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Vivian556
5 Apr 2010, 04:34pm
Calling it a case of "collateral murder," (http://collateralmurder.com/) the WikiLeaks Web site today released harrowing until-now secret video of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuters photographer and his driver -- and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men.
None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon's initial cover story; they were milling about on a street corner. One man was evidently carrying a gun, though that was and is hardly an uncommon occurrence in Baghdad.
Reporters working for WikiLeaks determined that the driver of the van was a good Samaritan on his way to take his small children to a tutoring session. He was killed and his two children were badly injured.
In the video, which Reuters has been asking to see (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL05399965) since 2007, crew members can be heard celebrating their kills.
"Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards," says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies littering the street.
A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: "Come on, let us shoot!"



Two crewmen share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses.
And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding (http://collateralmurder.com/file/imgiraq/doaha_hospital.jpg.html) in the van, one crewman can be heard saying: "Well, it's their fault bringing their kids to a battle."
The helicopter crew, which was patrolling an area that had been the scene of fierce fighting that morning, said they spotted weapons on members of the first group -- although the video shows one gun, at most. The crew also mistook a telephoto lens for a rocket-propelled grenade.
The shooting, which killed Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, took place on July 12, 2007, in a southeastern neighborhood of Baghdad.
The next day, the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?_r=1) reported the military's official cover story:
The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.
"There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.
The video shows otherwise.
Washington Post reporter David Finkel described the incident -- and the video -- in great detail in his September 2009 book, "The Good Soldiers" (http://books.google.com/books?id=zxJNvBqXiWoC&q=chmagh#v=snippet&q=chmagh&f=false). A summary can be found here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091403262.html).
Finkel also described a review session after Lt. Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, commander of the Army's 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment and his soldiers returned to base, which "concluded that everyone had acted appropriately." (Kauzlarich was also involved in the Army's Pat Tillman cover-up, and later told (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=tillmanpart1) ESPN that the reluctance of Tillman's parents to accept the military's story that he was killed by enemy action, rather than friendly fire, was the unfortunate result of their lack of Christian faith.)

WikiLeaks, a small, independent Web site that invites people to post information and documents that powerful interests would prefer to keep secret, says it received the video and supporting documents from military whistleblowers.
Julian Assange, the editor of the site, said the killings either violated the the army's rules of engagement, or those rules of engagement "are very, deeply wrong."
Watch the WikiLeaks video below, or the key portions of the video as pieced together by MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan:

Unveiling the video at the National Press Club on Monday morning, Assange said the helicopter crew approached its job as if it were a video game, not something involving human lives. Their desire was simply to kill," he said. "Their desire was to get high scores on that computer game."
Reuters released this statement from David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of Reuters news: "The deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones. We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognise the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular. The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result."
An Army spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
Just this morning, the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?ref=world) confirmed a gruesome cover-up by U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Officials who had repeatedly denied reports by Jerome Starkey (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/afghanistan/article7060395.ece) in the Times of London have now confirmed that American Special Operations soldiers slaughtered three women in a nighttime raid in February -- and actually dug bullets out of the bodies of the women as part of a cover-up. Starkey says U.S. and NATO forces are rarely held to account (http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00440) for the atrocities they commit.

Just last month, WikiLeaks posted (http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf) the results of a U.S. counterintelligence investigation into none other than WikiLeaks itself. The report determined that WikiLeaks "represents a potential force protection, counterintelligence, operational security (OPSEC), and information security (INFOSEC) threat to the US Army."
The report also concludes, highly suggestively: "Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the Web site that they will remain anonymous. The identification, exposure, or termination of employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make such information public."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-exposes-video-o_n_525569.html
5rXPrfnU3G0


Wow.

EDIT: Sorry there is another thread. >_<

Movement
5 Apr 2010, 04:42pm
Wow.. just wow.

Dracula
5 Apr 2010, 04:51pm
Good job to the guys in the helicopter.

SgtJoo
5 Apr 2010, 05:04pm
This should probably be in politics, not news anyway.

Shadowex3
5 Apr 2010, 05:32pm
This should probably be in politics, not news anyway.

This is news, not politics. Politics deals in opinions and beliefs, news is about facts. The fact is someone screwed up and told their guys to just fire on any group of people without discriminating between enemies and noncombatants.

