Wikileaks Video Of Civilians Killed In Baghdad

[Winchester]

I'm watching the video. "Indiscriminate", they say, yet the Apache does not immediately fire on the wounded man after the engagement is over because they don't see a weapon. You know why they need their little arrows and descriptions? Because the vision is limited. And that's sitting in the comfort of a house, not in a helicopter in a war zone.

These wikileaks people are worthless idiots. I hope they get shut down and sued into financial oblivion for character detraction. This needs to happen. Soldiers misrepresented in the media need to sue and win some lawsuits. Bad research is criminal in these cases, as is the editorializing.

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='Winchester' date='06 April 2010 - 03:17 PM' timestamp='1270592266' post='2087951']
I'm watching the video. "Indiscriminate", they say, yet the Apache does not immediately fire on the wounded man after the engagement is over because they don't see a weapon. You know why they need their little arrows and descriptions? Because the vision is limited. And that's sitting in the comfort of a house, not in a helicopter in a war zone.

These wikileaks people are worthless idiots. I hope they get shut down and sued into financial oblivion for character detraction. This needs to happen. Soldiers misrepresented in the media need to sue and win some lawsuits. Bad research is criminal in these cases, as is the editorializing.
[/quote]

its hardly indiscriminate, at that specific part. just some barely restrained guy with an itchy trigger finger waiting for an excuse to use it.
that there, is not the view from a chopper, its from an AC130 way high up. were i there i would hope my life(and children's life, in that case) did not depend on interpretation from a video that crappy, low quality.

since its no real surprise that bad, sometimes preventable stuff happens in war, the real issue is the cover up. stuff like this should be a lot more transparent. instead of trying to gloss over the fact that your mistake killed innocent people.

and wikileaks does a good service, being a safe, reviewed outlet for whistleblowers.

[Maggyie]

I heard this audio on the radio tonight (complete with gunfire). It was horrifying especially since we were told prior to the tape being played that two photojournalists were being killed and two innocent children were horribly wounded. And then they went after the people trying to pick up the wounded! And the cavalier way they were talking! One of the wounded photographers was trying to drag himself to the curb and the audio tape has one of the soldiers begging him to give them an excuse to finish him off! And then they swooped in and killed everybody. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Totally barbaric. I'm sure this was given to wikileaks by someone in the military who has a conscience and was just as horrified.

[Winchester]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' date='06 April 2010 - 09:04 PM' timestamp='1270602283' post='2088057']
its hardly indiscriminate, at that specific part. just some barely restrained guy with an itchy trigger finger waiting for an excuse to use it.
that there, is not the view from a chopper, its from an AC130 way high up. were i there i would hope my life(and children's life, in that case) did not depend on interpretation from a video that crappy, low quality.[/quote]
1. Your bunchie is missing.
2. It's never indiscriminate in the entire video. Permission is given, fire is controlled.
3. You're evaluating "barely" restrained. Really. Barely. Barely not pulling the trigger is not pulling the trigger.
4. The idiot reporters decided to muck about a war zone without a military escort. That's stupid. Sorry, but it's plain stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
5. Your "reliable" group calls it Apache footage. It uses editorial lies and distortion It's not good and it's not interested in the truth. It's interested in causing problems, as demonstrated by this utter croutons reporting
6. This was preventable. Journalists need to stay out of war zones without escorts by the good guys unless they are willing to accept getting killed.
7. I don't have a seven.
8. You bunchie is missing.

[Semper Catholic]

[quote]
...Apache helicopters are usually not called out unless ground troops request them. I[b]n this case, ground troops were under fire and requested air support.[/b] This is clear considering they approached the hot zone at the beginning of the video with intel, either from ground troops, or from the another Apache, that there were armed combatants in the area. You hear, numerous times, reports of armed combatants in the area, before this particular video feed can actually see people. [b]This is all happening near friendly soldiers who requested air support because they were fired upon[/b].[/quote]

via blackfive

Basically this was textbook use of the ROE, and anything but cold blooded murder.

Ground forces were taking small arms fire, called in choppers, choppers located group with weapons (only two camermen-out of appropriate "uniform" since they were wearing arab dress- surrounded by what appears to be insurgents) requested permission to fire and it was granted. An unmarked van with no medical signs shows up out of nowhere to collect the wounded.

The only thing they did "wrong" was being a little crass on the videotape which is certainly understandable considering they're in an effing war zone. I've heard much. much, much worse.

The decision to cover it up was wrong, but there are much worse situations out there to complain about.

