They Hate Us For Our Freedoms

[Juton]

Do not embed yourself with the enemy, especially one that is not uniformed.

Do not point ANYTHING at anyone in a war zone

Leave the medical attention to the trained military responders with big red crosses atop their vehicles

Pretty simple rules, really.

What the fuck are you talking about? Embed yourself with the enemy, from what we know those reports where just in the proximity to CIVILIANS. Don't point anything, not even a news camera? They didn't point anything at the helicopter, you mean don't hold anything, don't look suspicious. How many ambulances you think they have left in working order in Baghdad, if you saw people in need of help would you just drive on by?

What type of douche bag are you?

[PhoneLobster]

Perhaps this is one reason why armed forces should identify themselves as such.

I see. So then as soon as America declares you an enemy, invades your country, destroys your government and bombs your entire society into a mad max like stone age...

Everyone who fights back should put on big red uniforms and march in line directly into the gun sights of the marines.

You know, I don't think the insurgents would have the resources for the uniforms or the organization to march in a straight line even IF they wanted to.

You are an ass. "Oh they aren't fighting fair, WAAAAH let my dick substitute soldiers kill civlians as compensation, WAAAAAH".

When you choose to go to war against an entire society, civilians and civilian infrastructure included, expect guerrilla warfare. That is what happens when a massively superior force enacts wars of aggression
if you knew your history you would know that. And you would also know that it never ever absolves you of responsibility, indeed it INCREASES your responsibility, since after all, you didn't HAVE to be there did you?

[Josh_Kablack]

The press sign thing is total bullshit. For me the real question isn't how these people ended up dead - they were in a war zone and shit happens.

Duh.

[Ganbare Gincun]

Once again, you can't tell how fucking long it is, because the silhouette terminates at his body, which is behind the fucking wall.

2) You can't see that it's a camera. You are full of shit. It's a vaguely black object.

This is what 1000mm telephoto lens looks like:



This is what an RPG looks like:



See how one of them is long and slender and the other one is short and stubby? Here's a screen cap from the actual video:



See how the black thing is short and stubby, and not long and slender? That's because it's a fucking camera, and not an RPG. It doesn't even remotely resemble the silhouette of an RPG. And the reason he was pointing it around the corner is because he was doing his fucking job and taking some pictures. Reporters do that from time to time, or so I've been told. And these guys were trained well enough to know the difference.

The only reason we know what happened is because Wikileaks reported the US MILITARY REPORTS. If some random Iraqi said "they shot some people, and then we took their bodies and survivors, and drove off with them, and we can tell you for sure, they were just civilians" the response would be "What the fuck, we don't believe you."

The part where you think that they did it to hide the evidence is fucking hilarious, because their main concern was keeping the evidence there.

Are you fucking serious? These classified reports were never meant to see the light of day. The military has been keeping this shit under wraps since 2007! If the people in the van would have managed to rescue the sole survivor - Saaed, who was a fucking Reuters reporter - we would have heard about this shit the next day regardless of whether he lived or died, believe me. But dead men - they tell no tales.

These guys weren't any more interested in "preserving evidence" then they were in "fighting extremists" - these guys just wanted to flex their nuts and kill some sand n1ggers for shits and giggles. They don't come off like professional soldiers on this video - they come off like a bunch of sociopathic war criminals.

So in other words, you think that it would behoove insurgents to shoot at a helicopter with AK 47s, before trying to pull a guy into their van, but you also think that helicopters should not shoot at people who don't shoot at them first, even when those people are pulling bodies into vans?

You shouldn't shoot at someone unless you determine that there's a good chance that they're actually a threat and will be shooting at you. Here's a picture of the first group of "insurgents" before our noble heroes opened fire:



And here's an image of the second group of "insurgents" before the second slaughter:



You see anything going on there that even looks remotely threatening? The first group of people was just chilling in the street. They aren't brandishing weapons, they aren't taking threatening action, they aren't looking for cover. They're not trying to shoot down a helicopter - they're shooting the shit in the street! And the second group was picking up someone that was wounded. The soldiers in question may as well have opened fire at a street fair, the mall, or a hospital. Frankly, the whole incident reminds me of the episode of South Park where Jimbo runs around the forest murdering woodland animals with a bazooka while yelling "it's coming right for us" like a goddamned lunatic.