It's not My Lai 2.0 but it's still an abhorrent lapse in standards.

Caution
5 Apr 2010, 05:33pm
I pwned in this mission in mw2.

Cromyth
5 Apr 2010, 05:38pm
It's war. That's when people lose their humanity and become emotionless shells. In Sierra Leon in the 90s children would be given drugs and exposed to war they would kill people, not care, sit on their bodies, laugh about it. Nothing new.

SgtJoo
5 Apr 2010, 05:47pm
This is news, not politics. Politics deals in opinions and beliefs, news is about facts. The fact is someone screwed up and told their guys to just fire on any group of people without discriminating between enemies and noncombatants.

It's not My Lai 2.0 but it's still an abhorrent lapse in standards.

There's always two sides to a story. There's conflicting opinions in news stories, and those opinions belong in this section. You think they fucked up and killed innocent people, and were wrong for doing so. I think they fucked up and killed innocent people, but were justified for doing so. It's war and you don't seem to realize that. The lines of civilian and insurgent blur very easily, especially in the middle east. And when you even THINK someone has an RPG or AK-47 you shoot first and ask questions later.

Drox
5 Apr 2010, 05:57pm
Like I posted in the other thread, shit happens when you hang out in areas with known insurgents.

XeNo
5 Apr 2010, 09:43pm
I watched most of the video.

Yes, when being told what was actually the case this looks like a terrible tragedy, HOWEVER, when watching the video, can you honestly tell me you can clearly tell that's a camera he has slung over his shoulder? I can't.

The part where he's crouched next to a wall, I swear that looks like a RPG to me too. The thing is, they're at war, they need to treat everyone as a possible insurgent about to kill more American soldiers, the time you take to question and get 100% positive irrefutable confirmation that something is a weapon or not can get you killed.

I'm no soldier, I don't pretend to know what it's like, but I can understand why they did what they did. Do I think these people are mindless beings only out for blood? No way, do I think they thought they were doing their job? Yes. If laughing off killing a person is their way of surviving the horrors of war, I don't judge them for it.

To them they thought they had weapons and responded accordingly. There have been literally THOUSANDS of more incidents in history that trump this act of mistaken identity, acts that took place with full confirmation of what they were doing, raping of children and women, murdering of innocent people point blank.

This is just an unfortunate accident.

Omar
5 Apr 2010, 10:34pm
Where are his killstreak awards?

(on a serious note)
I don't think the firing was needed, shit WAS unclear, but it didn't look like a fuckin' gun to me.

Shadowex3
6 Apr 2010, 02:44am
An RPG is several feet long, thin, and pointy. It's pretty hard to confuse a bunch of people standing around with their arms at their sides doing not much of anything for insurgents with multiple AK's and an RPG.

mNote
6 Apr 2010, 03:30am
Just so you know, America is its own worst enemy. The media will lose this country its war before the soldiers lose the war.

Also, insurgents are finding reasons to keep hating Americans. They purposely bring children into war-zones so that when the children dies, family members will be enraged and be motivated to fight back against US soldiers.

Children are also used in war. There's been an instance where a child carried a grenade to a US soldier who was patrolling the streets.

SgtJoo
6 Apr 2010, 07:50am
An RPG is several feet long, thin, and pointy. It's pretty hard to confuse a bunch of people standing around with their arms at their sides doing not much of anything for insurgents with multiple AK's and an RPG.

If you're an American soldier who has seen friends die to IEDs and RPGs, I don't think you're going to take a chance on being the next Black Hawk Down.

Omar
6 Apr 2010, 07:54am
I get really confused when some of you bitch about the guy being in a warzone, when you haven't realised it's his job?

SgtJoo
6 Apr 2010, 08:23am
I get really confused when some of you bitch about the guy being in a warzone, when you haven't realised it's his job?

As my dad (Who is a journalist) says:

When there's police at a riot, you want to be behind the police, not with the protesters.

Omar
6 Apr 2010, 10:09am
As my dad (Who is a journalist) says:

When there's police at a riot, you want to be behind the police, not with the protesters.

So, how will you get both sides of the story?

SgtJoo
6 Apr 2010, 10:38am
So, how will you get both sides of the story?

By not being dead?

Omar
6 Apr 2010, 10:50am
By not being dead?

You obviously missunderstood me.

