Ok, I'll buy that. As long as there's witnesses.

First, Aerich, i'm sure you CAN find many copies of the picture of the so-called "execution" by the police cheif in vietnam. what you won't find is the true story of what occurred BEFORE or during the picture. the caption often enough read that the police cheif shot an unarmed man. while this is true enough, it leaves out enough to create a perception of untruth. for example:

1) the man who was "executed" was a rebel who, while the city was under attack assaulted the police cheif and three others as they left a building. the other three were killed by the man before the police cheif shot him bringing him to his knees.

2) instead of remaining down, the man tried to get up and continue combat by reaching his weapon. at this point the police cheif "executed" him, before he could reach his weapon lying on the ground. technically, he was still unarmed... but certainly NOT a non-combatant.

as to insurgents: here are two of the six definitions provided by dictionary.com:

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insurgent
adj : in opposition to a civil authority or government [syn: seditious, subversive] n 1: a person who takes part in a rebellion in the hope of improving conditions [syn: insurrectionist, mutineer, rebel] 2: a member of an irregular armed force that fights a stronger force by sabotage and harassment [syn: guerrilla, guerilla, irregular]
Source: WordNet ® 1.6, © 1997 Princeton University
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insurgent
\In*sur"gent\, n. [Cf. F. insurgent.] A person who rises in revolt against civil authority or an established government; one who openly and actively resists the execution of laws; a rebel.
Syn: See Rebel.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc
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if one is actively (meaning agressively, not peacefully) attempting overthrow of their government, and is involved in an attack on members of that government, if they die in that attack, its water off a ducks back to me. like i said, i doubt we know the full story.

Bollocks. I've seen the video footage of the execution at University and the executed man was brought before the police chief by two armed officers with his hands bound behind his back. The officers told the chief where the man had been captured (near the police chief's house, where his wife and children had been murdered). In the heat of the moment, the chief assumed that the captured man was responsible for killing his family, took out his pistol and shot him in the head without hesitating. The captured man stood still, bound, and thoroughly terrified. No 'trying to reach for his weapon' or any such nonsense.

Bollocks. I've seen the video footage of the execution at University and the executed man was brought before the police chief by two armed officers with his hands bound behind his back.

by all means, i'm sure you can then provide a source for this so-called video... i should be very interested, since i was informed by credible sources that only one still picture existed, not a video.

I'll look the video up at the University archives today then. It was part of an Australian documentary and was filmed by Australian journalists, who incidentally were not as heavily censored as their American counterparts.

[ 07-19-2004, 08:16 PM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

Here is an overview of the Vietnam era photo that seems to tell the whole story. Google provided a host of links on the topic using the keywords: "Photograph Vietnam execution". The incident was also filmed by an NBC news crew.

http://www.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/...ges/vcexec.htm

Promie, I saw the execution on the news the day it happened as a child, it was an execution, a justified one in my opinion, but still an execution.

Now for the fun part
I've been reading all this talk about trials and such. Yet what is a trial? let's boil it down, a trial is where somebody in charge makes a decision, We in the west think it must include lawyers and evidence, as per "our standards". In other parts of the world they have differant standards. What makes us think we can pass judgment on their standards, is that not EXACTLY what the anti-war crowd is accusing the USA of doing by trying to "make"(more accuratly discribed as "ALOW") a democracy to start in Iraq? Oh yeah I forgot it's ok for each of us to demand our standards to be upheld by others as long as others don't demand we uphold their standards.

Just when I thunk it couldn't get any more fun. ;) [img]smile.gif[/img] :D

It sounds like something Saddam Hussein would have done.

Right. Only the issue is rather confused in this case isn't it. Justification for the invasion of Iraq has by no small measure rested upon the notion that Saddam was a 'brutal dictator' that needed to be removed in order to bring 'freedom' and 'democracy' (Western ideas and standards) to Iraq. So, it was unacceptable by 'Western' standards for Saddam Hussein to imprison and execute his opponents without trial, but it is acceptable for the new, American-appointed Iraqi Prime Minister to do so? Where is the consistancy here?

Do you, John, believe that the war in Iraq was justified? Do you think that imposing your standards upon people you will most likely never meet was justified? If so, then fair enough, but if these allegations of execution without trial are true, then surely this PM must be opposed and removed from power? Right?

[ 07-20-2004, 04:05 AM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]

Thanks for doing the research, Chewy. That article was much clearer and more in context than the recollections of my overloaded memory.

I fully support The Hierophant's last post. You do have a point, John, about judging people by our standards, but we've (the Western idealogues) more or less decided that we cannot condone private executions. That power is too easy to abuse, and can lead to innocent people being executed by the state for no legitimate reason.

Note that I'm criticizing the process, not the result of this specific incident (if it actually happened). I don't think we have enough information (one source, after all) to do anything more than speculate about what actually happened and if it was deserved.

Edited for clarity.

[ 07-20-2004, 02:06 AM: Message edited by: Aerich ]