[KEEP IT CIVIL] Wikileaks release Video of the murder of Iraqi civilians

Gigiwagga

http://www.truthout.org/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us58378

wowza!! These people have just got to be lying

Overheal

info@williamrua wrote: »

http://www.truthout.org/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us58378

wowza!! These people have just got to be lying

Lying about which part exactly.

If even half of that article is true it would go a long way to explain the alarmingly high PTSD and Suicide rate of Vets.

arybvtcw0eolkf

From an earlier post of mine in this thread;

This might sound cold hearted, but war is a nasty business and this only reaffirms my belief that civilian media (including embedded journo's) should be kept right out of the conflict until the dirty work is finished.

I'm going to retract that.

I'm not sure if people realised I was actually dismissing this event as a result of a war and brushing over the horrible death of innocents, because thats exactly what I was doing.

But upon viewing the clip many times, I simply can not get my head around the attitude of the heli guys and put simple I'm now of the belief that what we're witnessing on that clip is murder.

I don't even believe those guys believed themselves that they were killing insurgents, I think they were caught up in a killing spee and any excuse would have been enough for them to kill. And given the operational situ in Iraq they probably felt pretty confident they'd get away with it too.

Just wanted to clear that up.

FlutterinBantam

karma_ wrote: »

You offer zero to this thread, your even rehashing your old posts, this is the 2nd time you used the "stamped on their jackets" line now, just the same tired and boring old material.

Why don't you come up with something useful instead of the tripe your spewing?

In your opinion poster.

You can't answer the simple question.

Instead you go on making assumptions which you cannot make.

Calling it 'tripe' because it doesn't fit in with your view is puerile,to be honest.

Hagar

I've just watched the video. Sickening. That was murder, out and out murder. The US participants in that incident should be tried for war crimes.

Nodin

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

In your opinion poster.

.

No, in point of fact. It's in there with "flyblown causes" and 'kerbstone painting' in your rather limited lexicon. You constantly throw in the same flame baiting phraseology in political threads while offering nothing whatsover of substance.

TMH

Addisyn Screeching Sportswear wrote:

This might sound cold hearted, but war is a nasty business and this only reaffirms my belief that civilian media (including embedded journo's) should be kept right out of the conflict until the dirty work is finished.

I know you've since retracted this, but I'd still like to pick up your point about the media.

You say they should stay out of it? And let the US Army have a free reign without any accountability for their actions. The purpose of the media is to keep powerful organisations like the US Military in check by accurately informing the people of what is going on and giving them the opportunity to act accordingly when something untoward is going on.

Unfortunately, at least in the US, the media often gets manipulated for propoganda purposes, but there are still journalists out there who risk their lives and indeed lose their lives to keep people like you informed. To say they shouldn't be there and to remain blissfully ignorant is just plain apathetic and lazy.

Ok, just wanted to make that point.

FlutterinBantam

Nodin wrote: »

No, in point of fact. It's in there with "flyblown causes" and 'kerbstone painting' in your rather limited lexicon. You constantly throw in the same flame baiting phraseology in political threads while offering nothing whatsover of substance.

What exactly is your point?

Gigiwagga

Overheal wrote: »

Lying about which part exactly.

If even half of that article is true it would go a long way to explain the alarmingly high PTSD and Suicide rate of Vets.

Err,... I was being sarcastic. I'd be dwelling more on the casual slaughter of innocent people myself. The troops made the choice, they signed up for combat duty, and frankly their PTSD would come way down my list of priorities. Of course even in these instances all you're seeing is the emotional damage to fellow Americans.

From the article "Moon brought back a video that shows his sergeant declaring, "The difference between an insurgent and an Iraqi civilian is whether they are dead or alive.""

emmm I dunno sounds like nazi-speak to me.

Overheal, I think your stool has one leg.

Gigiwagga

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

What exactly is your point?

Seriously, you are worth ignoring. But I need a pick-up during my day, and when I read your posts you they reassure me of my humanity and my own compassion towards fellow humans. Your mindset convinces me that there will always be extremists out there, ignorant and self serving militirists like your self.

jackiebaron

Overheal wrote: »

I know they don't follow the Geneva convention or anything - the insurgents. But we do. Or we're meant to.

