“He’s fucking faking he’s dead -- he’s faking he’s fucking dead.”

Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden movements, no reaching or lunging.

However, the Marine could legitimately believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he’s going to cover him while another Marine searches for weapons.

Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a small splatter against the back wall and the man’s leg slumps down.

”Well he’s dead now,” says another Marine in the background.

I am still rolling. I feel the deep pit of my stomach. (4)

Sites reports what he saw, but by providing an excuse for the killer he reveals a bias. He wonders about the rest of the wounded men and one can only wonder what would have happened to them if Sites were not there since the marine’s demeanor changed when he became aware of Sites’ presence.

Sites raises another point unmentioned in most of the corporate US media: “In the aftermath, the first question that came to mind was why had these wounded men been left in the mosque?” (5)

Article 10 of the Geneva Convention states:

Protection and care

1. All the wounded, sick and shipwrecked, to whichever Party they belong, shall be respected and protected.

2. In all circumstances they shall be treated humanely and shall receive, to the fullest extent practicable and with the least possible delay, the medical care and attention required by their condition. There shall be no distinction among them founded on any grounds other than medical ones.

Occupation Investigation

An investigation has been begun by forensic experts in Delaware where “sophisticated mortuary equipment” is available. (6) High tech equipment and top-notch scientists will probably not, however, be enough to overcome political constraints.

Lt. Col. Bob Miller, the judge advocate general heading the investigation, serves as a barometer of which direction the investigation is heading. Miller considered it possible to reasonably conclude self-defense by the Marine.

“The policy of the rules of engagement authorize the Marines to use force when presented with a hostile act or hostile intent,” Miller said. “So they would have to be using force in self-defense, yes.”

Miller did add, “Any wounded -- in this case insurgents -- who don’t pose a threat would not be considered hostile.”

“We follow the law of armed conflict and hold ourselves to a high standard of accountability,” stated the commanding general of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler. “The facts of this case will be thoroughly pursued to make an informed decision and to protect the rights of all persons involved.”

The filmmaker Errol Morris, who won an Academy Award for his film The Fog of War, penned a well-crafted and deceptive piece stemming from the video-recorded slaying. (7)

Morris wrote, “Photography, because of its causal relationship to the world, seems to give us the truth or something close to the truth. I am skeptical about this for many reasons. But even if photography doesn’t give us truth on a silver platter, it does make it harder for us to deny reality.” This seems reasonable but the obscurantism is already apparent. Morris wrote first of photography when videography is the case. This is not just a depiction of a snapshot in time but rather a happening in time.

Of the videotape, Morris wrote, “It does not tell us everything we need to know about what happened. It does not tell us what the marine was thinking or what his prisoner was thinking -- that is, what he was thinking before he was shot dead. But it does tell us that something happened. And, as a result, it makes the shooting, the killing, much harder to deny.” [italics added]

There are a couple of points to be noted here. First, Morris impressed upon the reader the necessity to understand the mindset of the killer. The mindset of the person murdered is apparently inconsequential. Why the mindset of the killer is so important for “us” to understand he does not say -- merely that it is so.  Second, he pointed to a pressing need to deny the crime rather than to correct it or prevent it. It is plausible that if readers could get into the mind of the killer, they might sympathize with his aberrant thoughts. The focus seems to be on the exculpation of the wrongdoer rather than the prevention of similar occurrences in the future. It seems more fruitful to concentrate on the events that triggered the mindset and subsequent behavior.

Despite what the videotape shows (US viewers, unlike other viewers worldwide, were only shown a sanitized video version by the patriarchal corporate US media. One wonders how the monopoly media and the US public manage to evade the obvious question: if these atrocities are beyond the sensibilities of American viewers, how is it that these atrocities are permitted to happen and to continue without condemnation!) Morris asked a “central question” that persists for him: “What are we looking at? And that question will not go away. No more so than the pictures of Abu Ghraib went away. Pictures are physical evidence, and as such, they are part of an effort to understand what really happened.”

The central answer would clearly seem to be: the killing of a wounded and unarmed Iraqi resistance fighter by an armed US marine. This answer cannot be made to go away either. The photos that emerged from Abu Ghuraib disappeared, for the most part, from corporate media presentation. The other more graphic depictions of US barbarity at Abu Ghuraib never surfaced. The public was thereby prevented from understanding what really happened. In similar fashion, the Sites video has been censored. One can surmise that media executives do not wish the public to grasp what is happening.

Morris persisted on the psychology of the murderous event. “We look at pictures of other people and we want to know: what were they thinking? … We are not merely spectators; we are investigators. We are involved.” [italics added] It is rather telling when a writer chooses to arrogate everyone to his cause by incorporating the all-inclusive “we” into his writing. The sophistry of Morris’ thinking is revealed by his faulty suppositions and self-contradictions. Already it is clear that “we” are only spectators in a partial sense since “we” are not shown the entire video. Without all the evidence, how then are “we” supposed to be investigators in any meaningful way?

Morris attempted to further obscure the marine’s responsibility for his actions. “There is a fact of the matter to be determined; whether this was done in cold blood and therefore constitutes a war crime and who, if anyone, should be held responsible.” Despite the video evidence, a seed is planted that the killer might not be responsible for his actions.

Morris asserted, “[A]n unerring fact of human nature is that we habitually reject the evidence of our own senses.”

Because of this, Morris held, “People will interpret this videotape according to their ideological dispositions.” In other words, asked Morris, “Are we looking at the face of freedom on the march, or at the footprint of an out-of-control behemoth leaving a trail of bodies in its wake?”

The video-recorded slaying seems so ambiguous at this point in Morris’ essay that confusion would seem the intent.

To amplify the obscurantism, Morris seized upon the discredited pretext of bringing freedom to Iraqis. Discredited, of course, because it is preposterous to claim to be bringing the gift of freedom to a people by killing 100,000 of them (8) and simultaneously subjecting them to a brutal and criminal occupation. “War is bloody, brutal; the enemy is vicious. But the objective of extending freedom redeems what has to be done to achieve it. In this view,” concluded Morris, “the war is unfortunate but necessary.”

Why does Morris limit himself to writing about just this point of view? What about an opposing view? Readers are left with one view because the writer either didn’t have the courage or capacity to divulge other views or perhaps this view expresses a bias. Yet Morris admitted to being “deeply skeptical about this war” that is “at best, misguided and at worst, deeply wrong.”

“And yet, there is a common element -- our capacity for self-deception, for denial and for evasion.”

There is also the susceptibility to deception by others based partially on prejudices held and gullibility.

Kim Petersen is a writer living in Nova Scotia, Canada. He can be reached at: kimpete@start.no.

References

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