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I don't know if anybody's been paying attention to this store for the past couple of weeks, but the video was finally released:
I didn't think the video was as bad and telling as the hype leading up to, but it gets pretty bad at 10:00
I do think this is leading to some retard sensationalism from self hating Americans across the internet, though.
TLDW. what's the big deal?
Video of Apaches shooting up what is seemingly civilians and journalists, claiming the cameras are weapons. Laughing and looking for reasons to shoot, see one guy crawling away injured and begging for him to pick up a weapon so they can shoot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh
Van then shows up to get the wounded, start putting the wounded in the van, and then the heli opens up on the van which has 2 children inside. (although impossible to know from their pilots POV)
Apparently when wikileaks announced it would release this video, it was being stalked by US intelligence and threatened to the point where they even had to set up a dead man's switch.
One side in this war shoots people half a mile away from a chain gun in the fucking sky, or an unmanned drone from a laptop a few hundred miles away - the other side buries bombs in the sand hoping to get lucky and hit a Humvee full of Americans.
Whatever happened to fighting like men instead of sissy cowards? War is for pussies nowaday
Isn't this pretty much standard behaviour for all well-funded armies?
Sure, it's murder, but it's nothing out of the ordinary.
Did you watch the video?
Them opening fire on first group of people isn't really shocking, one or two of them did have an AK-47.
But opening fire on the van is heinous. They should be tried for war crimes for that shit
yeah, for the first 10 minutes i was like wtf? why was this such a big deal?Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Then the van showed up.
Glenn Greenwald has a run-down on this (or another?) incident which gives it some context: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/gl...tan/index.html
His thesis is that once again, the media uncritically reported the Pentagon's version of events, even though they were false, and doubts about them were out there.
The question is, how much play is this getting in the media right now? I'd like to think 30 or 40 years ago, it would be the big news of every hour. This shit is being done in our name. But when I walked past the TVs at work, set to Fox News, it was Neil Cavuto talking about the Census. I highly doubt it's different on other stations.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
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That is so pathetic. CNN's reporting of current events is astounding.
Reporting lies is bad. But what I find much worse is the choice on what stories to push. Not just CNN. Every news outlet in America. Proper important shit gets nary a mention while petty "dem vs rep" arguments and manufactured citizen "outrage" gets the spotlight.
It's all entertainment now. It's much more important to put on a show to rival professional wrestling than it is to let everybody know what's going on.
If you've never served I think you should keep your mouth shut.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Get a job.
It's been that way for as long as I can remember. Unless you want sports highlights or disaster porn, there's nothing of any worth on television news.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheebs
I was flipping channels the other day, and when I turned to CNN, some double-stuffed oreo was just reading comments that random idiots made on CNN's website about some news story. Comments left on articles online aren't even worth reading when you're actually looking at the web page, and yet this dildo thinks they are more important than actual information about the story itself. Television journalists are lazy stupid hacks and their audience is too braindead and ignorant to know any better.
This is why people hate America.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich
4 hours later. Not sure how long it's been up, but just for the record.
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Greenwald's write-up on the Apache incident is here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
It was off that front page mast not more than 40 minutes after this for the NCAA NC game.Quote:
Originally Posted by K3V4 hours later. Not sure how long it's been up, but just for the record.
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Is this a chicken-egg issue? Are Americans so uninformed and ignorant because the media doesn't even make an attempt to inform, or does the media not attempt to inform because Americans would rather hear about horse-race shit and rah-rah missionaccomplished bullshit? After thinking about it for a long time I admit I lean towards the former.
Entertainment sells. News, not so much. CNN needs a name change, because they're not a new organization any more than Entertainment Weekly is.
James
It kind of makes it hard to cry for the death of "old media" when they, with all their connections and millions of dollars and top-notch journalists and shit, can't beat a two-bit outfit run on user donations.
Or maybe that's the point. If some WaPo journo would've scooped this and put it online, he might not be invited to any more cocktail parties.
Remember when Rome used gladiators to appease the masses and distract them from the internal and external problems the empire was facing that eventually led to its self-destruction? Major news networks are working the same way.
I find local news much more appealing as I get older. There's fluff here in there but there are some good nuggets of info you can learn about your town.
You're wrong. They're all vying for ratings. Little nuggets about your town don't bring in ratings. You must have inadvertently caught those nuggets while looking at the weather girls tits.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
Certainly Not News.Quote:
Originally Posted by James
They can even keep their logo.