I understand you need to fight unvonventionaly to fight an unconventional adversary but come on.

The US has never really observed the Rules of Warfare or the Geneva Conventions

From a recent article about the conduct of American soldiers in Iraq:

Brian Casler, a corporal in the Marines, spoke of witnessing the prevalent dehumanizing outlook soldiers took toward Iraqis during the invasion of Iraq.
"... on these convoys, I saw Marines defecate into MRE bags or urinate in bottles and throw them at children on the side of the road," he stated.
Scott Ewing, who served in Iraq from 2005-2006, admitted on one panel that units intentionally gave candy to Iraqi children for reasons other than "winning hearts and minds.
"There was also another motive," Ewing said. "If the kids were around our vehicles, the bad guys wouldn't attack. We used the kids as human shields."

You can read the full article here:

http://www.truthout.org/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us58378

FlutterinBantam

info@williamrua wrote: »

Seriously, you are worth ignoring. But I need a pick-up during my day, and when I read your posts you they reassure me of my humanity and my own compassion towards fellow humans. Your mindset convinces me that there will always be extremists out there, ignorant and self serving militirists like your self.

Care to answer the question perhaps?

Gigiwagga

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

Care to answer the question perhaps?

Well' you know, I wasn't there, nor were you sunny boy. I wasn't at Dachau either nor at the countless massacres in Rwanda. But I assessed available information and ascertained the truth on the basis of the visual information, just like you. Your problem is you can't even begin to consider that the US military committed blatant murder, reason and morals don't even come into it, hell logic doesn't even come into it, just Uncle Sam is the Man.

I can't imagine what the world must look like through your eyes.

You suggest they were killed because they didn't have 'Civilian' on their chests, as I mentioned already maybe Iraqis should wear identification on their arms like the Jews. This is your mindset, who do you think the US is exactly ?, a law unto themselves?
Have the balls to at least admit that.

And as regards answering questions in this thread you continually avoid answering questions put to you and resort to putdowns, throwaway remarks and nothing else.

Hide behind a question nobody can answer wholly, though a mass of evidence points to intentional murder here. And to expand it and say the correct and only answer is that the US are illegal occupiers and destroyers of a sovereign nation. When we start from this point, all violent acts carried out by US and allied forces are war crimes. That is the answer.

Overheal

info@williamrua wrote: »

Err,... I was being sarcastic. I'd be dwelling more on the casual slaughter of innocent people myself. The troops made the choice, they signed up for combat duty, and frankly their PTSD would come way down my list of priorities. Of course even in these instances all you're seeing is the emotional damage to fellow Americans.

What do you Think, exactly, I am trying to say here? "Oh they have the Downs, lets let them kill people because it depresses them later in life?" Uhm. No.

The purpose of highlighting the Rate of PTSD and Suicide is First off to state a fact, and Secondly to indicate that many of the soldiers in Iraq (though not the Pilots in this footage) take exception to some of the they have carried out, as part of their operation there.

"I remember one woman walking by," said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. He told the audience at the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March 13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland, "She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces."

Hart Viges, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army who served one year in Iraq, told of taking orders over the radio.
"One time they said to fire on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation.... One of the snipers replied back, 'Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?' The lieutenant colonel responded, 'You heard me, trooper, fire on all taxicabs.' After that, the town lit up, with all the units firing on cars. This was my first experience with war, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the deployment."

See also, The Milgram Experiment.

From the article "Moon brought back a video that shows his sergeant declaring, "The difference between an insurgent and an Iraqi civilian is whether they are dead or alive.""

emmm I dunno sounds like nazi-speak to me.

Not really, as there wasn't much of a Jewish Insurgency to relate that remark to.

Overheal, I think your stool has one leg.

Not sure what you mean by that.

FlutterinBantam

info@williamrua wrote: »

Well' you know, I wasn't there, nor were you sunny boy. I wasn't at Dachau either nor at the countless massacres in Rwanda. But I assessed available information and ascertained the truth on the basis of the visual information, just like you. Your problem is you can't even begin to consider that the US military committed blatant murder, reason and morals don't even come into it, hell logic doesn't even come into it, just Uncle Sam is the Man.

I can't imagine what the world must look like through your eyes.