SgtJoo
6 Apr 2010, 11:23am
You obviously missunderstood me.

If you're dead, you get neither side of the story.

Omar
6 Apr 2010, 11:26am
If you're dead, you get neither side of the story.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/facepalm.jpg

SgtJoo
6 Apr 2010, 11:52am
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/facepalm.jpg

yo dawg i liek to post old memes cuz they're cool when u recycle them for the thousandth time!!111!111

Omar
6 Apr 2010, 12:12pm
yo dawg i liek to post old memes cuz they're cool when u recycle them for the thousandth time!!111!111

Sup
http://i39.tinypic.com/20pdedw.jpg

SgtJoo
6 Apr 2010, 12:19pm
Sup
http://i39.tinypic.com/20pdedw.jpg

Ferrying suspected militants to safe harbor?

Fuck yeah, I'd light the suspected insurgents up.

Dracula
6 Apr 2010, 12:21pm
Sup
http://i39.tinypic.com/20pdedw.jpg

You must ignore Omars stupidity at times.

Anyway ill quote myself "The whole point of those "civilians" picking up the bodies at least from the pilots and commander's minds [a very valid idea in itself] was for them to take the wounded and any guns to make it look like a killing of innocent civilians, this is a correct asertion with what they thought they knew at the time and they acted uppon it.
".

PingPong
6 Apr 2010, 10:56pm
Omar please stay the fuck out of this section and filling it with shit. kthxbye

Shadowex3
7 Apr 2010, 12:42am
As my dad (Who is a journalist) says:

When there's police at a riot, you want to be behind the police, not with the protesters.

Given the way we handle protests here in the states being in the middle of the group acting violent probably IS being in the middle of the police.

Lux
7 Apr 2010, 03:58pm
Didn't think there was enough evidence at all.

I couldn't see a gun or a rpg, and it's quite funny how they make it fine with themselves by saying "They shouldn't have brought their kids into a warzone".....well it only became a warzone when they started shooting and how is innocents helping the wounded a threat?

This isn't PB guys....actually think before you shoot.

Caution
7 Apr 2010, 05:31pm
As my dad (Who is a journalist) says:

When there's police at a riot, you want to be behind the police, not with the protesters.

As my dad (who is a police officer) says:

When there's a police riot, they want journalists the fuck away, not with the police.

Italian Jew
7 Apr 2010, 08:28pm
Didn't think there was enough evidence at all.

I couldn't see a gun or a rpg, and it's quite funny how they make it fine with themselves by saying "They shouldn't have brought their kids into a warzone".....well it only became a warzone when they started shooting and how is innocents helping the wounded a threat?

This isn't PB guys....actually think before you shoot.

hindsight is 20/20

2 Dwarves, 1 Coat
7 Apr 2010, 11:41pm
I'm gonna go ahead and be an anal asshole by stating that Congress last declared war in 1941; this is just "conflict" and "occupation."

SgtJoo
8 Apr 2010, 07:15am
I'm gonna go ahead and be an anal asshole by stating that Congress last declared war in 1941; this is just "conflict" and "occupation."

The Iraq Resolution or the Iraq War Resolution (formally the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, Pub.L. 107-243, 116 Stat. 1498, enacted October 16, 2002, H.J.Res. 114) is a joint resolution (i.e., a law) passed by the United States Congress in October 2002 as Public Law No: 107-243, authorizing the Iraq War.

Doe v. Bush, 323 F.3d 133 (1st Cir. 2003), was a court case challenging the constitutionality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The case was dismissed, since the plaintiffs failed "to raise a sufficiently clear constitutional issue." An extreme case might arise, for example, if Congress gave absolute discretion to the President to start a war at his or her will... Plaintiffs' objection to the October Resolution does not, of course, involve any such claim. Nor does it involve a situation where the President acts without any apparent congressional authorization, or against congressional opposition... To the contrary, Congress has been deeply involved in significant debate, activity, and authorization connected to our relations with Iraq for over a decade, under three different presidents of both major political parties, and during periods when each party has controlled Congress.

?

ColdWar
8 Apr 2010, 01:15pm
this is turning out to be quite a wall of text, but its got me rightly pissed off..

