The US effort to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people by conquering Falluja was always a big ask, but the effort has suffered a further serious setback when a marine was filmed shooting a wounded and unarmed insurgent in a mosque.
The footage was taken by an NBC TV cameraman Kevin Sites who was embedded as a pool correspondent with a Marine contingent that had entered the mosque.Sites said three other previously wounded prisoners inside also had been shot again by the Marines.
The footage showed a man slumped on the floor of the mosque, where rebels had earlier been shooting at US troops.
When the troops realised one man was not dead, a Marine opened fire.
Before his death, the man had been half sitting against the wall, wearing an orange headscarf.
One hopes that this is an isolated incident. The abuse of prisoners in the Abu Ghraib was bad enough. This latest outrage will further inflame the Arab world and spur on the recruitment of even more fighters willing to take on the occupying forces.
Looking more like Vietnam every day.
