Not that there needs to be ANY reasoning for what happened but... What most news reports on this story are failing to point out is that the day before this incident the US soldier was shot in the face. The wounds were somewhat minor and he was allowed back to duty. One day later he sees a man pretending to be dead - NOT saying "I surrender" as others in room were doing - and fearing an incident such as those you mentioned, he reacted and fired. Oh f'ng well. Fox News Article on Incident
To paraphrase an old post, if that soldier gets in trouble for shooting an insurgent I am going to kill everybody.
Funny how the left insists on having it both ways. John Kerry shoots a and kills a wounded "insurgent" 35 years ago and he's a hero. This kid shoots a wounded insurgent and they're ready to crucify him.
This isn't going to be prosecuted. One of the oldest unwrittten rules of war is that you don't fight to the bitter end, killing your opponents on the way and then expect to surrender when you've finally had it. It just doesn't happen that way. There were very few SS prisoners taken by US troops in WWII after the Malmedy massacre. If they put up any fight at all, they didn't survive capture. There are films existing of US combat troops lining up captured and bound concentration camp guards and machine gunning them without trial or orders. But there were no prosecutions that I'm aware of. Soldiers avoid capture at all costs, not only because many don't survive incarceration, but because most don't even survive the capture process. I wonder what the embedded reporters chances of surviving his tour with this unit are, now that he has provided material to Al Jazeera that is again inflaming the islamic world. Lower, I expect . . . especially if he is captured.
Good post Red, I really enjoy reading your posts that have a little more history based knowledge than I am aware of. With you talking about the Reporter, this is one reason I don't like the way the news media is embedded with the troops. I STRONGLY believe we need better censorship of the media in the time of war because the media has no ethics or allegiance to their own country. Too much gets out of the bag and blows up in our face, then empowers our enemies! IMHO :dis:
I really don't think we need true censorship of the media. Independent reporting is essential in a democracy. But it needs to be done more like it was in World War II. War correspondents traveled with the troops in every major engagement and could write anything they wanted. But . . . the military could hold any report until there was no longer any danger of revealing information to the enemy, including some reports that were held until after the campaign and even after the war. There are secrets from WWII still classified after 60 years and will be for decades. The problem is that these are no longer typewritten reports accompanied by black and white photos, shipped back to the US in the mail. These are emailed reports that are instantly up on the net. Satelite uplinks can put live video out in seconds. We really have to get some control over the timing of these media electronic feeds. If a reporter wants to write a book after the war, fine. But anything he wants to send out real-time needs to be held by the military until it is not a problem. 60 years maybe.
Agreed Red, Something needs to be done soon though, imho, the media is our own worst enemy just like this soldier incident. Terrorists are killing and beheading innocent civilians and nobody seems to care, they sure don't make big stories like an innocent soldier doing his job in a time of war.
