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Your opinion please. Wikileaks vid of U.S. Soldiers gunning down civ/children/photogs
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<-- full video I saw lots of pretty unsettling video/image stuff coming out of it that the media wouldn't cover, like tanks purposely destroying civilian cars, one of which was a taxi one used to generate his income. Then the whole detention center thing where they were humiliated and tortured then they took pictures with them like it was an attraction at an amusement park etc... I mean, what's done is done, and I don't doubt war is atrocious all around for either side involved, I just wonder where the fault lies in situations like this. Is it just the way they're trained? was it really murder or what it just an accident? Seems to me that in this odd guerrilla style warfare that the troops are facing now would require some serious friend or foe recognition when opening fire in a civilian area, I mean, it's their homes, this isn't a military base or anything where this happened. It just kind of baffles me. With what's demonstrated here, would you not now be more terrified than ever if you had to depend on some distant gunman to pick out the right people to shoot in a scenario where we were the occupied nation? I've always been one of those "walk a mile in the other person's shoes" types and it just seems to me, that this really was more of a "kill em all" exercise instead of exercising precision and trying to discern friend from foe. I thought we were "rescuing" these people? In the unedited footage, it goes so far to demonstrate 3 missile strikes to take out a building which they "guess" may hold 8 or so individuals, only one of which they said anything about being armed/having an RPG, and for the 2 or the 3 strikes I saw, there were unarmed people just chillin on the street from the looks of it. Quote:
It only bothers me because I want to hold our government to a higher standard, When we become that which we claim to be against, by killing civilians, torture, or various other despicable acts, it doesn't reflect well on those who do uphold and carry out the higher standard of conduct. Other nations will not make the distinction, would-be terrorists would not make the distinction. Our ugliest faces are the ones they will remember and apply to the U.S. as a whole, as an army, as civilians, and it's scary to think how this will influence or act as a catalyst for future hostilities. In the end, I agree, there was really no way to identify them as photographers, but on the inverse. I think they could have gone about handling that whole engagement differently. I suppose this blood is on Bush's hands since this was under his era and this war was his engagement. Just found a video that sums up what I feel on this. Jump to 15:50 Credibility is the word I was looking for. |
i'm never amazed anymore how some people are totally incensed that the military kill civilians in other countries, sometimes wantonly and blatantly, yet are completely non-chalant about the thousands of Americans murdered in this country by it's paramilitary forces, otherwise known as law enforcement. Appropriately termed 'faux outrage'.
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great, now how about the topic at hand? |
Yeah the video is pretty messed up. It's spreading like wildfire. I like how at one point, one of the gunners says "come on, let us shoot." REQUESTING PERMISSION TO MURDER PEOPLE, SIR!
The building that got 3 hellfires shot into it I can understand a little more because those guys DID have AK-47s. But in the civilian episode, there might have been an AK, but there were obviously civilians in the mix, they were completely non-threatening, and it seemed like the gunners were trying to persuade their superiors to let them shoot by saying important stuff like "he's got an RPG." They were bloodthirsty. They wanted to shoot and show their might. Now at one point before they start shooting, one guy DOES peak around a corner at them with a black tubular object that could have been an RPG, but it's pretty much the only arguing point for this slaughter. |
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RPG http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/516/rpgm.jpg though, to be fair, I gotta wonder what kind of screen they're looking at this on. I mean I'm looking at video that's 3 years old on an LCD 28" HD monitor and it's still "eh, I could see it being a mistake" where I can pick out details and stuff like that, but if they're working on like a little netbook sized display, who knows what I'd say it was. |
I have a few issues. I think they did everything
The big problem I have is that US officials lied about what exactly happen. Reading the quotes and comparing them to the actual video it's obvious they are intentionally misleading. ---------- Post added at 07:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:33 AM ---------- I don't think they were bloodthirsty. They're in a helicopter and they think there's an RPG pointed at them, I'd be begging to let me shoot too. I also wondered why the hell the video is still so damn shitty. Seriously it's 2010, can we get some HD color displays in those gunships? Seriously though, I would imagine the had a better view than just the video, they could at least look out the damn window. |
What frightens me more than seeing this "inefficiency" of America's military-industrial complex is the thought of all the ones we won't ever see.
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There is no flag big enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.
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. 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. |
I was bothered by the video until I got more of the context: that ground forces had been under attack in that area for a while before the Apaches got involved. The group fired upon looked like they were setting up an ambush for ground forces (especially with what looked like an RPG).
And yes, you might be able to look out of the helicopter.. but those cameras are using their full zoom capabilities. At some points in the video, they zoom it out and you can see how far away they actually were. |
this is an interesting perceptual problem grafted onto what i personally take as being a psychotic moment. the perceptual problem is obviously how to gestalt this information, what the sense of a whole is into which this fits & where it comes from.
watching the clip & particularly listening to what gets said, i had the sense that these people were unhinged and that what we are watching is a group of people perhaps stressed by the waiting that's involved with being in a war zone and who basically snap at the same time because they have an opportunity, they think, to fire away. the video game disregard for the kids' lives in particular is stunning. i can't tell for sure, but this could be an entirely cynical article: Quote:
naturally, in fine american style, wikileaks was designated a national security problem in a pentagon report, which later showed up on the site: Wikileaks in the crosshairs | Joseph Huff-Hannon | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk |
problem is, that iraq is not a "normal" war zone. the US is there to help then to built a democracy. Do you think you can achieve that by shootig everyone who holds something black and pointy that might be mistaken for an RPG? Your whole point of beeing there is to help those people and you act like you are in a shooting range. When in doubt, kill ...
