The Fallujah Mosque Shooting

I won't jump into the fray on the Marine shooting issue because I simply don't know enough to make a conclusive statement. I will say that I'm going to give the kid Marine the benefit of the doubt, because he's the one over there, serving our country, and doing so in a situation that redefines stressful. As far as I can tell, he hasn't been charged with anything yet, and he may not be under the circumstances -- and even if he is, he's innocent until proven guilty (if we can observe that statement for the Scott Petersons of our world, we can defintiely do it for a Marine).

But there are some interesting stories worth reading around the blogosphere. Wretchard at the Belmont Club has a fabulous post on the whole thing (and a somewhat related and heartbreaking story here). As usual, Instapundit has some good links from military bloggers. One of his links hits a spot called Chapomatic, who makes an interesting observation...

This is an information war; just as Al-Jazeera didn’t play the Italian or CARE snuff film murders and nobody showed the pictures of the horror we stopped in Falluja, and just as the pornographic obsession with Abu Ghraib dominated media, this will become a way to weaken the American center of gravity of public support. This is a warfare tactic as surely as cryptography use or artillery employment.

This kind of warfighting will get uglier, by the way. These guys killed ours under the flag of truce; killed civilians; instead of killing, tortured and killed on video those civilians; mutilated and desecrated our aid workers; used neutral symbols as assets; anything to continue their slaughter. What we care about, they don’t.

...Finally, imagine the tough situation that kid was in. The way several people put it, it’s a case where "would you rather be judged by 12, or carried by 6?"

Sobering to say the least. As a final reality check, read this post at Powerline, which goes to the heart of the matter. Like I said, I'll wait until the evidence is in, but I'm planning to give this kid the maximum benefit of the doubt.