Just because the terrorists choose to behave in a certain way does not justify a savage wanton response. My sympathy goes out to the young American soldiers who are facing death and also to the famalies of those killied. I am in no way suggesting a parity between tbe two. American forces have to maintain a conduct that the world does not expect from terrorists. That is ther point.

The war in Iraq is getting natier by the day and soon the day will come, like it did 35 years ago, when mainstream America will start asking the question that is posed in my blog. I repeat: I do not condone violence of anykind, but the armies of a democratic nation must follow accpted rule of conduct.

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