Collateral murder

[Mahone]

WikiLeaks - look at the video under collateral murder. Make of it what you will. Personally I found some of the comments by military personnel pretty disgusting.

**Beware there are a couple of colourful words used** - there isn't really a lot I can do about that. You have been warned.

See another website regarding this here: Collateral Murder

[Just_A_Guy]

The attitudes expressed by the US forces are disturbing, but frankly are inevitable in wartime. I don't know if we can realistically expect our soldiers to not gloat over the killing of people they honestly believe to be bad guys, after they've spent the last five years getting shot at.

I wish Wikileaks had been more even-handed, though. Sending Iraqi civilians to an Iraqi hospital for treatment sounds pretty reasonable, and taking the kids back to base would have just given rise to accusations of "eliminating witnesses". And the latter half of the shortened video basically hints that because its editors, knowing what they were looking for, were able to identify kids inside a vehicle through highly magnified imagery after an undisclosed length of time spent in analysis; that the guys in the helicopter should have been able to do likewise immediately.

Ugh, all around.

[rameumptom]

I just read a study, where they determined that those "innocent" people were walking with AK47s and RPGs in their group. WikiLeaks intentionally did not mention it, nor point them out, as they did the cameras. When you are being shot at, and you find a group of people that are carrying RPGs, you are going to automatically think that these people are part of the problem and need to be eliminated.

Isn't it amazing how video can be tainted? They show you what to look at, but expect you to ignore the man behind the curtain?

IOW, the military did their things. They admitted a couple of journalists were killed in the firefight. However, WikiLeaks is not being forthright with all the information, because they obviously have an agenda they wish to push.

Military: Brutal WikiLeaks video of shooting death of Reuters journalist in Iraq lacks context

[Just_A_Guy]

Thanks, Rameumptom. Just came upon this, as well.

[Mahone]

Originally Posted by Just_A_Guy

The attitudes expressed by the US forces are disturbing, but frankly are inevitable in wartime. I don't know if we can realistically expect our soldiers to not gloat over the killing of people they honestly believe to be bad guys, after they've spent the last five years getting shot at.

This is what I have issues with. Of course these things happen in war. I would expect soldiers to have the ability to desensitize themselves to what they have to do each day. But this team honestly seemed to find it fairly amusing, one of them laughed as they drove over one of the (presumably dead, but this was not confirmed) bodies (and they really didn't see the body before they drove over it?). They also laughed when they confirmed they had shot right through the windscreen. This should be something they have to do, not something they actually get some amusement out of doing. I just can't justify that in my own mind at all.

[Just_A_Guy]

Originally Posted by Mahone

. . . one of them laughed as they drove over one of the (presumably dead, but this was not confirmed) bodies (and they really didn't see the body before they drove over it?).

Mahone, I agree with your sentiments, but let's keep this factual. Did the longer video have an audio feed from the guys in the tank? The short video, IIRC, only had audio from the helicopters several hundred yards away.

Painting American troops as demons who laugh as they drive tanks over dead bodies may be gratifying to certain individuals, but it's also horribly inaccurate.

[Mahone]

Originally Posted by Just_A_Guy

Mahone, I agree with your sentiments, but let's keep this factual. Did the longer video have an audio feed from the guys in the tank? The short video, IIRC, only had audio from the helicopters several hundred yards away.

Not that I could tell. I'm assuming some of the audio was from them, but at that particular point, no.

Originally Posted by Just_A_Guy

Painting American troops as demons who laugh as they drive tanks over dead bodies may be gratifying to certain individuals, but it's also horribly inaccurate.

That is inaccurate. However if you modify what you just said so it reads:

<snip> American troops as demons who laugh as their colleagues drive tanks over dead bodies <snip>

There is evidence to suggest that in this particular case, that is true.

[Wingnut]

I saw this video last summer, which is a different perspective. It's raw combat footage from an Apache.

[Godless]

The video is taking forever to load, so I'm afraid I won't be watching it. I have some remarks based on what I've read so far though.

Coping with the stress of a combat environment is tough. And yes, we as soldiers occasionally find humor in things that would make many people jump out of their skin. I've laughed after taking small arms fire and after having close encounters with roadside bombs. Panicking doesn't do you any good, so you might was well laugh about it (unless someone gets hurt, then the reaction is considerably different). Yes, we get desensitized to the horrors of war, and yes, it's a terrible thing. But that's what allows us to do our jobs without letting ourselves be hampered by stress and fear.

Again, I haven't watched the video. It sounds like it has some anti-war bias. And based on what I've seen from pajamasmedia, I think it's a safe bet that JAG's link has some bias of its own (though it did seem to be the more reasonable of the two). This doesn't mean that there's no truth on either side, but it's important to distinguish truth from spin.

"But this team honestly seemed to find it fairly amusing" Mahone

Yes, that's the problem there.

There will always be some situations in war that are criminal. For those cases there is military justice (as there is for the Navy Seals who went too far and will soon face a court martial in Iraq) but it doesn't mean that every soldier is a criminal. And there will from time to time also be these other cases where a court martial may not be warranted but its clear to (almost) everyone that its, at very minimum, immorally behavior.

I certainly don't think that these situation will always be inevitable in wartime since most soldiers try to do the right thing.