Your opinion please. Wikileaks vid of U.S. Soldiers gunning down civ/children/photogs - Page 5 - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

roachboy · 04-09-2010, 08:23 AM

that's a nice photo, mister 9.
why is it here?

Plan9 · 04-09-2010, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

that's a nice photo, mister 9.
why is it here?

/plan9

roachboy · 04-09-2010, 08:31 AM

just asking.

this is a strange thread. it keeps moving back and forth over the same divide. then photographs show up.

Plan9 · 04-09-2010, 08:33 AM

Everywhere.

roachboy · 04-09-2010, 09:18 AM

well, since we're looking at photographs, perhaps you'd also like to see some by namir noor eldeen, who is the unarmed photographer you see being killed by Heroic Americans.

Remembering Namir Noor-Eldeen - Lens Blog - NYTimes.com

the photographs are remarkable.
the defense of the killing by michael kamber kinda noxious in that ethical black hole kinda way that seems to take shape when the real issue is not what you see or hear but what you want to believe about folk you empathize with (or don't as the case may be).

for what it's worth, that's what i see the thread as too often devolving into: a matter of conflicts between people who place their empathies in different relations to the video clip and what these respective placements entail for what one is willing or able to interpret.

Glory's Sun · 04-09-2010, 09:59 AM

I find it rather sardonic that the term "Heroic Americans" has now popped up. I also find it to be highly insulting. Nobody in this thread has said that the people in the Apache were heroes for the actions that took place. Nobody that I have seen has said that they don't empathize with both groups in this incident. Taking this conversation to that level undermines your own argument rb.

All that has been said is that Namir was collateral damage in this incident and while there is still a lot to the story that we don't know yet, I cannot fathom why anyone would attack people who are involved in a war they don't even want to be in. The shitty part of the reality is that they signed the service papers and they have no other choice but to do what they are told. No is not an option for these men.

Along those lines, nobody is sitting here saying that soldiers get it right 100% of the time. The fault for me, lies with the idiot and his men who declared this war necessary. The other fact of the matter is that those men in the video and countless others who are other there right now have it much worse than I'll ever have. They get ripped from their families to take a bullet for man who wields a pen, they get divorce papers, they come back in body bags or they come back to a country that hates them for their service instead of hating the men and women who put them over there to begin with.

I think at the end of the day, there is no right or wrong to this discussion. Both sides are tragic, which is why it would make more sense for the people to push harder for the agenda that they really want and to force the kings who hold the power to follow the demands of the people. The military is just an easier target.. which is another tragedy in itself.

Slims · 04-09-2010, 10:27 AM

Shit happens,

If you expect soldiers to wait until they are 100% zero-defect certain they will be killed long-before the results are in.

Nobody intentionally kills civilians, but it happens.

Also, when a fight kicks off one of the discriminating factors is whether people are maneuvering towards the fight or away from it. These things are not quiet, and no sensible person will run towards one unless they intend to be involved in some form or fashion. After being friendly is ruled out and barring any additional information that leaves bad-guys. Unfortunately the reporters were displaying the same pattern of behavior that would be expected of an insurgent.

roachboy · 04-09-2010, 10:32 AM

the reason for going in that direction is pretty simple: the tendency in the thread amongst folk who defended the americans to treat the people killed under the rubric of abstractions like "collateral damage" or "unfortunate side-effect" while at the same time doing as you do--going on at some length in an empathetic story about the hardships endured by the americans--how one cannot know, how hard it is on them to be a colonial occupation force.

and it is. it has to be. colonialism degrades everybody.

it doesn't particularly matter what folk say when they're confronted with something like this, because usually in being confronted they recognize the point and are already moving past it, making it go away or addressing it (sometimes these are the same, sometimes they aren't).

and taking things in that direction was a matter of chance: i happened to run across this collection of namir noor eldeen's work. and looking at the images drove home the gap that separates the abstraction who is killed as "collateral damage" from the human being who was shot up by these people in a helicopter by mistake. and it added a bit more perversity, as if any was needed, to the audio in the clip.

like i say, colonialism degrades everyone and every thing.

it'd be good if people from the bush administration were made to stand trial for this debacle. if it weren't for the project for a new american century, none of this would have happened.