I just watched the fox news report on this and almost puked up my lunch when the founder of that code pink website described our rules of engagement as "loose"! I havent brought this up before but I went to iraq three times, the second time being march-sep of 2007. At the time, these ROEs were incredibly detailed, and there were a series of things we had to go through before we could fire on anyone. Someone holding an AK or an RPG launcher in their hands didn't automatically make them a target. Once they point these weapons at you, then it's a different story. Seeing as how this in an international forum, I can't go into too much detail, but as far as vehicles speeding toward any checkpoints, base entrances, etc. there were SEVERAL things we had to do before we could attempt to fire at the driver. All of the details in the ROEs made most of us uncomfortable as we felt they left way too much time for a potential enemy to act before we were allowed to do anything.

In this fox news report, the founder of that website asks why there aren't more of these videos of combat action released to the public. The reason is, unless someone has been there, they have NO idea of what any of this is like. It doesn't matter how many news reports you watch, blogs you read, 4 min youtube snippets you browse through, or even if you have family members who have been there. I can promise you they don't tell you every little detail. If you haven't been there, you have no idea of the context of any situation. You can't watch a 10 minute video and suddenly know everything.

i dont hang around in any political sections on any web forums but i will check back here for responses. I typed this out of anger so I might not have worded everything in the best way i could have.

2 Dwarves, 1 Coat
8 Apr 2010, 04:13pm
The Iraq Resolution or the Iraq War Resolution (formally the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, Pub.L. 107-243, 116 Stat. 1498, enacted October 16, 2002, H.J.Res. 114) is a joint resolution (i.e., a law) passed by the United States Congress in October 2002 as Public Law No: 107-243, authorizing the Iraq War.

Doe v. Bush, 323 F.3d 133 (1st Cir. 2003), was a court case challenging the constitutionality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The case was dismissed, since the plaintiffs failed "to raise a sufficiently clear constitutional issue." An extreme case might arise, for example, if Congress gave absolute discretion to the President to start a war at his or her will... Plaintiffs' objection to the October Resolution does not, of course, involve any such claim. Nor does it involve a situation where the President acts without any apparent congressional authorization, or against congressional opposition... To the contrary, Congress has been deeply involved in significant debate, activity, and authorization connected to our relations with Iraq for over a decade, under three different presidents of both major political parties, and during periods when each party has controlled Congress.

?

Uh, ok. I said what I said because people keep claiming it's "War." Just because it's called the Iraq War doesn't mean it is one.

SgtJoo
8 Apr 2010, 05:29pm
Uh, ok. I said what I said because people keep claiming it's "War." Just because it's called the Iraq War doesn't mean it is one.

Well if the Congress of the United States says it's war, then I do believe it is.

Caution
8 Apr 2010, 06:00pm
Well if the Congress of the United States says it's war, then I do believe it is.

War has been declared by congress 5 times in the United States. The Iraqi Conflict is not one. Reason being is because congress AUTHORIZED the war, and not fully declaring it.

A WW1 Flying Ace
8 Apr 2010, 06:05pm
Hey look !! DEADLY CAMERA CREWS!!! WITH BOMBS!!! ratatatatatat HEY I GOT ONE!! common sense plox.

XeNo
8 Apr 2010, 06:42pm
Hey look !! DEADLY CAMERA CREWS!!! WITH BOMBS!!! ratatatatatat HEY I GOT ONE!! common sense plox.
You're a fucking idiot.

SgtJoo
8 Apr 2010, 07:22pm
War has been declared by congress 5 times in the United States. The Iraqi Conflict is not one. Reason being is because congress AUTHORIZED the war, and not fully declaring it.

Playing semantics by saying it hasn't FORMALLY been declared for the Iraq War is just stupid. Congress authorized the entry into Iraq and any arguments about fighting in Iraq are made with the assumption that it is 'war'. Mincing words by calling it 'occupation' or anything else is just pandering around the fact that it is a war.

war

(1) : a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations (2) : a period of such armed conflict

Pretty much sums up Iraq.

Caution
8 Apr 2010, 07:30pm
Playing semantics by saying it hasn't FORMALLY been declared for the Iraq War is just stupid. Congress authorized the entry into Iraq and any arguments about fighting in Iraq are made with the assumption that it is 'war'. Mincing words by calling it 'occupation' or anything else is just pandering around the fact that it is a war.

war

(1) : a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations (2) : a period of such armed conflict

Pretty much sums up Iraq.



