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Is this a war crime.? (pg. 4)
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| BadBadNeil |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
Nice argument. You can't clean yourself up using other people's dirt. And, come to think of it, what stories have you heard of american soldiers being tortured by insurgents, that would allow you to write what you wrote?
I think this case is not really clear cut, which is also hinted by the fact that a formal investigation is being carried out. Personally, I feel that the case is being blown out of proportion, but I guess that according to political correctness this *is* a crime. |
Wasn't an argument in this case, was purely how I feel. If I was the soldier I would have done the same thing, well purhaps after nicely after asking the cameraman to leave the room :)
I think if the insurgents torture and behead a civiilan or kill one of the most liked Iraqi aid workers in the country, if they had the opportunity to get a US soldier in the same situation it would be very grusome indeed. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
For anyone interested, the journalist who filmed the incident has his own blog up with a detailed description of the incident:
http://www.kevinsites.net/
Sounds like the Marine failed to hear or comprehend what the reporter stated about these injured men in the room the day before. He seemed genuinely aware of the consequences of his actions once he comprehended what the reporter had told him after he shot. Call it bad judgement, call it a failure to comprehend and fully digest what he was told prior to his actions, call it a grudge or perhaps an itchy trigger finger, I dunno. Considering the shooter just got shot in the face the day before, it's difficult to say or understand what went through his head at the time.
Unfortunately that old cliche rings true - war is hell, and you're gonna have unfortunate events like this come up from time to time. |
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by BadBadNeil
I think if the insurgents torture and behead a civiilan or kill one of the most liked Iraqi aid workers in the country, if they had the opportunity to get a US soldier in the same situation it would be very grusome indeed. |
My point on torture was: Have you heard of insurgents who have tortured their kidnapped victims? The victims who are released all report that they were treated decently. |
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| policerobots |
| quote: | | The victims who are released all report that they were treated decently. |
Until they got their heads decapitated.... |
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| occrider |
| I’m inclined to defer judgment to the NCIS investigation. If the marine was out to simply murder unarmed insurgents, why wouldn’t he kill the other wounded Iraqis who were also alive, and the Iraqi who was actually speaking? The fact that he was alarmed that this Iraqi was “faking” death, implies that he perceived some sort of threat from the insurgent whether it was authentic or not. Of course the fact that insurgents are booby trapping bodies and waving white flags to ambush marines doesn’t really help the situation either. It would be also interesting to know what the circumstances of him getting shot in the face the previous day was all about. Was he shot at by a wounded insurgent? Something like this requires a fully veted investigation before I would pass judgement … |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
My point on torture was: Have you heard of insurgents who have tortured their kidnapped victims? The victims who are released all report that they were treated decently. |
Yes:
| quote: |
Mujahidin terrorised Fallujah, residents say
By Times Online and AFP in Fallujah
Mutilated bodies dumped on Fallujah's bombed out streets today painted a harrowing picture of eight months of rebel rule.
As US and Iraqi troops mopped up the last vestiges of resistance in the city after a week of bombardment and fighting, residents who stayed on through last week's offensive were emerging and telling harrowing tales of the brutality they endured.
Flyposters still litter the walls bearing all manner of decrees from insurgent commanders, to be heeded on pain of death. Amid the rubble of the main shopping street, one decree bearing the insurgents' insignia - two Kalashnikovs propped together - and dated November 1 gives vendors three days to remove nine market stalls from outside the city's library or face execution.
The pretext given is that the rebels wanted to convert the building into a headquarters for the "Mujahidin Advisory Council" through which they ran the city.
Another poster in the ruins of the souk bears testament to the strict brand of Sunni Islam imposed by the council, fronted by hardline cleric Abdullah Junabi. The decree warns all women that they must cover up from head to toe outdoors, or face execution by the armed militants who controlled the streets.
Two female bodies found yesterday suggest such threats were far from idle. An Arab woman, in a violet nightdress, lay in a post-mortem embrace with a male corpse in the middle of the street. Both bodies had died from bullets to the head.
Just six metres away on the same street lay the decomposing corpse of a blonde-haired white woman, too disfigured for swift identification but presumed to be the body of one of the many foreign hostages kidnapped by the rebels.
