SHOOTING THE WOUNDED

Last night NBC News aired a story by producer Kevin Sites about a US Marine killing a wounded Iraqi inside a mosque in Fallujah. Follow the link to the AP story about the incident.

To those who have never been in combat, this seems like a pretty clear case of an illegal killing. But consider these comments...

Charles Heyman, a senior defense analyst with Jane's Consultancy Group in Britain, defended the Marine's actions, saying the wounded man could have been concealing a firearm or grenade. "In a combat infantry soldier's training, he is always taught that his enemy is at his most dangerous when he is severely wounded," Heyman said. If the injured man makes even the slightest move, "in my estimation they would be justified in shooting him."

Also consider this fact...

Sites reported that a Marine in the same unit had been killed a day earlier when he tended to the booby-trapped dead body of an insurgent. NBC reported that the Marine seen shooting the wounded combatant had himself been shot in the face the day before, but quickly returned to duty.

I have talked to many combat veterans over the years, including my own uncle who was a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge in WWII. In the chaos of combat the line blurs between what is acceptable violence and what is unacceptable violence. During the early days of the Guadalcancal operation in the Pacific in WWII, for instance, US Marines routinely tried to take the surrender of Japanese soldiers and treat their battlefield wounded. But after a few incidents of Japanese soldiers killing Marines who tried to help them, the Marines stopped following the rules of war. My uncle relates in his memoirs the same thing about his experience in France with the Germans. Once an American soldier or Marine sees a comrade killed by a wounded, booby-trapped enemy, then all the wounded enemies become suspect. I believe this may be what we are seeing in Fallujah.

The military will follow a procedure to adjudicate this matter. They will try to determine if the Marine was justified in shooting the wounded Iraqi. If not, he will face disciplinary action or a court martial. The more worrisome aspect of all of this is not the fate of that Marine, rather it is the public relations defeat our forces suffered because an NBC cameraman was there to record the scene. The tape has been aired repeatedly and unedited by Al-Jazeera. It has been shown in an edited form here at home, and, presumably, in Europe and elsewhere.

The recent election results here at home give me some hope that a majority of Americans understand we are in a fight to the death with fanatical barbarians and will, therefore, understand the brutal realities of the fight. The news that British aid worker Margaret Hassan has been executed by her captors, and the existence of a videotape of the execution, will once again stand to counteract the negative publicity created by the actions of the young Marine. The world will once again see that when faced with a possible violation of the rules of war and civilization, the US will work to find the truth and punish the transgressors, if necessary. By contrast, our enemies celebrate the execution of their helpless prisoners.