well...i dont know what to think.....

[IALuder]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/14/ir...eut/index.html

is it wrong what they did or not?

[GT40FIED]

If that's the guy that shot the wounded Iraqi (the one that was on the news), then fuck him. War is one thing, but that's just plain murder. Ironic...since war is murder by virtue, but killing a wounded and unarmed man just isn't right. I think 1 year is a slap in the face to anyone living in Iraq. This guy killed someone and got a year...another soldier screws with prisoners of war and gets ten years. I know...people will say there were other circumstances. Well...that's the case in most murders. Doesn't make it any more right.

[IALuder]

true, but if he killed them and they were planting bombs this guy would be a hero. well not a hero but you get the point. but they claim three guys were involed. 1 got 3 yrs, 1 got 1 yr and the other is still to be sentenced.

the prisoner thing should have been a discharge only. no sentence in jail.

[GT40FIED]

Woulda coulda shoulda...it's all conjecture. The fact is the guy was wounded AND unarmed. I understand it's tough to tell the difference under the circumstances, but from the video I've seen the guy didn't even bother to check even though he was at a distance where a bomb would've killed him anyway. In my mind, that's outright murder. There's no provisions in the Geneva Convention for that. Soldier or not, he should be serving 15-25 for second degree murder as far as I'm concerned. Besides...who knows if the military is telling the truth as to whether or not the attacks they claim were actually happening? They could be trying to cover a soldier's ass in the midst of a PR shitstorm.

[IALuder]

Geneva Convention are you serious. we are the only people in the war using that. the iraqs arent why should we? becuase want to look civil. fawk that. thats something for the WWs' not now.

as for 15-25 for killing him. i dont know. hell, did he say from the distance, i saw he was wounded? how could you tell. steve, you couldn't tell if that guy was wounded from his distance either. he wasnt walking or moving. he was sitting in a kart with other people.

[V8killimports]

Ok, you have to look at the order of war which changes all the time. It used to be an understood rule of war that you would not target officers, because they were the ones supposedly that kept war orderly.

Are ROE are different now.. sometimes officers are specifically targeted, and always a favorite to capture for intel and what not. Anyways, the soldiers currently face an enemy that does't even wear a uniform, doesn't follow any rules of war, so what are we supposed to do? An iraqi man came up to a patrol waving a while flag early in the war. He was also wearing a vest packed with explosives which he detonated when we got near the group of marines. So what now? Should we just shoot everyone we come across? What about insurgents booby trapping they wounded and dead? The fact is, that the rules have changed a bit, but you still need to have a set ROE. You can't have random soldiers out there being judge, jury, and executioner.. especially in the type of situation we are in now where winning support of the iraqi people is of upmost importance.

Regardless of whether this was a mercy killing or not, you just cannot do that. I don't know the full details of what happened, or whether it was really a mercy killing, but there has to be some sort of order in war, and what he did was a war crime. The fact that Graner got 10 years makes me happy. Next time he should think about his actions and what he does before he does them.

[IALuder]

Rules of war? what rules. the rules we make for us to follow and not the enemy. its not a game of chess. hell its not a game period. fawk the iraq people and what they think. win their support. what support? what are they doing for us? its just a battle over the damn oil in that country. fawk, if bush wasnt president we wouldnt have been in this damn war.

[V8killimports]

Originally posted by SFKing
Rules of war? what rules. the rules we make for us to follow and not the enemy. its not a game of chess. hell its not a game period. fawk the iraq people and what they think. win their support. what support? what are they doing for us? its just a battle over the damn oil in that country. fawk, if bush wasnt president we wouldnt have been in this damn war.

You post a lot on here.. so I figure you have a lot of spare time. I suggest you use some of that spare time to do some reading before posting again.

[Violent Apathy]

Originally posted by V8killimports
You post a lot on here.. so I figure you have a lot of spare time. I suggest you use some of that spare time to do some reading before posting again.

I'm actually finding myself agreeing with v8killinimports for once on that post. O_o

[Wren57]

^me too...

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by V8killimports
Regardless of whether this was a mercy killing or not, you just cannot do that. I don't know the full details of what happened, or whether it was really a mercy killing, but there has to be some sort of order in war, and what he did was a war crime. The fact that Graner got 10 years makes me happy.

Exactly. If you want to take a moral high road (and don't we always love doing that?), you have to hold yourself to a higher standard than the enemy. The fact that this guy only got a year in jail is just insulting. I'm not sure if this is the same guy from the video I saw (excluding the part where he actually pulled the trigger, of course), but I think it is. Remember...people in the U.S. aren't the only ones who saw that video.

Ben...if this is the same guy, he shot the Iraqi point blank. The guy was barely moving. There's just no excuse for that. As much as I hate this war, I don't think "fuck Iraq" will quite solve our problems. While I firmly believe that people looked us straight in the eye and lied to us about the reasons, I don't think it's for oil. War takes people's minds off of things...and we had a great set up for a war that we didn't finish before.