The fact that they are basically begging for shooting the wounded is disturbung. And since when someone who wants to give medical assistance is a legal target? It was clear that they were helping them even without any markings (which also don't seem to help anyway...) First, the 3 killed women, now this. not a good week for the US military. |
Two things that especially disconcerting while watching the video:
1. They really want to shoot them. 2. They are so far removed from the area that it's not really 'real' to them. A young family member of mine was in the Air Force being trained to operate 'drones' that would essentially carry out the same tasks, but only from a remote base here in the states. I would think that the more we remove ourselves from our own conflicts, the more likely it will be that events like this will happen. The people are just figures walking around on a screen and most young people are already enured to killing figures that walk around on screens. How very convenient. Consequently, my young family member also happens to be a first class dickhead who was asked to leave the Air Force after a drunk-driving incident. It's really comforting to know that drunk-driving is the character flaw that gets you tossed out even though you're an asshole who doesn't care about anything but himself - and being trained to shoot people half the world away on a tv screen. I don't mean to cast aspersions on all the young people in the military, but I'm also not so naive and unaware as to assume that young men like my nephew are a rarity these days. /sorry to take the discussion off topic. |
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Baudrillard argues [in The Gulf War Did Not Take Place] that the style of warfare used in the Gulf War was so far removed from previous standards of warfare that it existed more as images on RADAR and TV screens than as actual hand-to-hand combat, that most of the decisions in the war were based on perceived intelligence coming from maps, images, and news, than from actual seen-with-the-eye intelligence. |
obviously the parallel to the game mediation of war is the attempts to limit or eliminate access to footage that works closer to real-time, so closer to the ground.
these efforts began with the falklands war and go straight back to the conservative "diagnosis" of opposition to the war in vietnam: there weren't any substantive objections to the war...o no....there was only the "problem" created by allowing all those journalists to wander around and show stuff. whence the pooled press fed pre-packaged pseudo-information by official infotainment officers kinda in the way that baby birds are fed by the mother except without the benign parts. every once in a while little fragments of reality break through and require Explanations that make them fit somewhere all the better to go away. |
As I saw him crouching behind the corner, I piked out the lens he was using as a Canon 70-200 L series with the cylindrical black hood. If I can spot this on a low-resolution video compressed by Youtube, anyone who cannot recognize it as a camera does not have sufficient visual capacity to be deciding who to shoot. There are two men with AKs, which Iraqis are allowed to carry for defense as per US-backed law.
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. The gunner begging an injured man to reach for a gun so he could shoot him and showing the general attitude he expressed during the video was looking for people to kill, not to determine who the good guys and the bad guys are. The reason the man in the van brought a kid to the battle is because he was driving them to school and stopped to help a man dying in the gutter. As little will come of this as came from the video of Blackwater mercenaries driving down the street taking pot shots at civilian cars for fun. Regardless of the justifications offered by the military, at least the gunner should be court martialed and locked up for a long time with psychiatric help because he is obviously disturbed. Anyone complicit in the coverup of this incident should similarly be brought to justice, sentenced as appropriate, and dishonorably discharged. |
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can you show the two guys with the AK? I only see some long unidentified item, given the cameras etc. that could also be a tripod. |
This thread is full of delicious Monday Morning Quarterbacking.
The technology used by our armed forces, even in multi-million dollar aircraft, is still 10 years behind everything else. Visual identification of friend-or-foe is wholly determined by this technology. War doesn't move in seconds anymore; it's nanoseconds. If I see you running with a gun-shaped object in your hand and I'm engaged in a fire fight, I have to assume it's a gun and act accordingly. IIRC, the Blue Force Tracker, the vehicle navigation system used by the US Army, still uses Windows 95-era hardware and software. |
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?? Congratulations. You just created a few thousand potential insurgents who were sitting on the border. |
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Damn, quarterback of the year awards in this thread. Quote:
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. ... Quote:
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. |
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you seem to like using it in this context. i just want to be clear about what you're doing with it. |
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I see this as a tragic case of collateral damage due to intelligence failure and understand that horrific things happen in war. I can accept this as a tragic mistake
I cannot, by any stretch of my imagination, apply those same standards to what is going on in this massacre. They are out of weapons range of the people they say are firing at them, and they keep the camera on the guy with the obvious camera for several seconds before going around the building. The gunner is excited to kill, and it looks like he's not concerned with who's on the receiving end of it. Quote:
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i wasnt referring to east asia. sure, this type of thing has happened before. Innocent people have been killed in other warzones. but for a nation that prides itself on human rights, womens right, gay right, animal right et al, they seem to care very little about the lives of those they are purported to help. sure, we're all not in their shoes, and we're not the one choosing whether or not to pull that trigger, but you cannot deny that these guys were eager to pull that trigger. It's like letting the greyhounds out after the hare. except in this case, the hare was stationary and had no chance. But if you think this 'threat is gone', then you're wrong. This incident has only increased the ranks of those that oppose american occupation in iraq. so, it really hasnt decreased the threat against american soldiers, but quite the contrary, it has increased it. Quote:
you think the 'arab street' wont get a hold of this to show their people how inhumane the american forces are? you think the average arab, the average muslim will brush off the grim realities in this video without giving thought that the wanton killings of innocent people while those behind the artillary laugh at its dead? you think alqaeda looneys wont use these videos to recruit more impressionable youngsters into ther ranks? do you really believe that ordinary people like me, professional people will turn even more against this occupation? do you really believe that the families, loved ones, friends of those that were killed in this innocent and those children will grow to hate those that killed their loved ones? will those two children grow up to teach their kids that the americans had the right to kill their grandparents and that all will be forgiven? border? what fucking border? you may speak about us as quarterbacks for not being able to see it from a soldiers view because we havent been there or done that, but you need to live here to understand how the world goes round young jock. |
Dlish, the "East Asia" thing was a joke. Major World Powers Bend Truth To Justify Needless War routine.
