🚀 go-pugleaf

I did not catch this covered on our media outlets. Was this filtered
out by our free media as something not good for us.
=====
MICHEL GUERRIN, Le Monde, 4/16/03
http://www.counterpunch.org/guerrin04162003.html

Marines are conditioned to reach their target at any cost, by staying
alive
and facing any type of enemy. They abusively make use of
disproportionate
firepower. These hardened troops, followed by tons of equipment,
supported
by extraordinary artillery power, protected by fighter jets and 
cutting-edge helicopters, were shooting on local inhabitants who
understood
absolutely nothing of what was going on.

With my own eyes I saw about fifteen civilians killed in two days.
I've
gone through enough wars to know that it's always dirty, that
civilians are
always the first victims. But the way it was happening here, it was
insane.

At the roughest moment, the most humane of the troops was called Doug.
He
gave real warning shots. From 800 yards he could hit a tire and, if
that
wasn't enough, then the motor. He saved ten lives in two hours by
driving
back civilians who were coming towards us.

Distraught soldiers were saying: 'I ain't prepared for this, I didn't
come
here to shoot civilians.' The colonel countered that the Iraqis were
using
inhabitants to kill marines, that 'soldiers were being disguised as 
civilians, and that ambulances were perpetrating terrorist attacks.'

I drove away a girl who had had her humerus pierced by a bullet.
Enrico was
holding her in his arms. In the rear, the girl's father was protecting
his
young son, wounded in the torso and losing consciousness. The man
spoke in
gestures to the doctor at the back of the lines, pleading: "I don't 
understand, I was walking and holding my children's hands. Why didn't
you
shoot in the air? Or at least shoot me.?"