To: Bilow who wrote (188300 ) 6/4/2006 8:56:18 PM From: Hawkmoon Read Replies (1) | Respond to Yes, but the crime that the Marine unit is accused of is massacring a group of civilians. Of the examples you've given, only the " Balangiga massacre of 1901 in the Phillipines" involved significant numbers of civilians, and even that one was also a massacre of enemy combatants. en.wikipedia.org in which at least a dozen unarmed Italian civilians, including six children, were killed by U.S. troops under the command of General George Patton. The town of Canicattì had already surrendered when U.S. troops entered, following heavy German bombardment during their withdrawal. Civilians had been rounded up and herded into a bombed soap factory where they were shot by U.S. military policemen. The incident was covered up fearing that it would lead to reprisals from the civilian population.No amount of command and control is going to stop this sort of thing from breaking out. Our guys are under incredible pressures. You and I probably both know that those civilians could have saved their lives if they'd been a bit proactive at preventing the insurgents from using their front yards as a place to set up an ambush. Maybe their neighbors picked up the lesson. But while this sort of thing may make a Marine unit a bit safer, it makes the war as a whole that much more impossible to keep up. Forget the effect on the Arab public, what do you think the effect on the American public is? How much longer do you think we're going to stick around?