[Semper Catholic]

[quote]the problem, according to many who have viewed the video, is that WikiLeaks appears to have done selective editing that tells only half the story. For instance, the Web site takes special care to slow down the video and identify the two photographers and the cameras they are carrying.

However, the Web site does not slow down the video to show that at least [b]one man in that group was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher,[/b] a clearly visible weapon that runs nearly two-thirds the length of his body.

WikiLeaks also does not point out [b]that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle.[/b] He is seen swinging the weapon below his waist while standing next to the man holding the RPG. [/quote]

The final nail in this threads coffin.


edit: quote was from a foxnews report

Edited April 7, 2010 by Semper Catholic

[Jesus_lol]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/emcc-a28.shtml

interview with one of the soldiers seen carrying the wounded children. this i found really interesting.

[Winchester]

It was interesting.

[Jesus_lol]

a man of few words, i like the cut of your jib.

[Winchester]

IT'S THE ONLY JIB I GOT, BABY!!!!

[Laudate_Dominum]

This is a disturbing topic, but thanks for posting that interview jesus_lul.

[SaintOfVirtue]

[quote name='Jesus_lol' date='06 April 2010 - 06:04 PM' timestamp='1270602283' post='2088057']
[/quote]

The press stigmatizes our soldiers for every little thing they do. I understand this is a terrible accident and should never have happened, but collateral damage is an unfortunate effect of war. Every time a civilian gets killed or wounded by our troops, the troops get a bad rapt. Yet, when the these Muslim extremists behead one of our reporters, do they get demonized in the same fashion? No, because it would be racist or biased to do so. The release of this video is an attempt to make civilians (you and me) see how "evil" and "heartless" our troops are. It is that same sort of mentality that would have us Mirandaize enemy combatants.

Our enemy does not distinguish itself from the civilian populous, so how in the heck should an Apache gunship be able to clearly tell if its shooting terrorists or civilians when ground forces call for air support?

It is necessary for the soldiers' sanity that they have a cavalier attitude about it. Why? Because if they didn't, a soldier wouldn't last a week in a war zone without going insane. Police, firefighters, paramedics all do the same thing. Oh yes, even our civilian protectors need to build mental/emotional barriers, they use "code words" like "gang-banger" "FOPS" and several others. They need to do this or they will be mental and emotional wrecks.

Let's put this in perspective: How many innocent civilians (including the 9/11 massacre) has our enemy killed compared to the US soldiers?

J_lol, I don't mean to offend you, that is certainly not my purpose in posting. I really enjoy reading your posts even if I don't agree with them, but I am tempted to ask: if people from other countries are so concerned with the "terrible" job the U.S. troops are doing in Iraq, why don't they have troops in Iraq?

The point I am trying to get at is this: War is bloody, gory, and vicious; nothing we do will ever change that. No matter how careful the troops are civilians will die; and the troops should not be demonized for it. The nature of war is opposed in its very conception to what is "humane" no regulations, no standards, no rules of engagement, no politician will ever be able to change that. War will remain gruesome. It seems to me that many people have become to comfortable in their civilized lifestyles to realize that fact. If a nation is going to win a war, it is (sadly) going to need to be as vicious to its enemy as its enemy is to it. The war stories of the Old Testament reflect this as well, many times God led the Israelites to war which resulted in the entire annihilation of a people: men, women, children, and animals.


[quote name='Maggie' date='06 April 2010 - 06:36 PM' timestamp='1270604168' post='2088103']
Totally barbaric.
[/quote]

That is the reality of war

[quote name='Winchester' date='06 April 2010 - 06:48 PM' timestamp='1270604929' post='2088113']
1. Your bunchie is missing.
2. It's never indiscriminate in the entire video. Permission is given, fire is controlled.
3. You're evaluating "barely" restrained. Really. Barely. Barely not pulling the trigger is not pulling the trigger.
4. The idiot reporters decided to muck about a war zone without a military escort. That's stupid. Sorry, but it's plain stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
5. Your "reliable" group calls it Apache footage. It uses editorial lies and distortion It's not good and it's not interested in the truth. It's interested in causing problems, as demonstrated by this utter croutons reporting
6. This was preventable. Journalists need to stay out of war zones without escorts by the good guys unless they are willing to accept getting killed.
7. I don't have a seven.
8. You bunchie is missing.
[/quote]

+1 if I still had it.