And don't call me a jock. I suffered under some ultra-nerdy Coke bottle glasses for twenty plus years. You took a lot of my comment out of context. I'll try to explain my point later. ... Quote:
But it's far more complicated than that. I'll attempt to rub my two braincells together and come up with something more useful later. |
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Hmm... all this bitterness does not help our mission.
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hmm, three vagina references in one post...i think that's a new record for timalkin.
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Yeah, he's typing-a-fool. The whole "the military is better than the civvie body" masturbation is often most popular with non-military folks.
Those that actually served know the truth: the military is 50/50: 50% adult daycare for slack-jawed morons and 50% genuine badasses. I've got pictures if this requires evidence. |
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/threadjack |
Massacre Caught on Tape: US Military Confirms Authenticity of Their Own Chilling Video Showing Killing of Journalists
Iraq slaughter not an aberration - Iraq war - Salon.com so you watch what is arguably a war crime and want to explain it away. o you weren't there man, you don't know. but that's exactly why there have to be rules. gunning down kids and people who are trying to help medically---that's against the fucking rules. o but you don't understand the stress. maybe not. but again that's why there have to be rules. this crew should stand trial. o no really, man, you weren't there. you don't know. you can't pass judgment. but obviously for some of the folk who were and are there, judgment is a Problem. |
Roachboy, are you referring to my comments? If so, let us entertain this lame little retort:
"So you watch an incident and assume it's a war crime. Okay, Rodney King." ... If you're expressing frustration at "The Rules," let's talk about the flip side here: How many convoys do US forces go on where they aren't allowed to return fire? Brass is so worried about bad press that they don't allow soldiers to defend themselves. My truck had bullets holes in the sides and no shell casings in the cab. That's unacceptable. ... I wouldn't say anything against the fact that the wrong people got zapped. It's all bad. That aside, if you want to know why it happened... well, you already seem to know. ... Also: There's a lot of philosophical and political weaving going on in this thread. It has been my experience that most US service members are not geniuses nor brainwashed tools. They're just average people put through character-changing training and stuck in a shitty situation. I didn't see groupthink in the military. We had conservatives and liberals and nutjobs and apathetics. Big Duh: They didn't decide to invade Iraq. If you wanna blame somebody... blame the administration. |
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It is a classic bait and switch: before the war it's all liberation, precision, killing the bad guys and defending human rights, during and after it when all that bullshit was exposed for what it was it's "what do you expect? it's war." The fact is that people who opposed the war from the start have said that this shit would take place. The chicken hawks were the ones going on about a clean war. |
i wasn't actually referring to you, mister 9. that post got started by timalkin and then the posts that followed it that were in agreement with its general line, sans the cretin-speak.
my basic position is that there really should be a legal proceeding about this. because there are rules, because the united states agrees to abide by them (unless you have no problem with the americans becoming exactly what they claim to oppose, just bigger and seemingly a bit more psychotic because of the scale of the technology). because they united states never seems to tire of talk talk talk about its own exalted moral and political status. because they cheapen some pretty important categories in the contradiction they seem to have no problem setting up between the blah blah blah democracy freedom rules of law blah blah blah and the all too often barbarism on the ground. but "pragmatically"? of course it's always the other guy's fault. we all know that. and the only real war crime is losing a war. |
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OH FUCK, my bad BRO, I thought this was a forum for intelligent discussion. Jesus Christ people like you make my head hurt. |
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I'm not a smart guy, so I don't know where people develop that sentiment about the US. I guess it's my liberal public school education, but I see the United States as a arrogant bumbling rich white teenager with good intentions, horrible eyesight, and an absent mind regarding taking care of its own house. We aren't exactly all gunslinging cowboys and we certainly aren't European. I'd say ignoring economic segregation is our current epic fuckup. The war was a not-so-clever distraction. Quote:
With Iraq? We didn't have it to start with. ... Please note that the Universal Life Excuse #1 joke does not apply to this thread. ... Quote:
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I'll freely admit that if I'm on the front lines and there's known insurgent activity and it appears that people with guns are running around, I would adapt a "me or him" mentality. My flag comment was aimed at a much broader scope.