You suggest they were killed because they didn't have 'Civilian' on their chests, as I mentioned already maybe Iraqis should wear identification on their arms like the Jews. This is your mindset, who do you think the US is exactly ?, a law unto themselves?
Have the balls to at least admit that.

And as regards answering questions in this thread you continually avoid answering questions put to you and resort to putdowns, throwaway remarks and nothing else.

Hide behind a question nobody can answer wholly, though a mass of evidence points to intentional murder here. And to expand it and say the correct and only answer is that the US are illegal occupiers and destroyers of a sovereign nation. When we start from this point, all violent acts carried out by US and allied forces are war crimes. That is the answer.

Unfortunately you are either deliberately or inadvertently missing the whole point of my input to this thread.

I have never said who was right and who was wrong.

I have never said that in this situation the US were right or wrong.

What I did query was:

How can posters coming on here , who ,apart from two people, are untrained in military and airborne assault tactics, and on the basis of one video, be absolutely certain as to the intentions or otherwise of people involved in the incident without any background or context or being there.

That's what I am querying,and arguing against.


I didn't think I would have to spell that out so pedantically .

TMH

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

How can posters coming on here , who ,apart from two people, are untrained in military and airborne assault tactics, and on the basis of one video, be absolutely certain as to the intentions or otherwise of people involved in the incident without any background or context or being there.

The intentions of the shooters are very obvious. They were dying to pull the trigger. They show no compassion. They act without any thought for the lives they are destroying.
Even when they realise kids were involved, which they should have spotted but had too much of a bloodthirst, they refuse to show any remorse.
They show sheer hate. You may say they are trained to be so discompassionate, but that in itself is a damning indictment of warfare itself. And illegal warfare at that.

The reason people are so irritated by your posts is because you try and pick apart faults in people's comments while remaining oblivious to the glaring acts of inhumanity that have been committed here, which is the whole point, not whether it was acceptable in the eyes of the US Army..

concussion

TMH wrote: »

You sling out military jargon as if it's Gospel.

That's a funny one - hors de combat is specifically mentioned in Convention 1 as as troops placed 'hors de combat' are entitled to protection while those who choose to keep fighting are not. I suppose it's not Gospel, but the Geneva Convention is way up there when it comes to International Law.

TMH wrote: »

The intentions of the shooters are very obvious. They were dying to pull the trigger.

Dying to pull the trigger? Looks that way. Firing without first identifying armed men or in the case of the van, without receiving permission to fire - no. However much they wanted to kill the enemy they didn't do so without first following their ROE. So what if they were happy to do so, the fact is they waited until the criteria which governed when they could open fire were met.

FlutterinBantam

TMH wrote: »

The intentions of the shooters are very obvious. They were dying to pull the trigger. They show no compassion. They act without any thought for the lives they are destroying.
Even when they realise kids were involved, which they should have spotted but had too much of a bloodthirst, they refuse to show any remorse.
They show sheer hate. You may say they are trained to be so discompassionate, but that in itself is a damning indictment of warfare itself. And illegal warfare at that.

The only thing I am saying is that people commenting on here do not have the full picture and hence cannot be certain of the total context of the event.

TMH wrote: »

The reason people are so irritated by your posts is because you try and pick apart faults in people's comments while remaining oblivious to the glaring acts of inhumanity that have been committed here, which is the whole point, not whether it was acceptable in the eyes of the US Army..

The reason people are irritated is they cannot answer the question I have posed.You can surmise, use all the laws of probability, but to be as certain as some posters are, you need a lot more information on the background happenings and the co-temporaneous events which happen in a 360 degree war.

I have deliberately refrained from saying who is to blame , because quite simply like everyone else, I don't have all the facts either.

karma_

FlutterinBantam wrote: »

The only thing I am saying is that people commenting on here do not have the full picture and hence cannot be certain of the total context of the event.


The reason people are irritated is they cannot answer the question I have posed.You can surmise, use all the laws of probability, but to be as certain as some posters are, you need a lot more information on the background happenings and the co-temporaneous events which happen in a 360 degree war.

I have deliberately refrained from saying who is to blame , because quite simply like everyone else, I don't have all the facts either.