They don't know his status as a threat, because they are not omnipotent. As such, a good threat indicator would be if he tried to pick up a weapon. You'll also note that when he didn't, they didn't shoot at him, until they thought he was going to escape.

They know his status as a threat - which is to say, none at all - because the people they fired on weren't a threat in the first place, which I think the video demonstrates pretty clearly. But even if he was some kind of crazy Islamic extremist instead of a photographer, he wouldn't have been a threat because he was crawling around on the ground, wounded and helpless. They even note on the video that he was wounded. They didn't stop firing because they were being nice - they stopped firing because they were drawing out the moment.

Did they make an incorrect evaluation? Yes, almost certainly. Is that unfortunate? Yes. Does it suck that they covered it up, whether they went along willingly or were pressured into it? Sure.

These guys aren't soldiers that made a mistake - they are straight up murderers. And their U.S. military aided and abetted their actions by covering up the truth. But as angry as I may be, I'm really not surprised by this kind of shit anymore - after all, once you've allowed Blackwater to run a child prostitution ring in the Green Zone, you've already gone hurtling past the Moral Event Horizon.

But fuck, it's just brown people. It's not like they were white or anything.

And you portraying it as such is really just more evidence that you are so into your roll as partisan hack that every time you are right about anything is just incidentally, because you happen to be a hack for the side that is right more often, and not because you have any actual desire to investigate things objectively.

You know, I've never been called a "partisan hack" by an apologist for war criminals before. Thanks!

[Ganbare Gincun]

Again, you are a fucking moron for not reading what people are attempting to explain in a reasonable manner an instead act like a baby screaming for candy.

Were you there? No. Did you take into account all of the evidence other than the tape? No.

I've listened to and understand your arguments. They're just not very good arguments, and you have to resort to ad hominem attacks in a feeble attempt to bolster them. The video speaks for itself: these soldiers engaged several Reuters photographers, claiming the cameras were weapons, giggling the whole time. Then, when a van came to pick up the wounded, they claimed they were going for weapons and got permission to shoot the people picking up victims. And then instead of being held accountable for their actions by their superiors, everyone decided to sweep the whole thing under the rug.

End scene.

[Crissa]

Actually, Stingers and American equipment look more like cameras than the foreign equipment linked to.

But still, these are people who were several streets away from fighting. The fighting stopped, they looked, there's a Bradly about twenty feet around that corner.

These are our allies. Why do they need to hide from the Helicopter miles away? They don't want to get hit by bullets aimed at the Bradly, so they stay back.

But they still get shot. And here we have an idiot defending the outrageous. Yes, these soldiers were thinking with their guns, but the results were all wrong. I don't think the soldiers should be indicted, so much as this should have been on our news TV years ago, and the methods that led to this changed.

Who would argue against that position?

-Crissa

PS, I constantly have to tell my friends who are in the military to tone it down. It's very easy to get into a bunker mindset and see enemies everywhere. We need to work to make sure our soldiers are not succumbing to that. But by that video? Those voices? They are not being professional. They are not acting with clear minds. And the person responsible for them is not calming them down.

[Lich-Loved]

What the fuck are you talking about? Embed yourself with the enemy, from what we know those reports where just in the proximity to CIVILIANS.

Non-uniformed "insurgents" and civilians are indistinguishable hence they are all targets and all potentially an enemy. If the insurgents cared for their own people, they wouldn't hide among them regularly. So, you get dead civilians. This is what they want and frankly if they do not care, why should we?

They didn't point anything at the helicopter, you mean don't hold anything, don't look suspicious.

Fuck yes that is exactly what I mean. If you are a civilian and know fucking well that your neighbors or fellow countrymen are carrying guns and hiding among you, then common fucking sense says don't do anything suspicious, don't carry anything that looks threatening. Is that fair? Nope, but if they don't like it they could go volunteer in the Iraqi military or police put on a uniform and stop the bastards that are doing it. If they won't do that, and go around carrying things that may be misconstrued as a weapon or "acting suspicious", then prepare to be blown into little chunks.