All three of my local channels merely spew out national news from three days ago, or somehow find the local spin on such topics.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
I didn't mean local television news. I meant newspapers. Yes, I know I'm a dying breed but I still pick up the paper from time to time.
What paper? NYT is as bad as CNN (two words, Judy Miller). The Daily News and NY Post are both tabloid trash.
NYT is a decent newspaper. If anything I read it for Krugman. There coverage is also pretty spot-on after the scandal a few years ago. They carry some weight whether you like them or not.
I read the Jersey Journal. For local news in New York I just hit up Metro New York or amNew York. I have friends in both papers that I trust to be competent.
http://i42.tinypic.com/21mrtbc.jpgQuote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
Typing these posts while trying to work is now starting to annoy me.
Get the fuck out of here with that garbage. I think the intentions of soldiers signing up to go to war is noble, but the result sure as fuck isn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dyne
Killing shouldn't be easy. You should have to look in the face of the man you're killing, you should be in harms way while doing it. Anyone can kill someone from a location 50 miles away with a laptop controlling an unpiloted drone that is two miles above your target. Fuck, everyone here does it when they play Modern Warfare 2.
When you remove the emotional toll of killing, the job of a soldier is no longer impressive.
If you don't remove the emotional toll of killing, you yourself will be killed when you hesitate.
I can understand the machismo from the man behind the gun because if you think about what you're doing someone will not do the same and put a bullet right through you. it's a defense mechanism in order to do something you never thought you would have to do.
The 'emotional toll' I'm referring to is not the ability to do it without hesitation.
Are you talking about what happens to soldiers after they go home and reflect on what they have done in a warzone? Go to your local VA hospital and ask yourself if having those regrets resurfacing is good for the soldiers. I don't want them coming back home and killing civilians without hesitation but we have already seen what can happen if people aren't psychologically prepared to handle killing other human beings.
Remember people, the US didnt bring this war to Iraq, Saddam brought the war to the US.
Shut the fuck up.
Everyone I know who has signed up did it because they were broke as shit and felt like it was the only way to get on a good footing. That's fine, I almost did it way back when. A military past can get you a lot of ins for your whole life. But let's stop thinking of soldiers as "angels with guns." The ruling class exploits that thinking.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Being a soldier is a bad job, it's tough, it's deadly, you're poorly paid and exploited. Now they are being shipped off to countries where you can't tell friend from foe, and the government is paying mercs quadruple to do the same shit. And the military doesn't even bother to take care of them properly once they are done. It sucks and we should treat these soldiers with more respect start to finish.
A good start would be cutting some of the hundreds of over-budget, behind schedule programs for weapons and planes we'll never need. Maybe get the soldiers on the field vehicles that can withstand an IED and technology that lets them differentiate between a camera lens and an RPG from a mile away.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
Was that directed to me?
Yes. I don't know whether you're being facetious or not.
Yeah it was sarcasm, if you were familiar with my posting history here you would know that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
I'm only familiar with your antics hassling video game creators.
Actually local news I've seen from both Buffalo, Florida and across the south during my road trip all covered local issues such as school board mishaps and government mismanagement. Seemed pretty grassroots to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by OGcritic
Those are not antics, its my job.Quote:
Originally Posted by Razor Ramon
Is it your job to also ask TNLers to buy you meals so they have the pleasure of your company?
F 22's are no good for fighting scattered groups blending into the local population and popping up here and there?Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
But what about the countless squadrons of Migs we will no doubt have to encounter any day now?
This is certainly a tragedy, however I'm not quite sure why embedded reporters, hiding in vans, in a warzone have going through their head. I understand people want to cover both sides, but personally, I would do it from a distance with a good set of binoculars and a radio.
Not really blaming the US here, it's just a cost of doing war.
The next logical question here is just why the fuck are we doing this war?Quote:
Originally Posted by Swagger Jack
Diff, I can't answer that on sir. I can only say if I were a soldier in the same situation as those guys, I would have done the same. Essentially to survive war you have to have a "fuck you, I'm going home" attitude. At least that what pops use to say about Vietnam.
I support our soldiers 100%, I don't support this administration even 1%. They were supposed to clean up this mess, not make it worse. Now Iran and North Korea are barking. Shit, North Korea is getting in a near warlike state with the South. Next police action hoooooooo!
First it was because Saddam flew a passenger jet into the World Trade center.Quote:
Originally Posted by Diff-chan
Then it was because Saddam was going to chemical gas our ass.
Now we are just shooting them until they like us. We will just keep shooting until the concept of terror no longer exists.
