Whatever happened to hearts and minds?

Yesterday I discussed how a couple of bloggers reacted to the Marine that shot a wounded, unarmed insurgent in Iraq.

Here's how the Iraqis are reacting:

"Look at this old man who was slain by them," said Ahmed Khalil, 40, as he watched the video in his Baghdad shop. "Was he a fighter? Was anybody who was killed inside this mosque a fighter? Where are their weapons? I don't know what to say."

(snip)

Maysoun Hirmiz, 36, a Christian merchant in Baghdad, said she was not satisfied by an announcement by the U.S. military that it had removed the Marine from the battlefield and will investigate whether he acted in self defense.

"They will say or do the same thing they did with the soldiers who committed the abuses against Iraqis detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, and they are still free, enjoying their lives while they destroyed other peoples' lives," Hirmiz said.

(snip)

"The troops not only violated our mosques with their sins and their boots but they stepped on our brothers' blood," said Khalil, the shop owner. "They are criminals and mercenaries. I feel guilty standing here and not doing anything."

At a news conference Tuesday, Iraqi Interior Minister Falah Hassan al-Naqib, himself a Sunni, said that although "killing a wounded person is rejected by us," Fallujah militants were "killers and criminals" who committed brutal acts.

That meant little to Hameed Farhan, 51, who works for the Transportation Ministry in Baghdad.

"I did not see it because there was no electricity at home, but my wife was at her parents and she described it for me," Farhan said. "She was crying. Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted to scream."

Perhaps this is the reason why the so called "outside rebels" causing the uprising account for only about 5% of the insurgents captured, with the rest being homegrown Iraqi insurgents fed up with our presence. And now we've given them another recruitment video.