Wikileaks Publishes Videos of US Soliders Killing Journalists and Civilians

[Shegokigo]

JonHonaug: you should know that the general public are more \\\"concern\\\" of stuff closer to home than what happen across the ocean (sad but true) like the privacy bill that was pass. No many thought about it as much since most would think \\\"I'm not a terrorist, I'm not going to be monitored\\\"

but Healthcare is hitting the pocketbook. It is much closer to home and thus get more news.

Sad eh?

Except both of the articles in the CNN image aren't about taxes or healthcare. One is about Apple's newest iProduct, and the other is about a golfer cheating on his wife (continuing weeks of front page reports about how a golfer has cheated on his wife).[/QUOTE]

It's not even on the front page of CNN International. But one of the editor's choice videos is about air stewardess' protesting low pay by stripping.[/QUOTE]

Frontpage Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/[/QUOTE]

Well obviously, since this is Obama's fault.

 

[SpecialKO]

JonHonaug: you should know that the general public are more \\\"concern\\\" of stuff closer to home than what happen across the ocean (sad but true) like the privacy bill that was pass. No many thought about it as much since most would think \\\"I'm not a terrorist, I'm not going to be monitored\\\"

but Healthcare is hitting the pocketbook. It is much closer to home and thus get more news.

Sad eh?

Except both of the articles in the CNN image aren't about taxes or healthcare. One is about Apple's newest iProduct, and the other is about a golfer cheating on his wife (continuing weeks of front page reports about how a golfer has cheated on his wife).[/QUOTE]

It's not even on the front page of CNN International. But one of the editor's choice videos is about air stewardess' protesting low pay by stripping.[/QUOTE]

Frontpage Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/[/QUOTE]

Then, in a personal first, I will say, "good for Fox News".

Dave, I genuinely don't want to piss you off, but suggesting that volunteering to be a soldier gives you a total freedom from oversight by the people who you're not only sworn to protect and represent, but who also have a Constitutional right (and not to mention a moral obligation) to do so, just doesn't fly.

By the same token, I'm apparently not allowed to ask questions of police officers. They put their lives on the line in very difficult stressful situations as well. That doesn't exempt them from oversight, and it shouldn't.

 

[AshburnerX]

I am trying VERY hard not to Godwin this by pointing out the obvious example of people "doing what they were told was their job".

 

[Andromache]

I am trying VERY hard not to Godwin this by pointing out the obvious example of people "doing what they were told was their job".

..

 

[SpecialKO]

I am trying VERY hard not to Godwin this by pointing out the obvious example of people "doing what they were told was their job".

:wtf: Oh, boy.

Unless I'm drastically misunderstanding him, I really don't think that's what Dave is trying to say, here.

 

[Tinwhistler]

I would like to hear from military people here, too. So far as I'm aware, I'm the prior military who has spoken in the thread.

The high fives and back-slapping pretty much is a part of any war I've ever heard tell of. My grandfather was in two of them. My next door neighbor was a point man on a riverboat in Vietnam. Me and several of my neighborhood friends joined the military during gulf war I. You don't want wallflowers on the battlefield, and if you can't develop a certain love for the job of shooting the enemy, you won't last long out there doing it.

You are trained to think of the bad guy as the ultimate evil, and you get a certain glee in killing him before he kills one of yours. There's a reason that "soldiers returning from war having to learn to not be killers" is a staple story plot from time immemorial.

I watched the video without sound (and will watch it with sound later), and i saw three instances where I thought I saw weaponry. If I were in the shooter's position, I'd have made the call to shoot as well. Without the commentary here, and without the annotations on the video, I would have never known I was seeing a reporter and his crew being shot.

 

[Espy]

JonHonaug: you should know that the general public are more \\\\"concern\\\\" of stuff closer to home than what happen across the ocean (sad but true) like the privacy bill that was pass. No many thought about it as much since most would think \\\\"I'm not a terrorist, I'm not going to be monitored\\\\"

but Healthcare is hitting the pocketbook. It is much closer to home and thus get more news.

Sad eh?

Except both of the articles in the CNN image aren't about taxes or healthcare. One is about Apple's newest iProduct, and the other is about a golfer cheating on his wife (continuing weeks of front page reports about how a golfer has cheated on his wife).[/QUOTE]

It's not even on the front page of CNN International. But one of the editor's choice videos is about air stewardess' protesting low pay by stripping.[/QUOTE]

Frontpage Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/[/QUOTE]

Well obviously, since this is Obama's fault. [/QUOTE]

I missed that part of the article I think.

