Iraqis outraged by video of Marine killing man in raid

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Iraqis outraged by video of Marine killing man in raid

Post by DMC »

OK... So how are supposed to win this "war" when this kind of stuff keeps happening....??? Isn't this kinda the same thing as what happened in Vietnam? If someone speaks out against these kinds of things... Will it reflect badly on them if they run for president in the future??? Have we turned down a bad road when it comes to reporting atrocities??? Does morality end at the boarder of a "red state"?

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq ... edia_x.htm

Iraqis outraged by video of Marine killing man in raid
By Sabah Al-Anbaki, Peter Johnson and Mark Memmott, USA TODAY and Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor
The grisly video of a U.S. Marine shooting to death a wounded Iraqi in Fallujah on Saturday is getting heavy airplay on Middle Eastern TV and stoking anti-American anger. (Related story: Military launches probe)
While many Western military experts were being quoted Tuesday in various news media as saying the Marine's action may have been a justifiable act of self-defense, discussion boards on Web sites devoted to extremist Muslim causes were buzzing. A common claim on those sites: The killing was an execution and part of U.S. policy.

"The U.S. did this to state clearly that the occupier will kill you like this if you resist," one message began. It was read 8,000 times — "pretty high traffic for these types of sites," said Toby Jones. He tracks Islamist trends for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group.

On the streets of Baghdad, some Iraqis reacted with anger to TV broadcasts of the killing. The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network showed the video repeatedly Tuesday.

"When I saw the video, I wished I had a stronger gun and (could) spray that soldier with 100 bullets in his head," said 39-year-old Issam Mohammed, who sells sodas.

Ironically, the video's very existence is because of the U.S. military's prewar decision to "embed" journalists with troops. That decision was inspired in part by a hope that bringing reporters along would help counter any distorted charges about what U.S. troops were doing.

The scene was captured by Kevin Sites, a freelance reporter working on contract for NBC News, and his photographer. They were with Marines on Saturday when the troops entered a mosque in Fallujah.

Sites' video was shared with the other four major American TV networks, three British networks, Reuters TV and Associated Press Television News. Those organizations agreed before U.S. forces attacked Fallujah that they would "pool," or share, all video footage taken by their embedded correspondents.

It took NBC until about 1 p.m. ET Monday to get its report ready to give to the other networks because it wanted to interview the Marines as well as their commanders. Reports using Sites' material hit the air shortly after 5 p.m. ET Monday on Fox News Channel and CNN. MSNBC, ABC, CBS and NBC followed with stories starting around 6:30 p.m. ET.

John Stack, Fox News' vice president of news gathering, credited NBC with "handling this expertly from the pool's perspective."

There was no sign Tuesday at the Pentagon that officials were rethinking the embed program. Tom Rosenstiel, director of Columbia University's Project for Excellence in Journalism, said any controversy shouldn't doom the system. Embedding, he said, has "allowed the public to see the war and not just hear about it secondhand."

Bob Calo, a journalism professor at the University of California-Berkeley, said that the video of the shooting is a reminder that modern technology can bring the horrors of battle home to Americans much faster than in past wars. It's notable, he said, that "we really haven't seen much personal violence given the fact that the war has been going on for a year."

American TV viewers didn't get quite as much of the video as those in the Middle East. While U.S. networks edited the video so that it stopped just before the shot was fired, Al-Jazeera chose to show the entire sequence.

Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout said "the image itself (of the shooting) was newsworthy."

The network has chosen not to broadcast video of what may be the execution in Iraq of aid worker Margaret Hassan. It has also not broadcast executions of other hostages killed by terrorists in Iraq.

"Hostages are caught in the crossfire, and we do not want to offend their families" by showing their deaths, Ballout said. "Soldiers are on the battlefield and (are) part of the story of war."
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Re: Iraqis outraged by video of Marine killing man in raid

Post by Pedro »

DMC wrote:OK... So how are supposed to win this "war" when this kind of stuff keeps happening....??? Isn't this kinda the same thing as what happened in Vietnam? If someone speaks out against these kinds of things... Will it reflect badly on them if they run for president in the future??? Have we turned down a bad road when it comes to reporting atrocities??? Does morality end at the boarder of a "red state"?
This is kind of hard to comment without seeing the video, but i will say that when conducting a raid, amubsh or attack, you don't really hold back until the area you are attacking is secure and everyone is disarmed....including the wounded, provided they are not laying on a grenade or somthing. But i haven't seen the video, is it on the internet?
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Re: Iraqis outraged by video of Marine killing man in raid

Post by DMC »

Pedro wrote:This is kind of hard to comment without seeing the video, but i will say that when conducting a raid, amubsh or attack, you don't really hold back until the area you are attacking is secure and everyone is disarmed....including the wounded, provided they are not laying on a grenade or somthing. But i haven't seen the video, is it on the internet?
Fair enough... I know a Medic from when I worked at Ft Dix last year... The dude was told to go outside the gates to check a wounded Iraqi... He refused until a MP went first cause the guy was laying face down and he was afraid he had been boobie trapped...

I was actually appalled by the video when i saw it on the news last night..
Now I'm even having problems finding it on the net...
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Post by KingsFourMan »

and the hits just keep on coming.

who wants to bet this war will be just as f*** up, if not more f*** up, after 4 more years of that idiot Bush. At least he and the republicans won't have anyone else to blame but themselves.

