Collateral Murder

[darkendless]

Anyone that joins the military since this madness started knows the liklihood of being sent to kill.

Sent to kill vs. no job, no income no support for family. The economic outlook isn't exactly peachy and hasn't been for some time. For some people its an easy decision. I live thousands of clicks away from you and even i know that.

What? They would of had a chance to fight back? What would you have done with an RPG if your country was invaded and occupied by a force well know for indiscriminately killing your friends and family? Please lets not speak as though this is an isolated incident.

Shoot a helicopter and prevent what happened in the video for a start.

Nowhere did i say it was isolated, i simply stated that things would have been viewed much diffrently had the bloke with a camera had a RPG. Don't you think? This isn't the first of its kind.

 

[Blackheart]

I too wonder how Bush walked away from the mess he created. That man has a lot of innocent blood on his hands.

Bush walked away because we in the west are too damn self righteous to admit what we have done and are still doing is evil. If we prosecute Bush then we are admitting that Hitlers tirany didnt teach us anything and that foriegners lives are worth something. How can we admit that?

 

[darkendless]

Bush walked away because we in the west are too damn self righteous to admit what we have done and are still doing is evil. If we prosecute Bush then we are admitting that Hitlers tirany didnt teach us anything and that foriegners lives are worth something. How can we admit that?

I agree 100% here.

I feel we're (yes we damn Ausies got involved, stupid us) too arrogant to admit we royally messed up.

We're the west, we're awesome and those arabs need our help No seriously i'd love to hear any involved politician give a good answer as to why any of us are over there including my own government. Our best excuse is that we're sucking up to the yanks in case Indonesia stops playing nice.

 

[Blackheart]

Nowhere did i say it was isolated, i simply stated that things would have been viewed much diffrently had the bloke with a camera had a RPG. I responded to the situation, you changed the situation into the invasion as a whole. Please stick to one thing at a time.

I said that because alot of people here are speaking as if this was some unfortunate mistake but I think it fails to qualify as a mistake after the first few thousand innocent people are killed. Sorry for saying it out of the context of your response but I felt the need to say it.

 

[Blackheart]

I agree 100% here.

I feel we're (yes we damn Ausies got involved, stupid us) too arrogant to admit we royally messed up.

We're the west, we're awesome and those arabs need our help No seriously i'd love to hear any involved politician give a good answer as to why any of us are over there including my own government. Our best excuse is that we're sucking up to the yanks in case Indonesia stops playing nice.

At least you have an idea of why your country got invovled. I have no idea whatsoever other than the fact that coalition governements were all promised a share of the financial spoils.

Tony Blair is due to be questioned again as part of the enquiry in the UK. It may be worth looking out for it. Not sure when it is though.

 

[darkendless]

I said that because alot of people here are speaking as if this was some unfortunate mistake but I think it fails to qualify as a mistake after the first few thousand innocent people are killed. Sorry for saying it out of the context of your response but I felt the need to say it.

Granted. Sorry i actually edited that post once i figured out what you meant.

I would say the incident was a mistake but definately not unfortunate (the Americans made what they felt was an informed choice), sadly the innocents did not get to make a choice. I do not sympathise with those involved other than suggesting that they did make a mistake and that mistakes may increase with diversified combat conditions. I tried to demonstrate that changing key parameters in the incident could drastically change the way in which the incident is viewed (hence asking what would happen if he did in fact have a RPG).

This war is nothing like world war I where you knew your enemy was on the other side of the hole. Its much more complex than that. We're doing both sides an injustice by sticking this one out but are far to proud to admit we've failed.

 

[darkendless]

At least you have an idea of why your country got invovled. I have no idea whatsoever other than the fact that coalition governements were all promised a share of the financial spoils.

If thats a valid reason to go to war we might as well invade New Zealand for spanking us at rugby.

 

[Bismillah]

kai: hope you are well

They described them as taking aim at US troops nearby( mistakenly this was with a camera) in fact the US troops were under fire before, during and after this incident

No, in the video he clearly indicates that these men were shooting at friendlies on the ground.

Well thats a moral question of how many shots do you take at a enemy? and dont forget its an automatic weapon.

This is not an isolated instance of questioning how many shots you take against a wounded and dead men. We are questioning the intentions and motives of these men. This is part of my skepticism. The gun managed to disable or kill every insurgent. Even IF they had any hostile intentions they were not able to carry them out. Then there was a second round of bullets. Followed by a third. The CO asked for a damage assessment and was ignored in favor of another round of bullets. Pretty significant.

You are surmising they are civilians when in fact its an armed group and several weapons were recovered from the scene AK47s and RPGs

After the killings one ak47 and one RPG was found. Factor in the two cameras as any "mistaken" judgement call labeling them as weapons. That still leaves eight unarmed men. Is it fair to kill two unarmed men for a man who is a possible threat.

