US troops executing unarmed men

dan warna

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Thread starter #1
It seems anyone is a target in fallujah...

US marines have been caught on Camera executing unarmed and wounded men.

Verbal tales say this is widespread, however lack of evidence...

Isn't this one of the reasons Saddam was bad?

so far the US:
has not found WMDs
tortured unarmed women
tortured men
kept people in concentration camps, without trial for years
shot children
gassed children with fuel air bombs
using cluster bombs and Fuel air bombs that have resulted in civilian deaths
shot unarmed people, including children
used depleted uranium ammunition near civilian sites
killed a number of journalists, mainly those critical of the Illegal US occupation

and now executing unarmed and wounded men while they 'conquer' a city and reduce the homes of some 300,000 people to rubble, to enforce their terrority, leaving 300,000 people homeless, without jobs, possessions, homes etc.

sounds like Bush's army is doing exactly what Saddam used to do.

heil Bush.
 

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mulhollanddrive

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#3
Interesting that the limited visual media coverage has been able to show us the Abu Ghraib scandal and now the killing of an unarmed man. I wonder if it'll take visual evidence for people to believe that theres been torture conducted in Iraqi jails, Guantan' Bay, rendition to places such as Syria and Egypt for 3rd party torture for people on the right to see that the Americans are the brutalises that they are trying to free the world of. This 'God led war on terror' is nothing but rhetoric, its all just political positioning for the good of the U.S, and Israel.
 

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#4
Moo said:
Far more likely to be an isolated undisciplined act rather than US policy.
Agreed...but also something that is condoned just as the Abu Ghraib was condoned IMO.

I have not been in a war zone situation and never wish to be..but the nerves must be jangling ,your eyes looking everywhere at once not knowing if a child or that pregnant woman is a sympathiser or a rebel(sounds like Vietnam) and the ''stay alive '' policy is the only official policy soldiers will follow.

Do I condone it? NO ..but I do understand it
 
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#5
PerthCrow said:
Agreed...but also something that is condoned just as the Abu Ghraib was condoned IMO.

I have not been in a war zone situation and never wish to be..but the nerves must be jangling ,your eyes looking everywhere at once not knowing if a child or that pregnant woman is a sympathiser or a rebel(sounds like Vietnam) and the ''stay alive '' policy is the only official policy soldiers will follow.

Do I condone it? NO ..but I do understand it
I think I share in your take on this. The media's been reporting this same unit lost one of it's own a few days earlier to a booby trapped corpse so you can see why these guys got real uptight when one of them is shouting, "he's faking he's dead". No doubt these are disturbing images, but the fact remians, this is war and only moments earlier those wounded insurgents were fighting their arses off. Sorry boys, but I those guys would rather die than surrender...well they got thier wish.
 

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#6
This is the second footage in two days of a extra-judical killing. Further a US Officer has been charged with murder after a shooting in Bagdad last week and there at least a dozen other investigation going at the moment. Other US troops have been charged with assault, theft and rape against Iraqi civilians.

FootyontheBrain. The man in the Mosque had been wounded the day before by other US troops and treated by them. In fact there is strong evidence that he was a nn combatant as NO weapons where found in the Mosque. While I can understand a unarmed wounded man being shot during a firefight, this shooting occurred during a normal security sweep.

There have been to many incidents over the past 18 months for it merely to be 'rogue' elements working here. There appears to a be systemic problem with US troops attitude to the Iraqis.

Whatever moral grounds there may have for the invasion and even the assault on Fallujah, they have well and truely been thrown out the window.
 
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#7
BlueMark said:
This is the second footage in two days of a extra-judical killing. Further a US Officer has been charged with murder after a shooting in Bagdad last week and there at least a dozen other investigation going at the moment. Other US troops have been charged with assault, theft and rape against Iraqi civilians.

FootyontheBrain. The man in the Mosque had been wounded the day before by other US troops and treated by them. In fact there is strong evidence that he was a nn combatant as NO weapons where found in the Mosque. While I can understand a unarmed wounded man being shot during a firefight, this shooting occurred during a normal security sweep.

There have been to many incidents over the past 18 months for it merely to be 'rogue' elements working here. There appears to a be systemic problem with US troops attitude to the Iraqis.

Whatever moral grounds there may have for the invasion and even the assault on Fallujah, they have well and truely been thrown out the window.
Bang on. Believing this is an isolated incident that just happened to be captured on film is naive in the extreme. US troops are commiting and being charged with military and war crimes in Iraq, which is a neat microcosm of the greater crime being perpetrated by their CinC - except for the getting charged bit.
 

Ray Nolan

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#8
The fact that this guy was under a blanket probably led to him being shot, given the terrorists have been booby trapping bodies it was unlikely that the Marines were going to risk lifting the blanket to check that he was unarmed. This is just the cold hard reality of war, I'm sure the same things happened in WWI & WWII, it's just that then we didn't have TV crews there filming it all. It's not good that it happened but it's certainly understandable.
 

