Why we will win this one in the end

Regarding the news about the Marine who put two rounds (aka "double tap") in a wounded insurgent's head in Fallujah, here's a response from a Marine:

It's a safety issue, pure and simple.
After assaulting through a target, we put a security round in everybody's head. Sorry al-Reuters, there's no paddy wagon rolling around Fallujah picking up "prisoners" and offering them a hot cup o' Joe, falafel, and a blanket. There's no time to dick around on the target. You clear the space, dump the chumps, and move on.
Are corpsmen expected to treat wounded terrorists? Negative.
Hey, you Libs, worried about the defense budget? Well, it would be waste, fraud, and abuse for a corpsman to expend one man-minute or a battle dressing on a terrorist. It's much cheaper to just spend the $.02 on a 5.56mm FMJ.
By the way, in our view, terrorists who chop off civilian's heads are not prisoners, they are carcasses. Chopping off a civilian's head is another reason why these idiots are known as "unlawful combatants". It seems that most of the world's journalists have forgotten that fact.
Let me be very clear about this issue. I have looked around the web, and many people get this concept, but there are some stragglers.
Here is your typical Marine sitrep (situation report):
You just took fire from unlawful combatants (no uniform, thus breaking every Geneva Convention there is) shooting from a religious building, attempting to use the sanctuary status of their position as protection. But you're in Fallujah now, and the Marine Corps has decided that they're not playing that game this time. That was Najaf. So you set the mosque on fire and you hose down the terrorists with small arms, launch some AT4 rockets and some 40mm grenades into the building, and suddenly things quiet down.
So you run over there, and find some tangos (bad guys; 'tango' for 't' for 'terrorist', from the old British experience in Malaysia) wounded and pretending to be dead. You are aware that suicide martyrdom is really popular with these idiots, and they think taking some Marines with them would be really cool. So you can risk your life, and the lives of your fire team, by having them cover you while you bend down and search a guy that you think is pretending to be dead for some reason; most of the time these are the guys with the grenade or a vest made of explosives. Also, you don't know who or what is in the next room. You're already speaking English to the rest of your fire team or squad, which lets the terrorists know you are there and you are their enemy. You are speaking loudly because your hearing is poor from shooting at people for several days. So you know that there are many other rooms to enter, and that if anyone is still alive in those rooms, they know that Americans are in the mosque. Meanwhile (three seconds later), you still have this terrorist (that was just shooting at you from a mosque only minutes ago) playing possum. What do you do? You double tap his head, and you go to the next room, that's what.
What about the Geneva Convention and all that 'Law of Land Warfare' stuff? What about it? Without even addressing the issues at hand, your first thought should be: "I'd rather be judged by twelve than carried by six."
Bear in mind that this tactic of double-tapping a fallen terrorist is a perpetual mindset that is reinforced by experience on a minute-by-minute basis.
Second, you are fighting an unlawful combatant in a sanctuary, which is a double no-no on his part.
Third, tactically you are in no position to take prisoners, because there are more rooms to search and clear, and the behavior of said terrorist indicates that he is up to no good. Now, 'no good' in Fallujah is a very large place, and the low end of no-good and the high end of no-good are fundamentally the same: Marines who end up getting hurt or dead.
So there is no compelling reason for you to do anything but double-tap this idiot and get on with the mission.
If you are a veteran, then everything I have just written is self-evident.
If you are not a veteran, at least try to put yourself in the situation.
Remember, in Fallujah there is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, there is only now, right now. Have you ever lived in now for a week? It is really, really not easy. If you have never lived in the now for longer than it takes to finish the big roller coaster at Six Flags, then shut your mouth about putting Marines in jail for 'war crimes'. Assuming you can even define a 'war crime' in a war like this...
Semper fi.

Rico gives a big Vietnam-era "alright, get some" to all that...
(My thanks to Kevin Kitterman for this post.)
People forget, or never wanted to think about in the first place, that this is a fucking war, not a 'police action'. If a cop on the street had to face determined crazy people who'd kill them rather than be taken prisoner, we would be shooting people on the street. We do it now; think about that poor sumbitch who was wired up with explosives and left to die, or the machine-gun bank robbers...
I know, I know, it violates their constitutional rights... Unfortunately for them, they don't have any constitutional rights, and would have given them up (see above example) by their behavior in any case.
Boo hoo... Dead terrorists. (Check out the 'Achmed the Dead Terrorist' video elsewhere in these rants for my take on that.) The only thing we're missing now is more of them...