I'm wondering just exactly what you think it takes in order for us, the plebs to come to a judgement on events we now can see and hear?

We know there was a war on, that Baghdad was a dangerous place and there was indeed an insurgency. However we get to see what the pilot did, we can hear what was said, that is enough. Many murder trials haven't had evidence as plain.

arybvtcw0eolkf

TMH wrote: »

I know you've since retracted this, but I'd still like to pick up your point about the media.

You say they should stay out of it? And let the US Army have a free reign without any accountability for their actions. The purpose of the media is to keep powerful organisations like the US Military in check by accurately informing the people of what is going on and giving them the opportunity to act accordingly when something untoward is going on.

Unfortunately, at least in the US, the media often gets manipulated for propoganda purposes, but there are still journalists out there who risk their lives and indeed lose their lives to keep people like you informed. To say they shouldn't be there and to remain blissfully ignorant is just plain apathetic and lazy.

Ok, just wanted to make that point.

Cool, but its also anti-anything-war protesters who'll jump on the propaganda band wagon, most notable recently was the war in Gaza when the IDF/IAF used white phosphorus - the usual shower of nutter's here came screaming on telling us that the IDF/IAF were gassing the civilian population of Gaza and other wild claim's.

They'd never witnessed W.P. being used, so that was enough for them to make up those wild & crazy claims.

(Before anyone comes back with the retort "how you been there, have you seen white phosphorus?" - yes, many times).

But I do see the point your making, and I largely agree with it, I just worry that it feeds a certain mind set too who'll come onto forum's like this spouting all kinds of rubbish, and that goes for either side of the debate - I've cringed when I've read some people's justifications for the actions of the helicopter operators, after reviewing the clip many times and I'll admit since I'm usually very pro-USA I was looking for justification & excuse, I can find absolutely nothing to justify these murders.

Hagar

Shooting the men trying to aid the wounded was effectively firing on medics. It strikes me that they were ordinary family men, with their family in the van, who came upon the aftermath of the shooting and took compassion on a injured man and tried to help.

AlmightyCushion

I've just banned a few people for abuse. Keep it civil guys or there will be more bans.

I've had to edit the title so that everyone gets the warning.

MaybeLogic

Keep it civil, no acting the divil.

Manic Moran

Thanks to Concussion on the Military forum, for this link.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29487634/Centcom-FOIA

It's the official investigation into the incident. May be interesting reading. I'll get back to you after I finish it.

NTM

Manic Moran

Well, that's interesting. Definitely recommended reading.

For example, there is no doubt that there was a proximate danger to US troops, who were withing 100m of the insurgents at the time the helicopter fired, which is in the written report. The evidence is in the reuters' cameraman's camera: Photos of the patrol were found on the camera after it was recovered. (And are part of the appendices to the report).

There is also no doubt that the cameramen were in the company of insurgents, with rifles and multiple RPGs, one of which was in a 'ready-to-fire' configuration.

The initial exchange was a good shoot by any moral standards. Reuters screwed up, cost of doing business.

The van shoot was technically legal, though admittedly I might think it was arguably un-necessary. It is permissable to engage persons attempting to relocate unless in a marked evacuation vehicle (wounded or otherwise). Contrary to a post earlier in this thread, the wounded children were transported to a US military hospital.

NTM

Overheal

The van shoot was technically legal, though admittedly I might think it was arguably un-necessary. It is permissable to engage persons attempting to relocate unless in a marked evacuation vehicle (wounded or otherwise).

No disrespect NTM, but whom permisses that?

karma_

Manic Moran wrote: »

Thanks to Concussion on the Military forum, for this link.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/29487634/Centcom-FOIA

It's the official investigation into the incident. May be interesting reading. I'll get back to you after I finish it.

NTM

There are some flat out lies on that report.

AlmightyCushion

Overheal wrote: »

No disrespect NTM, but whom permisses that?

I imagine the rules of engagement or whatever they are called.

karma_ wrote: »

There are some flat out lies on that report.

Care to elaborate.

Hagar

Sorry I don't buy it, too many blatant lies.

Overheal

karma_ wrote: »

There are some flat out lies on that report.

1st wrote: »

Sorry I don't buy it, too many blatant lies.

2 for 2: please exemplify.