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May 05, 2005
Shooting Wounded, Unarmed Men on the Ground: Self-Defense
Another case closed. This one is about the marine who shot and killed a wounded, unarmed man left to die in a mosque in Fallujah:
Navy investigators have determined a U.S. Marine acted in self-defense when he shot an apparently wounded and unarmed Iraqi inside a Falluja mosque in November, a senior Pentagon official said Wednesday.The Marine ... will not face charges
And, also:
Although that Marine has been cleared of wrongdoing, the investigation remains open because autopsies of some of the bodies found in the mosque turned up bullets that were not from his gun.
In other words other people were also shot, but by other people.
In case you are trying to remember which incident this was, here's the t-shirt that was being sold in reference to the event:
And here's what I wrote at the time:
I don't need to explain much here, all you have to do is reverse the situation. Imagine a wounded, unarmed marine being left to die in a church in, say, rural Montana by, say, the occupying army. A day later another group of occupier soldiers come back, notice one of the wounded marines is still not dead, and shoots him, point blank, on camera. Then, all they talk about is how the shooter had the right to defend himself from the unarmed, wounded, dying man on the ground. What if he was booby-trapped? What if he was about to lunge?Then they sell shirt celebrating the shooter. And their columnists keep blabbing about how uncivilized we are, and how we don't value life like they do.
(My two previous entries on the topic are here and here)
I have to keep repeating this. Just because we don't notice these acquittals and this total disregard for Iraqis right to life doesn't mean the rest of the world, especially the people of Iraq, aren't noticing it.
Posted by zeynep at May 5, 2005 07:25 AM
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