The Truth Shall Make You Miserable

Darrin Mortenson of the North County Times, a source I've had occasion to
quote before, believes that Kevin Sites, the NBC photographer who showed a
Marine shooting a wounded Jihadi in a mosque, is caught between a rock
and hard place.

And then the entire week of brutal fighting seemed to boil down to a single
iconic image of a battle-weary Marine with a Marlboro hanging from his parched
and broken lips. It said it all: true grit. The public cheered the image and
no one complained about the wall-to-wall play the picture received around the
world. ... And it was brought to us by ---- guess who? ---- an embedded
reporter. But as soon as Sites' video aired Monday, many people were shouting
to ban the embeds -- or worse. When I got to my Oceanside office Wednesday,
the first phone message I retrieved was from an angry reader who said she was
disturbed that -- in a follow-up article on Sites' Fallujah report -- I had
called the slain Iraqi man a "fighter," and not a "chicken fighter."

Mortenson recalls his own experiences when he covered the earlier Marine
battle for Fallujah.

Unofficially, while Marine public affairs officers who worked with Sites in
Iraq have expressed support and have said he was just doing his job, they
admit his report was probably a crushing blow to the morale of the men who'd
witnessed and participated in so much horror and so much heroism over the last
two weeks. Privately, many Marines said they knew Sites' relationship with the
troops was doomed. According to reports from the field, Sites was last seen at
the base camp near Fallujah eating alone in the chow hall, shunned by the
Marines around him.

I could imagine it because, to some extent, Hayne and I sat in that same
lonely seat when we covered the Marines in the spring. After entering Fallujah
with a Marine platoon in late March, we witnessed a Marine sniper kill an
unarmed Iraqi man who was standing on his roof talking on a cell phone.
According to the Marines' rules of engagement that day, the troops could only
shoot someone who was shooting at them. Even someone holding a rifle, if not
raising it to fire, was off limits. I reported the killing matter-of-factly,
without judgment, and definitely without wanting to damage the Marines' morale
or reputation. It was war, I reasoned, and I included it as just one vignette
in a story that otherwise detailed the Marines' courageous rush into battle.

Why I thought it was important enough to report was because of how the
shooting -- whether the man was a legitimate military target or just an
unfortunate casualty of war ---- had turned the entire neighborhood against
the Marines. More than a hundred people had gathered outside the slain man's
home. A nearby mosque blared condemnation and chants. Neighbors took up arms,
and insurgents ended up chasing us out of town under fire. Neighbors on the
other side of town said the "tribe" would have to get revenge for that man and
the more than 20 other Iraqis who were reportedly killed or wounded that day.
It was instructive: What we had witnessed and documented was how the
insurgency grows -- something the military and folks at home seemed very
uncomfortable hearing about.

... When the news is good, everyone hails those hardworking reporters who
live in the dirt and danger to accompany the troops, as long as their reports
make us feel good. But when the images make us uncomfortable or force us to
ask questions, we blame the media. It's war. It's ugly. Believe me. War brings
out the very best and the worst in men, especially when both sides claim they
have God on their side and are therefore above reproach. Without passing
judgment on that one Marine, Sites' footage was important for us to see.
Marines quoted by The Boston Globe the day after the video aired said they had
no trouble with the shooting in the blurred environment of Fallujah. "I would
have shot the insurgent, too," said one sergeant. "Two shots to the head. "You
can't trust these people," he said. "He did nothing wrong." If so, then why
should Sites be damned for showing it?

Someone I cannot recall remarked that all men who have passed through great
danger share the secret of shames no one has noticed or has pretended not to.
Initiation is often marked by what is tacitcly kept quiet rather than what is
described. It is what men do not say at reunions that marks the veteran. Many
who repeat the shopworn phrase that 'there are no atheists in foxholes' only
partially understand it. Men on the battlefield pray to God not so much because
they want to survive, though there is certainly that; but also because they
realize, better than any academic, how much men need forgiveness on every day of
their lives.