How many ambulances you think they have left in working order in Baghdad, if you saw people in need of help would you just drive on by?

Put a red cross atop the van. With paint. Scratch it into the top of it. Do not pick up weapons when picking up bodies (I am not saying they did this, just a rule). If a person decides to involve themselves in the war, then that is there choice. But that decision has consequences. So sure I would stop to help someone, but then again, the cost of that is sometimes a 30mm round in the windshield of the car as well. You rolls yer dice and you takes yer chances.

[Josh_Kablack]

They don't come off like professional soldiers on this video - they come off like a bunch of sociopathic war criminals.

Please explain the difference...?

[Zinegata]

I've listened to and understand your arguments. They're just not very good arguments, and you have to resort to ad hominem attacks in a feeble attempt to bolster them.

You are a fucking moron because you still can't get it through your thick skull that I am not even giving arguments. I'm sayin there are two sides to the story, and that there is more evidence beyond the gun cam footage.

My only position on the matter is that "it's combat and shit happens", for which you basically said "Fuck you".

So fuck you too, moron.

You are so self-absorbed in your own hackery and your own racism that it's fruitless to discuss anything with you, and you make it embarassing to make any anti-military arguments within a hundred meters of you.

[Zinegata]

PS, I constantly have to tell my friends who are in the military to tone it down. It's very easy to get into a bunker mindset and see enemies everywhere. We need to work to make sure our soldiers are not succumbing to that. But by that video? Those voices? They are not being professional. They are not acting with clear minds. And the person responsible for them is not calming them down.

There is a world of difference between making a moral judgment, and making a moral jugment when you are getting shot at, think you're getting shot at, or think your friends are about to get shot at.

In short, the bunker mentality is totally justified in the face of a world full of morons who make judgments in the comfort of their own homes.

Nobody has so far argued that what happened was a good thing. But I think most people aren't arrogant enough to believe that they are some omnipotent God who can freely condemn others when you weren't there and didn't have your life of the lives of your friends on the line.

[Lich-Loved]

I see. So then as soon as America declares you an enemy, invades your country, destroys your government and bombs your entire society into a mad max like stone age...

Everyone who fights back should put on big red uniforms and march in line directly into the gun sights of the marines.

I think you finally got it.

Though of course no one needed to die, they could have surrendered their weapons peacefully. They chose differently. Sucks to be them.

Ya see, several years ago, America suffered the worst single attack by a foreign power on its home soil in its history. The culprits were mainly Saudi's but no government would claim them. This group of radicals finally pissed off the most powerful country in the world but because no country would own these people and their act of war, the most powerful man in the world made a very clear statement "If you are not with us, then you are against us". So yeah that isn't all diplomatic or anything but then again, neither was blowing up the WTC. So it was pretty clear - being an enemy of the US no longer meant you could fuck around and stall and play diplomatic games because we were changing the rules. Was Iraq with us? Nope, sorry. They violated what, two dozen UN Security announcements? Ok see you later fuckers. Afghanistan harbors Al Quida and Bin Laden? Against us? Hmmk, see ya later fuckers. Are you starting to see a pattern? You can call it illegal, you can whine and cringe over the morality, you can try to dump the salve of self righteousness on your butthurt, but You Do Not Mean Shit In World Affairs. The rest of the countries are bystanders and damn glad to be that and secretly, in the cabinet rooms and ministers offices they are very fucking glad we are there to do the world's dirty work just like we always have. Sure, to the "outraged masses" they are sympathetic, but are you so naive as to believe that those in power in Europe, Australia and even in Russia, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East are NOT benefiting from this little dust up? Do you seriously believe those in power gain nothing by this?

You know, I don't think the insurgents would have the resources for the uniforms or the organization to march in a straight line even IF they wanted to.

ooooh but they can afford weapons, bomb making materials, ammo, and can afford to pay the people better than the other jobs available in Iraq. Odd how they run short of money when it comes to uniforms. You know we would fucking BUY the weapons from them if they wouldn't use the money to just buy more weapons. It would be cheaper and safer than all of this fighting.

