Reptile & Amphibian Forums

US Marines recently captured a mosque in Falluja, killing or wounding several Iraqi militants. A news man was with them. For some reason they abandoned the mosque, leaving the Iraqui wounded where they lay. The next day they went back to the Mosque which was reported to have returned to enemy hands.

The same newsman was with them. They went through the door (and this is on film) shouts and shots are heard. The newsman went inside and saw it was the same wounded men he saw the day before. A marine yells "This on is still alive" and stands over a wounded (and apparently unarmed) Iraqui and opens fire on him, killing the insergant.

Now I have zero sympathy for the insergents, but isn't there something wrong when we shoot unarmed and wounded men?

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

... why the "so-called coalition of the willing" is crumbling more and more.

The parliament in Hungary decided yesterday to leave Iraq at the end of this year. 300 more soldiers to replace by the U.S. army.

Hello to my German friend. We're fighting. Not like the losers in Europe FRANCE & GERMANY Thank God that Marine shot that guy. Isn't funny how the insurgents use mosques to hide men & weapons and expect not to get attacked. Plus they play dead. TOO F'ING bad. What do you Europeon chickens think about the beheadings?When you deal with savages you treat them like savages.
Gee - did you ever wonder why Germany lost two wars? Jerks like you were on there side. As for the French? There favorite color is white - for Surrender

SEMPER FI !

So we condemn the Iraqis as animals and then shoot an unarmed wounded prisoner. Now there is logic.

How can you even keep a straight face and say we are better than them, when we commit that brand of atrocity. Any justification goes out the window because if you read the statement and see the film...The one that was shot and killed was lying still and exposed. The one next to him was moving suspiciously under a blanket and they did not shoot him.

One more thing. If the wounded man had a bomb or grenade planted on or under him, the shot or movement resulting from it could have set it off-possibly killing every man in the room.

Semper Baloney! It was bad judgement of the kind that put his fellows in danger. The soldier should be brought up on charges.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

One more thing...Calling people jerks does not help your arguement. For the record, I am a veteran.

We won WW1-2 because the USA out produced Germany and her allies, and we outnumbered them.

Those "Jerks" were ahead of us at the start of the war in that they had better tanks, an extremely well coordinated method of attack, better subs..etc.

They also developed Jet Planes and missles before us and were well on their way to developing Nuclear capacity. It was their (jerk) scientists who defected, like Von Braum that gave us the bomb.

Try reading history before making uniformed statements.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Hi Frank - It disturbes me that we have a GERMAN taking cheap shots at out miltary. He is a 'JERK' read the statement about the lower class soldier. We have the best trained armed forces in the world. Most of the equipment is high tech. they have brains. I look at this conflict pretty simply. Us against them. MUSLIM vs JUDEO/CHRISTIANS Stop being politically correct. You state your a veteran, but never in war time. Well I have friends who are, and have been in this war when in Doubt don't take a chance. Too doggone bad if this guy was shot. If there was any chance that he was a threat I'd kill him too. There are no 2nd chances.

Mike, I don't agree with a lot that is said on both sides here. But I do have to advise you. I am of very direct German descent. When you make a remark like that about Germans, you are insulting me too.

The point is...at times we all disagree, but respect the right to an opposing opinion.

Also, I knew and lost friends who had served with me. It was luck that the only action I saw was trading a few shots with the USSR at sea (no big deal).

You have some interesting conversations with fellow service men in bars outside the US. I sure did. So I understand what you are saying.

However, as servicemen, we have to hold to a certain criteria for honor. One of the biggest is how we treat the enemy we capture, wound, or kill.

A killing like this one insults all of us. We are the ones that are not supposed to be commiting atrocities. It doesn't matter how dispicably they do it. It is to stop that kind of thing, that in part is our reason for being there.

Ultimately, It is how we respond, that makes us what we are.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

I meant MARK. Got distracted.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

If I would be sarcastic now I would reply that Germany has fought two wars against almost the entire world and resisted 4 or rather 6 years and you are in bad trouble fighting a war against a country of mule drivers that has suffered more than 10 years of exhausting sanctions before. I don't want to start talking about Vietnam where the rice eaters teared your sorry a$$es.

You should start to understand that one thing has protected your homeland in the wars of the past: The huge distance to all other countries that made it impossible to attack your homes. The U.S. would be a different country now when the distance between Europe and America would only be a few hundred miles. German planes had only a very short time operating over England until they had to go back due to limited fuel tanks.

But let's don't talk about the past.

Your soldiers stoop to the level of the Iraqis by acting this way. This is pathetic for a country that is considered to belong to the advanced nations.

I would have understood this if the GI had been acting out of fear, but this was an act of violence committed by a primitive brute enlisted in the slums.

I appreciate the sentiments, but I have to disagree. Germany made the same mistake that Napoleon did. In invading Russia, it over extended her troops and resources. That is why what I said on my other post is pertinent. Germany lacked the resources for world conquest (man power and supplies). it is the same as in the American Civil War where the South Had the best generals and troops, but the North had supplies and industry.

Remember Grant's theorum? If one has 50,000 troops and the enemy has 25,000...if you lose 25K killing their 25k you still have 25k and the victory.

or in other words....Brains can only go so far if the enemy is willing to take any loss to win and has the excess Man power to do it.