The only hope we had of getting out of that mess was getting rid of dubya and getting someone else in that might have a prayer of securing more support from other nations. Dubya hasen't got a prayer of ever doing that.
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Post by shortski »

I saw the video on the news, the solider shouted for the man to turn over and show his hands, he didn't, what the hell was he supposed to to take a bullet before he took action to defend himself? The fact that the news media is embedded in the middle of an active military action say volumes on how far the US government is willing to go to show that they are being humane in the prosecution of this WAR, note WAR people die in war some on them innocent. Put yourself in the same situation, how do you think you would react after being snipped at for several hours?
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Post by DMC »

shortski wrote:Put yourself in the same situation, how do you think you would react after being snipped at for several hours?
Can't answer that - I havent gone through months of training to prepare myself...

But what I saw was a wounded guy in a mosque, laying on his stomach...
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Post by Pedro »

DMC wrote:
shortski wrote:Put yourself in the same situation, how do you think you would react after being snipped at for several hours?
Can't answer that - I havent gone through months of training to prepare myself...

But what I saw was a wounded guy in a mosque, laying on his stomach...
Its happened in every war, I mean if you have seen private ryan or band of brothers, they showed guys gettin "double tapped". They were not subject to the same criticizim.
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Post by shortski »

DMC wrote:
shortski wrote:Put yourself in the same situation, how do you think you would react after being snipped at for several hours?
Can't answer that - I havent gone through months of training to prepare myself...

But what I saw was a wounded guy in a mosque, laying on his stomach...
I'd agree that the action was uncalled for if this was a police action, it wasn't, it was an ongoing military action, soldiers aren't cops, the training is not the same, the military kills people and breaks things, cops try to keep civil order and protect people rights in the process, different people for different missions. Maybe this difference should be pointed out by the media.
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Post by DMC »

shortski wrote:
DMC wrote:
shortski wrote:Put yourself in the same situation, how do you think you would react after being snipped at for several hours?
Can't answer that - I havent gone through months of training to prepare myself...

But what I saw was a wounded guy in a mosque, laying on his stomach...
I'd agree that the action was uncalled for if this was a police action, it wasn't, it was an ongoing military action, soldiers aren't cops, the training is not the same, the military kills people and breaks things, cops try to keep civil order and protect people rights in the process, different people for different missions. Maybe this difference should be pointed out by the media.
I think I know the difference... I'm not a sheeple...

We embedded the "press" into our military to show people that we are fighting the "Good fight"....
Sadly - it has backfired on us - and pissed off insurgents to the pint where they will now fight to the death...
Not good... JMHO...

Maybe it's time for our military to learn how to deal with these situations... Things are not the same as they used to be...
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Post by Bubba »

The problem with this is that the soldier could've been entirely justified but, from a civilian point of view, and from an Arab civilian point of view especially, that justification won't matter. It looks bad, therefore it IS bad. Perception is reality.

Gotta love the right wing TV shows last night - doing all they can to justify (not merely excuse, but justify) the event even though nobody has yet accused the Marine of anything illegal, the Marines have it under investigation, the Marine in question has been taken off the line temporarily, and about a half dozen Marines have faced disciplinary action already for actions beyond their rules of engagement.

So-called liberal media on the other hand is showing the video and acknowledging that it looks bad but it was a combat situation and the event is under investigation. Nobody is out there crucifying the Marine, yelling for his head or anything like it, yet the conservative shows are breathing fire to justify it when neither they nor anyone else yet knows all the facts.
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Post by Pedro »

DMC wrote:
shortski wrote:
DMC wrote:
shortski wrote:Put yourself in the same situation, how do you think you would react after being snipped at for several hours?
Can't answer that - I havent gone through months of training to prepare myself...

But what I saw was a wounded guy in a mosque, laying on his stomach...

Maybe it's time for our military to learn how to deal with these situations... Things are not the same as they used to be...
The soldiers have enough to worry about, the media needs to back off, but that's the Gov'ts fault.
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Post by DMC »

Pedro wrote:
DMC wrote:
shortski wrote:
DMC wrote:
shortski wrote:Put yourself in the same situation, how do you think you would react after being snipped at for several hours?
Can't answer that - I havent gone through months of training to prepare myself...

But what I saw was a wounded guy in a mosque, laying on his stomach...

Maybe it's time for our military to learn how to deal with these situations... Things are not the same as they used to be...
The soldiers have enough to worry about, the media needs to back off, but that's the Gov'ts fault.
Obviously the Bush administration didn't think the embedding of the press through very well...
But - He'll stick to his guns... And let this play out.. I just think it's going to get even more ugly over there... the taking of Faluja was like squeezing jello... Sure you get some in your hand but most slips through the fingers... Not a very good thing...
The whole war was not thought out very well... And now the ONE guy who warned GWB about Iraq is gone...
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Post by DMC »

Bubba wrote:The problem with this is that the soldier could've been entirely justified but, from a civilian point of view, and from an Arab civilian point of view especially, that justification won't matter. It looks bad, therefore it IS bad. Perception is reality.
Thank you Bubba... A lot of time I take the side of perception.. I know it makes people mad but it IS everything...
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Post by DMC »

shortski wrote:I'd agree that the action was uncalled for if this was a police action, it wasn't, it was an ongoing military action, soldiers aren't cops, the training is not the same, the military kills people and breaks things, cops try to keep civil order and protect people rights in the process, different people for different missions. Maybe this difference should be pointed out by the media.
I was eating lunch thinking about this...
What exactly is the difference between a police and military action??
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Post by Geoff »

DMC wrote: I was eating lunch thinking about this...
What exactly is the difference between a police and military action??
In a police action, you're there to preserve order. Rules of engagement are to only fire when fired upon. In a military action, you're there to kill your opposition so you get to shoot first and ask questions later.
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