Good, then we can save money and start hitting terrorists at home first. I'd suggest PETA and the free-wheeling souther baptist terrorist groups first...
No no no... You totally don't understand.
It's not terror unless it is Muslim and we can spend money fighting it.
Well, I'm sure both groups have more money that the gross exports of Iraq at present...
If by 'hiding in a van' you mean 'standing out in the open, doing nothing' then yeahQuote:
Originally Posted by Swagger Jack
What if a Chinese gunship flew into your town and mowed down half your family?Quote:
Originally Posted by Swagger Jack
All we're doing is building up our next set of enemies.
Vid is from 2007, just sayin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swagger Jack
Pirates have done more to South Korea than North Korea has.
This year that is.
and Ninjas
With armed guards in an insurgent hotspot.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
..who were also standing around, doing nothing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich
Insurgents have hotspots? Wow! That must make our armies jobs so much easier!
No, because insurgent hot spots are usually in civilian heavy areas. But yes, your sarcasm aside, they do.
So it's also a civilian hotspot, then?
It's where the party is at.
Yep.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Oh that old haunt.
Is this where they upload those creepy Al-Qaeda videos from?Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich
Are we even shooting them anymore or just letting them blow themselves up?Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheebs
About the van...
Well excepting that they thought these were insurgents with weapons (Understandable, because at one point you see one of them hugging a wall, peeking around the corner "aiming" the apparent weapon)...
A van that rushes in right after the attack to quickly gather up the wounded would naturally be considered another enemy element. Random innocents civilians don't immediately show up to grab downed insurgents right after they get shot up, do they? If you accept the first 10 minutes as an understandable mistake then I think it also makes shooting the van logical from the pilots' viewpoint.
Obviously it's horrible but the main push seems to be to paint this as a malicious attack, that the pilots knew that these were civilians or didn't care if they were or not. Just look at the sensational use of the term "murder" in the thread title. That's going to be peoples' angle all over the place in demonizing these men as some sort of proxy for their opposition to the war itself.
What, when he was holding that giant stubby nosed Bazooka that looked like it was from a Worms game? Was he taking the wind into account, was it his turn to attack?Quote:
Originally Posted by Proto Man
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/20...iberal-veteran
There's some difference of opinion on whether shooting up the van was acceptable.
James
Breaking news: People die in war.
Breaking news- We're not supposed to enjoy the killing.
James
Says who?
North Korea has always been in a near warlike state with the South. Empty threats are their chief export. Fortunately, they're North Korea. People in the South aren't all that worried. And they shouldn't be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swagger Jack
If I ever had the opportunity to watch Osama bin Laden being slowly tortured to death, I would enjoy it. I would enjoy it very much.Quote:
Originally Posted by James
What kind of retard drives a van full of children in to an area that just got blasted in a hail storm of bullets from the sky?
No. If the US government is going to engage "hostiles" in a highly populated civilian area it is UP TO THEM to prove that these people are in fact insurgents or hostiles and not a group of people being used for a piece of photo journalism. You can't just peer at people and open up fire if you're not sure what you're doing there. And the bigger argument here is that the Pentagon had made a mistake (it happens, okay. I'll give you that it's "war"). But then they went ahead and called everyone involved hostiles and refused to heal the injured children it mistakenly fired upon. Whatever way you want to spin this the shooting you witnessed is a violation of the geneva convention and should not have been condoned. There's this completely dishonest atmosphere of lies the US government perpetrates and has been fostering for so long that is the bigger issue here. And how willing you are as a peon to just shrug and accept it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Proto Man
I do not blame the soldier. He was told it was an insurgent and saw guns. Of course he made the call he did in those circumstances. And he enjoyed it. If I went to war and got to shoot people I'd probably have fun with it too. Because that's the culture of war. The blame here is solely aimed at the Pentagon and military leadership.
A guy who lives in the neighborhood and was taking his kids to school turns the corner and sees a wounded person trying to stand up. He does the right thing and tries to help and gets himself and his children lit up for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewbacca
You're rationalizing the shooting the same way the gunner was. It's pathetic. The guy had no weapon, clearly - neither did the guy on the ground.
After reading the rest of your post, I'm assuming that you were referencing the soldiers chatter - so nevermind really.
Given the fact that the soldiers are firing from a safe position, there really is no excuse not to err on the side of the people on the ground.
I don't know if any sort of disciplinary action is really appropriate, but it was clearly the wrong thing to do, and that needs to be acknowledged.
