THE SHOOTING OF THE UNARMED ENEMY

The top part of this article precisely follows the details as laid out by Kevin Sites, (far more than is true for all of the reports so far.) (By the way: notice that it turns out that Sites is a freelancer, not one of NBC's regular staff. They work damn hard to make sure that isn't clear, don't they?)

I must say, giving all due credit (and I am not a Kevin Sites fan) his report last night on NBC was, I thought, extraordinarily fair. While making it clear that there's normally no question that killing an unarmed prisoner -- particularly one who was wounded -- is a violation of the Law of Land Warfare, the report also made it clear that things may not be quite so cut and dried given the tactics that have been used by the enemy using the bodies of the wounded and the dead. (This is a truncated version of the report from last night.)

You have to chalk this up as another demonstration of the wisdom of embedding. Frankly, I just have no doubt that even without embedded reporters on the battlefield the incident still would have been reported, if not as quickly. What I do doubt is that the complexities of the battlefield situation that may -- may -- have justified the Marine's behavior (if not in terms of legality, they certainly do in terms of helping to explain to the American public why this may have happened) would never have been presented as quickly or with equal weight to the fact of the shooting. A feeding frenzy would already be well under way.

Thomas Ricks adds, in the Post article:

Retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich said that such incidents can only damage the U.S. cause in Iraq. "We cannot prevail in this conflict if our actions suggest that we do not value Muslim life or that we view Muslims as an inferior species," said Bacevich, who now teaches international relations at Boston University. "My sense is that such an impression has already taken hold in the Arab world. This incident can only reinforce that impression."

Good point. But that's no reason not to take into account the complexity of what happened, even if it turns out the investigation finds he's criminally responsible. That's exactly the problem with feeding frenzies -- they wipe away everything in their path.

One other point.

The other day I linked to a post from Jason van Steenwyk, asking why it was that we had gotten images from abu Ghraib over and over and over, but never saw images of what the enemy did. The outlets I saw wouldn't show the actual shooting, but they didn't really leave anything to the imagination. But nobody showed images of the bloody blanket the body of the Western woman was found in, and that's no worse than what local news outlets show five nights a week, any time there's a car crash.

Update: I wouldn't say that NBC is backing away from the story, but listening to their coverage this morning on Today, it's pretty clear that they're working as hard as they can to signal that they're sympathetic to the Marine in question.

Listen to the phrases used by their Pentagon beat correspondent (as I've repeatedly noted, the best broadcast Pentagon reporter in the business) Jim Miklasewski): he "himself had been wounded the day before" . . . a "split second decision" . . . the Iraqi was "apparently unarmed" . . . "not clear whether the Marine thought he was armed" . . . earlier other Marines had been "wounded by a concealed bomb on a dead body."

In Miklasewski's report, Kevin Site's appears, but oddly, not so much speaking to the camera as reading a prepared statement, noting that as an embedded reporter he has witnessed the Marines peform as a "disciplined and professional force throughout . . . [while what happened took place in what was] a confused and confusing" circumstance.

He seems to be rehearsing for his role as witness for the defense.

I'm not at all suggesting that's inappropriate: if he believes that what he saw the Marine do was justified, then to both report it and explain that is not just the right thing to do, it seems to me, but also a refreshing change of pace. All I'm saying is that it's pretty clear (to me, anyway) that that's what's what with NBC's reporting.

Again: a benefit of embedding, they were there to record it but also to explain that from their vantage point the Marine's behavior was justified.

Here's a question: since the NBC crew are the journalists who were actually on the scene, and since journalists do in fact place such emphasis on the power of the eyewitness account, will the other outlets follow their lead on this one?

Comments

[Media Hound]

A clarification: the Marine shot a terrorist
not an "unarmed enemy."

Terrorists, by their very use of civilan cover,
are not "enemy combatants" but "unlawful
combatants" and are not covered by the rules of
war.

That the media makes such a fuss over a Marine
killing a terrorist is troubling.

Should this terrorist have been sent to a
hospital, where he can recover and continue
beheading people, and disemboweling aid workers?

Perhaps the Marine should have beheaded the
terrorist -- that way the media would bury
the story on page 26, as they do when Americans
are beheaded by terrorists.

[Gary B.]

They could've given the military time to investigate the incident before airing the video around the world. But why would the media want to be fair to our troops?

The MSM had no problem endorsing a candidate for president who had shot a wounded enemy in the back. He was given a silver star for that incident. I guess this marines only hope is that he is a democrat and he wants to run on the democratic ticket for president. Then perhaps he'll be forgiven by the MSM.

[Athena]

You say they're not showing they shooting on the networks in the US.

On BBCW, they show it right up until he pulls the trigger, and since you mentioned it...I'm about to turn it to al-Jaz, al-Arabiya and the like to see what they're showing.

[Athena]

Well, I caught the morning news here and wrote about this incident: Arab Media - The Shooting in Falluja.

[Iam Doubt]

An enemy soldier feigning death is not surrendering and is not a prisoner. He is an enemy soldier still in the status of a combatant. He should be killed.

[Athena]

Well, I don't know in-depth about the laws of war, but the white ankle-bands they were wearing may complicate the situation.

[dauber]

I don't disagree that these guys are terrorists, but the fact that American troops are currently engaged with them on the ground does change the situation legally -- in terms of the obligations for our marines, who are bound by the ucmj, whatever the enemy is or is not bound by. The media is making a fuss b/c this has to do with the stds. we demand of our armed forces, not the stds they play by. I dont have an issue with its being a story, although there's always an issue of whether they're giving adeq. play to the atrocities committed to the other side.

I think whether he's still a combatant is going to be the question as the investigation goes forward. Was he the fact that he was injured reason enough for the marine to believe he could no longer be a threat? Was the fact that he had no weapon reason enough, or, given that htey'd been booby trapping their dead and wounded, on that battlefield, would a marine have seen any Iraqi as a threat? I doubt they'll decide he was right to out and out shoot the guy, but if that's the case they'll give him a slap on the wrist.

[hhhhh]

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