Cameras = AK47s and RPGs

[CrimsonNuker]

[CeLL]

i cant see the video, but im assuming its old.

[cpinney]

bad link brah

[kontroversy]

The URL contained a malformed video ID.

Almost cool.

[EvGa]

Old, already posted and discussed here. This will turn into a shit storm.

To start the flaming: They did find RPGs and AK47's at the scene. However, the ID'd RPG was a camera. Journalists were embedded with insurgents.

[Gladiator_RN]

old

[McLovin1t]

its old.

[Aventuris]

Old, but still terrible. Funny how the American National Defence Officer just gathers excuses: "I don't think there is a clear violation of international law". Just shows how unfair and retarded war is.

[.AWAKE.]

those innocent people shouldnt of been hanging around insurgents...

[kontroversy]

I guess terrorists are bad for your health.

[Jstar1]

yeah I remember someone posting the actual footage of the entire video from the helicopter. its their fault for hanging around insurgents and peeking around corners like that, they deserved it. Why the hell would you peek out of a corner like that at the helicopter that is hovering up there.

[EvGa]

It's not even so much the peeking around the corner or the appearance of an RPG. It's a list of circumstances leading up to the event:

-Ground troops in the area.
-Ground troops in the area receive small arms and RPG fire.
-Group of men spotted that appear to be carrying RPGs (camera, but later there WAS an RPG found at the scene) and AK47s (confirmed true)
-Iraqi men carrying AK47s, RPGs, and being in very close proximity to ground troops that have been fired upon be those exact weapons by those exact kind of people = target sited.
-Engaged.
-Shit, camera men were with the insurgents.
-The end.

Oh, I left out the part where the chopper engages the van that had children in it. Again, given the circumstances and what appeared to be happening, they had every right to engage the van that appeared to be insurgents trying to help other insurgents.

[Jstar1]

^you take that kind of logic and you still have people accusing military killing innocent civilians without any thought.

and wasn't it wikileaks that posted this first? I hate them

[Skyve]

old

[EvGa]

^you take that kind of logic and you still have people accusing military killing innocent civilians without any thought.

and wasn't it wikileaks that posted this first? I hate them

No, that kind of logic works in a war zone.

The apache killed a group of insurgents.

There happened to be journalists embedded with them.

Not much else to the story.

Not sticking to that kind of logic gets soldiers killed.

[Heosphoros]

I classify this as murder.

[EvGa]

I classify this as murder.

Why didn't you read the thread?

[Heosphoros]

I classify this as murder.

Why didn't you read the thread?

I did, and its just an opinion. I don't believe in killing civilians, regardless if their around insurgents.

[EvGa]

I classify this as murder.

Why didn't you read the thread?

I did, and its just an opinion. I don't believe in killing civilians, regardless if their around insurgents.

o.O Um, I don't think many people, or anyone here, believes in killing civilians. The fact of the matter is: They are in a war zone. There is no way to differentiate civilians from insurgents in a group like that. You can say: "Um guys, please...bad guys to the left, good guys to the right. Thank you." Given the situation (like I posted earlier) the gunner had every reason to assume everyone in that group was a bad guy. Are you forgetting this happened in a war zone?

[Heosphoros]

o.O Um, I don't think many people, or anyone here, believes in killing civilians. The fact of the matter is: They are in a war zone. There is no way to differentiate civilians from insurgents in a group like that. You can say: "Um guys, please...bad guys to the left, good guys to the right. Thank you." Given the situation (like I posted earlier) the gunner had every reason to assume everyone in that group was a bad guy. Are you forgetting this happened in a war zone?

Should we just gun down entire cities of people then? Insurgents are among them too. As you said theirs no clear cut way of knowing whose who, especially in an environment where the very enemy we're fighting is among the general population. They should be much more strict with regulations before opening fire on groups of "supposed" insurgents, because as this incident clearly showed, not all of them were. And I'm not sure if you watched the whole video, but for the most part from what I could see the soldiers in the Apache looked almost eager to kill these people, laughing and chuckling at each other. Is that how a soldier is suppose to act after gunning down a dozen or so humans. Are you forgetting that these are still human beings we're dealing with.

[0l3n]

Fine, I can understand engaging the first group of people, they were acting suspicious and it did look like they had weapons (as apparantly they did, mind linking your source EvGa?)