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#9
Fire. Burnt.

Bodies have been regularly booby trapped, and a man in his unit was recently killed by one. If that person was in the Mosque, he was not an innocent civilian. He was fighting against the US and Iraqi's, and got what he deserved.

When you deal with being fired upon constantly for days by people, some of whom will booby-trap their bodies - then you can talk.
 

Cap

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#10
considering how bad the camera angle is how do we know what was going on - the body could have been booby trapped do we know for sure he was unarmed ??

Ok tell the guy off but he is in the middle of a war

if this goes to the war crimes tribunal it will really show how pathetic the UN and the war crimes council really is
 
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#11
Tim56 said:
Fire. Burnt.

Bodies have been regularly booby trapped, and a man in his unit was recently killed by one. If that person was in the Mosque, he was not an innocent civilian. He was fighting against the US and Iraqi's, and got what he deserved.

When you deal with being fired upon constantly for days by people, some of whom will booby-trap their bodies - then you can talk.
Regardless, its a war crime. Getting shot at is a soldiers job - dont like it, dont be one. Not shooting unarmed prisoners is also a soldiers job. Do that in front of a camera, expect to get charged with a war crime.

The squad that had the *actual firefight* with the wounded man managed to disarm and treat him, so these clowns could come along and do the capture and removal, and *they* didnt kill him. The US soldier in question broke the rules, and there's no room for a story on that scorecard.
 

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skipper kelly

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#12
MonkeyButterer said:
Regardless, its a war crime. Getting shot at is a soldiers job - dont like it, dont be one. Not shooting unarmed prisoners is also a soldiers job. Do that in front of a camera, expect to get charged with a war crime.
I look at it from a slightly different angle. Arent most of the soldiers just poor simpletons who are brainwashed by their Govt with crap like "land of the free and the home of the brave" hand on heart shyt like serve your country, free the world of terrorism ra ra f......ra.

I can only imagine that the majority of people doing the 'dirty work' on both sides are scared shytless, jumping at shadows brainwashed subordinates who dont know if their arthur or martha.

Unfortunately none of us here are privvy to the briefings and de briefings that these soldiers get.

If we end up with war crime tribunals I would like the powers to be to go after the people ordering the 'hits' rather than the poor simpletons acting them out.
 
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#13
skipper kelly said:
I look at it from a slightly different angle. Arent most of the soldiers just poor simpletons who are brainwashed by their Govt with crap like "land of the free and the home of the brave" hand on heart shyt like serve your country, free the world of terrorism ra ra f......ra.

I can only imagine that the majority of people doing the 'dirty work' on both sides are scared shytless, jumping at shadows brainwashed subordinates who dont know if their arthur or martha.

Unfortunately none of us here are privvy to the briefings and de briefings that these soldiers get.

If we end up with war crime tribunals I would like the powers to be to go after the people ordering the 'hits' rather than the poor simpletons acting them out.
It's a professional army; killing unarmed, wounded hostiles is a professional foul.

I agree on following orders/policy/custom up the chain.
 

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#15
I have seen the footage, several times including the actual gunshot, there were several other wounded Iraqis there, who had been treated and left by a patrol the previous day. The previous days patrol had treated wounded and removed all weapons after taking fire from the Mosque, they acted correctly. The trooper concerned has walked up the Iraqi started saying he was faking being dead and then shot him in the head.

It should be noted that having a man killed a day or so before is not a excuse or was the fact that the soldier concerned had been wounded as well. Soldiering is a tough business and your mates get killed and wounded. This man has clearly violated what I know to be standing orders re the treatment of wounded enemy combatants.

If the Iraqi concerned had a weapon and had made an aggressive move then fair enough. But he was unarmed and badly wounded. As for booby trapped bodies there is standard procedures for checking this. You place a rope around a limb retreat to a safe distance and pull the body, the movement will set off the charge. If you suspect a wounded enemy is booby trapped you do the same procedure but have another soldier cover you while you attach the rope.

This would have been practised prior to the US soldiers being committed to the operation.
 
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#16
IMO the whole thing is a disaster. the so-called 'coalition of the willing' went to with iraq on the lie that we were liberating the country for them, with thius being justified because the US and co claimed that Iraq had Weapons of Mass destruction. what a joke. iraq's been invaded and destroyed, just like afgahnistan, infrastructure wrecked, tens of thousands dead-the US doesnt even bother estimating civilians killed, only does so for 'insurgents'-Iraqis being treated like s*** and now we have instability in a region that can least afford it. all this in a war that was supposed to have ended ages ago (remember when dubya put that big sign up saying the US had won). yeah right. the whole thing has been a disgrace and unfortunately its going to continiue, 'Dubya' and 'Little Johny' back in office and now Condalezza Rice taking over Colin Powell's job. worrying times ahead, even the normally conservative 'Economist' magazine doesnt like what is happening (big call for it too back Kerry in the Presidential election, as well as heavy criticism for Howard). just my thought though...
 

