Online petition supports Marine accused of shooting wounded Iraqi
By Christian Lowe
ArmyTimes.Com
More than 24,000 e-mail signatures of support have been registered on an online petition backing a Marine accused of shooting a wounded Iraqi in cold blood during the battle for Fallujah, Iraq, on Nov. 13.
The petition was created by Alan Swinney, 34, a former soldier and veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, who posted it on a free Web-based service.
“I know a lot of people who [are] really upset about it and I’m just trying to find a voice,” the drug screening collector from Midland, Texas, said in a Nov. 19 interview.
Swinney has sent his petition via e-mail to several members of Congress and even to President Bush.
The online petition is the latest move in a wave of support for the unnamed Marine who faces charges of war crimes. Marine officials are investigating the circumstances behind the shooting of an apparently wounded Iraqi after leathernecks with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines, stormed a mosque from which they were receiving heavy fire.
Web sites have been flooded with postings saying the Marine was justified in shooting the Iraqi — an incident that has equally inflamed anti-American sentiment among some in the Middle East, where the wounds of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal are still raw.
Many supporters of the Marine believe that since the insurgents do not follow the rules of war the leatherneck should not be held to such a strict standard — particularly in a situation in which the intentions of the wounded Iraqi were in doubt.
“I think the Marine was completely justified in his actions. The terrorists are known for ‘booby trapping’ their injured and deceased. So our troops have no way of knowing if it is safe to approach even the wounded,” one person who signed Swinney’s petition wrote.
“Give him a metal [sic],” another wrote.
Many of those who signed the petition are angry at the media for releasing the footage, blaming NBC reporter Kevin Sites, who was embedded with the suspect Marines’ unit, for stoking the controversy.
“Kevin Sites has got to be the worst of them over there,” Swinney said. “He was trying to get everyone up in arms about us blowing up mosques until he figured out that wasn’t going to work. He’s trying to get something started, and I guess he did a pretty good job with that Marine.”
And Swinney’s not alone in his sentiments.
“The media is on the terrorist’s side with this type of publicity. You cannot lay [sic] among terrorists shooting at our men and be granted clemency,” one petition signatory wrote.
Sites, who is well-regarded among war correspondents for his reporting skill and lack of political agenda, has been quoted as saying: “I have witnessed the Marines behaving as a disciplined and professional force throughout this offensive. In this particular case, it certainly was a confusing situation to say the least.”
Swinney brushes off the potential that a war crime might have been committed by the Marine. He hopes the petition — whose total number of signatories grows by the second — starts a groundswell of support to exonerate the Marine.
“It’s dangerous over there and we can’t really be judging how they fight the war,” Swinney said. “They want to come back in one piece.
“If I’d have gone into the room, I’d have put a bullet in every one of them just to make sure they were dead.”
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