Thoughts on WikiLeaks "Collateral Murder" video leak

Dancingweapon said:
That video made me heave. I think that anyone who asks "when can I shoot?" should be shot themselves.
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The pilot repeatedly asked for permission to engage because there were armed insurgents and at 4:22 in the clip, the pilot even reported that a guy was shooting. In my book, that's the green light to open up on them until the threat no longer exists. Make all the excuses you guys want, the pilot did nothing wrong and followed the rules of engagement. This is a war zone people, not a fucking playground for a meet and greet especially with insurgents.
 
Miros said:
Well your missing the point Raes. The people who hate war and in turn...hate the government more believe we should make sure we go up to these people and verify they are terrorists. So hopefully the helicopter folks will do it right next time they see a group of people holding AK-47s and cameras. Land first, ask them if they are terrorists or not and if they mean them harm THEN they can fly back up and shoot them if they are. I'm sure they'll be nice enough to let them know.
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Don't take this the wrong way Miros and I hope you were joking. If not, this has got to be about the biggest piece of horseshit I've ever heard. You're actually asking a helicopter to land, get out and ask people if they are terrorists and if they say yes, get back in your chopper, take off and then kill them? What's wrong with this picture?
 
Ryu said:
I'm actually glad, im dead serious..
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Sure you wouldn't feel the same if that was your parents/siblings/children that got shot up as 'collateral' damage.
 
Duddits said:
Don't take this the wrong way Miros and I hope you were joking. If not, this has got to be about the biggest piece of horseshit I've ever heard. You're actually asking a helicopter to land, get out and ask people if they are terrorists and if they say yes, get back in your chopper, take off and then kill them? What's wrong with this picture?
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Whoosh
 
he was being sarcastic,

all I have to say is a journalist who embed themselves with terrorist, in an active war zone, know the risk they are taking.
 
Duddits said:
Don't take this the wrong way Miros and I hope you were joking. If not, this has got to be about the biggest piece of horseshit I've ever heard. You're actually asking a helicopter to land, get out and ask people if they are terrorists and if they say yes, get back in your chopper, take off and then kill them? What's wrong with this picture?
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I absolutely was joking. It just seems sometime the people who make videos like this who do their best to make the US government to be the bad guy ALL THE TIME would actually sit back and think an absurd policy like this is something that should be in place. Like it's been said already, we're in a war and if you want to follow around people with guns and expect to not be shot at by the opposite side, you have something else coming to you.
 
Saying our media is "anti-war" is the biggest load of horseshit I've heard in ages. "Shock and Awe" wasn't just meant to cow the Iraqis. Our guys were embedded and cheering along every step of the way. If they were as anti-war as you seem to believe, they'd be looping this video 24-7 and showing people the stuff that goes on in their name instead of blacking it out and putting all the focus on Tiger Woods. They'd have been doing everything in their power to get their hands on the second batch of Abu Ghraib photos that Obama decided to hold back while crowing about being the most open administration in history. They wouldn't be sitting around with their thumbs up their collective asses while they get scooped by a web site.

I could grant you the attack was "just" a terrible mistake -- some kind of aberration instead of just par for the course -- if it wasn't for shit like Abu Ghraib, Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch's "final battle" against the Iraqis and all the other bombings and civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq that get neatly swept under the rug by the Pentagon. Gen. McChrystal, last month: "We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

Reuters has been trying to get the full story on what happened to their reporter for years and they've been stonewalled every inch of the way.

You're not a journalist if you just repeat what the government tells you. That makes you a stenographer.
 
Of course, the quote in question from Gen. McChrystal is in regards to a very specific situation; checkpoint shootings, in which yes, we have indeed shot an awful lot of people, and killed a fair number of them, when they did something colossally stupid like trying to run a checkpoint.

Are they being stupid because they're panicked and unsure about the situation? Probably.

But to be brutally honest, I'd rather have unsure and panicked civilians winding up dead than have checkpoint troops winding up dead because they let someone with a bomb in the vehicle drive up to the checkpoint unopposed.

And when I say "anti-war media", I mean those portions of the media that are against the war. If I were to claim that all of the media were anti-war, then I wouldn't need to specify that I was talking about anti-war media, because it would be bloody well assumed.
 
Raesvelg said:
And when I say "anti-war media", I mean those portions of the media that are against the war. If I were to claim that all of the media were anti-war, then I wouldn't need to specify that I was talking about anti-war media, because it would be bloody well assumed.
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Sounded like a blanket condemnation to me, but thank you for the clarification.
 
Part of my problem with the way much of the media is handling this, and the way an awful lot of people are responding to it, is that it displays an utter lack of critical thinking. It's a significant fraction of the population who will accept almost anything that someone tells them, so long as it suits their own biases.

What infuriates me about that fraction is the sheer bloody hypocrisy that they display in dealing with people who don't agree with them.
 
Miros said:
The people who hate war and in turn...hate the government more believe we should make sure we go up to these people and verify they are terrorists.
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Actually, I'm pretty sure the people who hate war would prefer we not invade nations that aren't threatening us so things like this don't happen in the first place.
 