It was initially thought to be either the body of Margaret Hassan, the Dublin-born aid worker with dual British and Iraqi nationality who was kidnapped last month, or a Polish woman kidnapped two weeks ago. A Polish official said today there was no evidence to suggest that the body was that of the kidnapped Pole.
Although the US military says it is now in control of the Sunni Muslim city, US forces were today attacking diehard rebel positions in the south of Fallujah, including an underground bunker complex of steel-reinforced tunnels containing weapons including an anti-aircraft artillery gun.
"What you’re seeing now are some of the hardliners, they seem to be better equipped than some of the earlier ones, we’ve seen flak jackets on some of them," Major General Richard Natonski, the Marine general who commanded the Fallujah offensive, told the BBC.
"I think they’re probably willing to lay down their lives in the fight. But we’re more determined and we’re going to wipe them out," he said.
The Iraqi Red Crescent today abandoned plans to take an aid convoy into the city after being refused entry by US forces who deny that there is any humanitarian emergency. The seven-truck convoy was instead heading to nearby villages, where tens of thousands of refugees from Fallujah are camped out.
Meanwhile International Red Cross spokesman today claimed that in the hours before the attack began, US troops had been preventing Iraqi males of military age from leaving Fallujah. Ahmed Ravi told the ITV News Channel: "There are still civilians inside Fallujah who are in serious need for any kind of help. Also, the water treatment plan, under control of Iraqi and American troops, is not functioning right now."
At least 38 US soldiers, five Iraqi soldiers and 1,200 insurgents are thought to have been killed during the week-long offensive, but civilian casualties are unclear - except for an implausible denial from Iyad Allawi, the acting Iraqi Prime Minister, that there are any.
Witness accounts appeared to contradict him. A member of an Iraqi relief committee told al-Jazeera television he saw 22 bodies buried in rubble in Fallujah’s northern Jolan district yesterday.
"Of the 22 bodies, five were found in one house as well as two children whose ages did not exceed 15 and a man with an artificial leg," Mohammed Farhan Awad said."Some of the bodies we found had been eaten by stray dogs and cats. It was a very painful sight."
A source close to Dr Allawi said this morning that two of the Prime Minister's female relatives abducted last week were freed last night. But Dr Allawi's 75-year-old cousin was still being held.
A previously unknown rebel group last week threatened to behead Dr Allawi's cousin, his wife and their heavily pregnant daughter-in-law unless the assault on Fallujah was stopped.
Such is the fear that the heavily armed militants held over Fallujah that many of the residents who emerged from the ruins welcomed the US marines, despite the massive destruction their firepower had inflicted on their city.
A man in his sixties, half-naked and his underwear stained with blood from shrapnel wounds from a US munition, cursed the insurgents as he greeted the advancing marines on Saturday night.
"I wish the Americans had come here the very first day and not waited eight months," he said, trembling. Nearby, a mosque courtyard had been used as a weapons store by the militants.
Another elderly man, who did not want his name used for fear the rebels would one day return and restore their draconian rule, said he was detained by the militants last Tuesday and held for four days before being freed. He described how he had then sought refuge in a friend's house where they had huddled together clutching Korans in silent prayer for their lives as the massive US bombardment put the insurgents to flight.
"It was horrible," he told an AFP reporter."We suffered from the bombings. Innocent people died or were wounded by the bombings.
"But we were happy you did what you did because Fallujah had been suffocated by the Mujahidin. Anyone considered suspicious would be slaughtered. We would see unknown corpses around the city all the time."
The same story of arbitrary executions was told by another resident, found by US troops cowering in his home with his brother and his family.
"They would wear black masks, carry rocket-propelled grenades and Kalashnikovs, and search streets and alleys," said Iyad Assam, 24. "I would hear stories, about how they executed five men one day and seven another for collaborating with the Americans. They made checkpoints on the roads. They put announcements on walls banning music and telling women to wear the veil from head to toe."
It was not just pedlars of alcohol or Western videos and women deemed improperly dressed who faced the militants' wrath. Even residents who regard themselves as observant Muslims lived in fear because they did not share the puritan brand of Sunni Islam that the insurgents enforced.
