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Classified US military video depicting slaying of civilians

Discussion in 'General Discussion Forum' started by Arr0nax, Apr 6, 2010.

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  1. Shoveler

    Shoveler Still Mildly Glowing

    214
    Nov 8, 2007
    I have to laugh at some of the comments here such as "bloodthirsty". Stupidity at it's finest, if just shooting civilians was all these guys had in mind then there are about 22 million targets (maybe 8-9 less after this one) all over Iraq and they could go hog wild up there. Fact is usually they fly for hours and hours with NO TARGETS, and NO SHOOTING what-so-ever. Bloodthirsty, please. They waited for, and got permission to fire, repeatedly. And if military personnel cussing/cursing offends your sensibilities then you must not get out much. Stick to your G rated movies, and leave the wars to the people that have to fight 'em.

    In addition, I'm surprised they used such restraint, they were operating under the assumption that they were insurgents, a couple rockets for good measure probably would have been fine too. It's a warzone, there are no uniforms on the other side, as long as one army dresses like civilians, this will happen. It's up to the Iraqi people to take back their country now from the insurgents (doing an okay job passed couple years). Turn em all in, stop aiding, stop harboring them.
     
    Shoveler, Apr 6, 2010
    #41
  2. Sander

    Sander This ghoul has seen it all
     Staff Member Admin Orderite

    18,831
    Jul 5, 2003
    The troops in Iraq and Afghanistan face relatively heavy resistance from what I know. And the criticism of the UN and NATO forces has often been that they don't have enoug leeway to get things done and use force, which leads to things like the Srebrenica massacre.

    Also, you're just going off impressions. You're saying that you're sure the other armies do a better job, but how do you know this?

    Yeah, that's not what happened here.
     
    Sander, Apr 6, 2010
    #42
  3. Shoveler

    Shoveler Still Mildly Glowing

    214
    Nov 8, 2007
    Arronax,

    UN & Nato troops care more about human life?


    Look this up, I'll let you learn on your own:
    Srebrenica Massacre

    Those troops could have stopped it, it may have cost them their lives, but they could have stopped it. So gimme a break with that EU, UN, NATO superiority bull.

    EDIT: Sander you and I thinking a like on this one it seems. Reference to the massacre
     
    Shoveler, Apr 6, 2010
    #43
  4. Arr0nax

    Arr0nax A Smooth-Skin

    624
    Oct 30, 2009
    Because of the fucking body count.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
    That's how you measure how fucked up an uncalled for war is. And how important every single death is.
    Excuse me ? We don't even know if there was weapons. But we do know a dozen have been killed because two people in the pack were supposedly armed. So that give us a 10% ratio, which means you basically kill ten more people, including children, than those that *could* have represented a menace because they were armed.
    If you justify this, you can justify any killings, hence what I said : the ROE basically allows you to kill everyone in case you need to.

    Also, I googled Srebrenica massacre and it seem to have been perpetrated by the serbian army. I don't see how it's related to the seriousness of current NATO and UN army corps.
     
    Arr0nax, Apr 6, 2010
    #44
  5. Shoveler

    Shoveler Still Mildly Glowing

    214
    Nov 8, 2007
    Arronax, it's easily related, there were hundreds of NATO/UN troops there, they literally stood by and watched the carnage. Nice work.


    RandomDude: No, they were there to keep the peace, they failed miserably, and tens of thousands died for it. It must have been hell for them to sit there and drink their coffee listening to women get raped in the background and the men shot in the distance. Just hell for those poor UN/NATO troops.
     
    Shoveler, Apr 6, 2010
    #45
  6. RandomDude

    RandomDude First time out of the vault

    34
    Mar 18, 2010
    They where in the wrong position in the wrong time.
     
    RandomDude, Apr 6, 2010
    #46
  7. Professor Danger!

    Professor Danger! Where'd That 6th Toe Come From?

    421
    Aug 30, 2009
    What country do you live in? Fantasy Land? People murder people. People die by accident. Some people are innocent, others aren't. That's how the world is. The same goes with war. Some people live, others die. Sometimes a big bad guy is killed, sometimes innocents are. But that fact that you're getting all up in arms about something in which the soldiers showed restraint and followed orders instead of wildly murdering people like you seem to want people to think is kinda ridiculous.

