Any opinions?

I find the frequent use of the word "Western" in that paragraph somewhat offensive.

Anyway, good for the troops. It's amazing really, the ratio of kills to casualties they manage over there.

I say turn the whole country into a sheet of glass and be done with it. Pull out all troops and just nuke 'em.

And then Bush can have his OIL!

In all seriousness, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't rooting for our troops.

Gah, double negatives give me a headache.

Those ratios are something, when you think about it. America has become so accustomed to the high survival rates of our troops that when several are killed, it is a huge event. The perfect example is the Blackhawk Down mission. It was deemed such a complete failure militarily, even though the ratio of American deaths to Somali ones is incredibly low, while the Somalis incurred huge casualties. Sorry - kind of thinking out loud.

Whoops. Fixed.

Much better.

Perhaps the reason it was such a huge event is because they were faced with such overwhelming odds, were surrounded, and cut off from any support. Personally, I find the fact that so many of them survived much more the point. The death toll against us is not the only factor that makes the event significant, but those who died put up just as much of a fight as the ones who did make it through, and probably saved some of their own team members' lives as well, so it is worth remembering.

And yes, I'm proud of the troops in Fallujah as well. Those certainly are very impressive ratios.

You're completely right, I was just coming from a different perspective. Read the original (excellant) book Black Hawk Down (by Mark Bowden), on which the movie was based. It's fascinating and depressing at the same time.

I like how very often when people make predictions about the US military (Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires, Falluja as an urban deathtrap, and so on) they turn out to be resoundingly wrong.

Yeah, I've been meaning to read that book, as I bought it in August. However, I haven't had time to read anything other than Psych. textbooks for the last few months lol. Ahhh, I want winter break to be here.

lol, One of my preferred forms of comedy, being that it happens so often

Not a single word about or aknowledgement to the numerous Iraqi troops backing and aiding in the US-led operation? No?

Or the civilian crisis in Falluja, and the USA worsening it by stopping the Red Crescent from providing Fallujans with humanitary aid?

Heh, I saw a US Marine holding an AK47 on the news, I guess they're still having ammo problems...

When I saw this video on the news over here, it was accompanied with some overly dramatic monologue along the lines of
"If you had injured and cornered an enemy soldier, what would you do? Ask them to surrender? Offer them medical help? Or what this marine did..."

Having said that, I think "I have just witnessed a murder on my TV screen" is pretty accurate.

Separate link, but it's harder to hear the "He's done"

[edit] the bit I'm talking about is about 1:15 into the video

The number of enemy fighters killed varies considerably between sources, as does the number of civilian casualties.

And there'd be something very wrong if the casualty ratio wasnt extremely tipped in the Allies' favour. The insurgents are outnumbered, outgunned, and uncoordinated.

Not to mention alot of them probably got the hell out with the rest of the population.

If you've got a military operation being conducted in the city, sending in humanitarian aid while the operation is occurring only complicates matters.

I've seen this too, and this is what I'm talking about. Now see, that was probably an Iraqi regular. They have pretty much the same kit as US troops, except with more variety in helmets and due to shortages and they tend to use widely available Soviet weapons like your Kalashnikovs. If you look close you'll see that they have the horizontal red-white-black striped flag on their shoulder. And then of course, they might have tanner olive skin and black moustaches.

I know it's not the point, but an AK-47 isn't exactly a bad gun to have by your side...in real life, it isn't exactly spray and pray like your friendly* neighborhood** CS player would have you believe.



* 1337
** h4x0rz

Hard to really tell anything from the video since I'm not seeing the guy the US troops are trying to get. If the dude is still holding his gun and shooting back, no way is that murder. If he was trying to surrender, then yes.

"If you had injured and cornered an enemy soldier, what would you do? Ask them to surrender? Offer them medical help? Or what this marine did..." That more describes a scene from Full Metal Jacket than this situation.

