Shauk

<-- annotated video

<-- 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.


It seems they've addressed the issue with the air attacks killing so many civilians. So it seems my huffing and puffing over the issue is pointless here in april of 2010 right?




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.

dksuddeth

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'.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Shauk

great, now how about the topic at hand?

Lasereth

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.

__________________
"A Darwinian attacks his theory, seeking to find flaws. An ID believer defends his theory, seeking to conceal flaws." -Roger Ebert

Shauk

RPG





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.

Reese

I have a few issues. I think they did everything right by the book up until the van pulling up. It's unfortunate that they fired on civilians but they did at least (mis)identify AK47s and an RPG. That's a deadly mistake, but it's forgivable, in my opinion. When the van pulled up though, they didn't even bother identifying anything or anyone and fired on them without cause. They may have been within their rules of engagement, but I still disagree with their actions at this point.
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.

__________________
“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry

Baraka_Guru

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.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Glory's Sun

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.

PonyPotato

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.

__________________
"Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark."
— Henri-Frédéric Amiel

roachboy

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:
Video of Son?s Killing Brings Closure to Family - NYTimes.com

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

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Pacifier

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.

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

mixedmedia

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.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Baraka_Guru

This has been at the fore in the discussions of the changing nature of technology and warfare:

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.

Most provocatively, Baudrillard argues that the startlingly one-sided nature of the conflict (fewer US soldiers were killed in this 'war' than would have died in traffic accidents had they stayed at home) means that it should not be seen as a war, simply because the US-led coalition chose not to engage with the Iraqi army or to take the kind of risks that constitute war. The US-led coalition was fighting a virtual war while the Iraqis tried to fight a traditional one - the two could not entirely meet. A great deal of violence took place, but the Gulf War did not; rather than belittling the effects of this violence, this means that the Gulf War should be seen not as a war but as "an atrocity masquerading as war."

The Gulf War Did Not Take Place - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

roachboy

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.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

MSD

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.

Pacifier

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.

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

Plan9

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.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

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??

Congratulations. You just created a few thousand potential insurgents who were sitting on the border.

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

Plan9

What does the flag have to do with this?

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.

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.

...

...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.

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.

...

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.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

roachboy

what does this phrase mean, mister 9?
you seem to like using it in this context.
i just want to be clear about what you're doing with it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Plan9

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

MSD

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.

Just because everyone has done it doesn't make it right. This stands out to me as a case of cold-blooded murder, not a tragic and accidental consequence of war. When the evidence is in front of us, is would be wrong not to address these things and prosecute people who act criminally. Even if we disregard the first part of the video, firing on someone helping the wounded is a war crime under the First Geneva Convention (1864.)

The circled guy in one picture and the guy with the striped shirt in the other. I could identify the camera lens, but it took a few views to be sure these guys had AKs.

Attached Images

	ak1.jpg (34.4 KB, 186 views)
	ak2.jpg (60.5 KB, 187 views)

dlish

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.

fuck the hardened terrorists. fuck em. Those that are won over are already won over...

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.

__________________
An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere

I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay?
- Filthy

Plan9

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.

...

Ugh... basically it means I concur with your assessment above. GI Joe is primed-primed-primed to kill, stuck in a boring-ass "war zone" for 12-18-24 months... and is only "let off the leash" a handful of times. You can't train a dog to fight and then be surprised when he (right or wrong) bites someone.

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.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

timalkin

..

__________________
Trinity: "What do you need?"

Neo: "Guns. Lots of guns."

-The Matrix

Plan9

Hmm... all this bitterness does not help our mission.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

mixedmedia

hmm, three vagina references in one post...i think that's a new record for timalkin.

__________________
Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Plan9

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.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

silent_jay

Always enjoy the chuckles when you show up, you may never have a clue what you're on about, but it's good for a laugh.......
He just has vagina on the brain, maybe getting laid would clear his head......

The_Jazz

You know, subtract the misogyny, over-compensation and holier-than-thou attitude out from this post, and I actually agree with the message. But you're doing our cause such a disservice that I'm really embarrassed that we're on the same side of this argument.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Plan9

+1

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

dksuddeth

pictures of demi moore as GI Jane don't count.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

The_Jazz

---

-+-{Important TFP Staff Message}-+- There are numerous questionable posts in this thread. Let's get it back on track before private conversations about what the rules of debate are at TFP have to occur in the back channels.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Plan9

Shaved head was a surprising plus (she's got a purdy skull), but the insane no-way flotation devices were a big downer.

/threadjack

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

roachboy

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.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Plan9

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.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

dippin

Yes, war is dirty. But here's the thing: over the past 60 years all we've heard from the chicken hawks is how precise the American military is, how they'd never be part of any atrocities, how they are liberating people. Because, of course, if people remembered that war is a dirty thing they wouldn't be so quick to do this shit.

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.

roachboy

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.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Shauk

OH FUCK, my bad BRO, I thought this was a forum for intelligent discussion. Jesus Christ people like you make my head hurt.

Plan9

I actually concur with a bit of what Timalkin said in his post, sans the cretin-speak. Maybe I should mod-a-quote it to express my feelings more clearly.

There should be and most likely will be legal proceedings. You can't sweep this under the carpet now that it has been YouTube'd. It will be addressed in some fashion. We can speculate about how its a kangaroo court, slap-on-the-wrist'd, and a good ole boy system all we want, too. Fap fap fap.

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.

I'd suggest that the only real war crime is fighting beyond your initial justification.

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.

...

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."