Adam anmärkte på att jag översatte "sniper" med krypskytt. Det borde heta prickskytt, menade han.

Lexikonet ger faktiskt båda orden som översättning. Men prickskytt är förstås den mer neutrala termen. Så först tänkte jag att han hade rätt.

Men ... att vara neutral är ju också en värdering. I rapporterna från Falluja talas om obeväpnade civila som skjuts i ryggen:

"Maki, a consultant and acting director of the clinic, brings me to the bed where a child of about ten is lying with a bullet wound to the head. A smaller child is being treated for a similar injury in the next bed. A US sniper, they said, hit them and their grandmother as they left their home to flee Falluja. (...)

'Come,' says Maki and ushers me alone into a room where an old woman has just had an abdominal bullet wound stitched up. Another in her leg is being dressed, the bed under her foot soaked with blood, a white flag still clutched in her hand and the same story: 'I was leaving my home to go to Baghdad when I was hit by a US sniper.' (...)

There is a man, face down, in a white dishdash, a small round red stain on his back. We run to him. Again the flies have got there first. Dave is at his shoulders, I am by his knees and as we reach to roll him onto the stretcher Dave’s hand goes through his chest, through the cavity left by the bullet that entered so neatly through his back and blew his heart out.

There is no weapon in his hand. Only when we arrive, his sons come out, crying, shouting. He was unarmed, they scream. He was unarmed. He just went out the gate and they shot him. None of them have dared come out since. No one had dared come to get his body, horrified, terrified, forced to violate the traditions of treating the body immediately."
Jo Wilding: Inside the Fire

Och i NY Times finns den här beskrivningen:

That same day, Brent Bourgeois, a 20-year-old lance corporal from Kenner, La., said he saw an American helicopter fire a missile at a man with a sling shot.
"Crazy, huh?" Corporal Bourgeois asked.
NY Times: In Falluja, Ceasefire Doesn't Reduce Tension, or Danger

Så hur rimligt är det att vara neutral?

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