You are an ass. "Oh they aren't fighting fair, WAAAAH let my dick substitute soldiers kill civlians as compensation, WAAAAAH".

I have not made myself clear. I am just fine with the way they chose to fight. I am all for letting the other guy make the rules. They decided they wanted an insurgency. Ok by me. Coffin making is going to be a big business there for some time to come then. As long as we try to minimalize civilian causalities (eg we could just bomb their cities flat ala WWII style and destroy their food supply for example and I would not support that) then I am just fine with whatever rules they agree to fight by. Even "no rules" is fine.

When you choose to go to war against an entire society, civilians and civilian infrastructure included, expect guerrilla warfare. That is what happens when a massively superior force enacts wars of aggression
if you knew your history you would know that. And you would also know that it never ever absolves you of responsibility, indeed it INCREASES your responsibility, since after all, you didn't HAVE to be there did you?

You make it seem like the WORLD COURT is going to come and lock up people for conducting a WAR OF AGGRESSION. Holy crap what planet do you live on? The one I live on is a neighborhood; its got good sections and bad sections, good neighbors and bad neighbors, rich people and poor people. But you know what happens in other neighborhoods when the thug house down the street finally pisses someone off and the cops can't do anything about it, yet again? It gets torched. Or maybe there is an old fashioned ambush. Is that "breaking the law"? Yep. Does it solve the problem? Yep. In this case, Iraq was a tough talking thug that beat the living shit out of one of its neighbors - one of OUR neighbors and then flaunted itself in front of the only police force we have, the UN Security Council over and over and over again. Afghanistan harbored people out to kill us and you had by god better bet the UN Council was once again going to be utterly powerless. So, it was time for fixing the problem.

And if all that is too long for you to read, think of it this way. If the WORLD COURT was so fucking powerful, why couldn't they get Iraq into line? Why couldn't they halt the attacks against US civilians around the world? You know as well as I do - its because there is no WORLD COURT that means jack shit and if they couldn't resolve some pissant third world country's issues then they sure as fucking hell can't do shit all to us because we had to dispense a lil' western justice on some fucktards.

War of Aggression. Oh noes. Next we will be charged with International Jaywalking and the WORLD COURT will come and write us a ticket. Which we will protest. At least two dozen times.

[Zinegata]

Do not embed yourself with the enemy, especially one that is not uniformed.

Do not point ANYTHING at anyone in a war zone

Leave the medical attention to the trained military responders with big red crosses atop their vehicles

Pretty simple rules, really.

What the fuck are you talking about? Embed yourself with the enemy, from what we know those reports where just in the proximity to CIVILIANS. Don't point anything, not even a news camera? They didn't point anything at the helicopter, you mean don't hold anything, don't look suspicious. How many ambulances you think they have left in working order in Baghdad, if you saw people in need of help would you just drive on by?

What type of douche bag are you?

That's from the US Army report, who's claiming that the people around the reporters were in fact insurgents and weapons were found with the bodies.

Also, on another point: The US Army report is claiming that the camera was "aimed" at a US Humvee down the street, which wasn't visible by gun camera but visible via pilot eyeball.

Make of it what you will. I am not saying you should believe the report. I'm just saying there are two sides to this story, something even Al Jazeera acknowledges.

[Crissa]

Though of course no one needed to die, they could have surrendered their weapons peacefully. They chose differently. Sucks to be them.

