WAR CRIME? OR SELF DEFENSE?
“Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention…” (Geneva Convention, Part II, Article 13)
It appeared to be an extraordinarily tense situation.
A wounded Iraqi in Fallujah was lying on the floor of a bombed out Mosque being confronted by a U.S. Marine this past Saturday. Evidently thinking him dead, the Marines were surprised when the Iraqi moved:
“One of the Marines noticed that one of the severely wounded men was still breathing. He did not appear to be armed, Sites said.
The Marine could be heard insisting: “HeÂ’s f—ing faking heÂ’s dead — heÂ’s faking heÂ’s f—ing dead.” Sites then watched as the Marine raised his rifle and fired into the manÂ’s head from point-blank range.
“Well, heÂ’s dead now,” another Marine said.”
Sites is Kevin Sites, a freelancer embedded with the Marines working for NBC whose blog Kevin Sites Blog is one of the best sources on the web for information on the war.
The video of the incident can be found here.
If this were the whole story, a good case could be made for charging not only the Marine that fired the rifle, but his comrades who watched the unfolding drama, with war crimes.
But because this is not the whole story, an equally good case can be made for self defense.
“Sites reported that a different Marine unit had come under fire from the mosque on Friday. Those Marines stormed the building, killing ten men and wounding five others, Sites said. The Marines said the fighters in the mosque had been armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 rifles.”
“The Marines had treated the wounded, he reported, left them behind and continued on Friday with their drive to retake the city from insurgents…”
The next day (Saturday) firing was again reported from the same Mosque.
“Sites saw the five wounded men left behind on Friday still in the mosque. Four of them had been shot again, apparently by members of the squad that entered the mosque moments earlier. One appeared to be dead, and the three others were severely wounded. The fifth man was lying under a blanket, apparently not having been shot a second time.”
“Sites was present when a lieutenant from one of the units asked a Marine what had happened inside the mosque. The Marine replied that there were people inside.
“Did you shoot them?” the lieutenant asked.
“Roger that, sir,” the second Marine replied.
“Were they armed?” the lieutenant asked.
The second Marine shrugged in reply.”
A Marine from another unit had been killed the day before when a booby trapped corpse went off.
The judge advocate general heading the investigation of the mosque incident, Lt. Col Bob Miller said that depending on the evidence, it could be reasonable to conclude that the Marine was acting in self-defense.
What seems clear to me is that the ambiguity of this incident is a perfect argument for staying the hell away from the World Criminal Court that John Kerry and the Democrats would have forced the United States to join. Such an incident-caught on camera for all the world to see-could have been used by unfriendly powers to prosecute a soldier who may in fact be innocent while at the same time embarrassing the United States.
Chris Matthews devoted a segment of Hardball to the story last nite. As soon as I get a transcript, I’ll post excerpts.
WHY THE LEFT GAVE UP ON FREEDOM
Hindrocket at Powerline has some interesting thoughts on the left’s abandonment of the universal freedom of man that was a hallmark of liberal democratic thinking for nearly 200 years.
“Whatever happened to the left? When did it give up on the cause of freedom? I don’t know. But the American left’s abandonment of the cause of liberty is one of the saddest facts of modern history.”
I did a post on the death of the “Father of Deconstructionism” Jacques Derrida in which I pointed out the corrosive nature of deconstructionism and its effect on the left’s respect for and belief in western civilization:
“It’s my belief that Monsieur Derrida and his collegues severely undermined faith and belief in western civilization amongst the intellectual left in Europe and the United States. As a method of textual analysis, it was a benign force for change in criticism of the arts. As a vehicle for social commentary, it was a disaster.”
Liberal abandonment in the Natural Rights of Man theory has led inevitably to the conclusion that any western model of “freedom” is fatally flawed. The logical outgrowth of this abandonment-multiculturalism and cultural relativism-prevents liberals from supporting any action that would carry the western idea of individual liberty (even though leftists can’t themselves live without it) to anyplace where culture and tradition have prevented the rise of these “natural rights.
Ain’t having a relativistic worldview a bitch?
FLIGHT OF X-43A DELAYED
A problem with avionics forced the scrubbing of the much anticipated test flight of NASA’s X43A hypersonic aircraft on Monday. Engineers will try again Tuesday to break the world record for an air breathing vehicle as they attempt to reach the unheard of speed of Mach 10 or 7000 MPH.
Just 12 feet long and 5 feet wide, the X-43A jet is mounted on a modified Pegasus rocket designed to be carried aloft by a B-52 aircraft and released at 40,000 feet. The rocket will carry the X-43A to 110,000 feet and separate, allowing the craft to fly for about 10 seconds with its supersonic combustion jet operating.
The X-43A test shot is part of NASA’s Hyper-X program, a research effort to try out propulsion technologies for high-speed flight within the atmosphere and into Earth orbit.
The “scramjet” is capable of flying at enormously high altitudes and record breaking speeds because, unlike regular jet engines, the X-43A has very few moving parts and instead, relies on oxygen being rammed at very high speeds through the engine where it mixes with a small amount of hydrogen that then ignites and propels the craft at hypersonic (more than Mach 5) speeds.
What makes this technology so exciting is that any craft using the scramjet could carry a much reduced fuel load thus increasing pay load. A scramjet craft could take off from a commercial runway and, theoretically, achieve earth orbit thus cutting the cost of near earth space travel to a managable amount. Currently, it costs around $2,500 per pound to place a man in orbit. Even cutting that amount in half would bring the dream of routine travel into space within reach.