[IRAQ] US Forces with an example of "Collateral Damage"

I would agree with you on this if this took place during real war, we are fighting an insurgency and we need to show more restraint in our rules of engagement.

 

I don't blame the soldiers at all. If I was in that situation, I'd rather "risk" killing 15 people who might be innocent than risk one of my side getting shot because I let them down.

 

The guys were holding ****ing cameras, not weapons.

Wake the F up

 

<br>
Can you provide a link to something that proves this?

And I don't mean the military recruits who sit in offices/base camps. I really want to know about the actual soldiers who are fighting. I am sure with the amount of engineers/tech specialists/doctors in the military it's true. But, those aren't the ones who are actually killing...

 

What side? Humans?

 

At the 3:40 mark it looked like AK's to me.

 

Whichever army you're fighting for.

 

That's some really sad stuff.

You know what would be helpful.. is to see what someone actually carrying an RPG or AK-47 would look like from a helicopter.

Obviously those guys thought they saw what they thought they saw... but such a waste.

 

I am unaware of a breakdown by MOS. The statistics I've seen are people who enlist and sign a contract with the army. Considering combat troops make up the vast majority of the total numbers, I have a hard time believing that the overall average could be that different from the subset, but I can't prove it.

 

What a joke.

So within what seems to be probably in less than 30 minutes the military gets the grand idea of murdering 15+ innocent beings.

How can you possibly have enough justification for killing these people when you never verbally talked to them or made contact at all.

They simply open fired on a group of people without any knowledge of what the hell they were doing.

Next they try and do a cover-up that fails.....

Seriously I'm all for saluting our troops and military, but when they make unjustified killings and decide the lives of innocent civilians with non existent evidence then what the **** is going on over there.

In America that is flat out murder.

 

Sad, I guess the reporter was destined to die. There's no way he knew he was being watched and probably didn't suspect his camera looked like a AK-47 in grainy black and white. It's just F'ed up.

 

I'm sorry but the blame is on the reporters here.

Don't embed with unidentified guys walking down the street wielding AK 47s in a warzone. Don't walk around with large metal tubes, lay on the ground and point it horizontally, and expect your camera not to be mistaken for an RPG. Look at 4:07 in the video, that's exactly what happens.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5rXPrfnU3G0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5rXPrfnU3G0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

You can't expect some soldier to even consider for a second that some guy walking around in a warzone might be a reporter laying on the ground with a giant camera lens. That's just dumb.

It was identified as a legitimate potential threat, and it was eliminated.

 

"All you gotta do is pick up a weapon" in reference to the wounded reporter trying to crawl away to safety.

"Come on. Let us shoot!" in reference to the van coming to pick up the wounded reporter.

"Oh yeah, look at that! Right through the windshield! Ha ha!"

"Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle. - That's right."

This video made me cry about 3-4 minutes in. Wish I hadn't watched it.

 

Also, how can you say the blame is ON THE REPORTERS? Are you ****ing kidding me with that garbage?

 

Shocked. Just shocked. Not really. Something similar has happend hundreds of times. Doesn't make any difference if it was someone firing a tank, one of our numerous fighters or bombers, a drone whatever. This is what happens when you set out to start elective wars. This is why the Iraq was immoral and, whatever the initial justication, so is Afghanistan as it continutes 7 or is it 8 years later.

This is why the only thing that keeps Bush, Cheney, Powell and the others out of the Hague is that the US did not lose totally in a military sense.

 

So basically the killings of 15+ were justified because they had a rifle in public?

The fact that the Military killed these people with no substantial evidence against them is staggering.

Grats on murdering 15 people because a few people walked around with a gun.

Did the military ever make contact with these people to see what was going on ?
Nope

Did they even think of an alternative besides opening fire ? Nope

Did they have justified reasoning for killing 15+ ? Nope

Did they ever even give these people a chance ? Nope

Terrible choices were made.

 

Why get specific now? DB Worzel said those given guns. That would mean most of the military, not just ground troops. Its an insult to the forces in general.

As for the video it did look like the guy peeping around the corner had an RPG. Too bad those soldiers didn't have the captions. That could have saved a lot of heartache.

If everything on this video is on the level, its sad. Like some of you have posted, I think the cover up is disturbing, but I can see why they do it. It unfortunately makes it that much worse if it comes to light.

I also agree with the point that it only takes a bad apple to make everyone look bad.

 

You can't blame the reporters if there was a rifle or two in the group surrounding them. Everyone owns a freakin' rifle in Iraq. Secondly, these guys are just strolling along. The group of men clearly don't look like they are fighting or engaging anyone in combat but to someone who is looking for an excuse to shoot people, they only see an alternate reality that enables them to justify pulling the trigger on their machine guns.

 

These guys wanted to kill people, they enjoyed killing those people, they chuckled and joked about it.

There is nothing honorable or justifiable about any of this.

disgusting, absolutely disgusting

 

If you don't mind me asking..

What did you save it from?

If you are referring to 9/11... Don't you think the stronger defensive security measures in addition to freezing of accounts (basically everything non-physical war) achieved the objective?

Now that Al Qaeda is allegedly cornered.. Don't you think another group is in formation somewhere, to which you are paying no attention and which is feeding off these wars?

I disagree that it was done to save the country. The country needed to do things (read intelligence reports better maybe and strengthen its borders and improve foreign relations - maybe a few key sanctions). That would have solved the problems immediately. The war on the ground was revenge in Afghanistan and, imo, oil in Iraq. There are/were far worse dictators than Saddam Hussein in Iraq to which the US is paying no attention at all. Why isn't the US inside North Korea right now? Why did it attack Iraq and not Iran, when Iran is the country threatning its allies? How convenient is it that Iraq will become a US ally which sits between the Levant region and Iran?