charging marines with murder during war is like passing out speeding tickets at the indy 500, anybody agree???

Answer 1

Not at all. Marines know who they're supposed to kill, when, and why. Anything outside of that is murder, plain and simple. Not everyone is the enemy.

Answer 2

If they did something wrong they need to be punished, but until then political leaders like "Murtha" should keep their traps shut and let the evidence decide. Many think they are innocent, and some are reporting the "evidence" is nothing more then our enemy telling stories. That would be sad and pathetic if our government was listening to our enemies. But these young men deserve the same assumption of innocence that anyone else gets.

Put a 120,000 people together and a crime is going to occur - period. Take any city over 100,000 in population and how many "tickets" got issued today, how many crimes committed and sadly how many murdered even?

Answer 3

Good line from Apocalypse Now!

Another line from the same film was "the bullshit over here liles up so fast you need wings to stay above it" and thats whats happening with this conflict.

A marine goes out on patrol and a mob of people start throwing rocks at him. Men women and children.

Next day a roadside bomb, hidden in the carcass of a dead dog blows up his buddies Humvee killing one marine and three local civilians close by.

The next day he comes under fire from a crowd of people, most of whom are unarmed civilians, but somewhere there is a gunman with an AK47 trying to seperate his head from his shoulders. He cannot fire back because the gunman is using women and children as a shield.

After six months of this every day and every night, he is on patrol and his convoy is ambushed. His best friend is blown to bits by a roadside bomb and they come under intense fire from all sides.

The insurgents pull back into a small village and lay down AK fire on the marines from the houses and backyards.

He rushes one house puts his M16 thru the window and pulls the trigger. The firing stops and he kicks the door in. Lying on the floor are a number of bodies including women and children...

It feels horrible just imagining it doesn't it?

I wasn't there...I dont know if this is what happened or not, just like no-one else on this forum knows for sure. All we know is that some young men got put through hell on our behalf and now we are trying them for murder based on T.V documentary pictures.

Lets not forget that the insurgents use civilians as their human shields and also that insurgents dress as civilians.

Answer 4

Even war has it's rules - and yes, in places like Iraq where someone wearing street clothes and not a uniform, carrying a gun is a target. But as soon as that person drops their weapon, they become a civilian. Murder is murder, whatever the circumstance...I hope though that for those marines, at the time they thought they were doing the right thing in the line of their duty - thought that their 'targets' were dangerous, and that they can prove it in court.

Answer 5

I think breaking a person down and building them back up into a mindless killing machine, THEN charging them with murder is pretty strange. Of course the marine chose this path as we don't have a draft yet. Better to live an ordinary life than to deliberately become a killer to get ahead.

Answer 6

If two people are shooting at eachother, then they both have made the choice to engage in battle. It is horrible in the first place, but they both are on the same understanding of what they came to do.

Children, women, and innocent bystanders do not deserve to die in war. It is not their choice to fight. It is horrible the casualties of war, but if you purposly kill someone like this, then you deserve to be punished however deemed necessary.

If a soldier (or anyone for that matter) kills an innocent, unarmed person - THAT IS MURDER.

Answer 7

I agree. In a war where your enemie looks just like the average civillian you have to cut the Marines a little slack.
If it turns out that they just decided for no reason to rip some unarmed civillian out of his bed and shoot him for target practice, and there is plenty of proof to back that up. By all means, make them pay. But I doubt that is what happened.
Analyzing every kill the troops make and looking for reasons to accuse them of murder is just going to make them second guess themselves, and that will just get more troops killed.

Answer 8

Soldiers have to go thru some classes (Rules of Engagement). They Know the difference between civilians and insurgents. You get trained to recognize the diference. No excuse. They brake the rules, they face the music. There is dirrection for soldiers to follow, you just don't go to the war zone shooting everything in your path.

Answer 9

Oh I do. Such bullsh@t. They set and say how they are killing civilians. But what they doing for are marines to kill them. Just somebody trying to get a good story. The marines are always the fall guys.

Answer 10

I think it's a load of crap. Who do you trust over there? Those civilians could have had bombs attached to them. Even the women and children. YOU LEARN TO TRUST NO ONE BUT YOUR FELLOW MARINES.... especially in a war zone. There are car bombs, IEDs and everything else out there. you never know what's gonna happen.... People over there are killing our guys who are trying to make a difference. Like I said, trust no one...

Answer 11

If they kill in the line of duty then yes, I agree with you. However, if the kill without being threatened by the person, then that is murder and they should be held accountable.