Halifirien said:
Actually, I'm pretty sure the people who hate war would prefer we not invade nations that aren't threatening us so things like this don't happen in the first place.
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I just quoted this so you couldn't edit it later on when you realize 9/11, London Bombings, Moscow Booms, are threats not daily occurrences that end with a good slapping of the wrist.

As for this story only one thing bugged me. When it came out, initially the media (some news companies and WikiLeaks initial type up) was blaming video games, AGAIN, for the soldiers' nonchalant speak, like they were a bunch of kids enjoyin' a real life MW2 killstreak because it was fun in MW2 (a game that came out much, much later than the recording of the video). That's the only problem I saw with it. When I read the story I felt sorry for the two reporters families and friends but I grew up to a saying that has served me well to this day, that being, "You are who you're around" simply put, guilty by association.

I gotta ask though. What the hell kind of idiot does it take to walk around outside, with insurgents no less, while there is a chopper gunner hangin' around... It's not like it was just passing by or something, it was sweeping the area, clearly from the inside view, looking for something. That doesn't scream, "Hai it's cool, come on out bra" to me.
 
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Strid said:
I just quoted this so you couldn't edit it later on when you realize 9/11, London Bombings, Moscow Booms, are threats not daily occurrences that end with a good slapping of the wrist.
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I'm not sure why you'd think I'd edit that because I meant it. If you want to avoid lots of unnecessary civilian deaths, don't invade nations without a damned good reason. Then we wouldn't be sitting around comfortably debating whether or not our soldiers were committing war crimes.
 
Halifirien said:
I'm not sure why you'd think I'd edit that because I meant it. If you want to avoid lots of unnecessary civilian deaths, don't invade nations without a damned good reason. Then we wouldn't be sitting around comfortably debating whether or not our soldiers were committing war crimes.
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Believe it or not, a good handful of kids who join the military are just in it to shoot people...

shocker I know

my cousin is a recruiter for the army and he tells me that out of about 10 people he asked, 7 of them say they want to join just to fire a weapon or get into a firefight, one of my buddies who is in Afghanistan right now told me that's the only reason he joined is so he could kill people, he tells me all sorts of fucked up stories and he talks about it like it's just another night out with the guys.

as for the incident itself, I have to agree that the reporters and the children were in the wrong place at the wrong time, now I don't know if that van just showed up to collect their dead or what the true purpose of it was but I do know from stories I've heard from people I know that have been there, that when a van shows up, the soldiers are expecting RPGs and other heavy armament to come out of that van, they don't know what could have been in there, it most likely was part of their rules for engagement

of course it was tragic, but as the pilot said to the gunner, "it's their fault for bringing their children to a warzone"
 
Tok said:
as for the incident itself, I have to agree that the reporters and the children were in the wrong place at the wrong time, now I don't know if that van just showed up to collect their dead or what the true purpose of it was but I do know from stories I've heard from people I know that have been there, that when a van shows up, the soldiers are expecting RPGs and other heavy armament to come out of that van, they don't know what could have been in there, it most likely was part of their rules for engagement

of course it was tragic, but as the pilot said to the gunner, "it's their fault for bringing their children to a warzone"
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Amen. Only downside to that is that the war zone happens to be in these peoples backyard.
 
Just to clear up a few points for anyone who's watched the video, here's a bit of dejargonizing of the dialogue . . . and adding brand new jargon in . . .

  • Crazy Horse – the Apache helicopter. The bulk of their conversation centers around confirming that they’re indeed seeing what the ground units are seeing. Around 3:48, you’ll hear the heli ask Hotel 26 for permission to engage, basically getting affirmation that the area in question is free of friendlies.

  • Hotel 26 = This guy is the JTAC coordinating the movements of the helis and calling their targets. He’s their eyes on the ground, looking at whatever the helis are seeing through their sights, telling them where to look, and confirming their targets. He’s probably part of those Humvee units you hear them mention at 4:37. Notice how he’s got little to say after “See all those people down there?” at the 2:55 mark? That’s because the bulk of his communication is missing from the clip, it coming before the clip “begins.” He’s with the ground unit that initially encountered hostiles and called in airborne elements to deal with them. His activities would have involved helping the heli crew maneuver into a position that gave them eyes on the target. Once they see it, his job is pretty much done. From that point, all he’s really got to do is verify for the heli that there are no friendlies in the area, which he does at 3:50, when he clears them to fire.

  • Bushmaster: A separate unit that’s tasked with going in to take pictures and confirm the action. Those are the guys you actually see move in later on. Bushmaster 7 appears to be that unit’s JTAC.

Now, I state all of this just to give everyone a clearer understanding of what they're seeing and listening to. I don't want anyone to think that all Apaches do is fly around like superheroes looking for evildoers, opening fire on what they deem to be valid targets. In most situations, they're where they are because someone called them in with damn good reason, in this case, Hotel 26. I find it decidedly "convenient" that we hear none of the radio traffic between Hotel 26 and Crazy Horse prior to the clip that take us right to the juicy heart of this "coverup."

Also, believe what you will, but the link Duddits provided earlier closes with the Army's official report, which includes this:

When Bravo Company arrived at the scene, they found two RPGs and an AK-47 or AKM. They also found two Canon EOS digital cameras with telephoto lenses.​

And Raes is absolutely right when he says those Apaches were about a mile away. Hence their need for someone on the ground within sight of the target to show them where to look.
 
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