So the world is getting stoked up by the news that an American soldier has apparently shot dead a seriously wounded and apparently unarmed insurgent in Faluja. The news was reported to a shocked world by an NBC reporter implanted with the unit who had filmed the incident.
Excuse me?
This man is a professional soldier. He has been sent by his government to fight a war in the middle east and he finds himself fighting not against an army, or even against soldiers, but against civilian "insurgents". These people don't play by the rules. They aren't surrendering. They see him as a foreign invader and they are fighting for their homeland. He has been fighting now for several weeks and is probably tired and frustrated. He has just seen one of his colleagues blown apart by a booby trap. This injured and 'apparently' unarmed man is still a threat to him.
What exactly did you expect him to do?
What would you do?
Don't get me wrong; I am opposed to this war. I think we have no right and no justification to be in Iraq. We did not find any WMD; there is no smoking gun; we have no clear objectives and now we are stuck there.
I just think it is hypocritical of people to be appalled about this. Do you know what war is? Do you really think you can apply rules to it? We send troops over there and they may well kill some people. That's it folks.
The real story here is what the hell are we doing assaulting this town in the first place.
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in other news, I heard the Band Aid single this morning. Yup, it's probably as bad as you feared. Even Bono isn't as good as he was last time.
The in-between
6 days ago
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