We all know that innocent casualties are a part of war. It's going to happen no matter the war or the agenda. I think the sticking point for most people in this is how the soldiers seemed so blood thirsty. I'm kind of desensitized to it as most of my military friends freely throw around kill stories and degrading comments about the people that inhabit the countries they've been in. Doesn't mean I agree with a lot of what they say, but I think if we as civilians sit here and think that soldiers should react in a way that they are killed or in danger more than they should be, we are doing everyone a great disservice. The true faults of the actions don't fall on the soldier's shoulders (in most cases) but the people who put the soldiers into the situations to begin with. Granted, there are just some things that happen that are the soldiers fault and responsibility but I can't fault them for trying to follow orders or for keeping themselves and their partners safe. |
Q&D: If the guys with the camera's were Reuters journalists (3 years later and Reuters hasn't confirmed this) then they knew the risks involved in what they were doing. They decided to go for a stroll down the middle of a street in Iraq, accompanied by a large group of armed men, in an area where US ground forces were engaged in a firefight. They gambled in the hopes of getting what may have been a really cool story/pictures and paid for that gamble with their lives.
The guy in the unmarked civilian van showed up roughly two minutes after a large group of armed men got shot to shit by a 30mm chain gun. A 30mm chain guns are loud and very distinctive sounding. If you are within two city-minutes of drive time away, you will hear it and know what it is. If the driver was in no way associated with the guys who just got shot and was just a good Samaritan on his way to drop his kids off at school, then he knowingly brought his kids in to a gunfight and proceeded to use the van they were in to collect and aid in the escape of guys the US military was shooting at. He gambled with his kids lives to help bad guys and ended up getting his kids shot. On the assumption that the driver of the van was deaf: He rounds a corner and finds a bunch of still-smoking guys who have been shot to shit in an area where US ground forces are engaged in a gun fight (again, not a quiet affair). He should have thought of his kids and GTFO. After the gunship fires on the alleged reporters, they get a call from ground forces stating that they are taking small arms and rocket fire from such-and-such building. The gunship goes to provide support and the camera catches two armed men trying to discretely enter said building. Moments later, two military aged males (unarmed), who are walking at an increased interval, enter the same building. The gunship fires a hellfire and the building goes away. As the gunship fires the first missile, there is a random dude walking down the sidewalk in front of the targeted building. He and the two kids inside the van are the only innocents I see in all of this. The field of view on the gunships target display is surprisingly narrow at max magnification. The gunner couldn't have anticipated the guy walking in front of the targeted building right at the moment they were about to fire. That said, I would have done a quick sweep with my camera to check the street for bystanders but thats arm chair quarterbacking. The kids were victims of their fathers negligence. There was no way for the apache gunners to know they were in the van and to suggest that the pilots shouldn't have fired without knowing is idiotic. ---------- Post added at 03:12 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:59 PM ---------- Quote:
Most people avoid confrontation. Most people are repulsed by the thought of taking a life. To them, any person who is willing to do so must be a sociopath. |
truth be known, i understand that arguments that the folk are making about one of another version of the "fog of war"...i'm less sure that the folk who argue from that position see the need for rules on the order of it is not ok to mow down children and it is not ok to mow down non-combattants.
actually, a better way of saying that is: i don't doubt that there is a general agreement that there should be some rules of war. if you look back through the history of modern warfare, the reasons for them are self-evident--and if you look at the post 1045 "non-conventional" or assymetrical wars from vietnam/algeria forward, you see over and over that abandoning the rules has done no-one any good. at all. on any side. the question is who is going to do the judging, yes? |
Well, if Obama can reverse Bush's policies on the use of nuclear weapons, I can imagine he could also reverse Bush's policies on the rule of law.
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RB, of course it's wrong to intentionally mow down civilians. I don't think anyone here is saying that it is. What many of us are say, though, is that it is impossible for anyone here to whether or not this was intentional. You seem to be operating under the misguided delusion that all soldiers want to kill everything in front of them - that's far from the case, and we've had actual combat veterans tell you otherwise.
If someone who was on patrol (as a duo) with Pat Tillman 3 hours before can mow him down with a SAW from 60M because he didn't recognize him as a friendly and bullets were already flying, what makes you think that these guys are somehow better than normal human beings? You need to recognize that you're trying to hold these guys to the "way it should be" standard, not the "way it is" standard. Yes, in a perfect world, no civilians would be shot, but when someone is multitasking with armory, folks get hurt. The point is to do it to them before they do it to you. |
I understand all the empathizing with the gunner's position that goes on here. The problem, of course, is that that is only one position that is being empathized with.
Given all the tough guy talk that goes around here ("they are asking for my ethnicity on the census form? let's revolt") I'd imagine how these people would react to living under the conditions these Iraqis live in (and are apparently guilty of their own deaths whenever someone else gets trigger happy). Personally, the US casualty-to-civilian-casualty ratio is such that I think more hesitation in these "him or me" scenarios is needed. That or let's drop the "we're the good guys" act. |
This video does not seem intentional to me, but it does seem like the soldiers were unreasonably eager to pull the trigger. The first attack is bothersome, and considering - as MSD points out - it's not illegal to carry an AK-47 in Iraq, nor is it illegal to gather in groups, it worries me that they didn't wait for any indication of hostility before firing. That incident is on the border though; I can see arguments in its defense. Being eager for the injured person to grab a firearm so you can kill him, though, there is no excuse for, nor is there any excuse for firing upon people that are providing medical assistance, even if you think they're treating the bad guys.
