Uncle Jimbo at Blackfive points readers to a discussion of what makes a shooting a massacre that is worth reading:
There is one and only one relevant standard for this whole incident and that is the reasonable belief that your life or the life of others is in danger. If that is reasonably believed then deadly force may be employed, absent that belief it may not. There are other factors that would impact this, like rules of engagement, but in this case the Marines ROE obviously included the right to return fire. The question is was there any, and if not why did they fire? If the Marines killed people without reasonable belief they were in danger, then they committed murder. If they had a reasonable belief in their danger, they did not.
I haven’t commented on the Haditha investigation because it is an ongoing matter and the military legal system’s wheels are still in motion. I think it’s highly inappropriate for Murtha and other politicians to be talking about the matter other than relating that there is an ongoing investigation and that the facts will be made public once they have been determined by military investigators and a military court.
The constant attempts to smear our military sicken me. The vast majority of the servicemen and women I know are honorable people who are doing there best under circumstances that would make lesser beings crumble.
Consider for a moment that the enemies our Marines face every day in Iraq have no compunctions about killing anyone at all to achieve their goals. They attack from inside the homes of people who may or may not be sympathetic to their cause. They attack from inside the protection of houses of worship, knowing full well that the coalition must follow rules of engagement while they have none. The enemy we face in Iraq has no moral limitations and is not bound by the Rule of Law.
If the same weaponry that is available to Western nations were available to them, your city, your neighborhood and your home, with your family inside, would long ago have evaporated in a mushroom cloud.
Don’t rush to judge something you don’t fully understand. If crimes were committed, they will be punished. That is what makes our society worth fighting for – as imperfect as our dispensation of justice is – it is leaps and bounds above what the enemy lives by. If you doubt me, I challenge you to leave your home nation and move to Waziristan, Afghanistan or some other place where fundamentalist Islamic fanaticism is firmly entrenched. I’ll buy you a one way ticket.