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Nov. 19, 2004 The entire world has been treated to the video NBC's embedded reporter took of a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded Iraqi in a mosque. Condemnation of the act was swift in the Arab world, where emotions boil over quickly. Apparently the Marines had taken fire from the mosque on Friday. When the Marines finished their handiwork ten insurgents were dead and five were wounded. The Marines left them in the mosque and moved on. Saturday Marines again entered the mosque. When they left, the five wounded from the previous day were dead. The rules of engagement forbid killing wounded enemy combatants. The Geneva Convention prohibits killing wounded enemy combatants. However, the Convention also stipulates that once wounded, a combatant is protected only as long as he ceases from hostile activities. In other words, if they continue to fight, despite being wounded, they are fair game. The insurgents are not signatories of the Geneva Convention. They are not even soldiers, but terrorists. They abide by no rules of war, and do not even exhibit human decency in their acts. The Laws of War prohibit using churhces/mosques/synagogues, schools, hospitals, and buildings of such ilk as military structures. Once their sanctity is violated by combatants they become legitimate military targets. Our service personnel are educated regarding the Geneva Convention and theater rules of engagement, and trained to adhere to those rules. Additionally, common decency is expected as a trait of our armed forces. Insurgents have been booby-trapping bodies so that they will blow up in the face of anybody attempting to move them. The enemy the Marines face are suicidal fanatics who think dying is something to look forward to, and want to take as many of their enemies with them as they can. The Marine who shot the wounded insurgent in the mosque was shot in the face on Friday. It is understandable that his nerves would be highstrung as he went into the same mosque from which he had been wounded the previous day. War is brutal savagery. There is nothing civilized about killing one's fellow human beings. Service personnel often have split seconds to make life and death decisions. The lawyers who prosecute them have months to go over statements, evidence, and reason out arguments to convict them. The lawyer does not face the stresses involved in combat: physical stress and fatigue, mental stress, tension and fear, emotional distress over seeing people injured and killed. Emotional stress over the unfairness of having to abide by rules of engagement that constrain the service person's actions against an enemy who knows no constraints. Far away, in a completely safe environment, the lawyers will try to undermine the credibility of the defendent's testimony, and create the image of the defendent as a monster. The prosecutor will not list the dilemma facing those Marines in that mosque. Should they attempt to treat the wounded, they might be killed instantaneously. There is no way to tell whether the body is booby-trapped or not. Should they just go off and leave the wounded, the wounded may pick up their weapons again and come after the Marines, who may consider that area swept and clean. If the wounded are dead, they will kill no more. I disagree with NBC's decision to disseminate the video of the shooting. In the hands of our enemies it has been presented out of perspective and become a propaganda tool. It doesn't take a genius to know that the terrorists have consistently used propaganda to stir up emotions amongst the Muslim world and paint the war on terror in a bad light. The Muslim press will not tell its audience that it is against the Laws of War to use that mosque for military purposes. It will not tell its audience how many civilians the insurgents have killed in their efforts to disrupt the formation of a new Iraqi government. It will not tell its audience that these insurgents have been booby-trapping their dead and wounded so that they will kill more of their enemy. Instead they will portray the Marines as infidels defiling the sanctity of a mosque, and murdering a wounded, unarmed civilian, since the insurgent is not wearing a uniform. NBC should have had the patriotism to suppress public transmission of this tape. It was the duty of the embedded reporter to report what he perceived as a war crime to Marine Corps officials, whose responsibility would then be to investigate the incident. If it was determined a crime had been committed, they would then prosecute the offender to the full extent of the law. I have noticed reporters are always quick to state that they have a public duty to perform. It is high time they took accountability for their actions in performing that duty. During the Grenada invasion over 500 reporters attempted to get onto the island to cover the operation. They were denied access for several days. To put things into perspective, a Marine Battalion has around 500 personnel. That is a lot of reporters running around a battlefield not responsible to anybody or under any constraints. The reporters did a lot of bellyaching about being left out. CNN provided 24-hour news coverage during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. CNN, however, considers itself above fidelity to the United States. It deems that since it has a worldwide audience, it has to present a worldwide view, regardless of how favorable or unfavorable their presentation might be to U.S. interests. The use of embedded reporters during the War on Terror has broken the monopoly of the printed news media, and the mainstream media that promotes subjective rather than objective reporting. Watching coverage during Operation Iraqi Freedom, the war presented by CNN was quite different from that presented by FOX. When the dust settled it was apparent that FOX had done a good job of objective reporting and CNN's gloom and doom reporting was revealed as quite subjective. There should be constraints accepted by the embedded reporters. There is a strange phenomenon these days, in which the media thinks every citizen needs to be in on the minute-by-minute processes of everyday life. The public saturation with the O.J. Simpson and Scott Peterson trials, and the coverage of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq are examples of this. People who are not in the loop are constantly critiquing and criticizing what our military is doing in the field. For years sports reporters have done that, with instant replays and analysis of sports plays. Doing it in real situations is a bit much. Tactics are small picture, rapid response type situations. Strategies are big picture and long term, where one has to deal with the enemy's responses as well as one's own fears and doubts. The last thing military personnel need are critics harping at them like gnats in their ears as strategies play out. The armchair strategists who think they have all the answers bear none of the burdens or responsibilities. There should be a limit to their input. The same goes with reporters and the news media. NBC should have kept the big picture and not run with a sensational story. Whether the Marine in question is found guilty of a crime or not, what NBC has done has damaged the cause of the United States. Regardless of their personal opinion of the war, the fact remains that we are in a war and our military personnel are in harm's way. They need to be supported with more than lip service. By the irresponsible showing of this video NBC has only provided fuel to our enemies in their propaganda battle against us. ------------ About the author Joseph Boudreau: I spent just under 24 years in the Navy, 9 on active duty, the rest in the Naval Reserves. From paygrade E-1 I advanced to paygrade O-4, and retired as a Lieutenant Commander. Email: bunnyboggins@aol.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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