Marine shoots dead an insurgent. Now, this probably ain't news-worthy enough, so they probably had to give it a nice spin.
Marine shoots dead a wounded insurgent. Still doesn't have a ring to it...
Marine shoots dead a wounded, defenseless insurgent at point blank range. Wow, that totally will flood the headlines and totally make everyone MORE pissed off over the war in Iraq. Put some footage of a guy blowing away someone lying prone on the floor, and you got your story. But guess what, here's some news to that dumb embedded reporter who decided to screw the guy who had ensured he was alive to send that footage out.
It's war, people get killed. All the time. No matter who you are, what you do, once a bullet comes at you at 1100m/s, you don't have much of a chance. Plus, it seems every coverage of that story only wants to show the shooting part, ignoring what had happened to that unit earlier. The marine had almost had his cheek blown off, they lost a man to insurgents who pretended to surrender, and they just spent the better part of last week clearing street after street of people wanting to kill them. In those kinds of situation, the guy lying on the floor PRETENDING to be dead could well be holding a fragmentation grenade and waiting for me to walk near him (which the insurgents have been known to do way too often.). It seems the BBC is the only objective voice here, actually telling what had happened to the unit before they entered the mosque. Perhaps American media should learn a lesson from their Atlantic neighbour, and learn to tell THE WHOLE TRUTH.
Now that marine is waiting to be charged with violating the rules of war. I wonder how civilized those insurgents were when they blew away an aid worker. A woman. Nobody is complaining about that. Headline: Insurgents kill innocent, defenseless aid worker, who spent the better part of her life helping Iraqi children get on their feet again. Who railed against Clinton and Bush for the sanctions. Who was helping others till she was kidnapped and killed by insurgents. Margaret Hassan, a true heroine.
Nobody gets surprised at those headlines anymore, I wonder why. We truly believe that this insurgents no longer need to follow the rules? And the American soldier who must fight them have to follow military code of conduct or face being charged? Very soon, we'll have another Vietnam, because the media seems to give no shit about telling the whole truth, giving that sensationalist view of Americans killing 'innocent' insurgents, rather than insurgents killing real innocent civilians. Why report a single insurgent who had previously been trying his best to kill Marines and civilians, when everyday a bomb goes off killing tens of hundreds of civilians? Many more will die if the US were forced out of Iraq before its mission is done, and all because CNN or NBC needs a headline.
The good guys need to follow the rules when fighting the bad guys. Agreed. The bad guys need not follow the rules. Agreed. But let's not put more stress on the good guys anymore. They got a war to fight, an enemy who follows no rules to defeat. They don't need to face the prospect of having their faces plastered all over the evening news because they made a mistake. They don't need others to make judgements on them, blowing up minarets, where snipers are hiding, and killing wounded insurgents, who for all we know might be holding a grenade. Others who make judgements while they sit peacefully in their offices, or homes, without mortar rounds coming in on their heads, and can be certain they won't have an IED, AK-47 or RPG going off anywhere near them.
The title, it's a favorite line among GIs in Vietnam. They no longer saw the point in fighting an enemy, if all they were rewarded with was condemnation and scorn upon reaching home. A war they never volunteered for, but were drafted into. A war the media dramatised to get troops in, then dramatised to get troops out. Vietnam was a tragic error, like my history essay said. Let's not make Iraq one too.
"People sleep peaceably in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf"
-George Orwell
Let's not forget that.
Don
No comments:
Post a Comment