Has nothing to do with you thinking it's stupid or not. Yes, it is a "war", but it has NEVER been declared. I.E. Afghan war, Iraq war, Vietnam, etc. The only wars that have been declared by the United States are The War of 1812, Mexican-American War, Spanish-American War, WWI, and WWII. If you don't like it, write a letter to your congressmen. :thumb:

P3rg3
9 Apr 2010, 04:35am
I'd love to read the rules of engagement.
Track those bastards down and make sure they never touch a gun again.

Kennith
9 Apr 2010, 05:13am
A lot of people don't seem to understand that when you are in a hazardous environment, which means you can DIE, your decision making becomes a lot more complex, cameras start to look like RPGs and random rocks start to look like potential IEDs. I would like to see if you can even put up an OK sign with your fingers while being shot at without shaking. Its always a life and death decision when you are in a warzone. You make it sound oh so easy, but I bet 90% of the people in this topic have never had their lives seriously endangered like the troops in Iraq.

Chobber
9 Apr 2010, 02:22pm
That shit is fucking like TTT.. You're paranoid and think you got proof? Do you fear for your life? Shoot and check the body afterwards..
Unfortunately there is not to be another round for those gunned down, and I feel for them and their loved ones as they (most likely) were innocent..

But it is fucking war!! (Might not have been declared as a war, as it is not a nation vs nation act, but a nation liberation..)
You fucking pull the trigger first if you wanna survive! I bet they've seen a lot of their comrades die right in front of them because they waited to see if it was a kid with a broomstick or some punk with an AK!!!

As much as I think it is horrible to see, I can clearly understand why they reacted like they did!

Omar
9 Apr 2010, 04:18pm
I kinda get annoyed when they said over the radio "All you have to do is pick up a gun" Cause they didn't have a visual on any gun on the guy who was crawling half-dead on the ground, meh, I'm not QQ'ing though, seen worse done by both parts. So this isn't that bad.

Before judging them, I'd rather hear something from a guy with actual experience in war (i.e Jewpiter for example)

Kennith
9 Apr 2010, 04:27pm
I kinda get annoyed when they said over the radio "All you have to do is pick up a gun" Cause they didn't have a visual on any gun on the guy who was crawling half-dead on the ground.

Clearly, he wouldn't have said that if he knew he was totally innocent. And there wasn't a visual, but to their eyes, he was crawling to look for a weapon, not crawling for his life.

Omar
9 Apr 2010, 04:45pm
Clearly, he wouldn't have said that if he knew he was totally innocent. And there wasn't a visual, but to their eyes, he was crawling to look for a weapon, not crawling for his life.

Also, the thing with the "DOOD, 2 KIDS GOT HURT", well, I have no sympathy for those who took the kids, it's just retarded in the first place to take your kids on a picnic where you're gonna save your friend in a middle of a fucking slaughterfest

Kennith
9 Apr 2010, 04:52pm
Also, the thing with the "DOOD, 2 KIDS GOT HURT", well, I have no sympathy for those who took the kids, it's just retarded in the first place to take your kids on a picnic where you're gonna save your friend in a middle of a fucking slaughterfest

When he said that, I can tell he really didn't mean it. Sometimes people say things to justify what they did knowing they made a mistake, like shooting innocent kids.

Lux
9 Apr 2010, 08:06pm
hindsight is 20/20

So? It's all good when they turn out to actually be terrorists because you don't even need a real reason but when they're innocent you can't just say "oh we thought..." or "we assumed"...it's easy to say "we were defending ourselves we're scared soldiers shitting our pants" when you just murdered people walking in the streets.

There was pretty much nothing to suggest that the soldiers were under immense pressure to hastily do anything. Were they seen? It didn't look it...you'd think terrorists being circled by army choppers might be a bit on edge wouldn't you?

For me I think that these soldiers have just been reckless, had no concern for innocent peoples lives and had no regret for the lives of innocent people they took.

Dress it up however you want in excuses, I don't think it was acceptable...but feel free to think otherwise.

SgtJoo
9 Apr 2010, 09:15pm
So? It's all good when they turn out to actually be terrorists because you don't even need a real reason but when they're innocent you can't just say "oh we thought..." or "we assumed"...it's easy to say "we were defending ourselves we're scared soldiers shitting our pants" when you just murdered people walking in the streets.

