Eye In The Sky

Tuesday, March 29, 2005 Eye In The Sky A US Army soldier has pleaded not guilty for killing a wounded insurgent in Iraq. The insurgent was working for Muqtada Al-Sadr, when he and his driver were fired upon last May. The US soldier, a tank commander, claims to have killed the man to ease his suffering from severe head injuries. It was all captured on videotape - "In the video, the man appeared to be lying on the ground and waving his right arm before the first shot flashed. In a subsequent image, he appeared to twitch as though hit again; and a dark pool of what seemed to be blood was visible." What is really rather amazing is that the video was captured by a US military drone aircraft on a reconaissance mission. I find it odd that a drone would just happen to be viewing this incident at the time, but apparently that is what happened. Should the man be court-martialed? Yes. Should every possible doubt, inference and question be resolved in his favor? Absolutely. If it is at all plausible that the insurgent was mortally wounded, that settles it for me, case over. The military should bend over backwards to absolve soldiers of perceived wrongs committed in the heat of battle (as opposed to wrongs committed during frat parties inside prisons, for example). P.S., Notice how the Sgrena affair has all but disappeared from public consciousness? Notice how there are no calls for congressional investigations, nor any calls for resignations? Something useful came from it I suppose, it reminded us that Marxist journalists are, and always have been, liars. 1:19 AM | | |