 

[AshburnerX]

I am trying VERY hard not to Godwin this by pointing out the obvious example of people "doing what they were told was their job".

..[/QUOTE]

Good enough for me!

 

[Andromache]

I like Dave's philosphy on this:

Kill em all and let God sort em out. :slywink:

i was wondering how long you were playing DA

 

[drawn_inward]

I am trying VERY hard not to Godwin this by pointing out the obvious example of people "doing what they were told was their job".

They weren't told to kill innocent people. That's a pretty fucking ridiculous statement.

You know Dave is right on this. Innocent people have died in every war ever fought. War is a terrible thing. There should not be any outcry about this.
These men and women are brave. If you hesitate or second guess yourself in the war zone then you die.

 

[Andromache]

Without the commentary here, and without the annotations on the video, I would have never known I was seeing a reporter and his crew being shot.

true but the passers by didnt look to be carrying weapons to me ( i watched the raw) and the fact that the first hellfire and the second caught people walking by seemed... not thought through even in a hot zone situation. Still, i wont judge these guys. They were trained to do this and sent there by their command.

 

[WolfOfOdin]

I'm going to try not to take sides here, but it's tough.

As the relative of several soldiers, and a close friend of many police officers and 2 U.S. Marshals, I can sympathize with the mindset these people place themselves into to avoid madness during combat. You're taught to dehumanize the enemy, make them a 'thing' instead of a person, make them something that's easy to drop and move on from. The enormity of what you've done often doesn't hit you till after the 'battle high' wears off and you've realized you've just gunned down several unarmed civilians. It's a horrific thing, a vile thing and a necessary thing. War is ugly, vicious and brutal and yes, innocents die horribly when mistakes are made.

Does this excuse the actions of the soldiers and their CO's? God no. Someone should be held to count for this fuck-up and yes, it will probably be the grunts instead of the brass getting strung up. Them's the breaks, sadly.

Now, I'm going to put this to the armchair psychs. Have you ever had to kill another human being? Have you ever had to do something that you knew in your heart of hearts, might cause an innocent to die? I interned for the US Attorney's office, I met some frighteningly disturbed individuals and I met some monsters that were being shunted into WITSEC because their testimony would help the feds catch even more horrible monsters. This is the reality of politics and war. Good and evil in a pure black and white setting are impossible. You are often given the choice of killing 500 people or 5,000 and you have to decide who you think deserves to live more. It's a psychologically damning thing that no one should suffer through, but they must. That's why I can actually see that attitude as being a helpful mechanism to maintain one's mind in such a horrible place.

 

[North_Ranger]

Well, Dave, I am not sure if I count, being a tank buster in the reserves (didn't even think enlisting for another 6-12 months, which is mandatory if you want to go career in the FDF). In any case I don't think I'm qualified to give an assessment of how these soldiers handled the situation, as the matter of urban combat was more appropriate for Jägers. The tank busters are in a lucky position that way; there aren't that many BMP-2 or T-90 tanks in civilian use, so there's very little chance of causing civilian casualties when shooting a bazooka or a missile at one.

 

[SpecialKO]

Innocent people have died in every war ever fought. War is a terrible thing. There should not be any outcry about this.

That's actually an excellent reason for there to be an outcry.

I will also point out that the "second guess and you die" argument is simply not true. Otherwise, to avoid the possibility, the Army (or whomever that unit belonged to) would have simply bombed the neighborhood. Apparently, as folks here are saying, it was an active warzone at the time.

So there is clearly a level of acceptable second-guessing allowed in the military.

 

[Tinwhistler]

I will also point out that the "second guess and you die" argument is simply not true. Otherwise, to avoid the possibility, the Army (or whomever that unit belonged to) would have simply bombed the neighborhood.

Interestingly enough, precision weaponry is a relatively new phenomenon.

In the not too distant past, this is exactly what they would've done.

 

[Dave]

Dresden, anyone?

 

[WolfOfOdin]

Hell, how about Coventry, Dave? Churchill killed a ton of innocents there.

 

[SpecialKO]

I will also point out that the "second guess and you die" argument is simply not true. Otherwise, to avoid the possibility, the Army (or whomever that unit belonged to) would have simply bombed the neighborhood.

Interestingly enough, precision weaponry is a relatively new phenomenon.

In the not too recent past, this is exactly what they would've done.[/QUOTE]

Thank god for technology, then. Seriously, no joke.