    And the fact that you think war can EVER be non-existent in this world is utterly ridiculous. Maybe if there was one country that existed an no-others. Wait, nevermind. There's always civil wars.

    You cannot eliminate war from society.

    Actually, explain how you would do it. I'm sure there will be a Nobel Prize waiting for you when you've finished.
     
    Professor Danger!, Apr 6, 2010
    #47
  8. Sander

    Sander This ghoul has seen it all
     Staff Member Admin Orderite

    18,831
    Jul 5, 2003
    So how does that body count measure up to other wars? How are the situations comparable or incomparable?
    Okay, you need to understand a couple of things. First, a group of people who obviously belong with eachother and walk around seemingly with weapons in open view is different from just two people with weapons. This is a tough situation, yes, but if soldiers see a threat, they're supposed to stop that threat. And you cannot allow those troops to be stopped because maybe not all of those people are armed. Those people are associating with hostile targets.

    Second, they did not just start shooting at random. They had been shot at previously, so they were on alert. They saw people walking with what seemed to be weapons. They then contacted their superiors for permission to open fire, and did not fire until they got that permissions. The same thing happened with the van.

    This isn't the 'Oh hey civilians let's shoot them' incident you seem to want to make of it.

    A Dutch NATO taskforce was present to protect the civilians, but they were under orders to not use their weapons, were given very little support and could not properly defend the civilians present.

    Yeah, this is not what happened either. Most of those men are now severely traumatised because they had to stand by and could not do anything. They were effectively captured and imprisoned by the Serbian army. This wasn't a case of troops standing by and just ignoring the crimes.
     
    Sander, Apr 6, 2010
    #48
  9. Arr0nax

    Arr0nax A Smooth-Skin

    624
    Oct 30, 2009
    I'm not intending to minimize the importance of the massacre, but I still don't see how you can extrapolate about the seriousness of NATO and UN corps, their eagerness to kill, etc...
    You're basically saying me that they too do mistakes. But I'm not fighting over isolated mistakes, I'm saying idiocy and devaluation of human life became structural in the current wars fought by the US army. This is not about an isolated event, this is about a fucked up situation, fucked up principles and rules that tainted several years of wars, killed a hundred thousands civillians for no reason whatsoever.
     
    Arr0nax, Apr 6, 2010
    #49
  10. Shoveler

    Shoveler Still Mildly Glowing

    214
    Nov 8, 2007
    Wait a sec Arronax,

    That link you provided didn't say US killed 100k Iraqis. It said that 100k civilians have died. Thousands upon thousands were killed by a variety of things. Suicide bombers, legitimate crossfire and a Civil war that lasted a couple years. Hell the Iranians are providing most of the IEDs, how many deaths are they attributed with? Pretty much zero, your data is flawed at the core. The real number is probably 200-300k anyway, figures like this tend to be low. Most of which is not at the hands of the US directly.


    Sander, I know all of that, I was emphasizing the do nothingness inherent in the UN & NATO doctrine. They were captured, in fact most of the men and boys killed were carted off to other locations before being shot. At the time the Dutch troops probably didn't realize the scope, but they had to know some bad stuff was about to come down. I think there could have been more effort on their part to stop it before being captured. I mean damn, no air support? The US had carriers in the Mediterranean just waiting for the word GO.
     
    Shoveler, Apr 6, 2010
    #50
  11. victor

    victor Antediluvian as Feck
     Orderite

    6,577
    Dec 12, 2003
    Don't soldiers have eithe IR badges or beacons that light up on helicopter cams?

    Just hand some out to the journalists. They already have those fluorescent "Press" jackets, right?
     
    victor, Apr 6, 2010
    #51
  12. Arr0nax

    Arr0nax A Smooth-Skin

    624
    Oct 30, 2009
    Oh yeah, I see where you are going. Every war is different, so we can't compare anything, and are bound to say amen and smile, right ?
    Like I said, I'm getting pissed off this relativist bullshit.
    30 000 civillians is 30 000 civillians, and it's fucking mass murder.
    Amounting to this result just because you decided to make a little excursion in some random part of the world where you thought some WMD were lying around is fucking innacceptable. In this context, every single civillian death should be mediatized, and every soldier involved in this shit heavily insulted.
    If you know of any similar war being fought by UN/NATO with such alarming figures, feel free to denounce them. In case you can't, I weel be forced to assume the US are the only one in the occidental developped countries to commit to such mass-idiocy

    But what is a threat ? If every armed person is a threat, be they shooting at you or not, and since every armed person in a fucking city is surrounded by ten unarmed civillians, then by airstriking there you're committing yourself to mass murdering civillians.

