That Wikileaks video

Well it did :(

damn that isn't good :/

all the bodies and parts :(

They could just, just about explain the first engagement. But firing on the van that comes to help an injured and unarmed man? Apart from the fact it breaks every possible convention and law of war, how could it possibly be in their RoE?

  On 4/5/2010 at 7:38 PM, kakapo said:

They could just, just about explain the first engagement. But firing on the van that comes to help an injured and unarmed man? Apart from the fact it breaks every possible convention and law of war, how could it possibly be in their RoE?

no fucking clue

at a stretch the camera could have been mistaken for a gun, but the surroundings just don't fit a bunch of people about to start shooting a helicopter imo, when he comes back round you can see they are pretty innocuous

heres the full unedited thing btw

the whole bush administration should be tried for war crimes, no question about it.

when are you guys going to remember there are no rules in war?

that's been the USAs secret motto for 250 years

USA USA USA!

  On 4/5/2010 at 7:46 PM, azatoth said:

the whole bush administration should be tried for war crimes, no question about it.

yeah right, it's all bush's fault.

you are sickening.

so horrible

that was fucking disgusting

I skipped the 40 mins long video towards the end. How could they justify firing a missile at that house?

Because it essentially vaporises a random guy just walking past the building.

so badass

  On 4/5/2010 at 7:46 PM, azatoth said:

the whole bush administration should be tried for war crimes, no question about it.

unfortunately it doesn't solve anything

corporations more than likely pushed for the war to gain profits from oil + resources + military contracts in the Middle East (Halliburton, Blackwater etc..) and the Government generally do as they are told

i agree about the uselessness of war, but situations like these are inherent to war. these troops "were just doing their job". there's no need to put the guy pulling the trigger behind bars.

the problem is war itself. if you want to hold somebody accountable, blame it on those who decided to start the war. blame those at the top, not the soldiers.

  On 4/5/2010 at 8:50 PM, goDel said:

i agree about the uselessness of war, but situations like these are inherent to war. these troops "were just doing their job". there's no need to put the guy pulling the trigger behind bars.

the problem is war itself. if you want to hold somebody accountable, blame it on those who decided to start the war. blame those at the top, not the soldiers.

  On 4/5/2010 at 8:42 PM, Bread said:

  On 4/5/2010 at 7:46 PM, azatoth said:

the whole bush administration should be tried for war crimes, no question about it.

unfortunately it doesn't solve anything

corporations more than likely pushed for the war to gain profits from oil + resources + military contracts in the Middle East (Halliburton, Blackwater etc..) and the Government generally do as they are told

unfortunately i agree. this just pisses me off, when i know nothing will come out of this. it's barely news since tiger woods seems to be the more important thing than blatant war crimes. fuck this gay earth.

  On 4/5/2010 at 8:50 PM, goDel said:

i agree about the uselessness of war, but situations like these are inherent to war. these troops "were just obeying orders mein fuhrer doing their job". there's no need to put the guy pulling the trigger behind bars.

the problem is war itself. if you want to hold somebody accountable, blame it on those who decided to start the war. blame those at the top, not the soldiers.

I agree that situations like this are inherent to war. But I would strongly disagree that individual soldiers shouldn't be accountable for their actions. It's not like the pilots could even claim their actions were due to the heat of battle. Yes, they'll be a bit pumped, but they're in an apache, not in a foxhole while the Sixth SS Panzer motor over the top.

got to the first round of machine gun fire; heart jumped when i saw all of the earth fly up and everyone get mowed down (inc. the guy running away). couldn't really stomach it so had to it turn off (could probably watch it without the sound and after a beer though, but don't want to).

as far as i can tell though, this just confirms what we already know; americans are trigger happy and stupid. surely the act wasn't intentionally criminal, just grossly negligent, gung-ho and cruel?

or is that it? they knew they were journalists/civilians and just hammed it up over the intercom to get kills or for some ulterior political motive?

ok, just went back and skipped ahead; they just shot up some people trying to tend to the wounded. what the fuck? could someone summarise please...

My dad was in NATO coalition forces in bosnia hercegovina & kosovo during the wars in the late 90s. He said that from what he saw of the american soldiers stationed there, he believed american soldiers were jittery, constantly triggerhappy, shooting first, asking later etc. This sort of mental retardation occurs only among american forces. It's something about the way you train your troops.

you really have to ask yourself why so many journalists have died in Iraq so far, i think the number has already gone far past Vietnam war press casualties.

still havent seen this video im a little scared to

I am watching this video right now. I could do without all the Wikileaks-ian buildup and dramatic video editing and stuff, but wow.

As an American who is against machine gunning anybody it's interesting to read opinions about this video on a world-wide forum. I can assure you that not ALL of us want to machine gun everybody.

  On 4/5/2010 at 9:25 PM, idrn said:

ok, just went back and skipped ahead; they just shot up some people trying to tend to the wounded. what the fuck? could someone summarise please...

Basically at the beginning you see the photographer with the small group of people. They mistake the photographers camera for a weapon and then mow down everyone.

A van then comes to help the journalist crawling to his safety, the Americans blast that apart (NO FUCKING CLUE WHY, I'll assume their reasoning was that this was more insurgent "backup") we later learn that there were also two children in the van as well (insinuating that this was maybe a family?). The children are dispatched to a local hospital instead of the military camps one (they'll get worse treatment due to this, so they could probably die from their injuries easily I'd imagine)

They send a ground team to assess the situation, talking about the dead bodies, a tank goes over one of the bodies.

Later on a bunch of people go into a building, which they decide to deal with by shooting three powerful missiles at (note the first one most definitely got that random guy walking past)

The comments throughout the video on how it was "good shooting" etc etc just made my stomach turn minorly....

Yes this is war, yes war is shit. But what the fuck?!?!?!?! especially the van -_-:(

and that guys comment when he is just watching the man crawl for his life "go on buddy, all you have to do is pick up a gun" its like he WANTS to shoot this guy of whom clearly has no weapon whatsoever.

Obviously they realised it was a bit of a fuck up so it was just noted down that everyone killed were insurgents

PS: Joyrex, apologies if posting this video is a bit harsh for Watmm forum boundaries as it does show people being shot :(

  On 4/5/2010 at 9:35 PM, Ascdi said:

I am watching this video right now. I could do without all the Wikileaks-ian buildup and dramatic video editing and stuff, but wow.

 

As an American who is against machine gunning anybody it's interesting to read opinions about this video on a world-wide forum. I can assure you that not ALL of us want to machine gun everybody.

No worries, most sensible people don't judge an entire nations populace on the acts of few (at least I don't sadly some still do)

yeah this is horrific, sociapathic behavior at it's most extreme.

where the sound soldier seems to beg to light up the van is chilling, hes like angry that he's not getting to kill unarmed wounded civilians trying to escape, goddam thats disturbing

i find it absolutely insane also that someone could write this off as 'well war is war' this is a slaughter from the sky

i can't imagine why some iraqis are unsatisfied with the US presence in their country.

Holy shit, this just got way more intense than I was expecting. Holy shit

'picking up the wounded'

'yeah we're trying to get permission to engage'

'COME ON LET US SHOOT'

'they're taking him'

'we have a black bongo truck picking up bodies, permission to engage'

'FUCK'

'come on!'

'clear permission to engage'

if this is in any way 'normal' behavior from American soldiers, then we probably commit actual war crimes on a daily basis in Iraq.

oh jesus ,

'the guy just drove over a body'

'hehahaheha'

'yeah'

woah these guys really need to lay off the FPS games