In other words, I find this video rather disturbing, but at the same time I think it's being blown a little out of proportion with the idea that this was an intentional killing of civilians. Rather, as dippin says, it's an issue of being trigger happy, which is still clearly a serious issue. |
dippin anticipated one of the moves i was about to make.
second is that i cannot imagine a situation in which the rules of war as attributes of some "perfect world" scenario. those scenarios would exclude war altogether i would think. maybe once the Revolution comes and international socialism is the self-generating order of things we can talk in these terms. the rules of war are what prevent utter barbarism. this is not the same as the distinction walt (for example, because he made the argument explicitly...plan9 alluded to it as well, but via a link to a book synopsis) between people who have killed and those who haven't. the first are to prevent atrocities. the second is a characterization of anyone who has been a combattant and who has fired a weapon--so undergone the conditioning required to break down the social prohibitions on killing. but simply because you've undergone the second doesn't mean that therefore anything--at all--goes, does it? that's an implication of the arguments that are happening in this thread. the sub-argument seems to be: if you civilian person haven't been subjected to the same conditioning as i, military or ex-military, have been, then you cannot judge my actions or those of anyone else who is in a war theater. but that's absurd. taking that seriously you lead you to argue for jettisoning not only all civilian oversight of the military but also all subordination to the law. but it's exactly because combat is a sociopathic space that rules are required. and it's because the institutions that surround those sociopathic spaces self-evidently cannot be relied upon to conduct themselves by the rules of non-sociopathic society BECAUSE in order to reproduce the space of combat, of killing, these institutions HAVE TO normalize it. but maybe you're all making a narrower argument. i don't think you are. i just dont see you taking your own logic far enough to see how strange it really is. [[btw in order to back the debate away from simple yes/no, i should say that my own position is more where i started in this thread. i began pushing at the fact that what you're watching in it could well be a war crime as the thread developed, in reaction to those whom i saw as poo-poohing it. but i think there's an interesting question in here about law and war and such. not new, but interesting.]] |
RB, I have no interest in making a meta-argument. That would simply piss both of us off. I'll simply say that I don't agree with the idea that there's a great social prohibition against killing - the fact that murder/homocide is more prevalent than incest lends itself to my argument. Then again, I think that humanity is fatally flawed, and you probably don't.
As for the incident, let's remembering that the US actors in this are men who have VOLUNTEERED for the training you mentioned. That's important. For infantrymen, pulling the trigger for the first time in combat is the culmination of a life's goal. Well, for the 50% that aren't the slack-jawed yokels Plan9 mentioned. Now, I'll conceed that it's possible that a "war crime" occurred here. I don't give it much credence, but it's possible. Perhaps our triggerman would admit under oath that pulling that trigger gave him the biggest stiffy of his life and that he had sticky shorts the rest of the day. More likely, he erred and mistook one thing for another. That's not a crime. It's a tragedy, but it's not a crime. As Walt said, some of these people had no business being anywhere near this scene. Any self-respecting parent drives away from gunfire. |
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i don't see folk saying that this necessarily *was* a war crime, but it sure as hell is actionable. and it would seem to me that insisting on the requirement of rules of war, and by extension some notion of the rule of law, in a war situation acknowledges a whole lot more "flawedness" about people than its inverse. it does not assume competence or self-control. it does not assume any particular commitment to being in a theater of operations or not. it makes some strictures. you don't kill little kids. you don't kill civilians. you don't rationalize away killing a little kid by blaming the parents for bringing the kid into a situation. no fine discrimination is required here. you just don't do that. it is not acceptable. alot of conservative arguments against rules of war come more from political opposition to international law and/or international tribunals--conservatives are obviously tied to nationalism and without the nation-state as central, they've neither anything to say or any tactics. so they've every interest in opposing this, but the fact is that they, too, in the main operate without thinking through the meta-argument, so without thinking out the consequences. alot of the bush period "thinking" about their favorite novel the "war on terror" demonstrates just how wrong this rejection of thinking out consequences can go. |
and yet, nobody thinks about the war crimes being committed by the big brass by sending all of these kids into war to die...
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I don't think it's a meta-argument to consider that maybe some rules were violated and maybe, as such, there should be some accountability.
Very few of us have made calls for any kind of punitive action barring evidence of obvious war crimes, which is not the impression I came away with. And as for those people on the street and in the van, no one here has a damn idea what they were doing or what they were thinking either. It's kind of funny how easily their motivations and judgement are called to account in a 'war zone.' Give me a break. |
MM, with all due respect, it's pretty fucking easy to tell what's going through their minds. Rational noncombatants don't run towards gunfire.