Ya see, several years ago, America suffered the worst single attack by a foreign power on its home soil in its history. The culprits were mainly Saudi's but no government would claim them. This group of radicals finally pissed off the most powerful country in the world but because no country would own these people and their act of war, the most powerful man in the world made a very clear statement "If you are not with us, then you are against us". So yeah that isn't all diplomatic or anything but then again, neither was blowing up the WTC. So it was pretty clear - being an enemy of the US no longer meant you could fuck around and stall and play diplomatic games because we were changing the rules. Was Iraq with us? Nope, sorry. They violated what, two dozen UN Security announcements? Ok see you later fuckers. Afghanistan harbors Al Quida and Bin Laden? Against us? Hmmk, see ya later fuckers. Are you starting to see a pattern? You can call it illegal, you can whine and cringe over the morality, you can try to dump the salve of self righteousness on your butthurt, but You Do Not Mean Shit In World Affairs. The rest of the countries are bystanders and damn glad to be that and secretly, in the cabinet rooms and ministers offices they are very fucking glad we are there to do the world's dirty work just like we always have. Sure, to the "outraged masses" they are sympathetic, but are you so naive as to believe that those in power in Europe, Australia and even in Russia, Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East are NOT benefiting from this little dust up? Do you seriously believe those in power gain nothing by this?

You realize all this is BS, with only the barest connection to the truth?

I see a pattern. The pattern is that people like you needed to get their hard-on destroying countries and killing a hundred thousand people across the world to make up for how scared you felt when some tragedy struck the US.

Notice how the US Military claimed anyone that couldn't be verified by a foreign source as a civilian as a combatant? Apparently, insurgents carpool with their kids to battlefields now.

Bunker mentality is never justified. Ever. And only by putting it in the light of day, and having zero tolerance for such poor decisions, will we ever get better acting out of our soldiers. It leads to abuse of captives, abuse of people, murders, abuse of animals, and abuse of wives and husbands and children.

Civilized people cannot condone it.

-Crissa

[Zinegata]

I see a pattern. The pattern is that people like you needed to get their hard-on destroying countries and killing a hundred thousand people across the world to make up for how scared you felt when some tragedy struck the US.

You're not really looking far into history if you've just noticed this. People have always used war to maintain their place/order in the world. The US isn't exactly the first power to do this, we've been doing this since, what, the Assyrians?

Plus, there's the whole "burn Japan to the ground" bit for Pearl Harbor, "Kick Spain's ass for the Maine", "Massacre the Indians for the Little Bighorn". If you've just noticed the US flexing its military might now you have a pretty myopic view of history.

Apparently, insurgents carpool with their kids to battlefields now.

Ergh, they actually do so. And sometimes they carpool with unwilling kids who were taken from their parents.

Besides which, I don't think anyone can deny that you can't actually SEE the kids in the gun cam footage.

[Crissa]

Apparently, insurgents carpool with their kids to battlefields now.

Ergh, they actually do so. And sometimes they carpool with unwilling kids who were taken from their parents.

Besides which, I don't think anyone can deny that you can't actually SEE the kids in the gun cam footage.

No. The gun cam info shows that the soldiers were looking for enemies where there were none.

The bodies show that we happily call any people insurgents when they're dead. And people like you make excuses. And generals get away with hiding these incidents.

Look, it should not have taken three years for this to come out. There are, of course, dozens of other cover ups as well, from friendly-fire, to misidentification, to murders of our men and women in uniform. That you support this one means that I can only guess you accept the state of things, where a person puts on our uniform and becomes immune to all moral and legal restraints upon their actions.

And that's wrong.

-Crissa

[Zinegata]

Bunker mentality is never justified. Ever. And only by putting it in the light of day, and having zero tolerance for such poor decisions, will we ever get better acting out of our soldiers. It leads to abuse of captives, abuse of people, murders, abuse of animals, and abuse of wives and husbands and children.

Civilized people cannot condone it.

-Crissa

War is never civilized. That's the whole point of training large bodies of men to kill other large bodies of men.

As was stated during the first ever attempt to define the rules of war:

"War should be terrible! You may as well talk of civilizing Hell!"

Your position is frankly naive.

[Crissa]

Your position is disgusting.

For the next half dozen decades, our country will be rocked with caring for soldiers who will never reintegrate, many of whom will be homeless, with huge numbers of suicides and domestic abuse, murders.

War is horrible. There is never a reason to increase the amount of it as you have just suggested.

-Crissa

[Zinegata]

No. The gun cam info shows that the soldiers were looking for enemies where there were none.

How does that relate to the fact that you are completely mistaken that insurgents don't bring kids to the battlefield for the express purpose of using them as human shields?

