get yer tinfoil out
- Thread starter jonKranked
- Start date
wikileaks, sounds like an STD.
I'm experiencing a viscous leaky from my little wiki.
I agree.
I agree.
So are there any details or backup for this claim?
a lot of the info was sourced from their twitter account(s). I guess we'll see in 2 weeks.
I wonder if anything will actually happen... 
Those guys looked like they did have weapons, especially an RPG. A series of marginal decisions maybe but I couldn't say that it was the soldiers committing murder. Those who made the decision to go to war on the other hand...
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It's never murder when you gun down a guy named "Saaed" or whatever the camel humpers name is.
Besides which, the guy in the helicopter was scared. And he's an American, his life is worth at least 1000x more than the going rate on an Iraqi or two. ****, we didn't care when a couple of Guard pilots hopped up on amphetamines dropped bombs on Canadian soldiers a couple of years ago in Afghanistan, so I doubt this is going anywhere.
Besides which, the guy in the helicopter was scared. And he's an American, his life is worth at least 1000x more than the going rate on an Iraqi or two. ****, we didn't care when a couple of Guard pilots hopped up on amphetamines dropped bombs on Canadian soldiers a couple of years ago in Afghanistan, so I doubt this is going anywhere.
As soon as I read that, a little voice in my head said "Canadian Mist"
*wince*
That's nasty stuff. If you must, Gibson's is decent.
Install FlashGot and just let the download manager download locally - http://flashgot.net/
Reason #1,247 to shoot with Canon over Nikon: White L lenses look less like an RPG or AK-47.
Jeez, I'm not *as* bothered by the shooting (initial or even follow-up) but rather the cover-up and the insistent denial that any civilians were killed... Yes, these things happen in war. But when you show up and find nothing but a blown-to-pieces D3 and a 400mm lens, it's time to own up to your mistake.
No but the download manager uses less resources than the flash VM...its only function is file transfer.
Joe Helicopter gunner doesn't care. Them ragheads have paint, dontcha know?
hmmm...so now ROE include being "provoked"? i was not aware of the sweeping changes in 2007 (since rescinded, obviously) to a theater of war.
so what's the real dust-up all about? the pentagon not wanting to release video to be used as propaganda about killing bad guys, incl reuters fotogs attempting to generate propaganda?
and this is the height of chutzpah:
Q: america?
A: fcuk yeah
so what's the real dust-up all about? the pentagon not wanting to release video to be used as propaganda about killing bad guys, incl reuters fotogs attempting to generate propaganda?
and this is the height of chutzpah:
i missed the red crescent emblem on the jafar & the pussycats van
Q: america?
A: fcuk yeah
must be the most watched vid right this instant. Doesnt even want to load one single sliver of red 
Did you just happen to miss the official Pentagon report?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?_r=2NYTimes said:
The military was flat out lying about what happened, and now there's video proof of that. Oooops.
"indiscriminate slaying?" (per the Wikileaks lead-in...) They were highly discriminatory. Incorrect, but highly discriminatory.
Dante, from what I understand, Coalition forces were engaged at this time. Just not with these guys in particular. But when there's an engagement going on and guys moving down the street with guns, you don't wait until someone's shooting at you. Edit to add: I'd need more context before deciding if the spokesman was full of ****.
****ing gut-wrenching to watch when you know the helo is wrong, but honestly, if I watched it without knowing the outcome, I'd have thought it was the right thing to do.
Dante, from what I understand, Coalition forces were engaged at this time. Just not with these guys in particular. But when there's an engagement going on and guys moving down the street with guns, you don't wait until someone's shooting at you. Edit to add: I'd need more context before deciding if the spokesman was full of ****.
****ing gut-wrenching to watch when you know the helo is wrong, but honestly, if I watched it without knowing the outcome, I'd have thought it was the right thing to do.
