Dinocrat: Fruit of the Poisoned Tree

Newsmax: Bombshell Cripples Case Against Haditha Marines

Democracy Project: Haditha Cases Continue to Crumble

Need to Know is a short roundup of key stories that shouldn’t be missed on your cruise through the blogosphere. The number of links in the roundup may vary but if you find it here you can trust that it’s must-read material.
Victor Davis Han…

And this testimony, ” Atterbury then looked at photos of some of the civilians killed in Haditha. He asked Parks whether the fatal shootings of men, women and children, some of them shot in the head, would amount to an incident that merited investigation.

“The substantial number of head shots suggests to me that you have a nonresisting force. … (It) raises issues,â€? Parks replied.”

These are opinions from observations by experts but we do not
have the photos or actual powder burns to examine. The
court will determine the accuracy of those testifying. I hope they are wrong.

I cannot imagine the pressure these men are under in Iraq.

I would have been surprised if room clearing had occurred and shots had NOT been taken to the head. This is what happens. The SAW gunner led them in that day. His weapon fires in nine round bursts. M16A2s/M4s fire in three round bursts (or single shot, but I would strongly suspect that they were on three round that day). It is all over in 3-5 seconds. The stack goes in furiously through the doorway with weapons going, firing at everything that moves, through the smoke of the grenade. I suspect that within 3 seconds, 50-60 rounds had been discharged — that is, after the fragmentation grenade had been used.

Fire was taken from the room, and this is not in dispute. Not a shred of evidence exists to suggest otherwise, and no testimony of which I am aware denies this. Next, the CO had given the order to clear the room. In order to believe your sequence of events, you would have to hold that in spite of the order, the Marines put themselves and their brothers in mortal peril by entering a home from which they had taken shots (and behind which walls they believed insurgents to reside) in order to do what? Hesitate, and then take them out of the room in order to shoot them? And gain what, in comparison to simply clearing the room by the method described above?

How much ever you might want to believe something like that, no Marine puts himself and his brothers in the way of harm, disobeying an order, in order to gain absolutely nothing (shooting the inhabitants of the room outside rather than inside). Or worse, waiting until they saw that they were not insurgents (thereby again putting themselves in mortal danger because they hesitated) and then deciding to shoot them anyway. In either case, the Marines hesitate. Hesitation means death. Read the ROE posts I have made.

Hesitation is NOT part of the procedure. You can question the use of the procedure. But once the procedure is underway, you cannot stop it.

NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, CAMP PENDLETON, CALIFORNIA
Saturday, Jun 02, 2007, Page 7
Many of the 24 Iraqi civilians killed by Marine infantrymen in Haditha in 2005 died from close-range gunshot wounds, a military prosecutor said on Thursday. At least five Iraqis, two women and three men, were shot in the head.

As a way to justify my statement and to bring my contribution to the matter at hand I explain how and when.

The main purpose of the flashbang grenade is to make one or more hypothetic opponents blind and deaf for a lapse long enough to provide its user with an advantage over his oppenent, while entering a room, usually.
Adapted versions of the British Gammon grenade
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammon_grenade
were first used as flashbang grenades during WWII.

The concussion or overpressure grenade, also called offensive grenade has been purposefully invented for house and “hole� cleaning. Its first appearance on battlefield backs to WWI.
The U.S. modern MK3A2 offensive hand grenade, commonly referred to as the concussion grenade, “is used for concussion effects in enclosed areas, for blasting, or for demolition tasks. The shock waves (overpressure) produced by this grenade when used in enclosed areas are greater than those produced by the fragmentation grenade. It is, therefore, very effective against enemy soldiers located in bunkers, buildings, and fortified areas.”
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK3A2

The technique consisting in firing in full auto mode in a circular move while quickly entering a house, room, bunker or else backs to the invention of the submachine gun. But, as far as I know, this way of entering in force into an enclosed area has been made commonplace by the French troops during the Algerian war of independence (1954-1962). At that time, it consisted in kicking the house’s door with one’s foot so as to suddenly open it while opening fire in full auto mode and in a circular move (from left to right in the case of right-handed person) with the well suited MAT-49 submachine-gun
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAT-49_submachine_gun
without consideration for the gender and age of the occupants.

At that time the French soldiers made profitable use of the natural tendency of the barrel of the MAT-49 to rise during fire in bending their weapon to the right side when shooting that way (in the case of a right-handed person) so as to make the circular move easier and natural, if I may so.

