Rules of engagement

Quintin Wright on the news footage from Falluja which appears to show an American marine shooting a prone Iraqi, and which has caused outrage here and in the US. He says that this is just what soldiers are trained to do:

A soldier sees things in very black-and-white, clear-cut terms. If his orders are to clear an area, he has to use his initiative, but he is also trained in certain drills which help do the job quickly and without loss to friendly forces. According to reports, the marines in Falluja had been told that an area including a mosque they had previously fought through, with a number of insurgents killed, may have been reoccupied. In my experience as a soldier, if you were tasked to go back and check that area, which was still subject to hostilities, you would approach it in a purely pragmatic, soldier-like way. There is a standard operating procedure for doing that, as there is for everything else in the army...

Urban warfare is particularly gritty. I mentioned "clearing ground" but house clearing, which is what these marines are doing in Falluja, is really nasty. You have to realise that this is a fighting technique, evolved through painful experience and designed to reduce your own casualties.

War is a cold-blooded business, and I think people need to wrap their heads around that concept. If you are there, you simply have to grasp the nettle and do an effective job. You have to deal with the situation, and then get out.