US killer of wounded Iraqi in mosque 'broke no rules'
Guardian: A US marine who caused an international furore when he was filmed shooting dead a wounded and unarmed Iraqi will not face a court martial after the military authorities determined he had not broken any rules, it emerged yesterday.
The news is likely to inflame the insurgency in Iraq, which continued yesterday with a wave of bombings and ambushes in Baghdad that left at least 24 people dead and wounded scores more.
Videotape of the Falluja episode, which showed the marine storming a mosque in the city and shooting dead an Iraqi lying on the floor, caused widespread horror when it was broadcast around the world last November.
The scene was filmed by an NBC journalist embedded with US forces in Falluja, and is accompanied by audio of a marine screaming at his comrades that the Iraqi was pretending to be dead. Then a gunshot is heard, and a marine is heard to say: "Now he is."
After it was broadcast, the marine corporal was disarmed and sent to the US to await an investigation.
However, Major General Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, said the marine corporal had acted according to the rules of engagement, and that it was a common tactic of insurgents to lure US troops by faking injury or death.
"He has determined that the actions of the marine in question were consistent with the established rules of engagement, the law of armed conflict and the marine's inherent right of self-defence," a statement on the US marine corps website said yesterday.
Autopsy results and ballistic tests revealed that three Iraqis were killed by gunshots fired from the marine's M-16 on that day. "The corporal reasonably believed that they posed a hostile threat to him and his fellow marines," the statement from the marine corps said. Link
DB: "Gentlemen, I must ask you to steel yourselves against all considerations of compassion. We must destroy the Jews [Muslims] wherever we find them, and wherever it is at all possible, in order to maintain the whole structure of the Reich...." Joseph Goebbels
Bush is not Hitler, the Neocons are not Nazis. That said, the Americans are pursuing their objectives without mercy or compassion - as a matter of policy. Time and time again the US military, with the blessing of the Bush administration, has made it clear that 'anything goes' in Iraq - they view Iraqis (certainly those who oppose them) as a subhuman species.
The news is likely to inflame the insurgency in Iraq, which continued yesterday with a wave of bombings and ambushes in Baghdad that left at least 24 people dead and wounded scores more.
Videotape of the Falluja episode, which showed the marine storming a mosque in the city and shooting dead an Iraqi lying on the floor, caused widespread horror when it was broadcast around the world last November.
The scene was filmed by an NBC journalist embedded with US forces in Falluja, and is accompanied by audio of a marine screaming at his comrades that the Iraqi was pretending to be dead. Then a gunshot is heard, and a marine is heard to say: "Now he is."
After it was broadcast, the marine corporal was disarmed and sent to the US to await an investigation.
However, Major General Richard Natonski, commander of the 1st Marine Division, said the marine corporal had acted according to the rules of engagement, and that it was a common tactic of insurgents to lure US troops by faking injury or death.
"He has determined that the actions of the marine in question were consistent with the established rules of engagement, the law of armed conflict and the marine's inherent right of self-defence," a statement on the US marine corps website said yesterday.
Autopsy results and ballistic tests revealed that three Iraqis were killed by gunshots fired from the marine's M-16 on that day. "The corporal reasonably believed that they posed a hostile threat to him and his fellow marines," the statement from the marine corps said. Link
DB: "Gentlemen, I must ask you to steel yourselves against all considerations of compassion. We must destroy the Jews [Muslims] wherever we find them, and wherever it is at all possible, in order to maintain the whole structure of the Reich...." Joseph Goebbels
Bush is not Hitler, the Neocons are not Nazis. That said, the Americans are pursuing their objectives without mercy or compassion - as a matter of policy. Time and time again the US military, with the blessing of the Bush administration, has made it clear that 'anything goes' in Iraq - they view Iraqis (certainly those who oppose them) as a subhuman species.
posted by exoplanet at 10:17 AM
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