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#17
Moo said:
Far more likely to be an isolated undisciplined act rather than US policy.
I'm not sure if you've seen the footage, but the way the US soldiers were carrying on, it seemed like just another day at the office. The soldier in question got p¡ssed off because an Iraqi was playing dead, so he shot and killed him. There was no reaction from the other soldiers to suggest it was anything out of the ordinary. It may not be US policy, but I doubt it was an isolated incident.
 
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#19
but this kind of stuff keeps on happening like in those US-run prisons in Iraq, not to mention in Guantanamo Bay. i mean the only reason we saw this was because there was an 'embedded' journalist tagging along with this particular group of troops, most troops there wouldnt have anyone around to keep them accountable.
 
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#20
BlueMark said:
I have seen the footage, several times including the actual gunshot, there were several other wounded Iraqis there, who had been treated and left by a patrol the previous day. The previous days patrol had treated wounded and removed all weapons after taking fire from the Mosque, they acted correctly. The trooper concerned has walked up the Iraqi started saying he was faking being dead and then shot him in the head.

It should be noted that having a man killed a day or so before is not a excuse or was the fact that the soldier concerned had been wounded as well. Soldiering is a tough business and your mates get killed and wounded. This man has clearly violated what I know to be standing orders re the treatment of wounded enemy combatants.

If the Iraqi concerned had a weapon and had made an aggressive move then fair enough. But he was unarmed and badly wounded. As for booby trapped bodies there is standard procedures for checking this. You place a rope around a limb retreat to a safe distance and pull the body, the movement will set off the charge. If you suspect a wounded enemy is booby trapped you do the same procedure but have another soldier cover you while you attach the rope.

This would have been practised prior to the US soldiers being committed to the operation.
Tks mate, good to see a fellow ex-serviceman agreeing with what i was thinking about this entire mess.

It seems the only ones trying to defend this idiotic stupid act, are the same right wing posters who had some bodgy excuse to get out of enlisting themselves.

Its always easy to pound your chest and say we should go to war, when you aren't the one getting shot at.
 

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#21
1jasonoz said:
Tks mate, good to see a fellow ex-serviceman agreeing with what i was thinking about this entire mess.

It seems the only ones trying to defend this idiotic stupid act, are the same right wing posters who had some bodgy excuse to get out of enlisting themselves.

Its always easy to pound your chest and say we should go to war, when you aren't the one getting shot at.
Im not quite sure what you mean. When does anyone need an excuse not to enlist?

You call this blokes act idiotic and stupid and are having a go at people who defend it or see it in a different light, but then are offering him an excuse by saying he is the one being shot at.:confused:
 
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#22
skipper kelly said:
Im not quite sure what you mean. When does anyone need an excuse not to enlist?

You call this blokes act idiotic and stupid and are having a go at people who defend it or see it in a different light, but then are offering him an excuse by saying he is the one being shot at.:confused:
First of all don't ever try and argue about something you have have no idea about dummy.

Bluemark posted a thread about enlisting to fight in this war, and the rest of your right wing fools found every excuse under the sun to make reasons as to why you will not be joining up with the same serviceman(woman) you believe should fight your war.

PS How many years did you do in the military?
 
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#23
skipper kelly said:
I look at it from a slightly different angle. Arent most of the soldiers just poor simpletons who are brainwashed by their Govt with crap like "land of the free and the home of the brave" hand on heart shyt like serve your country, free the world of terrorism ra ra f......ra.

I can only imagine that the majority of people doing the 'dirty work' on both sides are scared shytless, jumping at shadows brainwashed subordinates who dont know if their arthur or martha.

Unfortunately none of us here are privvy to the briefings and de briefings that these soldiers get.

If we end up with war crime tribunals I would like the powers to be to go after the people ordering the 'hits' rather than the poor simpletons acting them out.

I have to agree it is not the "grunts" that are the problem they are just good ol gun totting christian country lads doing God and Countries work of eradicating those nasty Muslim 'E'raqis that dont like being liberated and given freedom by Uncle George.
You only have to hear them interviewed to make your skin crawl.
 

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#24
Once again, isn't it interesting to see our resident neo-cons and right wing nutters continuously trying to justify this barbaric act!

War crimes anyone??
 

Mead

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#25
Its a war crime, pure and simple. Saying 'well they deserved it' is a cop-out.
Without WMD, the only justification for the US being in iraq is supposedly having the moral high ground. The insurgent might have been a sadistic evil individual, but thats not the issue- executing wounded prisoners is a morally repugnant act no matter what the target- the only reason the US has for being in Iraq is that in theory they're supposed to be better than that.

In a moral sense, its the commanders and military planners who are responsible for this- if you put poorly trained, gung-ho grunts in an environment that they can't handle, this is the result.

In a pragmatic sense, its why I doubt whether the US will ever get a good result out of Iraq. Every nasty, cowardly act like this disillusions a few more Iraqis, and pushes a few more towards extremism. Its going to get worse, not better.
 
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