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A short thread on killing and moral ambiguity.
A friend and coworker in Iraq borrowed my spare ASP (an expanding metal baton) one day, then broke it on a man's body that night before killing him. It was a "featherweight" ASP, so aluminum not steel, and I don't recommend them...
A friend and coworker in Iraq borrowed my spare ASP (an expanding metal baton) one day, then broke it on a man's body that night before killing him. It was a "featherweight" ASP, so aluminum not steel, and I don't recommend them...
...because they break, apparently. ASPs and other "less-lethal" (actual term) options, such as X26 tasers, were always in high-demand during capture/kill missions due to much higher likelihood of engaging in less-lethal violence (than shooting) when clearing target sites...
...anyhoo, my friend, who had fought in Somalia in '93 and at Haditha Dam in '03, told a guy to show him his hands and got told off instead. The rules say you're supposed to shoot a threat (weapon in hand, or a remote device such as a garage door opener)...
...and restrain non-threats (no weapon, no remote), sans women and children (who get moved to another room), and that's pretty much the options. Hands are how you identify threats. If someone refuses to show their hands you're supposed to subdue them, gotta see the hands...
...my friend, Captain H., told the guy again "show me your hands", got told off again. Hit the guy in the traps with my ASP using his left hand (dominant hand in retention of primary weapon), 4x before the ASP broke. Went to his primary, an M4A1 with a CQB upper, and did a...
...muzzle strike, jabbed him in the sternum (that's usually my go-to move) and the guy grabbed his rifle and stripped the magazine from it. CPT H. shot him off his muzzle with the chambered round. 10.3" barrel. Even in the violence of '07 this stood out, not a lot of...
...hand-to-hand like that. CPT H. gave me back the, now broken, ASP in the morning. Told me what happened. I asked him what the guy's deal was, why was he so adamant. CPT H. told me "he kept yelling that I had no legitimacy here, get out of his home". Now here's the rub, we...
...didn't have any legitimacy there. We illegally invaded and occupied Iraq. Period. Now, if we were in that guy's place then he was a high-value insurgent, probably a bomb-maker based on our target set. Not super sympathetic to bomb-makers by any means, but the man had a point..
...and kudos to anyone willing to die going toe-to-toe like that with an armed operator. Mad respect. My friend was doing exactly what he was supposed to do, too. My point is that the whole scenario sucked. If a bunch of Americans showed up in my house under foreign leadership...
...I'd tell them GTFO too. Bringing it up because I watched 'The Battle of Algiers' with a friend last night, and he commented "it's hard to tell who the good guys are here". Yeah, wars can be like that. Just because propaganda makes everything seem simple doesn't make it true.