One devotee of a Sufi sect, followers of a mystical form of worship deemed herectical by the hardliners, told how he and other members of his order had lived in terror inside their homes for fear of retribution.
"It was a very hard life. We couldn't move. We could not work," said the man sporting the white robe and skullcap prescribed by his faith. "If they had any issue with a person, they would kill him or throw him in jail."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printF...59782-3,00.html
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Those who were released were untortured … there’s nothing to indicate that those who were killed were not tortured before that happened |
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| BadBadNeil |
| good article, hadn't seen that one before |
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Yes:
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Ok, I might be blind after a day of reading, but I cannot see any references to torture in the piece you have quoted? Don't get me wrong and think that I sympathize with the insurgents, I just want to see solid reports of torture having been commited before I'll agree to statements such as that by BadBadNeil.
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Those who were released were untortured … there’s nothing to indicate that those who were killed were not tortured before that happened |
Thinking cynically as always, I would say that it is highly improbable that the kidnappers have used torture on their dead victims. The reason being connected with the fact that the aim of the kidnappers is to terrorize and scare the general public of the countries participating in the coalition of the willing. If they really had tortured their victims, they would have taped it and published it - imposing even more horror on their target group than the 5-10 minutes of the actual execution.
But then again, fundamentalists no not think cynically and calculating so my reasoning may be flawed. However, until I see evidence of the opposite I choose to believe that the kidnappers, while guilty of many crimes, are not guilty of torture. |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
Ok, I might be blind after a day of reading, but I cannot see any references to torture in the piece you have quoted? Don't get me wrong and think that I sympathize with the insurgents, I just want to see solid reports of torture having been commited before I'll agree to statements such as that by BadBadNeil.
Thinking cynically as always, I would say that it is highly improbable that the kidnappers have used torture on their dead victims. The reason being connected with the fact that the aim of the kidnappers is to terrorize and scare the general public of the countries participating in the coalition of the willing. If they really had tortured their victims, they would have taped it and published it - imposing even more horror on their target group than the 5-10 minutes of the actual execution.
But then again, fundamentalists no not think cynically and calculating so my reasoning may be flawed. However, until I see evidence of the opposite I choose to believe that the kidnappers, while guilty of many crimes, are not guilty of torture. |
Well I thought descriptions of finding mutiliated corpses and bodies disfigured beyond recognition to be evidence that implicitly makes the case for torture, but if that doesn’t satisfy your skepticism than perhaps this article is more direct:
| quote: |
More Fallujah Hostage Sites Found
Troops Locate Cage Believed to Have Held British Engineer
By Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 22, 2004; Page A14
FALLUJAH, Iraq, Nov. 21 -- The U.S. military has found nearly 20 houses where intelligence officers said they believe hostages were killed or tortured in this city, including one containing a cage in which a British contractor who was beheaded last month was probably confined.
U.S. Army intelligence officers said the cage, discovered in a house in southern Fallujah, matched almost identically one shown in a videotape of the contractor, Kenneth Bigley, whose death was confirmed Oct. 10.
The house is near another raided by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers last week that was connected to associates of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant. A group headed by Zarqawi and linked to al Qaeda asserted responsibility for killing Bigley.
Bigley, 62, an engineer, became the first British hostage killed in Iraq. In a videotape aired on an Arab satellite network before his death, Bigley was shown in a metal cage with a chain around his neck, pleading for his life.
"They had a sick, depraved culture of violence in that city," said Lt. Col. Daniel Wilson, an operations officer with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
Maj. James West, a Marine intelligence officer, said the houses, which he referred to as "places of atrocities," were scattered across Fallujah. Some had false walls that led to rooms splattered with blood. One house had bloody handprints on the wall. "They chained people to the walls," West said.
U.S. and Iraqi forces began an offensive on Nov. 8 to capture the insurgent-held city about 35 miles west of Baghdad. In some areas of Fallujah, the fighters had cordoned off entire blocks to use as bases for their operations. In other areas, they lived among residents.
"These thugs depended on fear and control," West said.
West said evidence existed that Zarqawi was in Fallujah at one time but that there was "no direct proof he occupied any house or another."
"It looks like we've found a number of houses where . . . the famous names have been held," West said, referring to hostages whose beheadings were widely reported in the news media.
