What's going on in Fallujah?
POSTED BY: InevitableBetrayal
UPDATED: Monday, November 21, 2005 04:21
VIEWED: 4808
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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.
Wall Street Journal
November 18, 2004
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Against my better judgment, I'm gonna respond...
Quote:
Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
Some 40 Marines have just lost their lives cleaning out one of the world's worst terror dens...
"One of the world's worst terror dens." What the
are you talking about? What is a "terror den?" I've never heard of one of those. Is it anything like a "den of thieves" or a "den of iniquity?" You sound like a fifties pulp fiction writer! It's a made up concept like "war on terror" designed to create the feeling of grandiose importance and the romance of killing. It's both fanciful and dehumanizing. Quote:
Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
...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?
It's pretty likely, don't you think? I think that's part of the psychology of war and wartime. It messes people up. War is very disillusioning, particularly if you're afforded the opportunity to see it up close. In those "more grateful ages" that you talk about, there was no TV coverage. People could read pulpy phrases like "one of the world's worst terror dens" and create a fine myth of their heroic fighting men overseas.
Nowadays you get to see it. In color. Think of it like a trip to the slaughter house. Lots of folks who were perfectly happy eating steak and short ribs find they lose their appetite for it when they visit a meat processing plant. Some don't of course, some folks, like you I imagine, see all the carnage and it just makes 'em hungry for more.
Quote:
Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
The al-Zarqawi TV network, also known as Al-Jazeera, has broadcast the tape to the Arab world...
That's not cool. You see "The Control Room?" It's a worth while documentary. Al-Jazeera is just an Arab news station. Their point of view is a little different from ours, but it's not the terrorist point of view. 100,000 people is the equivalent of 35 World Trade Centers. 35 World Trade Centers! A lot of dead courntrymen. And Iraq is a tiny country compared to ours. Even if you quibble with 100,000 dead, you've gotta believe that we will eventually kill even more than that at the rate this thing is going.
Quote:
Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
"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..."
A lot of right-leaning folks on this board (I'm not saying you) point to atrocities like this to justify the horrible things our soldiers have done over there. I don't buy that. I don't believe that the apparent depravity of the enemy mitigates any of our behavior. Period. Sorry. To fight a psychopath, you do not have to become a psychopath; many would argue that that's the one thing you must never become. However, it tends to happen. War isn't good for people. But that's a reason for not going to war in the first place, not a reason to learn to love torture and execution-style killing.
Just for a moment, if you can, put yourself in the boots of a Fallujan. You gotta know, in a straight fight they don't have a prayer. They've got to know that. Our army will crush them (eventually). Their tiny world will be absolutely fubar in a matter of weeks. To them, don't we have to be just about the most horrible thing imaginable--an absolutely unstoppable force that will annihilate any and all opposition?
HKCavalier
Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.
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New York Daily News
November 17, 2004
Propagandists not only abroad but alas also here at home are sure to exploit the case of the U.S. Marine who appears to have shot a wounded Fallujah combatant. Here, it will be cried - can you hear your own neighbors sputtering? - is but more proof that the Americans are beasts fighting George W. Bush's illegal war, and a full inquiry needs to be made into brutish American atrocities.
We say can the hysterics and put the Marine back on line to battle on. The dead guy had been firing on U.S. troops from his hidey-hole. Maybe he'd killed some already. Had he not been wounded, he'd still be blazing away. The word is "enemy." Sayonara, dead guy.
Word that this Marine now may be required to answer up to pious second-guessers comes as another hostage body, apparently that of luckless Margaret Hassan, turns up. Mercifully, she was merely shot while blindfolded, not savagely beheaded, and a reason for this could be that U.S. Marines have dismantled many of the Iraqi insurgency's more horrible chop shops. She is dead all the same. Not that you'll hear the human-rights crowd lamenting all that much.
No, what you'll hear is that American troops are committing "war crimes" - against, for example, the people who killed Margaret Hassan. We trust that they'll end up not bothering our Marine friend too much, and that he'll be back on the job soon. Good shooting, buddy.
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Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
"One of the world's worst terror dens." What the
What is a terror den? a den of terrorists. Remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has been hanging out in Fallujah and directing the insurgents there? Here's one of his escapades.
Quote:
The beheading of a US civilian by a group with ties to Al-Qaeda was a shocking image from Iraq. The group appears to be hoping that the graphic videotape will fan anger at Washington even as it revolts the public. The video, released ll May 2004, is titled: "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American." The videotape shows 26-year-old Nicholas Berg kneeling on the floor as one of the masked men reads a statement saying he will be killed in response to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghurayb prison. Next, a man puts a large knife under Berg's neck and begins sawing off his victim's head. The killer shouts "God is Great" over Berg's screams. Then, he holds up the severed head to the camera like an executioner.
http://globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/zarqawi.htm
Or maybe that's not terrorism to you?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Let's remember that our Marines (that's right, I said "our", meaning yours too!), found this soon-to-be-dead guy in a mosque, where real Islamists would not fight from. If the Marine believed the terrorist (that's right, I said "terrorist". Remember, their leader made a public oath to follow bin Laden, who, last time I heard, is a terrorist!) was faking his own injuries or even death, then, quite simply, you don't take any chances. Walking up to a body that may not really be just a body, what's he to do? Those animals believe that they must take as many of the Marines with them, even if they die in a hail of bullets at close range. When dealing with these fanatics, who are no more than brainwashed serial killers, it's the only way to be sure.
Everyone dies alone.
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The slaughter. The rationalization. The heroic remolding of a cowardly act. All so predictable.
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Not cowardly, just kill or be killed, especially when dealing with an enemy that doesn't follow the rules of war, and like it or not, believe it or not, there are "rules" to be followed in war, as weird as that sounds.
Everyone dies alone.
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Predictable? Did you say predictable? Is a car bomb predictable? Is a suicide bomber predictable? Is the slaughtering of a female CARE official predictable? Is the suicide bombing of the U.N. mission predictable???????? I think not!
Everyone dies alone.
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I'm curious about your tag "everyone dies alone". It's probably the one thing we agree on. When did you come to that realization?
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