How does that relate to the fact that insurgents do, in fact, kidnap kids and blow them to pieces?

How does that relate to the fact that you can't actually see the kids in the video?

You're not addressing what I said. You're just going off on another self-righteous tangent based on the gun cam footage alone.

The bodies show that we happily call any people insurgents when they're dead. And people like you make excuses. And generals get away with hiding these incidents.

Again, I'm not saying the US Military report is true.

I'm saying what's in it.

And it says the camera was "aimed" at an off-screen Humvee.

If this is true would it be a big difference? Strictly reading the Rules of Engagement leaked above, I would have to say "Yes" because RoE allows the use of deadly force if there is a threat to your comrades, even if you're not the person who's actually being shot at.

Look, it should not have taken three years for this to come out. There are, of course, dozens of other cover ups as well, from friendly-fire, to misidentification, to murders of our men and women in uniform.

That's extremely naive thinking again.

First of all, you need to investigate. Civilian investigations often take a while to finish by dedicated professionals. A wartime is harder to conduct.

Secondly, if you publish information every time a "war crime" *might* have been committed, you'd probably be inundated by a lot of false reports. Again, it's combat against an insurgency. Every time somebody is killed it's a potential war crime because they're not wearing uniforms and the other side is always gonna claim that innocent civilians were killed even if they were not.

Thirdly, not everyone plays by these rules.

That you support this one means that I can only guess you accept the state of things, where a person puts on our uniform and becomes immune to all moral and legal restraints upon their actions.

And that's wrong.

-Crissa

No, I'm simply not stupid enough to believe that you should ask for higher moral standards on a battlefield. It's war. Shit happens.

Now, if somebody in uniform goes off and tortures fifteen prisoners, then that's not a battlefield mistake. That's just some retard deciding to torture fifteen guys.

But judging an action that happened when people are potentially shooting at you? No, I will not do that, because to judge that is only done by moral asshats.

[Crissa]

Zinegata, you spent two pages claiming you didn't hold these positions, and yet now, you do?

-Crissa

[Zinegata]

Your position is disgusting.

For the next half dozen decades, our country will be rocked with caring for soldiers who will never reintegrate, many of whom will be homeless, with huge numbers of suicides and domestic abuse, murders.

War is horrible. There is never a reason to increase the amount of it as you have just suggested.

-Crissa

And your position is based on numbers that you're making up.

PTSD and War crimes are not related. The vast majority of war criminals are never prosecuted for their crimes. Germans who gleefully shot Jews during the Holocaust often went on to live productive lives and helped rebuild one of the most powerful economies on Earth.

Is it just? Fuck no. But it's what really happened.

War criminals are just like ordinary people. That's a chilling fact that disturbs most people, which is they they prefer to rationalize how "It was just Hitler who made them do it", rather than acknowledge that each individual person is quite capable of committing and rationalizing barbarity.

[Zinegata]

Zinegata, you spent two pages claiming you didn't hold these positions, and yet now, you do?

-Crissa

I have consistently held on to ONE position regarding this particular incident: "It's combat and shit happens."

I am, however, going to contradict the outright lies you are spreading.

You are saying insurgents don't bring kids into war zones. False.

Being a war criminal does not make you a psycopath. It's a lie, and it's just a defense mechanism by "civilized" people so they can dissociate themselves from the actions of their fellow man.

You're not a moronic hack, but your naivety is simply painful.

War is not a place for civilized actions. But it does not mean that men of war are not civilized men.

[Lich-Loved]

You realize all this is BS, with only the barest connection to the truth?

I see a pattern. The pattern is that people like you needed to get their hard-on destroying countries and killing a hundred thousand people across the world to make up for how scared you felt when some tragedy struck the US.

It wasn't a tragedy, it was a well-planned coordinated attack. There is nothing that legitimizes it. It wasn't the first one.

Notice how the US Military claimed anyone that couldn't be verified by a foreign source as a civilian as a combatant?

Good. That is proper classification in an insurgency.

Apparently, insurgents carpool with their kids to battlefields now.