But firing on the van and especially the building was just BS. The people in the van didnt look like insurgents they look like people who just found a shot and bleeding man crawling on the street.
And because a guy with a gun walks into a building you blow it up? No questions asked?

And on a last note, I get why the guys are acting like they are, well I dont get it but I can sort of understand. That doesnt mean that they SHOULD act like that, they dont have an shred of respect for human life. They WANT to kill theese people, and they are having fun doing so. It should be something that you have to do to save lives not because its fun, the guy ran over a man for christs sake and laughed at it.
If they cant handle it over there then send them home!

Porly worded I know but you should get the point.

[Toasty]

They shouldn't have shot the van.. simple.

Why shoot a van picking up bodies (they could see they weren't picking up any guns)? All they wanted was some fun with the gun. You could tell that from the subtitles.

Too many retarded soldiers in the military.

[EvGa]

I'll have to make this extremely quick, I have class then a long day away from my pc so I won't be able to make a proper reply or link my sources (I have them, they are in the previous thread about this). May not reply thoroughly until tomorrow.

Heo, the pilots remarks may seem questionable, but how are they suppose to act? They kill humans for a living. They (in their mind at the time) had just killed a threat to their fellow troops and friends on the ground. They do this ALL the time, of course they are going to become desensitized, they have to.

Toasty, not killing a van full of insurgents coming to pickup and repair other insurgents is not very good strategy. You, and the soldiers, know full well that they would just patch them up and send them back out to fight. You guys are forgetting the circumstances at the time of the engagement and instead are judging their actions on the intel that was gathered AFTER the fact. At the time of engaging the van they appeared to be more insurgents trying to pick the scene of recoverable men and ammo. It wasn't until later that they discovered it was a friendly.

More later! Cheers!

[Fiction]

Pretty much in complete agreement with EvGa. The pilots' demeanor was more of a coping mechanism than it was enjoyment. They are going to have to live with this for the rest of their lives and think about it at least once a night as they try to get sleep... War isn't pretty, and it really isn't fair, but compared to other military forces, the U.S.A has probably one of the more merciful. You shoot at the Chinese or Russians, you'll be lucky if they don't kill your family as well as you. Honestly you should be thankful there are men and women willing to go to war, so you don't have to. They risk everything(literally everything) and all for the love of their country and a small chuck of change. You are so quick to criticize, yet you've never been in a war zone or probably never even had a gun fired in your direction.. Also, they didn't just roll up on a group of ppl with their Apaches and start unloading. Shit if you are riding in a hum-v, before you can engage an enemy shooting at you with small arms you have to get the go ahead from your ranking officer. So there was plenty of red tape these pilots had to go through before engaging.

[tweaklizer]

Are you in my film studies class?
We watched this today and we had to do represtation on it, and their recritment video....

+ i think its sick how they are begging to fire at the van..

[Jstar1]

its really easy to accuse the gunners of being murderers from the safety of sitting at home. The situation soldiers face in a war zone is a lot different than what you think they are in

[[SD]Master_Wong]

im not into conspiricys but i do find it weird that the wiki leaks guy is now wanted for all these different things considering what his site does just seems strange to me

[Zing]

I don't know about every soldier (although I'm sure this happens to a lot of servicemen) but I've talked to a marine once and he told me that there's been instances where he wanted to fight but couldn't due to complications (i.e. can't shoot because verification isn't cleared) and his chance to do something becomes voided. The issue with the Apache crewman wanting the wounded man to pick up a weapon was so he could he pull the trigger could be the same issue as with the marine I had talked to. These guys could have been around situations where they wanted to do something but couldn't. Those sort of restrictions can cause a lot of compressed energy which is released in this sort of fervor when adrenaline is on.

I'm not passing judgment on the behavior, but it'd be good to understand why specific behaviors are induced to begin with. From my current knowledge, it's pretty normal to see this sort of personality in war.

[McLovin1t]

I classify this as murder.

I did, and its just an opinion. I don't believe in killing civilians, regardless if their around insurgents.

o.O Um, I don't think many people, or anyone here, believes in killing civilians.

Lol'd.
Heosphoros, u trollin?

[/Pi]

The original thread had 8 pages. Whatever point that's going to be brought up in this thread have most likely been argued already:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=120988