Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

[Rajiv]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

ASH,

What you say is right, and I have read Grossman myself. However, in my dictionary people with low empathy are in fact sociopaths and psychpaths. And when they act extralegally, they have to be prosecuted, rather than given benefit of doubt. Since they are in a position of power, they have to make doubly sure of their targets -- rather than be extremely trigger happy.

As Grossman says that this low empathy has been deliberately cultivated through extensive training, and denumbing by various methods. Soldiers and policemen have to pay the price rather than given the benefit of doubt. Please do watch the video posted by Shishya

[LargoWinch]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

First, that was not an ambulance. It was unmarked. If I crawled out to drag a wounded squadmate to safety, I would fully expect to be shot at.

Ask yourself; were these people in the van a "threat"? Were they shooting at anyone? Carrying weapons?



Now, ask yourself, is it possible that in Iraq some ambulances are not vehicles painted in bright yellow with red stripes, flashing lights, bumpers made of shinny chrome and with the word "Ambulance" written backwards?


Lastly - and in the even you are still confused - given the events preceding the arrival of the "vehicle", do you think the two people who came out to pick up a body laying on the ground were acting like insurgents fighting back? Or perhaps there is small chance that they came to help the wounded?


It saddens me that even in the face of such mounting evidence, in the form a very clear videoclip with sound (not that grainy stuff no one can tell really what is going on circa 1991) that some people try to make sense of it and justify it.

[touhy]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

newsimg.bbc.co.uk/.../_40074783_falluja203.jpg



Iraqi Ambulances(AP Photo)

[LargoWinch]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

newsimg.bbc.co.uk/.../_40074783_falluja203.jpg



Iraqi Ambulances(AP Photo)

Not funny touhy, but in case you are serious, note that you are missing my points entirely.

[marvenger]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

i find the whole context really hard to understand actually.

Touchy: I think your description of being well fed, moist tongue etc describes these helicopter pilots pretty well. The van shooting and the pleading for the reuters journalist to pick up a weapon clearly shows these guys are wannabe war heros in virtual land just begging to get kill score up.

here's what I'mhaving trouble understanding and hope some has more technical knowledge. If this guy was really taking aim at the apache with an RPG then I think the chopper must be close range, butthen why the hell would everyone just be hanging around so casually. THe way everyone reacted and how the van showed up suggests the chopper was far away and out of range of a serious attempt by an RPG in which case you do not just indiscriminantly shoot up everyone in the area coz you've got noidea whats going on. You've got an armchair shootemup mentality.

If they were close and clearly saw an RPG aimed at them, i can understand shooting although not to the extent it happened. How it all played out does not match this close up context.

[touhy]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

The helicopter appears to have been providing overwatch for coalition forces on the ground(Which in part supports my thought that friendly lives were at risk and depended on the pilots being aggressive). The RPG was presumably aimed at the ground forces. It is my understanding that helicopters are ubiquitous in Iraq, so numerous that enemy forces don't always take notice of them.

And no Largo, I was not joking in providing a picture of the Iraqi ambulances.

[jtabeb]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

it's not unhealthy for the soldiers to be eager to kill the 'enemy'. I don't think the soldiers displayed more than the usual bravado. The only thing I question is the decision to engage the van.

EDIT: Okay -- I question other things like the rules of engagement that were in force, and whether the war should have been waged in the first place. I meant the only thing about the events in the video that bothers me is firing on the van.

Dude, you know how many times I've read about a aircraft accident from a safety report and thanked my lucky stars that It wasn't me (because if it was, someone else would be reading about how I died).

I see the same thing in this video and I Ain't even a "SHOOTER".

Agree with the points you bring up above.

What I want people to please understand is that if you have never seen some one you know die in front of your face, you don't know. (And, Yeah I have. I saw one of my students crash and burn in a 2000' fireball about 1/2 mile from me. I could smell the dude's body burning in the wreckage.)

When I say "you don't know" I mean about the fear. This guys were not afraid for their lives, for sure. It's worse, they were afraid for their buddies lives. They know that if they fuck-up, then their buddies on the ground get it. There is fear there, mortal fear, that you screw up, your buddy dies, and that you are somehow responsible for that (that's what we make ourselves believe, that we are responsible for their death. We go over and over what we could have done differently to change the outcome, thousands of times, over and over in our heads). I know, okay, I know. I'd rather be killed than ever be responsible for the death of someone else due to my failure. We all think like that.