They have not (to my knowledge) released the marine's name. He could easily be a Kansas farm boy (not all brutes come from slums).

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

You are right regarding Russia. That was a grave mistake. It is a weird thing because I recently heard in German TV a conversation of Hitler with (I think) a Norwegian politician that had been taped back in 1941. In this conversation Hitler explained that the German tanks had been tested and found as unsuitable for a war in the winter time.
Nobody knows why he made the mistake attacking Russia, but there are indications that Stalin was also going to attack Germany (he was the same crook as Hitler).
That Hitler was losing all measures shows the fact that Germany declared war on the U.S.

Nevertheless we can be glad that we have lost the war. It would not be nice living in a country like Germany back in the time of the Drittes Reich.

To my German Friend. Regarding The U.S getting stopped by Mule Drivers. We kicked there butts in 3 weeks - Remember the Soviets ? they lost. We rolled over these cowards who kill innocent people in the name of ALLAH This coward who was shot - Was in a mosque, wasn't he ? Mosques, and other places of worship are off limits during wartime. Well, once these guys fought from the mosque. all bets were off. No mercy for people like these. Vietnam - the only thing that stopped us, was ourselves. Politicians screwed it up. The AMERICAN soldier won every major battle. However, you can't win a war playing by rules while the other side doesn't. I guess a couple million dead Cambodians proved us right didn't it? Boat People ? Gee why did they leave the country they love. My Europeon friend Why are people flocking the the United States? Perhaps we have more to offer than you huh ?

Mark,

First of all if you are refering to the unarmed wounded Iraqi as a coward, What is your point?

So in your logic if someone doesn't behave in a civilized (for want of a better word) manner, then it is ok for us to stoop to the same level?

Like I said: it kind of goes against the reason we said we went there for. Wasn't it because we wanted to give the Iraqi people something better than Saddam offered? That was the excuse after the WMD arguement proved false. Sounds rather Hypocritical.

As to the mule driver thing...We did not beat them in three weeks....We won the "conventional" war, not the gurilla war that still goes on. And by the way, that is the kind of war that lost NAM for us and drove the USSR out of Afghanistan.

As to your statement about others flocking here...They also flock to Germany, England and other nations that are economically superior.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

You kicked their butts? As a matter of fact you are in a no-win-situation in Iraq. Nobody all over the world can win a war at such conditions, not even the U.S.

It was clear from the first moment (every Middle East expert predicted it before) that it would be no problem for the U.S. to overrun the Iraqi forces that had been weakened by the first war and more than 10 years of sanctions. As a matter of fact some of the experts were astonished that the official Iraqi army resisted that long.

But all experts also agreed that the real trouble for the U.S. would begin after the occupation of the country. And they were right...

Regarding Vietnam: Ever heard the term "Dolchstoßlegende"? Literally translated it means "the legend of getting stabbed in the back with a dagger".
It was a term after Worldwar I that has been used in Germany by the military and the emperor to justify the defeat in the First World War. They claimed pacifists and socilists has stirred up war-weariness and that has lead to the defeat of the so far undefeated German army. Recognizing any parallels?

And now I would be interested in learning what the U.S. has to offer the people in Iraq? Ruthless killing of innocents in the course of attacks on terrorists? Mc Donalds? Burger King?

What has the U.S. offer to the rest of the world? Huge hike in oil prices due to the war on Iraq? Fuelling the hatred of the Moslems all over the world against western countries? Increase of terrorism all over the world because of the war on Iraq? Destabilisation of the entire Middle East? Contributing to the danger of a major climate disaster by refusing to join the Kyoto protocol?

Offers declined.

The survivor moved. And as I understand it, some of these "insurgents" will play dead while laying on a grenade or bomb and then set it off to kill ANY American soldiers (while of course killing themselves). These guys are more than happy to commit suicide to kill us. Soldiers over there know this. It's kill or be killed. The soldier killed, thinking he may be saving his own life. I'm not sure I see a problem with his action.
Thanes Place

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Thane

Never been in a war have ya?

I'm a vet. And while I have been shot at, it was not in war. Your question makes me wonder if you ever have either.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

The U.S. army consists (at least to a major part) of people from a class that is at social disadvantage.

Mostly such people have got only an inferior education (at home and in school) and they often grow up in a violent environment.

All these facts are leading to a lack of intelligence, general education and a strain to violence.

Some of these components (especially the readiness for violence) may be advantageous in a fight. But it will surely not foster the willingness to show mercy to a wounded enemy.

I claim that a well educated guy who grew up in an atmosphere of a loving family and an intact environment would hardly do such things, no matter how long he is in a war.

This is why I am against the lifting of the draft in Germany. An army of professionals would attract only the low-educated who fell through all sieves.

With a draft the army is a mirror of the society. This is the way it should be.

Kind off a catch 22 there. While one might assume the poor to be ignorant and brutal, history has shown us that the "elete" tend more to sadism.

Blue Blood seldom equates to clean hands.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

Frank,
you are right but I haven't meant the elite but the middle class. People like you and me, as it is.

And before someone is getting me wrong, I don't want to say that everyone from the lower class (forgive me the term) is uneducated, brutal and stupid. But the percentage is significant higher. Every police officer around the world will confirm this.

HEY....watch those comments about "the Middle"! Mine has been expanding lately (lol).

another notch in the ol' belt...(sigh).

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."