[Hassan]

[quote name='SaintOfVirtue' date='28 April 2010 - 09:27 PM' timestamp='1272504438' post='2101941']
The press stigmatizes our soldiers for every little thing they do. I understand this is a terrible accident and should never have happened, but collateral damage is an unfortunate effect of war. Every time a civilian gets killed or wounded by our troops, the troops get a bad rapt. Yet, when the these Muslim extremists behead one of our reporters, do they get demonized in the same fashion? No, because it would be racist or biased to do so. The release of this video is an attempt to make civilians (you and me) see how "evil" and "heartless" our troops are. It is that same sort of mentality that would have us Mirandaize enemy combatants. [/QUOTE]

Civilians killed in Afghanistan was pretty drastically under reported during the first months/years of the war. And it still is. A lot of civilians get killed by our military very few of those deaths get reported. Usually it takes a lot of ordinance dropped on a wedding killing two dozen plus people to get serious attention. Obama has stepped up the Bush practice of using drones to kill suspected terrorists. That has also led to an increase of accidents involving civilians being mistaken for terrorists. There hasn't been some huge burst of reporting on the problem that I have seen.

I can think of several journalists who were violently and purposefully killed by Muslim militants/insurgents/terrorists. I can't think of a single time it was reported as anything other than a barbaric, repulsive action.

[QUOTE]Our enemy does not distinguish itself from the civilian populous, so how in the heck should an Apache gunship be able to clearly tell if its shooting terrorists or civilians when ground forces call for air support?[/QUOTE]

That's a pretty sweeping statement that is partly correct and partly not.



[QUOTE]Let's put this in perspective: How many innocent civilians (including the 9/11 massacre) has our enemy killed compared to the US soldiers?[/QUOTE]



[QUOTE]J_lol, I don't mean to offend you, that is certainly not my purpose in posting. I really enjoy reading your posts even if I don't agree with them, but I am tempted to ask: if people from other countries are so concerned with the "terrible" job the U.S. troops are doing in Iraq, why don't they have troops in Iraq?[/QUOTE]

Because they don't want to spend a vast sum of money to overthrow a Sunni strongman so a Shia' strong man can take his place and bolster Iranian hegemony in the region?

[QUOTE]The point I am trying to get at is this: War is bloody, gory, and vicious; nothing we do will ever change that. No matter how careful the troops are civilians will die; and the troops should not be demonized for it. The nature of war is opposed in its very conception to what is "humane" no regulations, no standards, no rules of engagement, no politician will ever be able to change that. War will remain gruesome. It seems to me that many people have become to comfortable in their civilized lifestyles to realize that fact. If a nation is going to win a war, it is (sadly) going to need to be as vicious to its enemy as its enemy is to it. The war stories of the Old Testament reflect this as well, many times God led the Israelites to war which resulted in the entire annihilation of a people: men, women, children, and animals.[/QUOTE]


Sure we can. War is inherently violent but that doesn't mean you can't reduce the total amount of violence. Our soldiers, on the aggregate, act with infinitely more professionalism, discipline and humanity than, for example, Russian soldiers fighting in Chechnya.

We don't give Vodka to our soldiers for courage before they go out on missions (not to say soldiers don't go out drunk or high, just that it's not a general practice). We don't have an unofficially institutionalized practice of arresting men as possible 'insurgents' so their families have to bribe them to let them out. Most soldiers know more of the local language than how to demand a bribe (plenty of Russian soldiers know how to ask for 20 rubble in Chechen, but not much else) and we generally don't just bomb a civilian population for the sake of terrorizing those civilians into meek submission.

Russia has done none of those things in Chechnya and a whole hell of a lot more Russian soldiers have died because of it. Turns out that poor young men in a zone of total war with no prospects to advance themselves socially or economically but have easy access to Kalashnikovs and a lot of anger over being tortured in a 'filtration' camp while their mother/sister/girlfriend got passed around by the guards can be really, really bad for soldiers. Not only do they have to deal with young men with little to lose and a whole lot of anger and ammunition, but they aren't going to get a lot of help from the community seeing as the population as a whole loath them for their brutal tactics and the massive suffering they brought on those civilians, many of whom would otherwise being either sympathetic or neutral to the political goals that sent the soldiers there in the first place.