Ahh I see you have never been to the Middle East. I have spent quite a bit of time there on business in some not so friendly places and you are clearly utterly clueless about their society.

Bunker mentality is never justified. Ever.

Once again you clearly have never been in the Mid East when your life is on the line. You have never, I suppose, had machine guns pointed at you by what you thought were friendly forces because your wrapped data tapes looked like a bomb and you struggled vainly from your prone position to explain yourself in a broken form of the region's dialect while a squad of soldiers chambered their rounds, or perhaps woke in the wee hours to an explosion and armed people and civilians??? running around and trunks full of seriously bad-ass looking dudes armed to hell and back whisking by. You have clearly never lived in a place where you were told to never leave your room, to travel without ID ("You know they will kill you for that badge, my friend?" my host once told me, "You must strive to keep it out of sight, to travel at night and with escort."), to be forced to surrender your passport to armed guards that kept you locked in a room for days. You don't know shit about how the world really works. No, you have no experience with that. What you do have experience with is making moral judgments 12,000 miles away from where the fighting is going on and I would wager a year's wages that were you put into that position, you would fucking crumble or maybe, just maybe, develop a bunker mentality where you are seriously fucking concerned every waking moment that bad shit was going to go down and you had to be ready to bolt or shoot at a moment's notice or not come home that night. Training can help that, but it will never suppress it as long as one has the will to live. You declaring it unacceptable from the comfort of your armchair is laughable.

Civilized people cannot condone it.

Civilized people! HAH! Where the fuck did you grow up, in California perhaps, safely within some border protected by some uncivilized baby killer? The worst slum in the US on its worst day holds nothing to the shit that goes on in the world every fucking day.

I will leave you with a bit of poetry written by WH Auden during World War 2:


Here War Is Simple by W H Auden

Here war is simple like a monument:
A telephone is speaking to a man;
Flags on a map assert that troops were sent;
A boy brings milk in bowls. There is a plan

For living men in terror of their lives,
Who thirst at nine who were to thirst at noon,
And can be lost and are, and miss their wives,
And, unlike an idea, can die too soon.

But ideas can be true although men die,
And we can watch a thousand faces
Made active by one lie:

And maps can really point to places
Where life is evil now:
Nanking. Dachau.

Maps today point to where there is evil now. While I dislike the term evil for its religious overtones, those places really do exist. People are still evil, and I include Americans in that group. But it isn't just here, it is everywhere, and all we can hope to do is strike a blow that is more or less aimed truly at those responsible for it when no other means seem a remedy.

[Crissa]

No. The gun cam info shows that the soldiers were looking for enemies where there were none.

How does that relate to the fact that you are completely mistaken that insurgents don't bring kids to the battlefield for the express purpose of using them as human shields? Herring

How does that relate to the fact that insurgents do, in fact, kidnap kids and blow them to pieces? Herring

How does that relate to the fact that you can't actually see the kids in the video? Straw

You're not addressing what I said. You're just going off on another self-righteous tangent based on the gun cam footage alone.

Actually, you're making up arguments where there are none, and assuming limited evidence where there is not limited evidence.

The bodies show that we happily call any people insurgents when they're dead. And people like you make excuses. And generals get away with hiding these incidents.

Again, I'm not saying the US Military report is true.

I'm saying what's in it.

And it says the camera was "aimed" at an off-screen Humvee.

If this is true would it be a big difference? Strictly reading the Rules of Engagement leaked above, I would have to say "Yes" because RoE allows the use of deadly force if there is a threat to your comrades, even if you're not the person who's actually being shot at. Straw

Look, it should not have taken three years for this to come out. There are, of course, dozens of other cover ups as well, from friendly-fire, to misidentification, to murders of our men and women in uniform.

That's extremely naive thinking again.

It's naive to 'think' that the dozens of reports of cover-ups mean there are perhaps cover-ups of things Americans don't care about, and therefore won't fight to have uncovered? WTF.