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gucci...i think about it quite a bit. i am still bewildered about the fact that there was no investigation of the self-evident concerning the iraq war in the united states as there was in the uk even. you know, the chilcot inquiry. nothing like that here.
most law related to war crimes is geared around being able to hold individuals accountable for the actions of a country. it's pretty obvious to me that there are alot of people in the bush administration who should be prosecuted. but there's that whole question as to whether there is a war crime apart from losing. and then there are other questions about the extent to which we in the united states really do live in a single party state with two right wings. it's only under such conditions that it's imaginable that an administratoin can launch a fucking war under self-evidently false pretenses and nothing happens. not that the chilcot inquiry amounted to anything in terms of sanctions. but i'd say british democracy is alot healthier than is american democracy. but that's one of the bigger questions. addressing it by-passes the clip and by-passes alot of other similar information about the conduct of us forces on the ground in iraq and afghanistan, information that's available in non-american media outlets but curiously not so much here. |
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You know the answer to that question. Just like I already know the answer if I ask it of you. And I have a hard time believing that either of us would run/drive/move towards gunfire if we were with our kids. If I'm wrong, please correct me. But knowing you as I do, I can't imagine that I am. |
If I knew who that person on the street was. Or thought I knew who he was. If I were a physician. Or a policeman off duty. If I had been living for years in an atmosphere where there was the constant threat of this kind of event, I might think differently than I do sitting here at my computer in an air-conditioned condo in 'paradise.' It seems like you are being deliberately obtuse to make a point that I find it hard to believe you are truly invested in. Just my impression. :)
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I know doctors. I know policemen. I know lots of people. About the only ones that I feel confident in saying would run, unarmed, towards gunfire are the ones who are crazy. I don't know anyone rational who would do so, and I sincerely believe that you don't either.
I also think that the plausibility of my argument is much greater than yours, which is why I'm making it. There are a lot of assumptions going on with both sides of the argument, but I've got to say that I think mine makes fewer and ones that are more logical. |
I don't know anyone except those trained in armed combat who would run towards gun fire.
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Is it really that hard to believe that someone might want to help unarmed civilians who have been injured? It's kind of sad that we're so jaded as a society that people can't even give assistance to dying photographers in the middle of the street without having their motives questioned. It's pathetic even.
I can absolutely imagine that were I living in an area where this kind of thing is the norm, I might choose to help those whom I perceive to be innocent victims. Not saying I would, but I can certainly see how I might. |
So on one hand first hand experience is necessary to comment on what the soldiers did, but first hand experience is not needed to comment on what the civilians did?
Besides, where the hell did either of you get the idea that whatever going on was limited to that exact position and as such easily avoidable? |
i sincerely hope you all are listening to what plan9 has to say...
i wasn't in the exact same situation, but he covers this so much more eloquently than i can... damn, viet nam was such a long time ago... |
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Even Japanese soldiers and civilians in WWII were conditioned to believe that American soldiers were going to rape the women and kill the children. Quote:
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Unsubscribing from this thread. Just don't have the stomach for it anymore. click. |
I just hope to god that I never have to live under the rule of an occupational authority.
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Physicians and policemen tend to operate under the same principles: 1) You save the ones you can. 2) You do what you can to keep the situation from getting worse. Putting yourself and your kids in front of a 30mm chain gun would seem to violate both of those principles. Quote:
Is it really that hard to believe that most rational people would take note of their situation/surroundings and say to themselves "Ok, so we've got US ground forces engaged in a big ass fight the next block over and these guys just got hit by a US attach helicopter....maybe they got shot for a reason. Either way, its not worth my kids lives to find out". Quote:
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Second guessing what the civilians did is just as problematic as second guessing what the soldiers did. I really hope people can see this.
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so essentially what you're saying walt is that dippin is correct. you speak for the Manly Men of the American Military in a war zone in a way that assumes whatever happens to the civilians and children is their fault.
way to go. war crime? impossible so long as the Manly Men of the American Military are involved. that's basically the argument, yes? |
If I was in a profession or position that required me to help others, I would do so, but not with my kids in the car. Sorry, that's just fucking stupid.
I think I'm just going to say that more often than not, war is just one huge fucking crime. Killing the king seems like it would be an easier solution to the problem than placing blame on those the king has sent into the fray. The only problem with this is: which king needs to be killed? |
I read all the posts, and I'm soundly in the middle. Monday-morning quarterbacking happens far too often with the military, and I'm at least conscious of my own inherent arrogance enough to know that whenever I start by saying "If I were in his position.." I'm totally lying, because I have no fucking idea what I would do in their shoes.
On the other hand, I think a real problem occurs when we aren't allowed to critique something simply for lack of personal experience. Sound judgments about the behavior of others can be made without first experiencing it. We can condemn murder without first murdering. In this case, I think it is a tragic incident (not accident) and I think that the soldiers acted to the best of their ability and training. What I think lacks is their ability and their training. The approval to fire seemed rather arbitrary (and seemed to be made by someone not even in the field of combat?) and I wonder why the approval is even necessary. Is it a documentation thing? I authorized them to use deadly force because they told me they had AK47s and RPGs? Time, date, personal responsible? If so, I think perhaps additional training needs to go towards soldiers of all stripes that they are being given the authorization to kill based merely on their representation of what is actually happening. Everyone makes mistakes describing what they see, that's OK. I don't even know if it's possible to train someone that because they're at the end of a weapon they need to take additional responsibilty about how they describe the events to those with the authority to authorize firing. But it sure would make me feel better if I knew these things were in place. Also, I run towards gunfire. I just thought I'd throw that out there. |
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I will simplify and restate my argument regarding the civilians in the video: 1) The alleged reporters had more than a little experience working in a war zone. They knew they were taking a considerable risk in walking around with armed men in civilian clothes - and then moving down the street, towards a group of US ground forces who were engaged in a gunfight...with armed men in civilian clothes. The reporters took a gamble and it bit them in the ass. They have nobody to blame but themselves. 2) The children getting shot was a tragedy. They got shot because their father put them in a situation/position that would get them shot. The gunship had no way of knowing that there were children in the van. 3) The guy walking in front of the building (from which armed insurgents were actively shooting at US ground forces) as it took a hellfire was an idiot for being there. Still, his death was a tragedy and avoidable. The guy was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Were I the gunner, I would have done a sweep of the buildings perimeter with my targeting system. Were I the bystander, I wouldn't have been hanging out in front of a building that bad guys were using as a fighting position. But that is armchair quarterbacking. I don't see anything in the video that leads me to believe that he was an intended target. 4) Based upon what I understand of ROE, all of the shootings were justified and no war crimes were committed. |
An interesting argument I saw advanced in the massive storm of commentary about this video (one I don't particularly agree with) is that this is a side-effect of the way that 'insurgents' are choosing to fight. If they were acting as armed members of a standing army with the appropriate decorations under the Geneva convention, and the van had something like a cross painted on it to indicate it was not a military target, less civilians might die in 'collateral damage'.