[VR4_Craver]

actually, GT and V8 are making good points, and I agree with most of them, but not all.
1. Is the fact that everyone says "There are rules of war" Really? Becuase where were those rules on 9/11 or the embassy bombings? Why play fair if the deck is stacked against you?
2. The 1 yr bullshit is well....just that. Soldiers should not get special treatment just becuase they are there. I appreciate the things they are doing but that does not allow them to be treated and different.
3.Then also about the video. Everyone saw it Iraqi laying around bleeding, soldier sees iraqi, iraqi see soldier, soldier shoots iraqi. There is 1 person shooting that iraqi not 3. That leads to his origanal question. Is what they did wrong? No, not at all becuase if they are being put on trial for "commiting war crimes" Than why are we not flooding Iraq with lawyers to start handing out charges of mass murder to every upper level person there?

[V8killimports]

Ok, let's say this is a mercy killing.. perhaps is was. Maybe this guy had intestines hanging out of his stomach, and missing both legs.. whatever. Despite that fact that you want to put this guy out of his misery, and it is apparent he will die, and die slowly if you don't do something about it you can't do it.. because then you will have 150,000 U.S. troops trying to figure out when they should and shouldn't perform a mercy killing.. or even use that as an excuse to kill random wounded. Maybe this soldier did the wrong thing for the rights reasons, but you just can't do that. If you don't have rules in war, you end up with 150,000 people running around with guns with no guidelines as to what they can and cannot do.

Now what the enemy is currently is a grey area. They are not uniformed soldiers fighting for any particular country and actually do not fall under the geneva conventions. If captured they are not POWs. They fall under the same category as the taliban members sitting in G Bay... which is not really categorized. They are combatants, but non-combatants. Rules of war are much more complex than you could ever realize..and don't even cover every aspect of it. So again you have the question... what to do?

[VR4_Craver]

Originally posted by V8killimports
Ok, let's say this is a mercy killing.. perhaps is was. Maybe this guy had intestines hanging out of his stomach, and missing both legs.. whatever. Despite that fact that you want to put this guy out of his misery, and it is apparent he will die, and die slowly if you don't do something about it you can't do it.. because then you will have 150,000 U.S. troops trying to figure out when they should and shouldn't perform a mercy killing.. or even use that as an excuse to kill random wounded. Maybe this soldier did the wrong thing for the rights reasons, but you just can't do that. If you don't have rules in war, you end up with 150,000 people running around with guns with no guidelines as to what they can and cannot do.

This could be true. Or it could be that he shot him because (hypotheticallly) he is a combat medic and tried to save this guys life. Intestines hanging out in all, he tried his hardest to save him. Now, you have to think that the Branch he is serving (Army, marines, whatever) shall shun him becuase he is aiding the enemy. It could be that the goverment which he took an oath to protect and serve could turn their collective back on him and put him on trial as a traitor. This guy was fucked no matter what he did with that guy

[V8killimports]

Originally posted by VR4_Craver
This could be true. Or it could be that he shot him because (hypotheticallly) he is a combat medic and tried to save this guys life. Intestines hanging out in all, he tried his hardest to save him. Now, you have to think that the Branch he is serving (Army, marines, whatever) shall shun him becuase he is aiding the enemy. It could be that the goverment which he took an oath to protect and serve could turn their collective back on him and put him on trial as a traitor. This guy was fucked no matter what he did with that guy

That is completely untrue..if a guy is wounded and unarmed and not posing a threat he should no longer be considered a combatant and entitled to medical treatment ans whatever else he may need. It is not considered aiding the enemy whatsoever, and nobody thinks that of you if you treat a wounded SOLDIER. And I say that in caps because these people fighting cannot be classified as soldiers.

[IALuder]

i would have walked away. fawk that.

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by IALuder
i would have walked away. fawk that.

With those TV cameras there you still would've likely gotten in major shit. It's like watching "Cops". You really think those cops would be so polite if the cameras weren't there? Most soldiers know to act differently too, I would imagine...strictly by the book. This guy fucked up whether he shot the guy or walked away. The first words out of his mouth should've been a sentence including the word "medic". Period.

[IALuder]

i would have walked away. i wouldnt give a shit.

what could they convict me of?

[GT40FIED]

Originally posted by IALuder
i would have walked away. i wouldnt give a shit.

what could they convict me of?

Trust me...when PR is on the line, they'll find something.

[CD5Passion]

wow I completely must've looked over this thread. V8 and Steve have very excellent points Ben. there have always been rules of war and if someone doesn't follow it then you may have other's saying "hey if he got away with it then so can I" eventually a war would turn into utter chaos (as ironic as that sounds)
IMO what the soldier did was wrong and should be sentenced to a much longer term

man ROE used to be strict as hell too...i mean...standing in straight lines 4 rows deep with your enemy standing not 30 yards away from you. and firing volleys while you are looking down the barrel of your enemy.. of course rifles were highly inaccurate.....I guess as weaponary changes so do ROE:o

[V8killimports]

Those were not actually ROE.. just the tactics of the time... a ROE then would have been the rule that you were not supposed to target officers specifically.

[CD5Passion]

well those were also ROE also. that's why the englished freaked the eff out during the revolutionary war when american militia began to use guerilla warfare