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So what is this crackerjack ruling going to tell our troops in the field?
"Be sure to shoot to kill."
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They're already trained to do just that.
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The problem I have with this is that this guy had just been shooting at the Canadian troops. So you are seriously telling me that if someone is shooting at me, I manage hit them, knock them down and their gun falls out of their hands...that I shouldn't finish them off?
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That's not what anyone is saying. The Geneva Convention is quite clear that it only applies to wounded adversaries who are no longer in fighting condition. In this case, the Taliban insurgent had been strafed by an Apache helicopter and was (to quote one of the witnesses in the trial) "98% dead". Under those circumstances, our troops were obligated to provide him the same treatment they would one of their own.
If this had been a friendly fire incident and a Canadian soldier had been accidentally shot by an American chopper, do you think
Capt. 2Lt. Semrau would have "finished him off" with two bullets as an "act of mercy"? I think not.