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Wikileaks: US troops killed journalists in Iraq

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Inky_Wretch, Apr 5, 2010.

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  1. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Complete with video of an Apache 'copter firing on two Reuters journalists.


     
    Inky_Wretch, Apr 5, 2010
    #1
  2. Rumpleforeskin

    Rumpleforeskin Active Member

    Absolutely sickening.
     
    Rumpleforeskin, Apr 5, 2010
    #2
  3. NoOneLikesUs

    NoOneLikesUs Active Member

    I could honestly see where you confuse the photog for an insurgent with an RPG, especially the way he crouched by that wall. On the other hand, the extreme bloodlust from the pilots is deeply disturbing.
     
    NoOneLikesUs, Apr 5, 2010
    #3
  4. Diabeetus

    Diabeetus Active Member

    Video leaked: killings of Reuters employees, Iraqi men, children

    The graphic video was leaked by a military whistleblower. The disregard for human life is sickening, and I cried when watching it.

    The video: http://wikileaks.org/

    The New York Times story on it: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/world/middleeast/06baghdad.html?hp

    Where do we go from here?
     
    Diabeetus, Apr 6, 2010
    #4
  5. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    Re: Video leaked: killings of Reuters employees, Iraqi men, children

    Can't see the video.

    Did anyone think this isn't what war and armed military conflict is all about? Indiscriminate killings are the normal, but under-disclosed, occurances of war. The difference is when the Taliban does it their murderers get 72 virgins, when ours do it they get a jury of 12.
     
    heyabbott, Apr 6, 2010
    #5
  6. Diabeetus

    Diabeetus Active Member

    Re: Video leaked: killings of Reuters employees, Iraqi men, children

    I know I never believed photographers would be shot dead (clearly non-hostile, and not holding AK47s as the apache calls in). I never thought soldiers would be so eager to kill and laugh when doing it. I never expected to hear laughter as a vehicle runs over dead bodies or shootings of children to be blown off.
     
    Diabeetus, Apr 6, 2010
    #6
  7. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Re: Video leaked: killings of Reuters employees, Iraqi men, children

    I don't think we go too many places different from where we are. As long as our military is involved in situations like Iraq, things like that are always going to happen. You can try to put protective procedures/measures in place, but even assuming that the Apache pilots may have been trigger happy, this wasn't a mass civilian slaughter done with intent, a la Cambodia. They actually thought they were dealing with insurgents and that they were armed -- they saw the one journalist's camera and shoulder strap as a gun, called it in and got permission to fire. The army will do some kind of study and make recommendations to try to prevent it in the future--partly sincere because that was brutal, but with a good measure of window dressing. They would have kept it covered up, so we didn't see those images, if they could have. But even with the outrage now, the window-dressing is as much a function of the fact that this is what happens when you have a place with violent factions and an occupying army that is gun shy about being fired upon, as it is about the military being the military and trying to exercise autocratic power. If we have Apache pilots who think they see armed insurgents and they DON'T act because they have to go through a prolonged period of getting verifications and permissions, and then American GIs get gunned down because they really were insurgents, the Army gets skewered for not protecting American lives. This was the paradox of a shitty war in which we were essentially occupiers in a place with pockets of bad people. Do nothing and you put yourself in danger. Do something and there is always the possibility that you gun down innocent people because you mistook them for the bad guys. Waging war sucks, and in my opinion, unless you are fighting a morally unavoidable war (a la WWII), it's not worth it, because it leads to lots of stupid death and not enough good to justify it.
     
    The Big Ragu, Apr 6, 2010
    #7
  8. TrooperBari

    TrooperBari Well-Known Member

    Merged with the JTO thread.
     
    TrooperBari, Apr 6, 2010
    #8
  9. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    72 virgins isn't even a good deal. You are there for eternity. What if you are a taliban member and you go on a hashish binge and use like 50 of your virgins in the first month? Eternity is a long time.

    Wilt Chamberlain would go through 72 virgins in 5 days, a week tops.
     
    mustangj17, Apr 6, 2010
    #9
  10. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Is it really that hard to tell the difference between an AK47 and a camera? These fuckheads didn't even try. They were playing a video game and looking for any excuse to kill people.
     
    Stoney, Apr 6, 2010
    #10
  11. mustangj17

    mustangj17 Active Member

    Walk a mile in their shoes...
     
    mustangj17, Apr 6, 2010
    #11
  12. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    Oh, bullshit. Did you watch the video? These weren't some traumatized soldiers acting under extreme duress. These guys were looking for an excuse to kill some people on the ground from the safety of their air perch where they knew their targets could do nothing to them.

    They first sought permission to fire into a crowd of civilians by falsely claiming that cameras were AK-47s. Sorry, but a camera does not look much like an AK-47, and these guys were close enough to tell the difference IF they'd really tried. But seemed that their goal was not to determine if they objectively SHOULD start firing, but instead to come up with some justification that would ALLOW them to start firing. At least that's how it looked to me.

    The demeanor of the guy doing the shooting gave me the impression of someone who thinks he's playing a video game. The fact that he shot civilians didn't phase him, the fact that he shot two children didn't phase him--he's just trying to rack up points. And he chuckled when the tank drove over the bodies the same way guys do when the exploding head graphics happen in the ninja fighting video game.
     
    Stoney, Apr 6, 2010
    #12
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