Friday, November 19, 2004

Much Fallujah 'Bout Nothing

I'm probably the very last of the conservative bloggers to blog on the incident involving the US Marine who shot a wounded Iraqi in Fallujah. In part this was becaue I wanted to see where the story went. Well, it's pretty well documented now, and as equally well blogged upon, so I think I'll just make a couple of observations, then refer you to other blogger who, I believe, have answered the salient points in a manner that I find both eloquent and akin to my own opinion.

First of all, my observatiuon is that if this Marine's actions violated either the Geneva Convention, the UCMJ or the ROE's for Iraq, he deserves any disciplinary action coming to him. But if he didn't, he should not have his good name dragged through the mud.

So did he? Well, with regards to Geneva, Smallholder over at Naked Villainy has that covered.

The UCMJ or the ROE's? Well, I don't know enough about them, and we won't know until the investigation is complete, but Mean Mr. Mustard has a few thoughts on the investigation.

There's also the question of basic civility, and what a reasonable human being should have been expected to do. In that regard, none of us who have not been in combat has any point of reference from which to judge this Marine's actions. But Ace of Spades relays the thoughts of those who have been there -- and are even now.

All three are worth reading.

Fundamentalist Atheists

Thanks for the Memory to Jacques Vader.

Jacques, a right ballsy fellow himself, links to an article by one of our northern neighbors who has the temerity to defend the rights of the Right.

The best quote in the Coren article is this one:

After U.S. President George Bush's re-election last week, one rather glib Canadian pundit opined: "Half of the United States wants to be like Canada, the other half like Iran."

How awfully clever. Yes that's right, 150 million Americans want to amputate limbs as a form of punishment and sponsor international terrorism.


Remind you of anything?

Coren also makes this observation:

But in Canada this is accepted as intelligent analysis. [Don't be too hard on your country, sir, we have plenty of that going around down here too] It is what we have come to expect from the influential minority group known as The Secular Left. They dominate political parties, are well organized and are vehemently intolerant. They are also incapable of listening to the inherent contradictions in their own arguments.

Sounds like an ideal description of Fundamentalism, doesn't it? The irony is, that's what many on the left have become -- Fundamentalist Atheists -- but can't see that the comparison they make between different religions might just apply to their anti-religion.