No one can ! all the weapons crew statements say that they were extracting insurgents and weapons though and theres only two options they are lying or mistaken and all are well aware the incident is being filmed from a camera so lying is not really an option unless you are unaware of the camera.

It is a pretty BIG mistake to say that a person is loading multiple weapons and bodies when they are aiding a man. Furthermore when someone makes such a mistake they normally correct themselves. Lying is a the obvious option because I can only assume that the soldier lied to gain permission to fire.

This in conjunction with similar pleas to pick up a weapon directed at a dead man and their reactions to the dead men in the street.

Again this weapon is not single shot abd the weapons crew had to make sure the van was disabled.

I realize this isn't a single shot weapon. There are multiple pauses and then the gun engages again and again. A lot of overkill as the first round of bullets would have certainly destroyed the vehicle and killed or maimed all the occupants helping the dying man.

They did not know it was a taxi . what they did think was, it was the same vehicle that had been moving insurgents around the area that morning

One, people hinted that the men in the taxi had ulterior motives and sighted that the taxi was sighted before on video. This intiself is sickening because it suggests that the men who rushed to the aid of a dying man "deserved" what they got.

Second, this is a residential neighborhood. Soldiers should know better than to engage every civilian vehicle and kill its occupants. Like I said they did not hesitate in engaging the vehicle one bit, in fact the lied about the situation to gain permission to fire.

Callousness does not have national boundaries and Kathryn did offer an explanation

Callousness does not describe nor pardon the apparent eagerness to engage and kill Iraqis without discretion. These men were decided on engaging the troops prior to any possible indication of hostilities.

Insurgents were engaging US troops all morning from may directions these guys were an armed group near a ground element and were thought to present a danger, not to the Apaches but to the ground troops

They had decided to engage the men on the street before the journalist rounded the corner and took a picture of the humvee. As in, they were determined to kill these men from what had been presented. Up to that time they had id'd 4 possible militants and eight unarmed men. From their demeanor and actions they were passively walking down a street.

This decision in that light is absolutely condemnable.

 

[Bismillah]

Essentially these two points are what I surmise from the situation.

In the video the pilot decides to engage these men before they spot any American troops. That is, they are classified as a threat just from their actions of walking down a street.

The pilot lies about the actions of the van to get permission to fire. He then opens fire on men aiding a dying man on a street.

These two points above clearly demonstrate to me that they had already concluded in their minds that they would shoot and kill these group of men. This later extended to civilians who aided the men in the area.

This sprinkled with the perverse joy they seemed to find in these killings and the fact that the army did lie about what happened clearly shows that they themselves knew that they are at fault. The army lied that they had been shooting at troops, repeated from the original lie that the pilot made who stated that these men were shooting at U.S troops.

Thus I can conclude that this is more than just a tragic accident. The soldiers were clearly at fault for murdering civilians. They had continuously lied about the situation and failed to wait for any indication that these men or the civilians in the van were hostile. These types of rash decisions that intentionally, or unintentionally, leads to the deaths of people unrelated to the war must go punished.

 

[dallas1125]

Imagine if they did have an RPG though, no one would think twice about it.

They did have rpg's, and a loaded one was found nearby.

 

[darkendless]

They did have rpg's, and a loaded one was found nearby.

Iraq is full of weapons. I bet you could use that excuse to blow up a market place of women and children.

I did not see an RPG on the video.

 

[Bismillah]

They did have rpg's, and a loaded one was found nearby.

Irrelevant

 

[dallas1125]

Irrelevant

And Why?

 

[dallas1125]

Iraq is full of weapons. I bet you could use that excuse to blow up a market place of women and children.

I did not see an RPG on the video.

Report from the D.O.D. on the situation: Link

 

[Bismillah]

And Why?

Because the murder of the men on the street and those in the van was separate from that particular weapon. As in it played no part in the decision making process of killing those men.

 

[dallas1125]

Because the murder of the men on the street and those in the van was separate from that particular weapon. As in it played no part in the decision making process of killing those men.

Yes, when it came to the van. But it is a factor when engaging at the beginning before the van arrived.

 

[Bismillah]

Yes, when it came to the van. But it is a factor when engaging at the beginning before the van arrived.

The weapons really weren't much of a factor in that process.

 

[dallas1125]

The weapons really weren't much of a factor in that process.

Yes they where, they identified guns and decided to engage.

 

[kai]

Yes they where, they identified guns and decided to engage.

Unfortunately people are just not reading the thread! which pretty much makes it impossible to have a conversation if people arnt interested in the facts.

 

[kai]

Iraq is full of weapons. I bet you could use that excuse to blow up a market place of women and children.

I did not see an RPG on the video.

There are AKs and at least one RPG quite clearly in the video.