 

[Tinwhistler]

agreed.

 

[SpecialKO]

Wasn't Dresden extensively investigated?

And wasn't Coventry bombed by the Germans? I don't get the Churchill reference.

 

[WolfOfOdin]

Churchill KNEW it was going to be bombed, Tek. He knew that it was going to be destroyed and that a great number of innocent people were going to die horribly as a result. However, doing that would cause the germans to be alerted to the fact that they knew the enigma code was broken.

 

[SpecialKO]

Churchill KNEW it was going to be bombed, Tek. He knew that it was going to be destroyed and that a great number of innocent people were going to die horribly as a result. However, doing that would cause the germans to be alerted to the fact that they knew the enigma code was broken.

God. Now there's an awful decision.

I'm not sure how that would protect Churchill from having to answer to the surviving families of the people who didn't make it, though. Wouldn't necessarily make him wrong to have decided in that way, but it definitely doesn't exempt him from questions.

 

[Jay]

Let's be honest, war will always be war and there will always be causalities. But damn, listening to these guys was like playing Modern Warfare.... they were WHINING they had to ask for permission to shoot unarmed people. "WAAAH WAAAH!* *military code bullshit* *WHINE* *OK GO* *WOOOHOO, IN THE FACE! IN THE FACE!!!!!!!!!!* *EGO STROKE HERE* *NICE*

 

[WolfOfOdin]

Exactly. While I don't believe the soldiers in question should not be held to account for their actions, I believe that their attitude is nothing more than a coping mechanism for a particularly horrific situation. Turning the 'enemy' into a fictitious monster to kill is a way to keep sanity. The XBOX live style chatter you heard? That's the sound of someone desperately trying to stay sane in an insane situation. I can thusly excuse that, given the enormity of what they did and how it probably hit them when they got back to base and realized they killed innocents. It's a Churchill choice, Tek. You do what you believe is currently right in a bad situation and you deal with the fallout as it comes, good or ill.

That's the reality of war. There are no black and white decisions to make, especially against insurgents who have used and will use again, children and women as agents of attack. It's utterly horrific, but until we have the tech to analyze a situation with crystal clarity and assure us that someone's not carrying a weapon, this is going to happen. They need to be held accountable, but calling this a war crime is spurious

 

[AshburnerX]

Churchill KNEW it was going to be bombed, Tek. He knew that it was going to be destroyed and that a great number of innocent people were going to die horribly as a result. However, doing that would cause the germans to be alerted to the fact that they knew the enigma code was broken.

God. Now there's an awful decision.

I'm not sure how that would protect Churchill from having to answer to the surviving families of the people who didn't make it, though. Wouldn't necessarily make him wrong to have decided in that way, but it definitely doesn't exempt him from questions.[/QUOTE]

The real tragedy was that he didn't even need to protect the code. By the time the Germans would have had a new code, the required tools to decrypt it, and distributed said code and tools to everyone who needed it, the War would have been over or close to it.

 

[WolfOfOdin]

Churchill KNEW it was going to be bombed, Tek. He knew that it was going to be destroyed and that a great number of innocent people were going to die horribly as a result. However, doing that would cause the germans to be alerted to the fact that they knew the enigma code was broken.

God. Now there's an awful decision.

I'm not sure how that would protect Churchill from having to answer to the surviving families of the people who didn't make it, though. Wouldn't necessarily make him wrong to have decided in that way, but it definitely doesn't exempt him from questions.[/QUOTE]

The real tragedy was that he didn't even need to protect the code. By the time the Germans would have had a new code, the required tools to decrypt it, and distributed said code and tools to everyone who needed it, the War would have been over or close to it.[/QUOTE]


Or, they would have bombed someplace else, someplace vitally significant to the allied war effort.

 

[AshburnerX]

Churchill KNEW it was going to be bombed, Tek. He knew that it was going to be destroyed and that a great number of innocent people were going to die horribly as a result. However, doing that would cause the germans to be alerted to the fact that they knew the enigma code was broken.

God. Now there's an awful decision.

I'm not sure how that would protect Churchill from having to answer to the surviving families of the people who didn't make it, though. Wouldn't necessarily make him wrong to have decided in that way, but it definitely doesn't exempt him from questions.[/QUOTE]

The real tragedy was that he didn't even need to protect the code. By the time the Germans would have had a new code, the required tools to decrypt it, and distributed said code and tools to everyone who needed it, the War would have been over or close to it.[/QUOTE]


Or, they would have bombed someplace else, someplace vitally significant to the allied war effort.[/QUOTE]

If they were in a position to do that, don't you think they WOULD have done that? Coventry was a safe target for Germany, which wasn't exactly fond of losing it's bombers.

