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Originally Posted by guccilvr
There is no flag big enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
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What does the flag have to do with this?
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Originally Posted by guccilvr
Civilians are always going to be a casualty of war and it's a little understandable in certain zones where there is heavy resistance, but, to want to do it willingly should be prosecuted to the highest extent.
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Prove "willingly." It's all situational. Do I want to kill the guy that may try to kill me or the high school graduate next to me? You bet your ass I do. It's called war. As you said, there is no escaping the "atrocity" that is "collateral damage." I hang those terms in quotes because they're relative.
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Originally Posted by Guccilvr
I've never been to a war zone, probably never will be so my opinion should be seen as merely that. An opinion. I might change my opinion if I were to be in a war zone where everyone was trying to put a bullet in my head at every opportunity.
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It isn't your opinion that would change, bro. It's your reaction time. You lose the luxury of asking questions before you shoot because the cost of being wrong is
all bad. You get into something called an OODA loop and you've got choices that tell you: live or die, me or him.
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Originally Posted by dlish
innocent people got killed with total disregard for sanctity of life, or death...."nice". War, and death is never pretty, but this video is troubling. seeing triggerhappy soldiers is troubling. American soldiers not only failed to fulfill their duty of care, but they failed to distinguish between a threat and gathering.... I have a lot of friends who happen to be journalists and photographers writing and shooting for local papers. I dread the day they have to cover a story where US soldeirs are involved.
....and people are asking why 'they' hate you??
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...the fuck? Don't give me this
1984 we're-stomping-East-Asia bullshit. Every country swinging a uniformed army has done this kind of thing at one time or another. The Brits, the Germans, the Russians, Iraq/Iran War, South American 100-medal dictatorships, Israelis... anybody you can name. This situation is not unique. History is rife with gnarly examples. The only difference is that we don't have the other incidents on YouTube. A four minute clip does not provide deep enough context and certainly can't put you in the boots of a guy who has that kinda decision at his fingertips. For every "monster," there are a thousand normal guys who are laughing because the threat is gone and are simply grateful to be alive.
Damn, quarterback of the year awards in this thread.
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Originally Posted by Dlish
Congratulations. You just created a few thousand potential insurgents who were sitting on the border.
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Do tell me about this border.
I've read a few books detailing the recruitment of terrorists and I get the feeling it isn't nearly as fence-like as you would have us believe.
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Originally Posted by MSD
The range display on the gun sight starts out at 1340 yards and barely drops below 1300 as they come around the building. The RPG-7 used by Iraqi insurgents and combatants is unguided and detonates after 920 meters if it does not strike a target. There was small arms fire reported in the area, but it would be physically impossible for the group of men who were targeted to do any damage to the men in the helicopter.
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Turns out the RPG-7 isn't the only rocket-propelled grenade launcher used in theater over there and certainly isn't the only shoulder-fired weapon available. I wouldn't want the pilot of such an expensive aircraft to be so arrogant as to make bets on whether or not the badguys can hit him. We made (and continue to make) similar mistakes with the Humvee (and other convoy vehicles) vs. IED game.
That and you never figure that a bad guy is alone when deploying a RPG. A common tactic is to deploy them in teams of two due to accuracy issues.
Even if they had 100% confirmation that the the weapon was a RPG-7, assuming that a badguy can't hurt you because you're 300 meters further away than the max range of the most popular weapon is stupid. That'd be like me standing on a target range at 300 meters while someone shot at me with a 12 gauge slug gun.