Like I said I don't particularly agree with it (seems a bit like rape apologism - she was dressed provactively!) but I do see the general idea as being valid. They're not at fault, but certainly it contributes, as do all of the other factors.. |
First, did all the "yeah, bad civilian" folks actually watch the fucking video? So we have a helicopter with a camera and several times magnification. For the first 3 or 4 minutes there is nothing going on. Then they fire. Then after another 4 or 5 minutes a van comes along and starts to load the wounded into it. Nevermind for a second that it is actually against the Geneva conventions and the military's own rule of engagement to shoot it. You do realize that the helicopter is actually very far and most likely not clearly visible (if it was clearly visible, then the guys not running away from it would clearly not be the enemy).
So basically the attitude is "it is their own fault for standing around within range of weapons that have a range of several hundred meters?" The idea that anyone drove towards a combat zone when the video itself makes it clear that they were very far from the thick of the action is ludicrous. Now, before I get another round of "war is dirty, it happens, etc., etc." I'd say that that is precisely the fucking point. I mean, that is the reason people opposed the war. You can't, whether as an administration, part of the military, or whatever, at the same time spill some bullshit about "liberation," "fighting for democracy," etc. etc. and claim that things like this are "no big deal." And it has nothing to do with "hating the soldier" or whatever spin people want to put on it. Whether or not the rules of engagement were followed is beside the point. If they were, they need to be reviewed, because the civilian-to-military casualty ratio, even just looking at the lowest numbers is unacceptable. Or, if you think it is acceptable, then we should call the war what it is, some sort of neo colonial engagement. You see, I had no illusions about this war when it started. I knew that the civilian body count would be in the hundred of thousands, that there would be torture, and all those other things that we tend to consider war crimes when the losing side does it. Which, not coincidentally, is the reason I was against it. The bottom line is you can't have it both ways. You can't claim a war is a war of liberation and have this number of civilian casualties. You can't claim it is going to be a "clean war" because of the mythical qualities of the super American soldier and it's military and then claim they're "only human." |
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no matter how pro american someone was, if their mother, brother, son etc was killed in this incident, you dont think it'd motivate them to get off that fence? what i do want to point out is that this incident occured in a neighbourhood. you'll see on one of the corners there's a mosque, so we can assume that there were people around, most likely people that knew each other. so i can fathom someone running towards gunfire to help save the life of someone they knew, or were family. stranger things have happened than someone risking life and limb to save a wounded or dying person . i guess i have to ask myself the same question, whether or not id run into still-smokin battlefield and save the life of somebody if my kids were in the car, id say im not sure. but what we cant do is assume that the only ones that would do that are hardened terorists or policemen and firemen etc. |
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I retract my previous commenting regarding legal action. Chopper jocks can probably get away with something that would have put me in jail. The Kiowa monkeys in Mosul used to buzz our towers all the time. Something tells me they didn't do paperwork for blasting sneakies. |
There is an interesting post at The New Yorker about this as well...
News Desk: The WikiLeaks Video and the Rules of Engagement : The New Yorker Quote:
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Turns out permission to fire is something people have been shot at while waiting for and only to have it denied. Turns out that sucks. For every incident where GI Joe gets permission to fire, I'm guessing there's at least a dozen where he is told to stand down. Even if he's taking fire. Quote:
... A lot of people are confusing troops with cops. Turns out that's a different occupation. |
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yeah, its not a matter of training i dont think.. as one of the seniors said in the video "good shootin'" |
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... We're surprised when GI Joe hits his target (Those personnel targets were destroyed by that anti-armor weapon!? No way!). We're surprised with GI Joe misses his target, possibly killing innocents (poor training, obsolete or faulty munitions). So basically... we're surprised in general. "Were you surprised? I was surprised." |
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This in particular: "The authority to use lethal force might rest with a person who is not at the scene of the battle, and so communication up and down the chain of command often plays a vital role in determining when soldiers can fire. On several occasions, the soldiers in the Apache seem to regard the conditions on the ground in the most threatening terms, even when there is limited evidence that this is so. “Have five to six individuals with AK-47s,” they tell the on-scene commander, after identifying only one or two armed people on the street. When the Apache is flying over Saeed Chmargh, while he is wounded and struggling on the pavement, the crew expresses hope that he’ll find a weapon so that they can kill him legally under the Rules of Engagement. But when the van arrives, the Apache crew reports to the commander, “We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons.” This is later amended to, simply, “picking up the bodies.” (There are important legal distinctions between the two scenarios.)" The whole incident isn't what's messed up about the firing. What's screwed up are the soldiers' attitudes during the episode. There's no getting around it, they wanted to fire, they wanted to kill, they wanted a story to take home, and they exaggerated to the CO to make it happen. BTW the AC-130 thing sounds about spot on to me. I don't know why I didn't think about it earlier since they are circling and no one ever even looks in their direction. |
there is a question of the degree to which one's interpretation of this clip is a repetition of one's position on the iraq war in general. it can become an allegory in which case one is not looking at it except for confirmation. this runs in any number of directions.