Glory's Sun · 04-09-2010, 10:41 AM

the term collateral damage does not mean that those of us here who are stating it as such can't make the connection that another needless person is dead because of a power hungry fiend who wields a pen and an oil company.

I'm angry that the Bush administration put not only our sons and daughters at risk, but the iraqi sons and daughters and the afghani sons and daughters at risk. No matter how angry I am though, I still personally cannot in good conscience degrade a man who took an oath to the service of our country and is merely performing the actions he is instructed to perform. I also cannot in good conscience degrade a man for using his skills with a camera for being in the area and being gunned down. I empathize with both parties on this, but again, at the end of the day, the term collateral damage still applies and the sad fact is that the government officials that wanted this to happen don't care about collateral damage. They only care about lining their pockets and satisfying their own prideful indulgences.

Keep crying mother fucker.. your tears earn you no sympathy.

Shauk · 04-09-2010, 02:57 PM

great, I get mocked, insulted & what have you, instead of returning fire.
You were give an opportunity to explain yourself or apologize and instead you chose the least intelligent response on the internet of "TLDR"

I'm not impressed.

Still gonna go with my assessment that you're part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Cynthetiq · 04-20-2010, 06:57 PM

Quote:

U.S. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw

By Kim Zetter
April 20, 2010 |
3:30 pm |
Categories: Iraq

Ethan McCord had just returned from dropping his children at school earlier this month, when he turned on the TV news to see grainy black-and-white video footage of a soldier running from a bombed-out van with a child in his arms. It was a scene that had played repeatedly in his mind the last three years, and he knew exactly who the soldier was.

In May 2007, McCord, a 33-year-old Army specialist, was engaged in a firefight with insurgents in an Iraqi suburb when his platoon, part of Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry, got orders to investigate a nearby street. When they arrived, they found a scene of fresh carnage – the scattered remains of a group of men, believed to be armed, who had just been gunned down by Apache attack helicopters. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. Their 43-year-old father, Saleh, had been driving them to a class when he spotted one of the wounded men moving in the street and drove over to help him, only to become a victim of the Apache guns.

McCord was captured in a video shot from one helicopter as he ran frantically to a military vehicle with Sajad in his arms seeking medical care. That classified video created its own firestorm when the whistleblower site Wikileaks posted it April 5 on a website titled “Collateral Murder” and asserted that the attack was unprovoked. More than a dozen people were killed in three attacks captured in the video, including two Reuters journalists, one carrying a camera that was apparently mistaken for a weapon.

McCord, who served five years in the military before leaving in Nov. 2007 due to injuries, recently posted an apologetic letter online with fellow soldier Josh Steiber supporting the release of the video and asking the family’s forgiveness. McCord is the father of three children.

Wired’s Kim Zetter reached McCord at his home in Kansas. This is his account of what he saw.

Wired.com: At the time you arrived on the scene, you didn’t know what had happened, is that right?

Ethan McCord: Right. We were engaged in our own conflict roughly about three or four blocks away. We heard the gunships open up. [Then] we were just told … to move to this [other] location. It was pretty much a shock when we got there to see what had happened, the carnage and everything else.

Wired.com: But you had been in combat before. It shouldn’t have surprised you what you saw.

McCord: I have never seen anybody being shot by a 30-millimeter round before. It didn’t seem real, in the sense that it didn’t look like human beings. They were destroyed.

Wired.com: Was anyone moving when you got there other than the two children?

McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them.

Wired.com: The first thing you saw was the little girl in the van. She had a stomach wound?

McCord: She had a stomach wound and she had glass in her eyes and in her hair. She was crying. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I went to the van immediately, because I could hear her crying. It wasn’t like a cry of pain really. It was more of a child who was frightened out of her mind. And the next thing I saw was the boy…. He was kind of sitting on the floorboard of the van, but with his head laying on the bench seat in the front. And then the father, who I’m assuming was the father, in the driver’s seat slumped over on his side. Just from looking into the van, and the amount of blood that was on the boy and the father, I immediately figured they were dead.

So, the first thing I did was grab the girl. I grabbed the medic and we went into the back. There’s houses behind where the van was. We took her in there and we’re checking to see if there were any other wounds. You can hear the medic saying on the video, “There’s nothing I can do here, she needs to be evac’d.” He runs the girl to the Bradley. I went back outside to the van, and that’s when the boy took, like, a labored, breath. That’s when I started screaming, “The boy’s alive! The boy’s alive!” And I picked him up and started running with him over to the Bradley. He opened his eyes when I was carrying him. I just kept telling him, “Don’t die; don’t die.” He looked at me, then his eyes rolled back into this head.

