Rak, I know what brotherhood means. The words "Semper Fidelis" are meaningful to me.
But...
Some of the command decisions made over there have been criminal and cowardly.
Why, for example, were civilians not allowed to leave the battlefield in Falluja? They let women, children and men under 10 and over 65 out, but they didn't let any other men out. They used equipment to detect gunpowder or other explosives residue on the clothes and hands of the men. If a man tested positive, he was taken prisoner. If not, he was turned back into the battle zone while the rest of his family was allowed to leave. Falluja is a city of 300,000 people. Not every man in that city was a terrorist. Even if the marines had set up a prison camp outside Falluja, called these men POW's or detainees and contained them - well, fewer would have died. More children would have fathers today and more wives would have husbands. The Geneva conventions are specific - non-combatants must be allowed to leave the battlefield.
Instead of belaboring the point, here are some excerpts from another first hand account. This guy was an AP reporter:
The 33-year-old Associated Press photographer stayed behind to capture insider images during the siege of the former insurgent stronghold.
"Everyone in Fallujah knew it was coming. I had been taking pictures for days," he said. "I thought I could go on doing it."
In the hours and days that followed, heavy bombing raids and thunderous artillery shelling turned Hussein's northern Jolan neighborhood into a zone of rubble and death. The walls of his house were pockmarked by coalition fire.
"Destruction was everywhere. I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come and help them. Even the civilians who stayed in Fallujah were too afraid to go out," he said.
"There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days."
By Tuesday afternoon, as U.S. forces and Iraqi rebels engaged in fierce clashes in the heart of his neighborhood, Hussein snapped.
"U.S. soldiers began to open fire on the houses, so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay in my house," he said.
Hussein said he panicked, seizing on a plan to escape across the Euphrates River, which flows on the western side of the city
"I wasn't really thinking," he said. "Suddenly, I just had to get out. I didn't think there was any other choice."
...
Hussein moved from house to house dodging gunfire and reached the river.
"I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river."
He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he "helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands."
"I kept walking along the river for two hours and I could still see some U.S. snipers ready to shoot anyone who might swim. I quit the idea of crossing the river and walked for about five hours through orchards."
Finally, there's this:
The Iraqi Red Crescent aid convoy has appealed to the UN seeking help to reach Fallujah civilians desperate for humanitarian aide, after the U.S. has prevented them from reaching the city civilians.
...
A Red Crescent convoy managed to reach the main hospital on Fallujah outskirts, but they can't move further to reach helpless civilians, including hundreds of children who were cut off from food, water and medical aide, as it is still too dangerous for them to cross the Euphrates river.
"Our situation is very hard," said one resident contacted by telephone in the central Hay al-Dubat neighborhood on Sunday.
"We don't have food or water. My seven children all have severe diarrhea. One of my sons was wounded by shrapnel last night and he's bleeding, but I can't do anything to help him."
Moreover, wounded residents in the battle-torn city were unable to enter the hospital, where U.S. forces were forbidding the aid convoy from reaching them, Red Crescent spokeswoman Ferdus al-Ibadi told reporters.