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I don't find the attitude of wanting to kill that terrible. It's a fucking war.
I don't like the fact that we as a country are engaged in any of these wars but if I was thrust into the mist of the war I would want to kill anyone who was trying to kill me. I understand the side of the argument about the apparent bloodthirst of these guys in the video and how it seems terrible. Like I said before, I'm really desensitized to it because of the military friends that I have that talk about the people they killed and they often say they can't wait to go back and kill some more. I don't think it's because they necessarily enjoy killing, but it's what they are trained to do and they like the accolades that come down when they do the job well. It's not really something that civilians can understand.. I've been around the military my entire life (thanks dad) and I don't quite understand it, so I doubt a casual bystander can understand it either. :shrug: |
There's a difference between wanting to do something and doing something without hesitation.
Consider it like one of those "stupid human tricks" from a Late Night TeeVee Show. |
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I mean, what were they supposed to wait for? Actual fire from the suspected RPG, confirmation from the troops on the ground for each individual or group firing at them? Doesn't seem like a very good way to keep your friends from dying. Quote:
I'm not saying it's not a tragic situation, it most certainly is. I'm also not saying they shouldn't be subject to some sort of legal action for what occurred, but I don't think their actions were unreasonable under the circumstances. |
So, let me get this straight.. it's ok to drop a nuke on a country after pearl harbor killing massive numbers of children, women and civilians but it's not ok for an apache or ac130 to give air support to soldiers on the ground who are engaged in a fire fight, keeping the casualties to a much lower number?
interesting. |
so one new and improved direction for rationalizing what's in the clip that has made an appearance is: hey, what you are watching is killing and that's what war is that's what soldiers who are in war situations do.
so the emphasis has been moved from the object of the sentence (the who is being killed) to the verb (the killing) and from there problems to do with who is being killed (journalists, civilians, children) go away. |
a better question would be: Is it possible for civilians to not be killed in war?
I don't see how it is. |
and the correlate: does the fact that civilians are often killed in war mean that no problems attend the deaths of any?
is this a "shit happens" defense? |
There are always problems associated with war and the actions that are created by the acts that are involved in war.
I don't think anyone is saying that it isn't a tragic thing that civilians are killed in war or that it's merely "shit happens", but that it's impossible to get everything exactly right when you have a split second to react in order to maintain the objective and to keep your side safe. There is no such thing as a safe war or a war that doesn't have massive consequences. |
isn't that also part of the point of war, that it's a matter of not just resources of men, food, etc, but also the ability to stomach all the things that are within it. This goes from torture to civilian casualties, to soldier deaths to soldier health after the war.
I don't understand how either side of this conversation makes it any more palatable or understandable. |
I honestly think it's impossible to understand it unless you're actually in that situation.
Even then, it's probably a hard thing to understand at times. |
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---------- Post added at 11:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:24 AM ---------- This is an interesting perspective that helped me understand the video: Quote:
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So let me get this straight, we've gone from the "it's war, it happens" position to the extreme relativistic position that not only the military have a different set of morals to live by, but that the whole morality thing is so contingent that those outside the military can't even pass judgment on it?
Regarding the whole "should they have waited until they were being fired on" comment, there is an incongruency that has been precisely the point of most of the anti-war movement: yes, if this war is anything like it is claimed to be, they should wait until being fired upon. You see, even other wars don't have the same civilian to military casualty ratio, even assuming the lowest possible estimates. People have talked about the nuclear bomb, but even the war in the pacific didn't have these numbers (the only WW2 engagement that might come close is the invasion of the USSR). So, again, either we admit that this is some sort of neo colonial war were the civilians are an afterthought and we are ok with massive civilian casualties, or we change the rules of engagement and prosecute the hell of those who break them. Of course, though it should, that won't happen. Instead, a few years from now people will talk about "liberating" Iran, or Pakistan, or North Korea, and when someone points out the dirtiness of war, they'll hear back "how dare you say that about the American military?." |
i think this is an interesting perspective as well, one quite removed from the military-relativist complex position reproduced by andrew sullivan...
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"Preponderance of the evidence" is the standard here, not "beyond a reasonable doubt." Of course they sounded excited. Should they be laid back and apathetic as they pull the trigger? |
What most disturbed me was that the guys in the helicopter sounded very much like they were playing a video game.
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Its probably like playing Afterburner at the mall sometime in the early '90s. |
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