There was pretty much nothing to suggest that the soldiers were under immense pressure to hastily do anything. Were they seen? It didn't look it...you'd think terrorists being circled by army choppers might be a bit on edge wouldn't you?

For me I think that these soldiers have just been reckless, had no concern for innocent peoples lives and had no regret for the lives of innocent people they took.

Dress it up however you want in excuses, I don't think it was acceptable...but feel free to think otherwise.

And again, you weren't there. This is coming from someone who has never had a gun pointed at them in a war zone. This is coming from someone who has time to sit back and analyze every detail of what when down very quickly. This is coming from someone who doesn't patrol areas where civilians are insurgents and insurgents use civilians. Just like the post you quoted, hindsight is 20/20.

2 Dwarves, 1 Coat
10 Apr 2010, 12:35am
XE5pGeCUM-Y

Pretty much sums up my feelings about this. I went through the video of the shootings one time and was appalled. This shit is in no way justified. At all.

Shadowex3
10 Apr 2010, 04:41am
Also, the thing with the "DOOD, 2 KIDS GOT HURT", well, I have no sympathy for those who took the kids, it's just retarded in the first place to take your kids on a picnic where you're gonna save your friend in a middle of a fucking slaughterfest

Dude, you need to look around. This isn't some counter-strike battlefield, this shit happened in the middle of their damn neighborhood. They could've already been driving there and suddenly they hear something and think "holy shit I wonder what happened!" and suddenly they come up on the blasted-out hellhole that used to be a street and they start running to try and save people's lives...

Lux
10 Apr 2010, 12:16pm
And again, you weren't there. This is coming from someone who has never had a gun pointed at them in a war zone. This is coming from someone who has time to sit back and analyze every detail of what when down very quickly. This is coming from someone who doesn't patrol areas where civilians are insurgents and insurgents use civilians. Just like the post you quoted, hindsight is 20/20.

So? Soldiers are paid to be that guy who does have guns pointed at them, and as I said they had a lot of time to analyse it.

Insurgents are insurgents and civilians are civilians...it's not fair that people die because the soldiers can't make the right decision.

XeNo
14 Apr 2010, 09:44pm
Insurgents are insurgents and civilians are civilians...it's not fair that people die because the soldiers can't make the right decision.
By this logic it's not fair that people make mistakes.

I hope you weren't grown up being taught that the world is fair. Good people die by bad people, bad people die by good people, and sometimes good people die by good people. It happens, it's an imperfect system that you're trying to claim should be perfect. If it were, there would be no wars or murder or killing of innocents, and if there was no such killing of our own kind, we would overpopulate the world like a disease and ultimately everyone would be in a poverty unless wealth was spread.

Our kind repopulates too fast and demands too much to survive on this planet without murder and wars to keep it in balance.

SgtJoo
15 Apr 2010, 11:35am
I saw a recent interview with the guy that is in charge of WikiLeaks and he said something along the lines of "We try to get the biggest political impact possible" in response to a question that they edited out the full footage of the video and they gave it the name Collateral Murder themselves. Only 1 in 10 people have seen the full footage, which shows more than the "short" version.

Lux
15 Apr 2010, 01:46pm
By this logic it's not fair that people make mistakes.

Depends.

If that mistake costs lives it's a lot different to if it's losing at minesweeper.



I hope you weren't grown up being taught that the world is fair. Good people die by bad people, bad people die by good people, and sometimes good people die by good people. It happens, it's an imperfect system that you're trying to claim should be perfect. If it were, there would be no wars or murder or killing of innocents, and if there was no such killing of our own kind, we would overpopulate the world like a disease and ultimately everyone would be in a poverty unless wealth was spread.

The world isn't fair...but that doesn't mean we should accept it. With that acceptance comes complaicancy and progress halts.

There is a gap between this utter failure and perfection...more could easily have been done without asking too much of them.

If we're going to talk about killing each other for the sake of our existence...why don't you go and start a war to reduce the population? Answer?...better alternatives.



Our kind repopulates too fast and demands too much to survive on this planet without murder and wars to keep it in balance.