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I said I wasn't as bothered by the killing as I was by the cover-up that followed. Judging by the response time that it took US forces to get to the area I highly doubt that there was a firefight taking place right around the corner. If there was, no doubt these helicopters would be focusing on that aspect, instead of on the dozen guys walking down the street. From my perspective, the helicopters were circling the area looking for threats, and mistook these guys for militants. Fine, these things happen in war time. What's *NOT* ok is after the (one-sided) firefight, after the GIs come in and find zero weapons, zero militants, etc, that the Pentagon comes out and clearly states that it was a pitched battle between militants and the US Army. I haven't seen any official reports that directly contradict that statement, have you? Until I do, I'll maintain that the biggest issue is the cover-up, NOT the actual shooting.
c'mon dude, i don't want to have to throw in your face your stmt last week about "liberals are smarter b/c they look at all the facts" or whatever that was. the nyt article you quoted said:
do you thing these armed guys were doing their own routine patrols, or do you think they were looking for trouble?
apache crew isn't sent out to just orbit, looking for ways to calm their raging hard-ons for iraqi blood. if they loiter, it's by request.
also, in the article we have this curious nugget:
my understanding from the video is there were no surviving "people at the scene", unless farooq was hiding in his felafel stand off-camera w/ clear view
I agree with you that the response wasn't good, PR- or other- wise.
But we don't know the situation on the ground. Perhaps this helicopter was tasked with screening the flank of a unit or a patrol in contact, or even one not in contact, and they see guys with [what they reasonably believe to be] weapons, moving in that direction.
Perhaps not. But to say the spokesperson who talks about units in contact is flat-out lying is too big of a leap.
But we don't know the situation on the ground. Perhaps this helicopter was tasked with screening the flank of a unit or a patrol in contact, or even one not in contact, and they see guys with [what they reasonably believe to be] weapons, moving in that direction.
Perhaps not. But to say the spokesperson who talks about units in contact is flat-out lying is too big of a leap.
So, what you're saying is: The video doesn't tell the whole story?
Didn't see that one coming...
true, they could have been out trail-building & were just mitigating the cougar threat
Yeah, I'd have figured that you guys could realize that on your own by this point.
But as far as sharing what the guys in the helo saw, heard, and did, this is about a good a vid as you can get. Perhaps, however, you can tell me how the vid lets us see the larger picture of what was going on on the ground.
Which armed guys, the ones with the cameras slung over their shoulders?
Riiiight, because the units on the units that were called in to check up on this replied "we'd love to come and check that out, but we're currently involved in a firefight with militants..."
You mean "survivors" like the two wounded children who are rushed from the scene? It's an urban setting, of course there are going to be witnesses, it's not like a video game where you're fighting on empty deserted streets.
Well, all it tells us is that the official Pentagon story about 9 militants (and 2 journalists) being killed is full of sh!t. That's enough for me...
did you miss the guy w/ the rpg launcher crouched by the corner of the bldg, or are you being obtuse? it sure didn't help when the pilot/observer [incorrectly] assumed the fotog was armed. and then later in the video - i assume you watched it up to this point - when the gunner/observer commented "please pick it up..."
what do you think he was referring to? his lens cover? he wanted to light him up while following ROE
more in-depth analysis here: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201878.php
now you're wandering from the article/report. if you have any basis for this, it's odd no one but you is in possession of these facts. add to that how strange it is you assume the pilots have blood lust (as "evidenced" by asking permission to engage?), while these gents on the ground were - what? - out for a stroll? you don't bother at all to cast any aspersion at all toward them. telling, indeed.
do you find it unreasonable to determine these gents in this scenario as hostiles, esp given this was during the climate of rampant IED placements? i highly doubt these were pollsters commissioned by the lancet to do random sampling of shia/sunni population
they survived? what can i say - we're not perfect [<-- yes, that was sarc]
btw, i find black sabbath's "symptom of the universe" to be the best soundtrack for this video. "war pigs" was too on-the-nose, apart from being haraam
I forgot to bring this up when I saw it previously, but seems as good a place as any:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/gen_mcchrystal_weve_shot_an_amazing_number_of_peop.php
"We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there's danger, they're asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it."
He continued: "That doesn't mean I'm criticizing the people who are executing. I'm just giving you perspective. We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."
God forbid we ever criticize the people who do the executing...that would be wrong.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/04/gen_mcchrystal_weve_shot_an_amazing_number_of_peop.php
"We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there's danger, they're asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it."
He continued: "That doesn't mean I'm criticizing the people who are executing. I'm just giving you perspective. We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."
God forbid we ever criticize the people who do the executing...that would be wrong.
made the main page of CNN...
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/04/05/iraq.photographers.killed/index.html?hpt=C1
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/04/05/iraq.photographers.killed/index.html?hpt=C1