Marines cover up massacre in Iraq

Time to sound off with an opinion nobody here will like. Least of all me.

I don't think for a second that this was an instance where the Marines lost discipline. If it was, it was easily within the Marine's power to wipe a significant portion of the town off the map. (or the whole thing) This looks like selective targeting of people whom they thought were collaborators. My guess is the collaborators are not entirely willing and the insurgency has a gun to their heads figuratively speaking. But it hardly matters. It doesn't even matter if the collaborators were unarmed. They chose a side, supported that side, and then found themselves at the mercy of the opposition. A particularly pissed off opposition whom their actions shared some responsibility for the death of one of their buddies/comrades. Kinda too late to make amends! Does anybody here think that the insurgents care about killing collaborators on the American side? They do it all the time. Whether they be police officers or civilians. It's okay for them, but not for us?

Due process of the law in a war-zone is reduced to "You want to stop me? Try it.". Iraq certainly qualifies as a war-zone. Fighting a insurgency is particularly brutal for all parties involved. Invasions spark insurgencies. So incidents such as these should not come as a surprise to anybody. I can't muster that much outrage over it, not because I don't find this repulsing but because it was only a matter of time that revalations such as these would start to come out in the press.

It looks like nobody here absorbed any lessons from Vietnam though. So I'll stop and let everybody wallow in their collective ignorance and watch the politicians and military feign their surprise and shame over this alleged incident. Remember, it's just a few bad apples!

Originally Posted by Bradylama

but the fact of the matter is that these troops still committed voluntary manslaughter.

That's the very nature of warfare. Kill more people on the other side, so the other side gives up. Maybe if more people truly understood this there would be less wars. I somehow doubt it though.

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Originally Posted by The_Griffin

I'm not entirely sure about that. Even assuming that these people had not lost discipline, it seems to me that in order to destroy most of the town, they would have had to call in outside aid. Indeed, I feel that if they HAD kept discipline, then the destruction could have been even greater. Granted, if they had kept discipline, then it's very likely that it wouldn't have happened in the first place. Interesting paradox, no?

In this alleged incident I believe it was purported that the Marines called in an airstrike to cover their actions? I could be wrong on this, but they do have outside support in the form of such airstrikes.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Care to provide any reasoning on why you feel this way?

Easily done. If this was a murderous rampage or massacre My Lai style the bodycount would be higher. Two dozen is not a massacre. A couple hundred is more like a massacre.

As for the issue about collaborators being co-opted into assisting the insurgents, I believe that one of the articles posted referenced the fact that the insurgents routinely execute supposed American allies/collaborators. Sounds like intimidation to follow along with the insurgents commands.

Last part, if you or I were accessory to a pre-meditated murder in a warzone it wouldn't matter about the outcome for you nor I either. That's war.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

No, it's not okay for us. First off is that we are not in a conventional war. The enemy wears no uniform, and has no government. How can we expect to defeat them when we lower ourselves to their standards, especially when doing so just accelerates recruitment for the opposition?

You think recruitment isn't a problem when the insurgency is going out of it's way to kill our allies? Those that choose not to utilize violence are at an extremely disadvantaged position when faced with a group that is more then willing to use violence to further their own ends. Especially in a war; conventional or not. So -- how many troops and allies would you like to see in an early grave to justify your noble philosophy/theory about war against a insurgency before defeat will be conceded?

Furthermore, our troops are better then the insurgents. We are not summarily executing civilians to intimidate them to our side. (yet?) This is still due process of the law at work in some form.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

I'm not outraged at this either, truth be told. I KNOW that shit like this is inevitable, and I can understand why they did it. However, understanding does not require forgiveness.

Understanding does require some amount of empathy though. Which has largely been absent from this discussion.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

Which completely excuses them from being punished.

I have no idea what they should be punished for? Fighting the insurgency? Again, I don't think this was some murderous rampage given the bodycount.

Originally Posted by The_Griffin

This is getting dangerously close to the line of thinking which pervaded World War II, which (not counting the Jewish casualties) had body counts in the millions. Compare that to the casualty amounts in wars since then. It's rare to see casualties go over the 100,000 mark.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I referenced Vietnam and how people have not absorbed any lessons from it. Yes, American casulties were under 100,000 at somewhere between 60,000 - 70,000 deaths. Vietnamese military casulties were somewhere over one million. Civilian deaths are largely unknown but generally assumed to be over two million. Robert McNamara put the total number of casulties at over three million. Which largely agrees with historical accounts. Not bad for a small asian country like Vietnam eh?

In all honesty, I'd rather be ignorant to situations like these though.

There's nowhere I can't reach.