When Russia first invaded the extreme nationalists were a minority of the population and Islamic extremism was very, very rare. Most Chechens weren't religious or identified themselves as Muslims for cultural reasons. Most considered themselves citizens of Russia and had no desire to embark on some asinine scheme to establish some utopian pan-Caucasus republic. There is no reason the war had to happen in the first place and the Russians should have been able to reestablish control without too much difficulty. 20 years of savagery and inhumanity later and Russia's whole southern boarder is insecure, the North Caucasus is a bastion of Islamic radicalism and young Chechen women are strapping bombs on themselves to detonate in Moscow. There isn't really any end in sight and even the psychotic Russian lackey of a dictator Kadyrov is having trouble keeping the lid on things.

When the Red Army invaded Germany the officers were not willing to stop the mass rape their soldiers engaged in. Huge numbers of East German families had a mother or daughter who was raped. At one of the death camps our forces committed the 'war crime' of rounding up the guards who ran it and gunning them down. On a whole, however, American soldiers acted with far more humanity than Red Army soldiers in Germany. I'd say that strategy paid off. We had to ensure that the remaining fascists didn't return to power, but on a whole we didn't need to force the Germans to reject communism. The Soviet proxy parties lost most of whatever base they had in the population over their association with the Soviet Union and the unfortunate habit the USSR's soldiers had of raping about every East German girl they could get their hands on or, as with Poland, systematically executing the national elite so as to have an easier time controlling the country through proxy parties.

Today Germany is a liberal democracy rather than a Leninist Party state. There are quite a few factors involved but the hatred many of the population being ground down under the weight of an unnecessarily draconian occupation felt for the Soviets probably helped. Not to mention the popularity we got from that Airlift we engaged in to stop the mass starvation of Berlin Stalin implemented to increase his bargaining power.


On a whole I'm prone to agree with Winchester and Semper. The initial reports seem unfair and a reasonable albeit unfortunate mistake doesn't become a war crime because the 20 something year old guys involved had potty mouths. But I'd say your justification for what some people wasted to paint these soldiers as having done and general theory about the appropriate actions for an occupying army to engage is moral bankrupt, historically ignorant and sure to be disastrous for any Army that followed it.

[Hassan]

I was walking down the street late at night in a place with a lot of activity going on. A lot of the people were drunk at that time of the night when the angry drunks around walking start to get really belligerent. Some drunk guy reached around me like he was aiming to put me in a choke hold from behind. I reacted and started to do what I would have done to defend myself, grab his forearm to pull him into an elbow to the head. I had already started to reach and turn when at the last second I saw he was just extremely drunk and reaching around me in a very strange way to throw something away in the trashcan I was near.

He came closer than he will ever know to taking a really hard elbow to the skull. It would have been really unfortunate had that happened and I would have felt pretty bad about how things happened, but it would have been his fault. He acted in a way that made it really hard to distinguish his action from something benign to something that could get me in a really bad situation if I didn't stop it fast. I'd imagine that walking down a street with a lot of unpredictable often belligerent drunks doesn't even begin to compare to the tension that comes with walking around a dangerous part of Iraq waiting to be shot at. There is a pretty big moral and legal distinction between a tragic but understandable mistake and going out out to inflict violence on innocent people for whatever reason.

I think there is good reason to suppose from this video that the soldiers thought that they were shooting at people who probably needed to be shot. I also think they came to the conclusion the did (that these were people they should be shooting at) on pretty solid and understandable grounds. And a mistake doesn't become a war crime because the person in question talks poo. Reporters shouldn't be stuck with soldiers the whole time they are reporting. That would bias their reporting. But you should know that a camera can look a lot like a weapon, particularly when they people around you have RPG's and AK47's. And if you are hanging around people shooting at soldiers, even in pursuit of a legitimate story or for other justifiable reasons, you do so with the understanding that there is a good chance the soldiers are going to shoot back at you too. Particularly if you are lugging around something that from a distance looks like a weapon. It doesn't mean the reporter deserved to be shot. Not at all. But something like that comes with risks that any even quasi-rational person could guess. I don't know much about Iraq. I know pretty much nothing at all about being in a war zone. I do know it's a bad idea to carry around a camera while I'm dressed like the people surrounding me who happen to be carrying weapons and that there is a pretty good chance that if American soldiers are around while I'm doing this they will, with about every justification, probably light me up like a Christmas tree.

[SaintOfVirtue]

[quote name='Hassan' date='29 April 2010 - 04:15 AM' timestamp='1272539726' post='2102096']
On a whole I'm prone to agree with Winchester and Semper. The initial reports seem unfair and a reasonable albeit unfortunate mistake doesn't become a war crime because the 20 something year old guys involved had potty mouths. But I'd say your justification for what some people wasted to paint these soldiers as having done and general theory about the appropriate actions for an occupying army to engage is moral bankrupt, historically ignorant and sure to be disastrous for any Army that followed it.
[/quote]

Thank you for your response! I do not know much about the Russian conflict described in your post, but I saw the analogy. I tend to agree with you. You pretty much said what I was trying to say, however my post sounds quite naive in comparison.

