Alright, here's the deal.

All soldiers are taught that's wrong to shoot an injured combatant. We all understand that once an enemy is wounded if they don't make an aggressive move, they are to be considered a non-combatant. I believe shooting an injured enemy is called a "Double Tap". In ROTC it was the worst thing you could do. For instance, were we on a training exercise and you committed one, it's called a Black Spot. It goes in your permanent ROTC record and will be considered at your acessions meeting and every evaluation point after that.

That being said. This is war. This is vastly different then Lt. Calley ordering his troops to slaughter men, women and children in a village.

This is a soldier, that was engaged at the time with an enemy. An enemy that has over the course of the war shown NO regard for human life. I understand that we are expected to observe Geneva convention policies, but, these are people that are beheading innocents, INNOCENTS! They are not capturing soldiers and beheading them, they are beheading NON-COMBATANTS. In addition, these insurgents have been known to booby trap themselves if wounded and turn into suicide bombers. In that respect, i can't blame the Marine in this situation too much.

Also, we don't know all the facts, we don't know what exactly the person on the floor was doing, the camera is trained on him at all times. During normal EPW procedures, you have one soldier inspecting the wounded, while his battle buddy has his weapon trained on the EPW, ready to fire if he makes a suspicious movement, i.e., i'm searching the guy and ktsnake is my buddy, with his M-16 trained on the guy. You can bet your ass that if the guy reaches into his shirt suddenly, i want kt to pull the trigger instantly and end it. And that's in a sterile, training situation, i have no idea the pressures that actual combat troops are under.

So, its all fine and good for us to lament this and the negative reaction it causes with Arabs. But at the same time, we don't know. By doing that, the Marine may have saved lives. Not only of himself, but his buddy, the rest of the Marines in there, any Marines that this guy could have escaped and later attacked, hell, possibly even the reporter in question.

So, pardon me if i have a hard time finding sympathy for the scumbag.

KS 361