Army intelligence officers said they were led to several of the houses by three Iraqi men who said they had been held captive in the city. The men had surrendered to Iraqi forces, waving a white flag with the word "help" scribbled on it in English.
The Army officers said they doubted that the men were victims and most likely were part of Zarqawi's ring or supported his terrorist network.
In an interview with The Washington Post at an Iraqi military base shortly after he was detained, one of the men said his captors hung him from a ceiling and beat him with electrical wires.
"One day someone came," said the 33-year-old man, who said he was a Baghdad resident but would not give his name. "I was blindfolded, and he said, 'Do you know who I am?' I said, 'No.' He said: 'I am your master, Abu Musab Zarqawi. I came to Iraq to honor you, your family and your people.' "
Another of the men, a 28-year-old son of an official in the interim Iraqi government who was allowed to return to his home in Baghdad, said he heard audiotapes during his captivity in which Zarqawi instructed his associates to kill.
"We saw the cage where the British hostage was put and shown on TV," the man said. "We heard them filming the tapes they sent to satellite channels when they announced the kidnapping of people or the slaughtering of others. They brought new people kidnapped every day. I remember one day, we were eight in the room, all kidnapped for silly reasons."
In a briefing Sunday, Wilson, the Marine operations officer, called the Fallujah offensive "some of the most intense combat . . . probably since Vietnam." Wilson said Marine units were still combing thousands of structures in the city for insurgents, some of whom had sneaked back into the city.
"There has been a little bit of infiltration . . . for those who don't want to die," he said. "Those are small numbers. It's a large town. You can't completely seal off the town."
Military commanders said the Iraqi government would not allow residents to return to the city until it was clear of bombs, essential public services had been restored and a local governing body was established.
Meanwhile, at a Marine outpost near the city, soldiers from the Army's 1st Infantry Division loaded Bradley Fighting Vehicles and tanks onto flatbed trucks, preparing to return to their bases elsewhere in Iraq. The division's Task Force 2-2 covered the eastern flank of the city when U.S. troops launched the Fallujah offensive.
The Marines provided one beer for each of the 650 soldiers to thank them for their contributions on the battlefield. To date, 51 U.S. troops have been reported killed in the Fallujah offensive and 425 have been wounded.
"We got the easy part," Lt. Col. Peter Newell, the Task Force 2-2 commander, told the soldiers, while lifting a beer to toast the Marines and the troops who were killed. "All we had to do is go in and kick some butt."
Spec. Howard Sheldon, 22, of Farmington, N.M., said the battle was "something I never want to go through again."
"You have no idea how ready I am to go," he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...-2004Nov21.html
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Or even better how about this account:
| quote: |
Canadian 'tortured' in Iraq
18/04/2004 21:00 - (SA)
Montreal - Canadian humanitarian worker Fadi Fadel, who was released on Friday in Iraq nine days after his abduction, told the Toronto Star in an interview published on Sunday his kidnappers tortured him trying to get him to say he was an Israeli spy.
"The first few days were quite horrible to live through," the 33-year-old Montrealer of Syrian origin with the US-based International Rescue Committee said in an exclusive interview from Amman, Jordan, where he is undergoing medical treatment.
"They threatened to kill me. They put a gun to my head," he said, adding he is still not sure who his captors were or what they wanted.
"They were terrorising me at gunpoint, trying to get me to say (on videotape) I was co-operating with Israel," said Fadel. "Then they wanted me to say I was working with the Americans. Then to say that I worked for the Spaniards."
Shortly after he was taken hostage, the Canadian was shown on Arab television, apparently saying he was an Israeli and a spy.
But Fadel said the audio portion of the videotape was doctored and that he never complied with his captors' demands, even when, he said, they stubbed their cigarettes onto the bare skin of his neck and back.
"I never said I was working with Israel," he said. "It was dubbed. They had a gun pointed to my head. But I refused to say it.
It was pretty horrible ... I've got about 20 cigarette burns, on my back and neck."
Released on Friday in Najaf, Fadi Fadel was transferred to Amman where he was undergoing routine medical exams.