Is the above paragraph addressed to me? If so, I am afraid I don't understand what you are saying, could you clarify?

I agree completely with the post following the one I have quoted here. +1

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='SaintOfVirtue' date='28 April 2010 - 06:27 PM' timestamp='1272504438' post='2101941']
Yet, when the these Muslim extremists behead one of our reporters, do they get demonized in the same fashion? No, because it would be racist or biased to do so[/quote]

heck yes they get demonized! not sure about you but last time i remember a beheading being on the news it was very much so demonized, even here in canada. everyone was talking about it as a bad thing for a while.

[quote]

Our enemy does not distinguish itself from the civilian populous, so how in the heck should an Apache gunship be able to clearly tell if its shooting terrorists or civilians when ground forces call for air support?

It is necessary for the soldiers' sanity that they have a cavalier attitude about it. Why? Because if they didn't, a soldier wouldn't last a week in a war zone without going insane. Police, firefighters, paramedics all do the same thing. Oh yes, even our civilian protectors need to build mental/emotional barriers, they use "code words" like "gang-banger" "FOPS" and several others. They need to do this or they will be mental and emotional wrecks.
[/quote]

i mostly took issue with the people begging for the kill orders. makes me wonder, if they were pulled up on charges, would they say "i was just following orders" after that.

[quote]
Let's put this in perspective: How many innocent civilians (including the 9/11 massacre) has our enemy killed compared to the US soldiers?
[/quote]
i dont think this helps you here, last time i checked civilian deaths in iraq and afghanistan were super high compared to 9/11 numbers.

[quote]
J_lol, I don't mean to offend you, that is certainly not my purpose in posting. I really enjoy reading your posts even if I don't agree with them, but I am tempted to ask: if people from other countries are so concerned with the "terrible" job the U.S. troops are doing in Iraq, why don't they have troops in Iraq?
[/quote]

dont worry, i got a thick skin no offense taken.

but this point doesnt make sense. most of the concern is that we dont think you should have gone into Iraq in the first place, not that we want the same thing but you guys are bungling it up especially bad. its like, i think China is doing a bad job in Tibet, but i dont want to go an occupy Tibet in their place. I dont think John is dong a good job beating up that random guy outside the bar, but i dont want to go in and beat this guy up for him.

[quote]
The point I am trying to get at is this: War is bloody, gory, and vicious; nothing we do will ever change that. No matter how careful the troops are civilians will die; and the troops should not be demonized for it. The nature of war is opposed in its very conception to what is "humane" no regulations, no standards, no rules of engagement, no politician will ever be able to change that. War will remain gruesome. It seems to me that many people have become to comfortable in their civilized lifestyles to realize that fact. If a nation is going to win a war, it is (sadly) going to need to be as vicious to its enemy as its enemy is to it. The war stories of the Old Testament reflect this as well, many times God led the Israelites to war which resulted in the entire annihilation of a people: men, women, children, and animals.
That is the reality of war
[/quote]

war smells of elderberries, but its a good thing to keep in the front of peoples minds. maybe if people realize what war means they wont support new ones.

[SaintOfVirtue]

@J_lol:
yeah that post I made was rather stupid. I have no idea what I was thinking at the time ; Hassan put it much better.

On the other hand: Si vis pacem para bellum (Pray for peace, prepare for war)

[Jesus_lol]

[quote name='SaintOfVirtue' date='30 April 2010 - 10:44 PM' timestamp='1272692650' post='2103060']
@J_lol:
yeah that post I made was rather stupid. I have no idea what I was thinking at the time ; Hassan put it much better.

On the other hand: Si vis pacem para bellum (Pray for peace, prepare for war)
[/quote]

heheh no problems. all of it was stupid? i dunno.


white riussian, myself

it was a well made post
despite me not agreeing with most of it

[SaintOfVirtue]

Found this picture and thought of this thread.


[img]http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-sjc1/hs617.snc3/32482_386926343405_63643878405_3955681_268753_n.jpg[/img]

[Winchester]

The soldier who released this video is being charged. One of the idiots from wikileaks was all upset that the Apache crew wasn't charged. That's because he's an idiot.