Collateral Murder
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- ok_not_ok
"WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff."
- bigtrickagain0
i watched part of that earlier today. when they shot the journalist who was running away i stopped watching.
- lambsy0
standard operating procedures.
so sad.
- scenek0
youtube view count frozen at 359
- fooler20
ok_not_ok i agree this is not ok but put this in the politics thread and divert us from the religious talk.
- Why so the usual suspects can call us american hating librul fags for four pages?subcommandante
- Hah. Precisely why 7 years ago or so I stopped "discussing" this over internet forums.Peter
- librul!dopepope
- bigtrickagain0
he was quoting from wikileaks, fooler2.
- d_rek0
I kinda fee like a sandwich, perhaps i'll munch a bit.
- fooler20
i know, i saw this afternoon and was outraged myself.
- idiots0
i liked it better when i posted it in the Vid of the day thread
- utopian0
U.S. Military, bunch of sick bastards!
- ThePublics0
pathetic, disgusting and sad.
- idiots0
4:05 - 4:25 is a bit weird
- 762mm0
This is fucking bullshit. Blood thirsty, mindless drones behind a trigger and live feed. You are telling me they don't train these fuckers to tell the difference between a 70-200mm and a RPG. I spotted that they were journalists right off the bat. Ak's and weapons my ass... This made me sick to my stomach.
Ok, clear. Light them up, keep firing, keep firing. You fuckers, hoo-rah and go to hell.
- that's a mighty big 70-200idiots
- no it's normal size. It has the hood on. Not too mention a RPG is fucking 4ft long!!!!762mm
- possible they thought it was compacted for airdrop like this
http://world.guns.ru…locustsloth - na, they should know the diff.
http://blog.francis.…762mm - you even see the cam slung on the guys shoulder.762mm
- we do, we don't know what they sawidiots
- uhh, that vid that you saw... Is the same one they saw. That's from inside their chopper.762mm
- or a C-130. But I doubt it's a C-130, the angle is too low. More likely a chopper.762mm
- with all due respect, in the video. it looks like a black blob on a strap to melocustsloth
- maybe I am too close to the subject matter at hand.762mm
- you think they had the tv on and a bowl loaded sipping on a soda arguing at leisure with strangers on the internet?idiots
- yeah... me neitheridiots
- locustsloth0
tragic. you'd think we have the technology to put cameras on those fuckers that would allow a soldier to discern an RPG launcher from a camera
- locustsloth0
kinda playing devils advocate here, as i agree that this is an obviously disturbing situation and set of circumstances, but i can actually get my brain around the jocularity of the soldiers.
How else are they to cope with taking numerous lives at one time, but to treat it like a video game? In most other situations (ones with ACTUAL insurgents) if they took the time ponder the severity of their actions every time they pulled the trigger, they'd most likely be dead.
And there's a lot to be said for context. As i understand it (and maybe i'm wrong) but these two journalists were embedded with insurgents, getting footage of them. Other altercations had happened near by and this copter was looking for whoever did that.
If you frame the young gun's pleas for permission to engage in the fear that they may be fired upon first, rather than just some morbid glee to kill the bad guys, he sounds more like a frightened kid than some trigger-happy punk.
Obviously this is all hyperbole and supposition, but i find it more productive to resist the urge to make these monstrous caricatures out of these soldiers and try to figure out why another human would act this way.- oh yeah, war's a bitch. They are dead inside. This type of stuff goes on more than we would like to know.762mm
- That's why when the boys go home they become smack heads, alcoholics, addicts, etc762mm
- I just hate the whole thing.762mm
- but hey, mission accomplished right? Thanks GW. How's the ranch?762mm
- i with ya therelocustsloth
- Said it better than me.
+15timuli - I do agree with you. They need to be trained to kill on a dime. That is the way of the soldier.762mm
- 5timuli0
I don't know what the fuss is about. It's war, the journalists were hanging around with guys with AK-47s in a military zone. I'm normally the first guy to say this stuff is bullshit, but even I'd have a problem discerning an RPG from a large camera at 50m+ in a moving vehicle.
- the fact that it's war should not diminish the gravity of the fact that innocent lives were taken in a brutal way, even if by mistakelocustsloth
- the journalists weren't hanging around guys with ak47s. no one in that video was armed.bigtrickagain
- make no mistake, i don't think there's really fault here, due to the particulars of the situationlocustsloth
- subcommandante0
You know, it's not so much the death and destruction in the video, or the jocularity of the soldiers, although both of those things are disturbing. It's rather the need of the military and other powers that be to cover this shit up. We're fighting for the Iraqis to have their slice of freedom, American Style, which obviously includes the ability of the Government to keep secrets from the people about the Government killing civilians.
You know, freedoms they didn't enjoy under Sadam when he obscured the fact that he killed civilians.
At least in the US our Government doesn't hide things from our free peopl...
Oh wait.
- Thought it said that they investigated it at the time of the incident and found no malicious wrong-doinglocustsloth
- investigated by the military and details, video, etc. denied to the public.subcommandante
- subcommandante0
Relevant comment from horses mouth, so to speak:
- idiots0
when you go to bed with dogs... is likely the general wartime adage here and no matter what, crouching down at the corner of a building assembling something then aiming at a circling copter is likely the wrong sequence of events to follow in the middle of an oil war
- locustsloth0
"Lots of people avoiding talking murderous attack on the van/wounded; strawmanning camera/rpg confusion as the issue" (from the WikiLeaks twitter)
i don't think anyone is avoiding talk of a murderous attack. In fact, this thread is a testament to the fact that people recognize how horrible it is to see a man crawling for his life, seeing that man picked up into a van to rescue him, only to have the van torn to shreds by another round of bullets. The murder aspect of it is, in fact, the current slant of the story. i guess maybe they're talking about govt officials who may be trying to explain away, but that's their job. They (as far as i have read) are expressing regret and acknowledging that the situation was extremely unfortunate, but that the soldiers acted as they should have with the info that they had.
And i don't see the confusion issue as being a straw-man. It's a legitimate issue. Replace the journalists with RPG carrying insurgents and this would be a somewhat different discussion. It would be "Dramatic Footage of the Elimination of a Potential Threat". It's still shocking and it's still graphic and, technically, it's still murder. But it's war.
It's the situation that these people put themselves in, both sides. All sides, actually, for even the journalists had to know that they were putting themselves in danger. It seems they didn't alert the US military that they'd be there. Why would they, as it would limit their ability to document the insurgents. They're not Red Cross or UN, with an emblem on their back.The whole thing stinks; war, death, killing, all of it.