First of all, you need to investigate. Civilian investigations often take a while to finish by dedicated professionals. A wartime is harder to conduct. Assumptions

Secondly, if you publish information every time a "war crime" *might* have been committed, you'd probably be inundated by a lot of false reports. Again, it's combat against an insurgency. Every time somebody is killed it's a potential war crime because they're not wearing uniforms and the other side is always gonna claim that innocent civilians were killed even if they were not. Straw

Thirdly, not everyone plays by these rules. Straw

No, I'm simply not stupid enough to believe that you should ask for higher moral standards on a battlefield. It's war. Shit happens.

Now, if somebody in uniform goes off and tortures fifteen prisoners, then that's not a battlefield mistake. That's just some retard deciding to torture fifteen guys.

But judging an action that happened when people are potentially shooting at you? No, I will not do that, because to judge that is only done by moral asshats.

Who was shooting at the Bushmaster?

Who was shooting at the Apache?

Who was shooting at the Bradley?

At the time of the gun-cam video: No One.

In fact, only the Bradley (and the rest of the soldiers) took fire earlier. What do you think the journalists were looking at? None of the people on the street have weapons at the ready. No one in the video even has a weapon at the ready. Sure, mistakes get made. That is no reason to accept them.

Why would you fucking accept the deaths of our allies? Or the three-year coverup? Because I'm Naive? This word means not what you think it means.

-Crissa

[cthulhu]

This is what 1000mm telephoto lens looks like:

The guy has no idea what he is looking at is a journo, and there is no way he is going to know it's a fucking camera. They seriously have enough trouble trying to get pilots to recongise different silouttes for friendly jet fighters, let alone bloody random civilian objects.

Have a look at how many WWII spitfires got shot down over london by friendly AA. They had a god damn reference book like right there they could use.

I mean, lets compare the bradley vs a T-90





Check out how different they look. Sure they both have tracks, but the T-90 is squat and curved with a MASSIVE gun, and the bradley has a piss weak gun and a completely different siloutte. Also, the bradley is 50% 'taller' than the T-90.

They are MASSIVELY different.

Yet a whole bunch of people genuinely mistook the bradley for the T-90 at ranges 1/10th of what we are discussing and blew up the bradley.

It's just people making a crap decision based on blurry visuals in a really high pressure situation. If the guy is 'pointing' or even 'vaguely looking in the direction of' a friendly you have like one second to make the decision, and if you make a bum steer you either kill a civilian, or a bunch of grunts take a beating and very likely die.

I wouldn't want to be the guy who has to make the call thanks, but arm chairing it later is just hilarious.

[Kaelik]

1) Crissa, you people taking away the bodies in a van is a big fucking deal. Please explain to me any possible situation in which an unmarked van pulls up to someone, grabs them, throws them in the van, and drives off that is a good thing.

2) Lich Loved, you are retarded. They did not choose to embed themselves with criminals by living in a city. They lived in a city. They probably can't afford to leave that city. Not everyone who lives in a city is subject to firings whenever or whyever you choose. That's dumb. You are fucking crazy.

3a) Ganbare, you paused a video at one of many clips per second, and picked the one where there was a good distance between the camera and his body. And it's still not even painfully obvious in a still shot. Watching the video does not indicate that difference whatsoever, and you are fucking stupid for calling it that.

3b) Try to read what I actually say. I know it's hard for you with your dick shoved so far up your own ass that it comes out your mouth covered in shit, but try. Point to one damn spot anywhere where I claim that they looked even remotely threatening when they started shooting.

Oh you can't, because I specifically said when they came around the corner they should have recognized their mistake.

3c) You are fucking retarded. You claim 1) that they are giggling. 2) that they stopped firing "to draw out the moment" even though they explicitly asked for permission to resume firing when the van pulled up, instead of, you know, shooting the guy on the ground like you think they were planning to based on no evidence at all and your incredible stupidity. 3) repeated accusations of racism based on... No seriously, I have no fucking clue where you even get your accusations of racism from. Not a single thing that these people did was even remotely racist.

I mean, I hate to resort to Freudian bullshit, but the only possible source for your accusations of racism is that you yourself are so race conscious that you can't imagine an action not being motivated by racial concerns. Because literally nothing these people did is even remotely racist.