He raised the gun and shot him in the head at close range...
Tonight is full of sadness. Today's news focussed heavily on an NBC video which appears to show a young Marine shooting a badly wounded and unarmed Iraqi insurgent in the head, killing him. Today's news included the report that a video showed up in which a woman is shot in the head by a masked insurgent. That report was coupled with one stating that the body of a "western" woman, disembowelled, was found lying in a street in Fallujah. The woman was feared to be CARE Director, Margaret Hassan, kidnapped days ago.
The sadness is that such occurences are the inevitable byproduct of war. Discussions and analyses echo from every news station, political pundit, talk jock, and newspaper headline. That too is sad. I am waiting for someone to say honestly that this is what happens in war. God willing it is not the norm, and even people at war exercise some control over their actions. We have 'conventions' for war after all. But the reality is that the humans placed in that hellacious crucible of war do not always manage to remember the conventions. The miracle and newsworthy item, perhaps, is that most do. But some don't. And sometimes, there are adversaries for whom all those niceties mean nothing- right or wrong they are not working by our rules. (I seem to remember blogging about this awhile back after watching Apocolypse Now.....Kurtz utters 'The horror. The horror.) Are we so trivial that this creates a dither in the media? Apparently.
It is not okay to kill unarmed/wounded combatants who are not a threat. That's a rule. No one argues that. But let us not act as if this were a coldblooded decision made in a normal environment where everything makes sense. It's easy for me to sit here in Oregon and 'analyze'. But I have to say I don't know what I would do if I were in that Marine's shoes. I pray for him and for all of us. Because we have sent him there and placed him in that space.
Will there be more sadness? As long as there is war there will be. And another piece of it may come simply because the country draws lines in which saying that Marine was wrong is "not supporting the troops" and saying he was right is " imperial arrogance". That is the great sadness. That dishonesty. That can be our undoing.
And the cruel and unfeeling murder of Margaret Hassan? That too is a great sadness. That those who have given themselves most completely to others' salvation would be victims of cruel and gruesome murder alerts us to the dangers of this warring. What is most good is trampled.
The sadness is that such occurences are the inevitable byproduct of war. Discussions and analyses echo from every news station, political pundit, talk jock, and newspaper headline. That too is sad. I am waiting for someone to say honestly that this is what happens in war. God willing it is not the norm, and even people at war exercise some control over their actions. We have 'conventions' for war after all. But the reality is that the humans placed in that hellacious crucible of war do not always manage to remember the conventions. The miracle and newsworthy item, perhaps, is that most do. But some don't. And sometimes, there are adversaries for whom all those niceties mean nothing- right or wrong they are not working by our rules. (I seem to remember blogging about this awhile back after watching Apocolypse Now.....Kurtz utters 'The horror. The horror.) Are we so trivial that this creates a dither in the media? Apparently.
It is not okay to kill unarmed/wounded combatants who are not a threat. That's a rule. No one argues that. But let us not act as if this were a coldblooded decision made in a normal environment where everything makes sense. It's easy for me to sit here in Oregon and 'analyze'. But I have to say I don't know what I would do if I were in that Marine's shoes. I pray for him and for all of us. Because we have sent him there and placed him in that space.
Will there be more sadness? As long as there is war there will be. And another piece of it may come simply because the country draws lines in which saying that Marine was wrong is "not supporting the troops" and saying he was right is " imperial arrogance". That is the great sadness. That dishonesty. That can be our undoing.
And the cruel and unfeeling murder of Margaret Hassan? That too is a great sadness. That those who have given themselves most completely to others' salvation would be victims of cruel and gruesome murder alerts us to the dangers of this warring. What is most good is trampled.
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