I think Mortenson is right: we need the truth, however ugly. There is due
process to protect the innocent from arbitrary punishment. But I also think that
Morteson, Sites and everyone who can regard this calmly from a distance are
lucky. They didn't have to pull the trigger and neither of them is a looking at
a possible spell in Federal prison.

Update

Kevin Sites adds considerable detail to the shooting of an Iraqi in a mosque
by a Marine. Sites stops short of saying the shooting was improper, but
maintains that it didn't seem right.

While I continue to tape, a Marine walks up to the other two bodies about
fifteen feet away, but also lying against the same back wall. Then I hear him
say this about one of the men: "He's fucking faking he's dead -- he's faking
he's fucking dead." Through my viewfinder I can see him raise the muzzle of
his rifle in the direction of the wounded Iraqi. There are no sudden
movements, no reaching or lunging. However, the Marine could legitimately
believe the man poses some kind of danger. Maybe he's going to cover him while
another Marine searches for weapons. Instead, he pulls the trigger. There is a
small splatter against the back wall and the man's leg slumps down. "Well he's
dead now," says another Marine in the background.

During the course of these events, there was plenty of mitigating
circumstances like the ones just mentioned and which I reported in my story.
The Marine who fired the shot had reportedly been shot in the face himself the
day before. I'm also well aware from many years as a war reporter that there
have been times, especially in this conflict, when dead and wounded insurgents
have been booby-trapped, even supposedly including an incident that happened
just a block away from the mosque in which one Marine was killed and five
others wounded. Again, a detail that was clearly stated in my television
report. ...

In the particular circumstance I was reporting, it bothered me that the
Marine didn't seem to consider the other insurgents a threat -- the one very
obviously moving under the blanket, or even the two next to me that were still
breathing. I can't know what was in the mind of that Marine. He is the only
one who does. But observing all of this as an experienced war reporter who

always bore in mind the dark perils of this conflict, even knowing the
possibilities of mitigating circumstances -- it appeared to me very plainly
that something was not right.

The really fascinating part of Site's account was how the video was
subsequently handled.

I did not in any way feel like I had captured some kind of "prize" video.
In fact, I was heartsick. Immediately after the mosque incident, I told the
unit's commanding officer what had happened. I shared the video with him, and
its impact rippled all the way up the chain of command. Marine commanders
immediately pledged their cooperation. We all knew it was a complicated story,
and if not handled responsibly, could have the potential to further inflame
the volatile region. I offered to hold the tape until they had time to look
into incident and begin an investigation -- providing me with information that
would fill in some of the blanks. ...

When NBC aired the story 48-hours later, we did so in a way that attempted
to highlight every possible mitigating issue for that Marine's actions. We
wanted viewers to have a very clear understanding of the circumstances
surrounding the fighting on that frontline. Many of our colleagues were just
as responsible. Other foreign networks made different decisions, and
because of that, I have become the conflicted conduit who has brought this to
the world.

Here was a genuine dilemma. If the video was not suppressed entirely there
would be no controlling its subsequent use, even if it were virtually certain
that one of those uses would be enemy propaganda. All Sites could do was act
within his own job description and proper lights. The alternative would be to
keep the lid on it. Lyricist
Tom
Lehrer once satirzed Wehner von Braun's nomination to NASA despite his
involvement with the V2 rocket:

Don't say that he's hypocritical

Say rather that he's apolitical

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down

That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun

It would be unfair to compare Sites to Von Braun and there is no intention to
do so, but the dilemmas are superficially comparable. If the Marine's shooting
must be viewed in context is there a similar context for shooting and releasing
video? At what point does denying aid to the enemy become self-censorship and
abetting a lie? At what point does legitimate combat on the battlefield become
murder? Sites is explaining why he ought not be considered a
traitor, but a man who in some sense was fulfilling his duty to the public. The
Marine will be explaining why he ought not be sentenced to jail with the aid of
a lawyer.