I’ve watched and listened, swinging from amused to outraged, about the Kevin Sikes/NBC tape of a Marine shooting a terrorist.
OK, let’s stipulate that he was wounded. OK, so we have a wounded terrorist in a mosque in Fallujah. You know, the cesspit that the Marines have been cleaning out lately. That Fallujah.
Two (maybe more) Marines enter the mosque, and find a man on the floor. He may or may not be wounded. He may or may not be hiding a weapon beneath his body. The mosque was a known source of unfriendly fire. It’s known that the terrorists will boobytrap the bodies of their slain comrades, in an attempt to kill one more American. He obviously isn’t a prisoner, or he would have been secured.
You’ve been fighting, house to house, for 6 days, and you’re tired on a level that those of us who have never done it can’t comprehend. You’ve been wounded, but you’re soldiering on.
The guy on the floor, the terrorist, seems to be faking death. Given what you know, what do you do? Do you approach within arm’s length, close enough to be attacked with a knife, and roll the guy over to see if a grenade is under the body? Do you leave him behind, maybe to fire on you and your buddies as you exit the building?
Nah, you pop a cap in his ass and continue with the mission. Problem solved; one more terrorist who will most assuredly kill no more.
Except we have the media present. A media where nearly all of them have never worn the uniform, more or less been in a battle.
So now we have tape, an uproar over “war crimes”, an investigation. “Oh my, what will the terrorists think of us!’ is the refrain from the Left.
My answer? “Who cares? Pin a medal on the guy, give him 10 more loaded magazines and an order to keep up the good work.”
The terrorists already hate us. I don’t think killing them will do any damage to their opinion of us. But one thing’s for certain–the dead ones won’t be shooting at our troops any more.