Then I got yelled at by my platoon leader that I needed to stop trying to save these mf’n kids and go pull security…. I was told to go pull security on a rooftop. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. We were probably there on the roof for another four to five hours.

Wired.com: How much sniper fire were you getting?

McCord: It was random sporadic spurts. I did see a guy … moving from a rooftop from one position to another with an AK-47, who was firing at us. He was shot and killed.

After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that’s when I was in my room. I had blood all down the front of me from the children. I was trying to wash it off in my room. I was pretty distraught over the whole situation with the children. So I went to a sergeant and asked to see [the mental health person], because I was having a hard time dealing with it. I was called a pussy and that I needed to suck it up and a lot of other horrible things. I was also told that there would be repercussions if I was to go to mental health.

Wired.com: What did you understand that to mean?

McCord: I would be smoked. Smoked is basically like you’re doing pushups a lot, you’re doing sit-ups … crunches and flutter kicks. They’re smoking you, they’re making you tired. I was told that I needed to get the sand out of my vagina…. So I just sucked it up and tried to move on with everything.

I’ve lived with seeing the children that way since the incident happened. I’ve had nightmares. I was diagnosed with chronic, severe PTSD. [But] I was actually starting to get kind of better. … I wasn’t thinking about it as much. [Then I] took my children to school one day and I came home and sat down on the couch and turned on the TV with my coffee, and on the news I’m running across the screen with a child. The flood of emotions came back. I know the scene by heart; it’s burned into my head. I know the van, I know the faces of everybody that was there that day.

Wired.com: Did you try to get information about the two children after the shooting?

McCord: My platoon sergeant knew that I was having a hard time with it and that same night … he came into the room and he told me, hey, just so you know, both of the children survived, so you can suck it up now. I didn’t know if he was telling me that just to get me to shut up and to do my job or if he really found something out. I always questioned it in the back of my mind.

I did see a video on YouTube after the Wikileaks [video] came out, of the children being interviewed. … When I saw their faces, I was relieved, but I was just heartbroken. I have a huge place in my heart for children, having some of my own. Knowing that I was part of the system that took their father away from them and made them lose their house … it’s heartbreaking. And that in turn is what helped me and Josh write the letter, hoping that it would find its way to them to let them know that we’re sorry. We’re sorry for the system that we were involved in that took their father’s life and injured them. If there’s anything I can to do help, I would be more than happy to.

Wired.com: Wikileaks presented the incident as though there was no engagement from insurgents. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. Was it reasonable for the Apache soldiers to think that maybe the people they attacked were part of that insurgent firefight?

McCord: I doubt that they were a part of that firefight. However, when I did come up on the scene, there was an RPG as well as AK-47s there…. You just don’t walk around with an RPG in Iraq, especially three blocks away from a firefight…. Personally, I believe the first attack on the group standing by the wall was appropriate, was warranted by the rules of engagement. They did have weapons there. However, I don’t feel that the attack on the [rescue] van was necessary.

Now, as far as rules of engagement, [Iraqis] are not supposed to pick up the wounded. But they could have been easily deterred from doing what they were doing by just firing simply a few warning shots in the direction…. Instead, the Apaches decided to completely obliterate everybody in the van. That’s the hard part to swallow.

And where the soldier said [in the video], “Well, you shouldn’t take your kids to battle.” Well in all actuality, we brought the battle to your kids. There’s no front lines here. This is urban combat and we’re taking the war to children and women and innocents.

There were plenty of times in the past where other insurgents would come by and pick up the bodies, and then we’d have no evidence or anything to what happened, so in looking at it from the Apache’s point of view, they were thinking that [someone was] picking up the weapons and bodies; when, in hindsight, clearly they were picking up the wounded man. But you’re not supposed to do that in Iraq.

Wired.com: Civilians are supposed to know that they’re not supposed to pick up a wounded person crawling in the road?

McCord: Yeah. This is the problem that we’re speaking out on as far as the rules of engagement. How is this guy supposed to [decide] should I stop and pick them up, or is the military going to shoot me? If you or I saw someone wounded on the ground what is your first inkling? I’m going to help that person.