However, the need for cleaning confined areas in warfare happened first during the trench battles of the WWI; and the U.S. troops were the first to use it against the Germans. Submachine-gun didn’t exist during these earlier times. For, the first mass produced submachine gun was launched by the Germans in 1918 (called the MP 18, and whose design was close to this of the English Sten). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP.18
Indeed, the invention of the MP 18 followed a decision made in 1915 by the German Rifle Testing Commission at Spandau to develop a new weapon for trench cleaning.

But before the German proved able to mass manufacture a reliable and efficient submachine-gun the Americans got the idea to slightly modify the shotgun Winchester model 1897 so as make it a reliable and efficient cleaning gun. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_1897
The thus modified shotgun was named trench-gun M97. Owing to the appalling wounds the formidable M97 inflicted to the German soldiers, Germany complained in 1918 that the use of shotguns firing multiple projectile buckshot ammunition was a violation of Section II of the 1907 Hague Convention (the Geneva Convention’s predecessor treaty), which forbade belligerents to employ arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary suffering.
See: http://neveryetmelted.com/?cat=949

I will not debate at length about the flame thrower which was invented for the sake of identical needs.

After the aforesaid events took place the cleaning house techniques you describe have been used by many fighters around the world; so much so that adapted counter-techniques have been suggested, such as the following one I heard once from the mouth of a former Israeli soldier.

Since occidental soldiers are the more often right-handed, then “we were taught to never wait for the enemy in standing on the right side of a door –and the contrary in the case of Arab fighters– during circumstances in which this unpleasant kind of event was likely to happen. For, a right handed person shall almost invariably, and for natural reasons, shoot his first bullets from the left side on of the room while entering; whereas an Arab is (statistically) more likely to shoot from the right side on.â€?

Well, if ever this last anecdote is true, then it largely relies on luck and is empirical, in my own opinion.

Anyway, all those techniques and weapons hardly allow their users to spare the life of innocents hiding in confined areas, sadly enough. For, there is no device or technology available on the market, as yet, which would allow the selective targeting of fighters, soldiers, terrorists or mere criminals.
Specialized law enforcement units and antiterrorist tactical squads have to cope with the same ticklish dilemma in a majority of the cases they have to deal with. On the one hand, yielding to moral consideration and opting not to do anything each time the risk to kill innocent people is too great would offer a too obvious parade to enemies or wrongdoers. On the other, there is no way to let go enemies and criminals; and so no sure means to avoid civilian casualties during such circumstances.
Then, the harming or killing of innocent and vulnerable people done in order to create fear in the opponent’s mind or to coerce him is disputable; and is even relevant to mere and punishable common criminality, and not to warfare, in my own opinion. As a matter of fact, it explains why, in most cases, such acts of violence are done rather by mercenaries, thugs or people of easy virtue hired by those who are unwilling to venture in such fashions of attaining their objectives.

For centuries, and until the happening of the Levée en Masse of 1793, in France, a turning point in the history of warfare, not much physical harm was done against civilians during wartime. The suffering of civilians during WWII and the rising influence of the public opinion about this question since this last event significantly spurred efforts to reduce civilian casualties. Those efforts significantly improved the safety of soldiers as well, and at this regard we may notice that automobile accidents happening on the U.S. soil, for example, kill much more Americans each year that the war in Iraq do. The number of civilians and innocent Iraqi accidentally injured or killed by the allies within one year is well at the lowest end of the list of all causes of death in this country.
But we do complain much more easily about deaths and casualties during wartime than about automobiles accidents, or even injured or death policemen or firemen, actually.

Consistent efforts to reach to an ability to wage war without direct casualties and to limit it to material destruction sometimes in the future are well underway. These efforts did pay off already because, strikingly enough, the first intervention in Iraq in 1991 made almost no casualties on the allies’ side; with the exception of a friendly fire, some accidents, and else. In any case, we may reasonably surmise that accidental or unintended injuries will persist during warfare as they will persist in automobile traffic, at work, etc.

For now, until this expected turning point will be attained and as long as some countries, foreign fighters, terrorist groups and cells, and else will feel unconcerned by this question, the following statement written by Karl von Clausewitz in On War prevails:

“War is an act of violence pushed to its utmost bounds.