Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

[snakela]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

How far away is the gunner from the target here?
How High?
Could the Apache be detected by the victims? Seen? Heard?

What's the perspective?

I know a bit about FLIRs and can tell you they can see very very far in dry desert air. They can see you before you can see them (obviously) and can look way beyond the range of any gun.

Like others have noted, 30mm canon or whatever is slung underneath is just a large rifle so the effective range can't be more than a few miles. So line of sight, seeing an Apache against the sky wouldn't be an issue by the time its within gun kill distance. When i was in Baghdad you could see them flying around looking for Mortar teams on the other side of the city when they were silohetted against the sky.


However, helos flying around Baghdad are a common sight and sound, so it could have been overlooked by the people in the video. You wouldn't just hover around like a news copter following a car chase because that is stupid when you can expect people on the ground to shoot back.

I don't know if you could hear one but unless its directly over top of you the sound would scatter from buildings. I never knew which direction helos were comming from when they flew in low. You can hear them but not from any given direction.


There was a video of an appache shooting some dudes moving weapons out in a field a few years back. It was called the murder of farmers (unless you watched the full length video and saw them actually shooting in the earlier parts of it). Anyway, after the gunship wasted the first few people the others scattered and hid but appeared to have no idea which direction it came from. So..I'm guessing that they can be very quiet if need be.

[Slimprofits]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

BPR, this is from another forum:

That's the limit that the gun can point upwards, meaning for some reason it was saying that it couldn't aim any higher even though it could

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

the latter limit perhaps due to putting the helicopter itself at risk [by risking damage to the tail rotor or other parts of the helicopter structure].

Ah - thanks. Now I recall where I've heard that term azimuth limit before. We had an azimuth limit on a large, powerful ground radar I operated in Thailand in the 1970's. We didn't want to sterilize our colleagues sleeping in the barracks, so we shut off the transmitter in that arc of the sky. This caused me to miss the first few seconds of the disintegration of the Russian Salyut 2 or the Russian Kosmos 557 (I forget which.)

[skidder]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

Q: How do you get away with war crimes?
A: Win

B: Write the history books.

[radon]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

Doesn't this belong in Rant and Rave? :confused:

I vote R&R as well.

[iyamwutiam]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

Deformed babies in Fallujah/Iraq LETTER TO THE UNITED NATIONS

2009-10-14 | H.E. Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki
President of the Sixty-fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly
United Nations
New York, NY 10017

October 12th 2009

Your Excellency,

RE DEFORMED BABIES IN FALLUJAH

Young women in Fallujah in Iraq are terrified of having children because of the increasing number of babies born grotesquely deformed, with no heads, two heads, a single eye in their foreheads, scaly bodies or missing limbs. In addition, young children in Fallujah are now experiencing hideous cancers and leukaemias. These deformities are now well documented, for example in television documentaries on SKY UK on September 1 2009, and on SKY UK June 2008. Our direct contact with doctors in Fallujah report that:

In September 2009, Fallujah General Hospital had 170 new born babies, 24% of whom were dead within the first seven days, a staggering 75% of the dead babies were classified as deformed.

This can be compared with data from the month of August in 2002 where there were 530 new born babies of whom six were dead within the first seven days and only one birth defect was reported.

Doctors in Fallujah have specifically pointed out that not only are they witnessing unprecedented numbers of birth defects but premature births have also considerably increased after 2003. But what is more alarming is that doctors in Fallujah have said, “a significant number of babies that do survive begin to develop severe disabilities at a later stage”.

As one of a number of doctors, scientists and those with deep concern for Iraq, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, a British hospital physician, wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon. Clare Short, M.P. asking about this situation. She wrote a letter to the Rt. Hon.Douglas Alexander, M.P. the Secretary of State of the Department for International Development (a post she had held before she resigned on a matter of principle in May 2003 ) asking for clarification of the position of deformed children in Fallujah.

She received a reply dated 3rd September 2009 (two days after the Sky TV broadcast of 1st September 2009 ) from a junior minister, deputy to The Secretary of State, Mr. Gareth Thomas MP, Duty Minister, Department for International Development. In his reply he denies that there are more than two or three deformed babies in Fallujah in a year and asserts that there is, therefore, no problem. This is at wild variance with reports coming out of Fallujah. One grave digger of a single cemetery is burying four to five babies a day, most of which he says are deformed.

Clare Short passed us a copy of this letter. It bears a remarkable similarity to three other written answers we have received over a four year period, in regard to child health and the use of depleted uranium. All these letters are based on lies and an aim to confuse the recipients. In her autobiography “Honorable Deception?” Clare Short says “The first instinct of Number 10 (Downing Street) is to lie."

We regard the mendacity of Mr. Thomas’s letter, and of the other letters we have received, as extremely serious. These letters do not deal with minor matters of corruption, or taxes, but do deal with the use of armed forces and deadly weapons.

The use of certain weapons has tremendous repercussions. Iraq will become a country, if it has not already done so, where it is advisable not to have children. Other countries will watch what has happened in Iraq, and imitate the Coalition Allies’ total disregard of the United Nations Charter, The Geneva, and Hague Conventions, and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Some countries, such as Afghanistan, will also come to experience the very long term damage to the environment, measured in billions of years, and the devastating effect of depleted uranium and white phosphorous munitions.