Which makes this fine.:suspicious:

SgtJoo
15 Apr 2010, 05:53pm
I saw this on Politifact, was interesting:

By way of context, Finkel noted, "What's helpful to understand is that, contrary to some interpretations that this was an attack on some people walking down the street on a nice day, the day was anything but that. It happened in the midst of a large operation to clear an area where U.S. soldiers had been getting shot at, injured, and killed with increasing frequency. What the Reuters guys walked into was the very worst part, where the morning had been a series of RPG attacks and running gun battles.

"More context," Finkel later added. "You're seeing an edited version of the video. The full video runs much longer. And it doesn't have the benefit of hindsight, in this case zooming in on the van and seeing those two children. The helicopters were perhaps a mile away. And as all of this unfolded, it was unclear to the soldiers involved whether the van was a van of good Samaritans or of insurgents showing up to rescue a wounded comrade. I bring these things up not to excuse the soldiers but to emphasize some of the real-time blurriness of those moments.

"If you were to see the full video, you would see a person carrying an RPG launcher as he walked down the street as part of the group. Another was armed as well, as I recall. Also, if you had the unfortunate luck to be on site afterwards, you would have seen that one of the dead in the group was lying on top of a launcher. Because of that and some other things, EOD -- the Hurt Locker guys, I guess -- had to come in and secure the site. And again, I'm not trying to excuse what happened. But there was more to it for you to consider than what was in the released video."

Lux
16 Apr 2010, 05:05am
I saw this on Politifact, was interesting:

By way of context, Finkel noted, "What's helpful to understand is that, contrary to some interpretations that this was an attack on some people walking down the street on a nice day, the day was anything but that. It happened in the midst of a large operation to clear an area where U.S. soldiers had been getting shot at, injured, and killed with increasing frequency. What the Reuters guys walked into was the very worst part, where the morning had been a series of RPG attacks and running gun battles.

"More context," Finkel later added. "You're seeing an edited version of the video. The full video runs much longer. And it doesn't have the benefit of hindsight, in this case zooming in on the van and seeing those two children. The helicopters were perhaps a mile away. And as all of this unfolded, it was unclear to the soldiers involved whether the van was a van of good Samaritans or of insurgents showing up to rescue a wounded comrade.I bring these things up not to excuse the soldiers but to emphasize some of the real-time blurriness of those moments.

"If you were to see the full video, you would see a person carrying an RPG launcher as he walked down the street as part of the group. Another was armed as well, as I recall. Also, if you had the unfortunate luck to be on site afterwards, you would have seen that one of the dead in the group was lying on top of a launcher. Because of that and some other things, EOD -- the Hurt Locker guys, I guess -- had to come in and secure the site. And again, I'm not trying to excuse what happened. But there was more to it for you to consider than what was in the released video."

Main point there.

Whatever was happening there it was still an area where civilians were situated.

Drox
17 Apr 2010, 07:03am
Main point there.

Whatever was happening there it was still an area where civilians were situated.

When you have a van that from the time laspe wasnt that far away and saw what happened, if they were smart wouldnt have gone near them to begin with. Secondly the pilots thought they were insurgents, end of story.

Pilots made a mistake, like Ive said before, shit happens.

Lux
17 Apr 2010, 07:13am
When you have a van that from the time laspe wasnt that far away and saw what happened, if they were smart wouldnt have gone near them to begin with. Secondly the pilots thought they were insurgents, end of story.

Pilots made a mistake, like Ive said before, shit happens.

http://natsec.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/rummy.jpg

Stuff Happens.....it's alllllllllllllll ok :madgrin:

SgtJoo
17 Apr 2010, 07:18am
Stuff Happens.....it's alllllllllllllll ok :madgrin:

If we weren't over there to begin with, none of this would have happened. :yawn:

Jazzyy
17 Apr 2010, 11:30am
A lot of people don't seem to understand that when you are in a hazardous environment, which means you can DIE, your decision making becomes a lot more complex, cameras start to look like RPGs and random rocks start to look like potential IEDs. I would like to see if you can even put up an OK sign with your fingers while being shot at without shaking. Its always a life and death decision when you are in a warzone. You make it sound oh so easy, but I bet 90% of the people in this topic have never had their lives seriously endangered like the troops in Iraq.
During the video they crack jokes about killing them, they were not scared at all.

Italian Jew
17 Apr 2010, 11:33am
During the video they crack jokes about killing them, they were not scared at all.

You've never cracked jokes to ease any tension?

bcooper56
25 Apr 2010, 05:04pm
Wow ohhh god!