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Ok, you have to look at the order of war which changes all the time. It used to be an understood rule of war that you would not target officers, because they were the ones supposedly that kept war orderly.
Are ROE are different now.. sometimes officers are specifically targeted, and always a favorite to capture for intel and what not. Anyways, the soldiers currently face an enemy that does't even wear a uniform, doesn't follow any rules of war, so what are we supposed to do? An iraqi man came up to a patrol waving a while flag early in the war. He was also wearing a vest packed with explosives which he detonated when we got near the group of marines. So what now? Should we just shoot everyone we come across? What about insurgents booby trapping they wounded and dead? The fact is, that the rules have changed a bit, but you still need to have a set ROE. You can't have random soldiers out there being judge, jury, and executioner.. especially in the type of situation we are in now where winning support of the iraqi people is of upmost importance.
Regardless of whether this was a mercy killing or not, you just cannot do that. I don't know the full details of what happened, or whether it was really a mercy killing, but there has to be some sort of order in war, and what he did was a war crime. The fact that Graner got 10 years makes me happy. Next time he should think about his actions and what he does before he does them.
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