I'm not making excuses for the failures that you see in the video above, and there are many. But that's what everyone that hasn't been to war doesn't understand.

War is a CLUSTER FUCK!

Confusion, Adrenaline, blood, guts, people wounded and dying, killing, screaming, burning bodies, dead kids, destroyed houses, killed animals, you name it, war has got it ALL.

And it's not sterile, not in the slightest. You are fighting in a Civilian Population Center.

Here is another two videos of an A-10 friendly fire incident. Judge if you will, but understand the situation they are in.


Hero to Criminal in 5 SECONDS~!

War ******* sucks dude, it's messy shit.

The last one is an Apache attacking Iraqi soldiers on a Soviet made BMP as it is being refueled from a flatbed truck. Watch it, and then read my comments below.

[media][/media][media][/media][media][/media]









































The last video is actually Iraqi farmers around their tractor harvesting crops in the middle of a farmers field. (See the smoke stack of the tractor and the plowed rows of the farmers field)

Would you have been able to tell that the first time through the video if you hadn't been told in advance.

(Neither could I the first time I watched this).

Now you know a little about what war is like.

[marvenger]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

are you saying that helicopters are so common that armed bandits will just hang around in the open because they judge the probability of one opening up with cannon fire too low to worry about? If I was an insurgent I sure as hell wouldn't be making that assumption.

[marvenger]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

And applying Darwin's theory don't think there'd be an insurgent problemif they though like this either.

[jtabeb]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

i find the whole context really hard to understand actually.

Touchy: I think your description of being well fed, moist tongue etc describes these helicopter pilots pretty well. The van shooting and the pleading for the reuters journalist to pick up a weapon clearly shows these guys are wannabe war heros in virtual land just begging to get kill score up.

here's what I'mhaving trouble understanding and hope some has more technical knowledge. If this guy was really taking aim at the apache with an RPG then I think the chopper must be close range, butthen why the hell would everyone just be hanging around so casually. THe way everyone reacted and how the van showed up suggests the chopper was far away and out of range of a serious attempt by an RPG in which case you do not just indiscriminantly shoot up everyone in the area coz you've got noidea whats going on. You've got an armchair shootemup mentality.

If they were close and clearly saw an RPG aimed at them, i can understand shooting although not to the extent it happened. How it all played out does not match this close up context.

There was no threat to the Apache. The aircrew THOUGHT that the RPG (which in reality was a camera with a large lens) was going to be fired at the approaching convoy. That's why they are so "ITCHY" to fire in the first case.

They think that if they don't act in time, a Bradley full of guys is going to get hit.

[marvenger]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

sounds plausible. They still sound like a buch of teenagers with too much testosterone though.

Stupid fricking war.

These guys in power are great at engineering fuck ups that only they can apparently fix.

[jtabeb]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

And applying Darwin's theory don't think there'd be an insurgent problemif they though like this either.

[MEDIA][/MEDIA]

[MEDIA][/MEDIA]

[jtabeb]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

sounds plausible. They still sound like a buch of teenagers with too much testosterone though.

Dude, we all sound like that when we think we just saved our buddies from getting killed by a bunch of bad guys.

War sucks.:mad:

[Rajiv]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

Yes war sucks!

And the real villians of the play are not those soldiers (even though they have played their role) but others much much above in the chain of command (the official one -- and the unofficial one -- see the media links in Shishya's post that I referred to in my reply to Ash.

And yes I believe that human beings should not be desensitized so that they can become killers.

[Pascal]

Re: Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

Sorry lads, but at 3:48 min/sec AK-47 and RPG clearly visible. AP photographers should not make a habit of hanging out with armed enemy combatants. Me thinks some of this is false outrage. The professional soldiers may appear flippant in their comments, but they are professional. War sucks, but we do it best.

Not sure about the claimed AK but the RPG looks more like a camera to me.

Very much wish we could ship all the responsible politicians to Irag and Afghanistan and let them try to do their own dirty work.