 

[Shakey]

Welcome to war. Did anyone really expect anything less? Did you seriously think that every soldier would behave in a way that would get them elected as president? These aren't police officers, these are people that are killing people every day and have to some how reconcile that with their conscience. Added to that the fact that their decisions are most likely going to cause an innocent person their life. If they seem disconnected I can't possibly blame them.

With that said, I see no reason to ask whether we can do something to make the decision process better. I'm not sure leaking a video like this is the best way though. I can't even imagine what the soldiers in this video are thinking right now. Having something that you thought was a private conversation opened up to public scrutiny by people that haven't even seen the blood of the animal they ate that night would kill me.

I've seen what war does to people. I haven't seen it personally, but I go to my grandfathers WW2 reunion every year and see 80 to 90 year old men still cry about what happened. I've seen how my dad clams up when asked about what he did in the army. I've seen my brother in laws brother get paranoid about a cryptic text message that probably meant nothing after he recently came back from Iraq. People deal with this shit in messed up ways, I dare you to have to decide whether or not to kill people on a daily basis and come back with a level head.

 

[Shakey]

I'll add this because I don't think the full story is included here.

My grandpa has always refused to eat rice. We had always thought it was because of fighting in the pacific during WW2. Why would you ever want to eat rice after fight the Japs? It turns out that it wasn't anything close to that. It was because that the rice reminded him too much of the maggots he found on bodies during the war. He was never comfortable telling people that, so it was easier to let people think it was because the Japanese ate a lot of rice.

This is war. Leaking an individual tape without looking at the emotional impact on the person bothers me. I will bet almost anything when the people on this tape sat down and tried to reconcile this with their God they weren't as cocky as they seem on the tape. They are just people in a horrible situation that we forced upon them. I'm glad you can sit back in your chair and judge them though.

 

[JONJONAUG]

I'll add this because I don't think the full story is included here.

My grandpa has always refused to eat rice. We had always thought it was because of fighting in the pacific during WW2. Why would you ever want to eat rice after fight the Japs? It turns out that it wasn't anything close to that. It was because that the rice reminded him too much of the maggots he found on bodies during the war. He was never comfortable telling people that, so it was easier to let people think it was because the Japanese ate a lot of rice.

This is war. Leaking an individual tape without looking at the emotional impact on the person bothers me. I will bet almost anything when the people on this tape sat down and tried to reconcile this with their God they weren't as cocky as they seem on the tape. They are just people in a horrible situation that we forced upon them. I'm glad you can sit back in your chair and judge them though.

They fired on an unarmed van and killed multiple people who were also unarmed, mistook two cameras for an AK-47 and a RPG, and did all this while laughing about it.

They were criminally incompetent and showed no respect for themselves, the nation they were supposed to be serving/representing, or unarmed civilians. To add to that, these videos have existed for three years and were unreleased despite the continued classification of these videos being illegal under the Freedom of Information Act.

 

[Tinwhistler]

.

 

[Shakey]

I'll add this because I don't think the full story is included here.

My grandpa has always refused to eat rice. We had always thought it was because of fighting in the pacific during WW2. Why would you ever want to eat rice after fight the Japs? It turns out that it wasn't anything close to that. It was because that the rice reminded him too much of the maggots he found on bodies during the war. He was never comfortable telling people that, so it was easier to let people think it was because the Japanese ate a lot of rice.

This is war. Leaking an individual tape without looking at the emotional impact on the person bothers me. I will bet almost anything when the people on this tape sat down and tried to reconcile this with their God they weren't as cocky as they seem on the tape. They are just people in a horrible situation that we forced upon them. I'm glad you can sit back in your chair and judge them though.

They fired on an unarmed van and killed multiple people who were also unarmed, mistook two cameras for an AK-47 and a RPG, and did all this while laughing about it.

They were criminally incompetent and showed no respect for themselves, the nation they were supposed to be serving/representing, or unarmed civilians. To add to that, these videos have existed for three years and were unreleased despite the continued classification of these videos being illegal under the Freedom of Information Act.[/QUOTE]

I couldn't watch the whole video. I dare you to watch a video of a soldier of any other war. Wait, you can't, because it doesn't exist. I'm not saying the video isn't horrible. What I am saying is I want you to stand in that persons shoes for one god damn second and try to think about what it would be like to know that there is a possibility that you are about to kill someone and every hope they ever had to make a family and have a good life as you know it. How would you handle it? Not as a one time thing, but a daily occurrence? Do it again and again. Also realize that a friend of yours will die if you make the wrong decision.