It makes no sense to try and cover it up. Collateral damage is a fact of war and soldiers make mistakes like any other human being.
Soldiers are awful human beings.
I thought he had seen the shooting and pulled up afterwards with his van to help (without taking his kids out first). I wrongly assumed the context of how he approached the scene.Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
Yeah, I was far from rationalizing the soldier / military of their actions.Quote:
After reading the rest of your post, I'm assuming that you were referencing the soldiers chatter - so nevermind really.
Soldiers are not heroes.Quote:
Originally Posted by icarusfall
This is what war is like people. Shit gets fucked up, if you were appalled by this sort of action you should be against wars in principle.
Why? Because wars is about tons of scared people, some armed and trained all in the same area where they all expect to be shot at. Unless these guys went in with the intent to murder people or the intelligence later shows they knew were harmless or didn't care, then sure go ahead and cry murder. In a war zone I'm not going to blame someone one bit if they lose their shit for a minute and kill civilians. If the civilians react similarly thinking they need to defend themselves fine, because IT IS A FUCKING WAR ZONE.
US soldiers had the choice not to join the fucking military and the civilians at this point have had plenty of time to get the fuck out of a war zone.
I'm sure there is a lot of pent up hatred from soldiers that had to witness their buddy getting blown up, while driving through what appeared to be a nice civil neighborhood. I probably would have pulled the trigger, after seeing two men with weapons and what appeared to be either an RPG or bazooka like weapon in someone's hands.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drewbacca
The shooting of the van made no sense at all. There were no weapons, the injured person had no weapons anywhere near him and there was no signs of a threat towards the helicoptor.
War zone? It's a fucking neighborhood. This is where people live. We have been blowing up neighborhoods in that country since 2002. I thought we were going there to "give them freedom"? It's been 8 years.Quote:
Originally Posted by MarsKitten
That is clearly a photoshop. I mean the RPG is in color and it's just floating there...Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh
In all seriousness, I think opening fire on the first group of people - while unfortunate - was justified. The van is really the case for misconduct
Maybe I'm missing something, but if these people had been insurgents, wouldn't they have done more than calmly walk around and talk on their cell phones while two Apache helicopters circled overhead? No one in the helicopters stopped to wonder why these "insurgents" made no gesture or movement towards the helicopters for the first five minutes or so? I would think they would have either opened fire immediately or scrambled for cover as soon as they noticed the Apaches.
They saw brown people and immediately thought hostiles. It isn't that hard to figure out.
1. There have been helicopters flying over every part of Baghdad for years at this point - civilian and insurgent alike are used to it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Melf
2. The helicopters were a mile or two up in the air. The zoom makes it look much closer.
3. Cell phones are commonly used to detonate explosives, the guy on the corner could have been spotting the Humvee patrol down the road for the guy on the phone.
Okay so anyone carrying a cellphone is now fair game?
He did him a favor. Everyone knows cell phones give you cancer.
Used to it enough to calmly walk around in plain view of them, brandishing their "weapons?"Quote:
Originally Posted by dave is ok
That would make more sense, if the "insurgents" didn't see or hear them.Quote:
2. The helicopters were a mile or two up in the air. The zoom makes it look much closer.
Yeah, but if you look at how the guy with it acts, there's absolutely nothing threatening about it. Even after the Apaches fire the first round, they never wondered why no one fired back, or why the only "reinforcements" to arrive only tried to help the wounded?Quote:
3. Cell phones are commonly used to detonate explosives, the guy on the corner could have been spotting the Humvee patrol down the road for the guy on the phone.
When they use their phones to detonate bombs, they shake their fists and and curse America.
Why is Rich linking what appear to be pages from an internal Army investigation, when it has already been shown that the details of this were covered up by the Army?
The reports do make mention that neither of the reporters were wearing press gear to identify them as neutral reporters while they were operating in a hot zone. So... yeah... wear your vests if you're going to shoot pieces? I think that's a valid point for the US military. That said they still opened up on a van that posed no threat to them or anybody.
The report could easily be lying anyway, considering all they did was lie about the incident and fight off FOIA requests.
No it couldn't. We have video of them not wearing vests right before the incident.
You're retarded. I don't know what 'vest' you're so obsessed with, but shit like that tends to be co-opted by the enemy in a war zone anyway.
Theres no proof either way in the video as to them having or not having identification as press, or if Reuters let the U.S. Army know they were in the area. My only point is that you shouldn't take a report like that at face value when the military has been covering up incidents like this since the war began