The soldier being interviewed said the guy they "cornered" (we don't know if he had other exits that could've been used) had shot at him. This was not an unarmed person nor is it likely the guy was asking for medical help. We really don't know though because we don't see the middle of it, either it was cut for time or because it would've shown that the guy did not ask for medical help or anything.

It was not murder, it was taking down someone who had previously tried to shoot one of our guys.

I'm just surprised they're having to use M16s for close-quarter battles. That must be pretty tough, I've seen high school plays with more open sets than those buildings.

I'm thinking there's more to the video than they showed. I like how the blogger's reaction was knee-jerk, "I just witnessed a murder." What the ****? War is murder! Sheer bloody murder! The tape never showed the guy, he could've been asking for help or he could've been clutching a detonator and an AK, you just dont know from the tape.

I think the point was the coldness of it. The marine made it perfectly clear they weren't in any danger, he just strolled up to the window, shot, and walked off. That's what's kind of harrowing.

WTF?? If he had done otherwise he would have been a fool. The guy was an enemy fighter! You can't just leave him alive...He did not surrender...he was holed up in a building.

The 'successfulness' of a war should never be measured by the ratio of American military casualties to enemy military casualties. It should be the ratio of civilian casualties to enemy casualties. The civilian Iraqi toll is at 15 000 or thereabouts, and I'm sure that Fallujah will end up bumping that statistic up quite a bit. That isn't good enough.

Yes, yes, "we've done all we can to avoid civilian deaths" and all that, I've heard it before. But no, you haven't. You've done all you can to avoid American deaths, avoiding civilian deaths is secondary to that.

This isn't just Iraq, it has long been American policy to sacrifice civilian lives to protect soldiers. Regardless of the morality of it, it is completely illogical. It is the soldiers who are supposed to die, it is they who are expected to die, that is their job. If they die, they have done their job and they are heroes. But a civilian is not a soldier, a civilian is not prepared to die, a civilian did not 'choose' to be involved in the conflict, a civilian has nothing to do with this at all.
What would be truly honorable, and highly successful, would be for American soldiers to sacrifice their lives to kill an enemy and also to protect the civilians in the surrounding area.

Imagine the scenario, enemy soldiers firing from a block of flats, with residents living in the apartments surrounding it. The normal response would be to call in an air strike. If they were on a low floor and the block is very tall, then a 'surgical strike' is considerably more difficult, and so just levelling the whole block, civilians and all, is not unexpected.
What they could however do is send in two dozen men or so, sending them in to shoot the enemy. Full well knowing that a good half of them are going to die. Sending the soldiers to their deaths, to take out the enemy without having to bomb the building. You'd have soldiers dead on both sides, but approximately 0 'collateral damage'.

That would be a most successful operation.

He's a soilder. Thats what they're trained to do.

The problem with that is that the enemy is no longer an enemy who wears a military uniform. They look like civilians until they set off a bomb, blow themselves up, or pull an gun and start shooting.

A big point is that the guy had also just previously shot at a soldier and apparently they didn't have a way to get to him easily. Even SWAT would take him out.

I doubt the soldiers didn't consider him a threat, yeah they killed him with ease- well ease doesn't mean it was a cold-blooded murder. It just means there was a window of opportunity to eliminate a threat and they took it, that's what they do.

I was mainly looking at the AK47, so I didn't see his face, but all his mates had M16's and M249's. He was wearing US-issue helmet, his combat fatigues looked like the slightly lighter shade that US desert camo seems to be and his mates were speaking perfect english. That and all the shots in that particular report were of American troops.

Has anyone here actually seen the full version of the clip? I haven't, so I'm not passing judgement(edit- clip of the guy getting shot obviously... no the AK47. Although if anyone saw the AK47 shot, spit it out).

Yes. Terrorists = 0wned.

War is hell.

I just got word that my cousin is in Fallujah right now. He's an MP, second lieutenant, I believe.