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/...1514210,00.html
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Or this account:
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Canadian hostage was tortured by Iraqi captors: report
Canada News
- MONTREAL (AFP) via News.Designerz.com Thursday September 23, 2004
The Canadian woman who was held hostage in Iraq for 16 days was tortured by her captors but convinced one of them to let her go, the former captive's father said, according to Canadian media reports.
Fairuz Yamulky, a 38-year-old mother of two, was kidnapped September 5 while traveling by car in northern Iraq .
"She was very, very weak, and I asked her if she had been tortured," her father, Kamal Yamulky, said from Dubai, according to the Globe and Mail. "She said: 'Yes, Dad, they beat me.'"
Yamulky's captors demanded 2.5 million US dollars and the liberation of 50 Iraqi women from jail, Kamal Yamulky told the National Post.
The hostage-takers also required that Yamulky's employer, GSF Cement and Sand Co., build 150 new houses in Iraqi cities to replace those hit by US bombs, he said.
Canadian authorities remained quiet about the case. Yamulky was speaking with US authorities in Baghdad following her release Tuesday.
"She is with the American army right now," her brother, Amin Yamulky, told CBC television.
The hostage-takers threatened to kill the woman, who is of Iraqi origin, according to the National Post.
But as her family was negotiating her release, she found herself alone with one of her captors and managed to convince him to release her and go with her, promising to help him emigrate to Canada , Kamal Yamulky said.
"My daughter is very smart and clever and she was able to convince him and talk to him in a nice way," he told the National Post.
http://canada.news.designerz.com/ca...ors-report.html
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| occrider |
Anyway back on topic, this is why I wouldn't rush to pass judgement on the marine over alleged war crimes just yet:
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Marines shoot insurgent who was 'playing dead'
The US military says Marines in Fallujah have shot and killed an insurgent who engaged them as he was faking being dead, a week after footage of a marine killing an apparently unarmed and wounded Iraqi caused a stir in the region.
"Marines from the 1st Marine Division shot and killed an insurgent who while faking dead opened fire on the marines who were conducting a security and clearing patrol through the streets," a military statement said.
The point-blank shooting on November 13 of a wounded Iraqi was caught on tape and beamed around the world.
It raised questions about the degree of military restraint and fanned Arab resentment.
The marine was withdrawn from combat and an investigation launched.
Military sources had said that the rules of engagement were looser during the operation launched in Fallujah, for fear that rebels would be disguised, fake death or wear suicide explosives belts.
The US military and Iraqi government troops are still carrying house-to-house searches in the rebel bastion but two weeks after it was launched, the largest post-Saddam military operation in Iraq is all but over.
According to US military figures, more than 1,200 insurgents have been killed in the intense fighting, as well as 51 US troops and eight Iraqi personnel.
- AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitem...11/s1248394.htm
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Well I thought descriptions of finding mutiliated corpses and bodies disfigured beyond recognition to be evidence that implicitly makes the case for torture,
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Considering the accounts of corpses being eaten by animals or scorched by explosions and gunfire, I would say that other explanations than torture were plausible.
| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
but if that doesn’t satisfy your skepticism than perhaps this article is more direct:
Or even better how about this account:
Or this account: |
Much better (:conf: ) - the conclusion must be that some of the savages are torturerers as well. |
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| Spacey Orange |
For those interested in a real discussion on the legality of the shooting, I you offer you an excerpt of the geneva convention. To me its still an open question whether the killing of the person on the videotape was illegal, mostly because I'm not sure whether the Iraq was a party of the convention, whether the person shot was a even an insurgent, and other facts about the insurgency.
Legal or not, morally, I think its totally wrong to have killed him.
Geneve Convention
| quote: |
Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War Adopted on 12 August 1949 by the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva
from 21 April to 12 August, 1949
entry into force 21 October 1950
PART I
GENERAL PROVISIONS
Article 1
The High Contracting Parties undertake to respect and to ensure respect for the present Convention in all circumstances.
Article 2
In addition to the provisions which shall be implemented in peace time, the present Convention shall apply to all cases of declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more of the High Contracting Parties, even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.
The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto [the US] shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof.
. . .
Article 3
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.
An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.
The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.
The application of the preceding provisions shall not affect the legal status of the Parties to the conflict.
Article 4
A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
1. Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.
2. Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
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6. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war. |
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