If, as we say in our letter to the Duty Minister of the Department for International Development, the UK Government clearly does not know the effects of the weapons it uses, nor, as a matter of policy, does “it do body counts”, how can the UK Government judge whether it is conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan according to International Law, especially in terms of “proportionality” and long term damage to the natural environment? How can the UK know about the illegality of the weapons systems it sells on the international market, such as the “Storm Shadow” missile, if the very Department of the Government that is supposed to assess the deaths and medical needs of children and adults in Iraq is not telling the truth.

We request from the United Nations General Assembly the following:

1. To acknowledge that there is a serious problem regarding the unprecedented number of birth defects and cancer cases in Iraq specifically in Fallujah, Basra, Baghdad and Al - Najaf.

2. To set up an independent committee to conduct a full investigation into the problem of the increased number of birth defects and cancers in Iraq.

3. To implement the cleaning up of toxic materials used by the occupying forces including Depleted Uranium, and White Phosphorus.

4. To prevent children and adults entering contaminated areas to minimize exposure to these hazards.

5. To investigate whether war crimes, or crimes against humanity, have been committed, and thereby uphold the United Nations Charter, The Geneva and Hague Conventions, and The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court.


Please find enclosed a copy of our letter to Mr Gareth Thomas, dated 12th October 2009, and his letter to The Rt Hon Clare Short, M.P. dated 3rd September 2009, and enclosures relating to this matter.

Yours faithfully,

Dr Nawal Majeed Al-Sammarai ( Iraq Minister of Women’s Affairs 2006 -2009)

Dr. David Halpin FRCS (Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgeon)

Malak Hamdan M. Eng in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering.

Dr Chris Burns-Cox MD FRCP

Dr. Haithem Alshaibani (Environmental Sciences)

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Author and Journalist)

Nicholas Wood MA, RIBA, FRGS


PICS HERE> http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...xt=va&aid=2412

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

Deformed babies in Fallujah/Iraq

Ugh .

[radon]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

POTENTIAL HEALTH EFFECTS OF EXPOSURE TO DEPLETED URANIUM

In the kidneys, the proximal tubules (the main filtering component of the kidney) are considered to be the main site of potential damage from chemical toxicity of uranium. There is limited information from human studies indicating that the severity of effects on kidney function and the time taken for renal function to return to normal both increase with the level of uranium exposure.

In a number of studies on uranium miners, an increased risk of lung cancer was demonstrated, but this has been attributed to exposure from radon decay products. Lung tissue damage is possible leading to a risk of lung cancer that increases with increasing radiation dose. However, because DU is only weakly radioactive, very large amounts of dust (on the order of grams) would have to be inhaled for the additional risk of lung cancer to be detectable in an exposed group. Risks for other radiation-induced cancers, including leukaemia, are considered to be very much lower than for lung cancer.

Erythema (superficial inflammation of the skin) or other effects on the skin are unlikely to occur even if DU is held against the skin for long periods (weeks).

No consistent or confirmed adverse chemical effects of uranium have been reported for the skeleton or liver.

No reproductive or developmental effects have been reported in humans.

Although uranium released from embedded fragments may accumulate in the central nervous system (CNS) tissue, and some animal and human studies are suggestive of effects on CNS function, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the few studies reported.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/

[FRED]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

Moved to Rant and Rave due to one star rating.

[jpatter666]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

Moved to Rant and Rave due to one star rating.

:rolleyes: First time I've seen FRED use the star rating as an excuse....

[bpr]

Re: Reuters Wikileaks News: Need Some Perspective

Thanks for all the answers.

I think I could answer most, if not all of your questions. But I don't think I should or would.

Why?

In this case ANSWERING these questions REALLY would put people in harms way.

Sorry on that, but I've seen it before. These are technical capability questions and only serve to enhance understanding of the weapons platform. That is not info we want to "Share" on a public forum.

I understand you want to know more about what you are seeing, but seriously, you compromise people in the field by providing information like that.

(So please don't ask any further questions on this)

Out of respect for your service and your colleagues, I will refrain from such technical questions.

I think thats all I need to read. What have we come to when judgement, compassion and critically thinking for the benefit of other people becomes a non-sequitur preface. This heinous train of thought makes me wonder why we had Nuremberg War trials- apparently the lesson is lost when your on the winning side. Because 'we' as righteous Americans can never be an abhorrent practitioner of callous murder.

Instead -lets 'technify' this discussion and talk about 'security' -when we are talking about a helicopter gunship shooting at people.

This is beyond disturbing.

I agree with you wholly. But, as we were told for over two years, the release of this video presented a security threat to our forces in Iraq. On the surface, it would appear that the US military was merely holding this up because it's bad PR.

Now that it's out, it's bad PR, no matter what way you look at it.

Whether it's "callous murder," as you say (and I personally agree), or contextually irrelevant, which is the position of Cent Com, is a matter of perspective.

It is horrific video.

Now, why wouldn't they release it by the legal means through which it was requested?

The Pentagon claims that it is for security purposes.

If we are to dispute that, then we must ask relevant questions about what this video reveals that can possibly present a security threat.

Simply claiming that it is horrific and unjust doesn't cut it when you have troops on the ground (or in the air) at risk.

If the goal is to get all of our troops home safely, we do not want to harm any of them in the process.

The implication of the Pentagon's position, and jtabeb's post explicitly states this, is that the kinds of questions I've laid out, based on a layman's viewing of this leaked video, can endanger our troops.

They are, in essence, dangerous questions.

If that's the case, then maybe we should never have seen it in the first place.

In a situation like this, I would argue, dangerous questions are the only questions worth asking.