Well, isn't this deeply disturbing?

[[wcip]Angel]

What the hell were you expecting?

I've spoken with two friends of mine. One said virtually the same as you. The other one said it was an obvious smear-campaign.

"It's war."

I thought the war was over. I mean, they've already planned the date for when Iraq will be returned to the Iraqis. Shouldn't the war be over before they make that decision? Didn't Colin Powell talk about "remnants" as the last surviving Iraqi soldiers? I am in no way trying to be 'cute' or sarcastic here, but isn't the war over?

Also, in war, aren't there rules? I'm pretty sure there are, or else we wouldn't have a war tribunal or something called "war crimes." Let's assume we have rules for warfare. I'm asking: Would it be completely insane to consider "Do not kill a wounded, incapacitated, soldier" as an acceptable rule?

I don't know the law, and I don't know the army. I just know how I feel, and there's something in me saying that although you need to protect yourself and your unit before anything else, you shouldn't kill a helpless victim, even if that victim is a soldier for the other side. If you can accept this line of argument, then we need to move on and discuss whether or not the soldier represented a direct threat. If you can't accept this line of argument, then we just have different opinions on the matter.

edit: You know what? From reading my post again, I discovered I *was* being a bit 'cute' in the second paragraph.

edit#2: I just heard from one of my friends (the who said the same as you) that this clip is quite old. It's not something that's happened within the last few hours or days. It's been out for months apparently.

Well, doesn't that put a whole new spin on things? I guess it *was* a deliberate smear campaign. I guess they saw the release of the pictures of the tortured Iraqi soldiers to the general public as a suitable opportunity to fool people into thinking they'd gone and done one more heinous act of unprovoked aggression.

There's a lesson to be learned from this, children: Never read the newspapers. Journalists are f*cking c*nts!