Wired.com: There was another attack depicted in the video that has received little attention, involving a Hellfire and a building that was fired on.

McCord: I wasn’t around that building when it happened. I was up on a rooftop at that time. However, I do know some soldiers went in to clear that building afterwards and there were some people with weapons in there, but there was also a family of four that was killed.

I think that a Hellfire missile is a little much to put into a building…. They’re trained as soldiers to go into a building and clear a building. I do know that there was a teenage girl [in there], just because I saw the pictures when I was there, that one of the soldiers took.

Wired.com: Have you heard from any other soldiers since the video came out?

McCord: I’ve spoken with one of the medics who was there. He’s no longer in the Army. When this video first came out, there was a lot of outrage by the soldiers, just because it depicted us as being callous, cruel, heartless people, and we’re not that way. The majority of us aren’t. And so he was pretty upset about the whole thing…. He kept saying, we were there, we know the truth, they’re saying there was no weapons, there was.

I’ve spoken with other soldiers who were there. Some of them [say] I don’t care what anybody says … they’re not there. … There’s also some soldiers who joke about it [as a] coping mechanism. They’re like, oh yeah, we’re the “collateral murder” company. I don’t think that [the] big picture is whether or not [the Iraqis who were killed] had weapons. I think that the bigger picture is what are we doing there? We’ve been there for so long now and it seems like nothing is being accomplished whatsoever, except for we’re making more people hate us.

Wired.com: Do you support Wikileaks in releasing this video?

McCord: When it was first released I don’t think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. They were stating that these people had no weapons whatsoever, that they were just carrying cameras. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons … to the trained eye. You can make out in the video [someone] carrying an AK-47, swinging it down by his legs….

And as far as the way that the soldiers are speaking in the video, which is pretty callous and joking about what’s happened … that’s a coping mechanism. I’m guilty of it, too, myself. You joke about the situations and what’s happened to push away your true feelings of the matter.

There’s no easy way to kill somebody. You don’t just take somebody’s life and then go on about your business for the rest of the day. That stays with you. And cracking jokes is a way of pushing that stuff down. That’s why so many soldiers come back home and they’re no longer in the situations where they have other things to think about or other people to joke about what happened … and they explode.

I don’t say that Wikileaks did a bad thing, because they didn’t…. I think it is good that they’re putting this stuff out there. I don’t think that people really want to see this, though, because this is war…. It’s very disturbing.

Image: U.S. Central Command

Read More U.S. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw | Danger Room | Wired.com

I saw this and thought of posting it before reading it fully...

dlish · 04-20-2010, 07:36 PM

great find cynth. i think this article covers a lot of issues and stances covered here

Glory's Sun · 04-21-2010, 06:21 AM

the last statements made by McCord...those are the most telling to me.

04-09-2010, 08:23 AM	#161 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	that's a nice photo, mister 9. why is it here? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-09-2010, 08:31 AM	#163 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	just asking. this is a strange thread. it keeps moving back and forth over the same divide. then photographs show up. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-09-2010, 08:33 AM	#164 (permalink)
Plan9 I Confess a Shiver	Everywhere. __________________ *Whatever you can carry.* "You should not drink... and bake."

04-09-2010, 09:18 AM	#165 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well, since we're looking at photographs, perhaps you'd also like to see some by namir noor eldeen, who is the unarmed photographer you see being killed by Heroic Americans. Remembering Namir Noor-Eldeen - Lens Blog - NYTimes.com the photographs are remarkable. the defense of the killing by michael kamber kinda noxious in that ethical black hole kinda way that seems to take shape when the real issue is not what you see or hear but what you want to believe about folk you empathize with (or don't as the case may be). for what it's worth, that's what i see the thread as too often devolving into: a matter of conflicts between people who place their empathies in different relations to the video clip and what these respective placements entail for what one is willing or able to interpret. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-09-2010, 10:27 AM	#167 (permalink)
Slims Eccentric insomniac Location: North Carolina	Shit happens, If you expect soldiers to wait until they are 100% zero-defect certain they will be killed long-before the results are in. Nobody intentionally kills civilians, but it happens. Also, when a fight kicks off one of the discriminating factors is whether people are maneuvering towards the fight or away from it. These things are not quiet, and no sensible person will run towards one unless they intend to be involved in some form or fashion. After being friendly is ruled out and barring any additional information that leaves bad-guys. Unfortunately the reporters were displaying the same pattern of behavior that would be expected of an insurgent. __________________ "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill "All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence

04-09-2010, 09:59 AM	#166 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	I find it rather sardonic that the term "Heroic Americans" has now popped up. I also find it to be highly insulting. Nobody in this thread has said that the people in the Apache were heroes for the actions that took place. Nobody that I have seen has said that they don't empathize with both groups in this incident. Taking this conversation to that level undermines your own argument rb. All that has been said is that Namir was collateral damage in this incident and while there is still a lot to the story that we don't know yet, I cannot fathom why anyone would attack people who are involved in a war they don't even want to be in. The shitty part of the reality is that they signed the service papers and they have no other choice but to do what they are told. No is not an option for these men. Along those lines, nobody is sitting here saying that soldiers get it right 100% of the time. The fault for me, lies with the idiot and his men who declared this war necessary. The other fact of the matter is that those men in the video and countless others who are other there right now have it much worse than I'll ever have. They get ripped from their families to take a bullet for man who wields a pen, they get divorce papers, they come back in body bags or they come back to a country that hates them for their service instead of hating the men and women who put them over there to begin with. I think at the end of the day, there is no right or wrong to this discussion. Both sides are tragic, which is why it would make more sense for the people to push harder for the agenda that they really want and to force the kings who hold the power to follow the demands of the people. The military is just an easier target.. which is another tragedy in itself.

04-09-2010, 10:32 AM	#168 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the reason for going in that direction is pretty simple: the tendency in the thread amongst folk who defended the americans to treat the people killed under the rubric of abstractions like "collateral damage" or "unfortunate side-effect" while at the same time doing as you do--going on at some length in an empathetic story about the hardships endured by the americans--how one cannot know, how hard it is on them to be a colonial occupation force. and it is. it has to be. colonialism degrades everybody. it doesn't particularly matter what folk say when they're confronted with something like this, because usually in being confronted they recognize the point and are already moving past it, making it go away or addressing it (sometimes these are the same, sometimes they aren't). and taking things in that direction was a matter of chance: i happened to run across this collection of namir noor eldeen's work. and looking at the images drove home the gap that separates the abstraction who is killed as "collateral damage" from the human being who was shot up by these people in a helicopter by mistake. and it added a bit more perversity, as if any was needed, to the audio in the clip. like i say, colonialism degrades everyone and every thing. it'd be good if people from the bush administration were made to stand trial for this debacle. if it weren't for the project for a new american century, none of this would have happened. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

04-09-2010, 10:41 AM	#169 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	the term collateral damage does not mean that those of us here who are stating it as such can't make the connection that another needless person is dead because of a power hungry fiend who wields a pen and an oil company. I'm angry that the Bush administration put not only our sons and daughters at risk, but the iraqi sons and daughters and the afghani sons and daughters at risk. No matter how angry I am though, I still personally cannot in good conscience degrade a man who took an oath to the service of our country and is merely performing the actions he is instructed to perform. I also cannot in good conscience degrade a man for using his skills with a camera for being in the area and being gunned down. I empathize with both parties on this, but again, at the end of the day, the term collateral damage still applies and the sad fact is that the government officials that wanted this to happen don't care about collateral damage. They only care about lining their pockets and satisfying their own prideful indulgences. Keep crying mother fucker.. your tears earn you no sympathy.

04-09-2010, 02:57 PM	#170 (permalink)
Shauk Confused Adult Location: Spokane, WA	great, I get mocked, insulted & what have you, instead of returning fire. You were give an opportunity to explain yourself or apologize and instead you chose the least intelligent response on the internet of "TLDR" I'm not impressed. Still gonna go with my assessment that you're part of the problem, not part of the solution.

04-20-2010, 07:36 PM	#172 (permalink)
dlish Currently sour but formerly Dlishs Super Moderator Location: Australia/UAE	great find cynth. i think this article covers a lot of issues and stances covered here __________________ An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy

04-21-2010, 06:21 AM	#173 (permalink)
Glory's Sun Registered User	the last statements made by McCord...those are the most telling to me.