Recently US troops were filmed climbing a wall to apparently shoot a wounded man (they claimed he was a fighter, of course) hiding in an alleyway. That the soldier in the clip was able to almost casually point and shoot would seem to make it clear that the injured man was not exactly defending himself.
Tonight (UK time, anyway) the BBC showed footage from an American cameraman as troops went into a mosque where there were known to be several apparently seriously injured men – all said to be fighters – who had been left behind by another unit the day before. As the camera filmed one of the injured men was seen to be breathing.
So one of the soldiers apparently shot him on the head.
This was too graphic to be shown, obviously, but another wounded man was subsequently shown and he was said to be the only survivor.
ITN showed the same footage but says that there were 5 men and they had already been shot – again – by another unit just before the incident above.
This is a public relations catastophe for the American military – but obviously nowhere near as bad as for those men who believed that they had surrendered but were then ‘massacred’ by their captors. Is it any wonder that hostages are killed when all-American kids happily shoot wounded captives?
Obviously this story is all wrong, and those injured men were all suicide bombers: there will always be some who believe the utter bollox put out in defence of sheer stupidity like this, but the rest of the world can – at least – take a moral high ground, shake their heads and mutter about the dumb morons who are making the enemy even more determined.
I am sickened.
Flood
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November 15, 2004 at 10:46 pm