All I'm saying is our soldiers are human. Singling out someone like this is wrong. Work on fixing the communication or accuracy of information, but blaming the problems of the war on people who make split second decision is wrong.

---------- Post added at 10:53 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 PM ----------

.

Fuck yes.

 

[JONJONAUG]

I couldn't watch the whole video. I dare you to watch a video of a soldier of any other war. Wait, you can't, because it doesn't exist. I'm not saying the video isn't horrible. What I am saying is I want you to stand in that persons shoes for one god damn second and try to think about what it would be like to know that there is a possibility that you are about to kill someone and every hope they ever had to make a family and have a good life as you know it. How would you handle it? Not as a one time thing, but a daily occurrence? Do it again and again. Also realize that a friend of yours will die if you make the wrong decision.

All I'm saying is our soldiers are human. Singling out someone like this is wrong. Work on fixing the communication or accuracy of information, but blaming the problems of the war on people who make split second decision is wrong.[COLOR=\"Silver\"]

Watch the whole video.

"I think I see an AK" turns into "an AK-47 and an RPG" turns into "multiple armed insurgents". No weapons were recovered from the scene. You are defending the murder of innocent civilians by criminally incompetent soldiers.



Starting at about 8 minutes in, a clearly unarmed van pulls up and starts picking up the wounded. Soldiers start asking for permission to open fire, claiming the people are picking up weapons (they aren't and there aren't any weapons around to begin with). After a bit, they get permission to open fire. They open fire on a guy who's clearly unarmed, runs down and lies in a prone position (again he is unarmed and there are no weapons in sight), and he is gunned down. The van is shot up, and almost everyone is killed and two children riding in the van were wounded (the guy driving the van was taking his kids to a tutor).

 

[Jay]

I completely agree. You can clearly tell that the guy on the radio is a pathological liar as stories are made up on the spot so that his buddies can shoot at unarmed people. At the start of the video, it looked like they were in the right with suspicious folk walking down the street but after the first attack they shot up at an unarmed van without scruples (they sounded completely like xbox brats whining about not being able to shoot). Possibly they didn't want them to take away the wounded guy but they didn't any point or time warning them to leave him well alone. A few stray shots at a bunch of unarmed Samaritans could have done the job well enough. You wonder where Terrorists can get potential recruits for suicide bombing, let me tell you, these type of fuckups do wonders for their recruiting. This was very much: Shoot them all, let God sort them out.

No weapons were found on the scene? What a clusterfuck.

 

[PatrThom]

Weighing in.

It is unfortunate that people were killed who in all likelihood did not need to die. It is not the first time this has happened in this conflict, and it is not the only resultant tragic story to make its way to the public eye. The concept of 'acceptable losses' works both ways, and it is why civilians hide in basements, have trouble with bowel control, and tend to have a lousy opinion of soldiers. Fighting a war while trying to avoid civilian casualties is like trying to play (American) football without damaging the grass. It can be minimized, but not avoided, and the more the players concentrate on preserving the field of battle, the less effective they will be as combatants.

I can sympathize with the soldiers, in a way. The elation of 'we got one!' is intoxicating. You've done something good! You're a hero! Euphoria time! Happy hormones for everybody! Wheeee! At the time the soldiers get clearance to engage, the hindbrain takes over...that portion of the brain which speaks in single, unconfusing terms. You know, that part of the brain which barks things like, "Kill!" "Eat!" or "Fuck!" And the reason it gets to drive for a while is because this sort of thing is exactly what that part does really, really well: Engage, neutralize. Reposition, engage, neutralize. It becomes like a game, except that this game is even more thrilling because it is real. And nobody is immune to this sort of gleeful exuberance. Nobody.

That said, I viewed the video. It took two tries before I could watch the whole thing. I had nothing to do with the incident, directly nor indirectly, but I must say...I am sorry. My remorse means nothing; the bodies are still dead, the children still wounded. I agree that the attitude of the soldiers was quite a bit more cavalier/flippant than it needed to be, but though I understand why they likely acted the way they did, I don't believe that excuses the behavior.

And now, if you will excuse me, I am going to go hug my son. A lot.

--Patrick