    Second, we're a little mixing up things here. There are two problems, one with the soldier himself, the second with the ROE. If the ROE are too allowing, then whatever the situation may be, shit will happen. This is our first problem, and I don't see how you should be allowed to shoot shrapnel in a 30 foot radius around an armed target whitout being under direct threat, which wasn't the case.
    The second problem is that the soldier can basically invent whatever please him, and see weapons where there are only cameras. We still have no fucking clue if there was any weapon involved here.

    Hum... From the BodyCount source, the article states :
    Which make the US civillian kills a mere 37 000....
     
    Arr0nax, Apr 6, 2010
    #52
  13. Sander

    Sander This ghoul has seen it all
     Staff Member Admin Orderite

    18,831
    Jul 5, 2003
    It's not about eagerness to kill. It's an example of what can happen with very strict rules of engagement.
    Yeah, see, you keep repeating that, but you have no context whatsoever. You have no reason to assume that the mentality in other armies is different.

    Absolutely. But your rant blaming the soldiers on location was nonsensical.
     
    Sander, Apr 6, 2010
    #53
  14. Arr0nax

    Arr0nax A Smooth-Skin

    624
    Oct 30, 2009
    You know what ? I think we could think of a line stating that you can engage soldiers committing mass murders without allowing you to engage unarmed civillians gathered around armed soldiers, no ?
    Is that incompatible in your bipolar "strict- not strict" vision of how ROE can be ?
     
    Arr0nax, Apr 6, 2010
    #54
  15. Sander

    Sander This ghoul has seen it all
     Staff Member Admin Orderite

    18,831
    Jul 5, 2003
    No. I'm saying that you're throwing isolated numbers out there without comparing them to other situations at all. You're saying that a lot of civilians got killed here. Sure. So how does that measure up to other situations? You're denouncing the US military for being worse than other armies, without actually comparing them to those other armies.

    And please don't bring the reason for the war into this. That has very little to do with what you are claiming: you're claiming this is an incident emblematic of the problems of the US military. That's fine. But then don't bring the motivation for going into that place in the first place into it, since it holds no relevance for the incident at hand. Whatever the motivation for being there, the incident happened seperately.

    And again: not what happened.

    I'll repeat this: they had been shot at, saw a group of what they thought were armed men, asked permission to open fire before opening fire. What more do you want them to do?


    Yeah, there's not really a better way of judging if those items are weapons than by looking at them.

    It was an example of what the consequences of too strict rules of engagement can be. What you are arguing should be instated really isn't that far off from the rules of engagement that were in place there.

    And honestly, what the soldiers in Srebrenica were presented with wasn't that clear. The problem was that they weren't allowed to use force to stop the Serbs from entering the area. With your proposed rule (only shoot when shot upon) this wouldn't have changed.
     
    Sander, Apr 6, 2010
    #55
  16. Loxley

    Loxley Water Chip? Been There, Done That

    911
    Apr 11, 2003


    Seriously. It is war. incidents happen. The soldiers acted in a way that probably will sound absurd to them later but that I think is normal for people in war. It is how you cope with it there and then.
     
    Loxley, Apr 6, 2010
    #56
  17. Arr0nax

    Arr0nax A Smooth-Skin

    624
    Oct 30, 2009
    Afghanistan : ISAF + US : 6000-8000
    Iraq : US almost alone : 37000
    But as I said, with your relativist approach, we can't really compare them since they are different war in different contexts. Why do you ask me a comparison then ?

    Now, what about if we reduce my point to denouncing the US military without comparing it to european armies ? Will you agree with it ?

    It's very convenient for you but... no. I'm sorry if I can't separate the reason/rationale of an act from the act itself. Strange, no ? I think it's the whole point of moral judgment...

    To be under direct threat before killing 10 times more people than the people that could represent a threat ?
    Being shot at sooner and then seeing a two armed people that you don't know if they are related does not make them a direct threat.
     
    Arr0nax, Apr 6, 2010
    #57
  18. Sander

    Sander This ghoul has seen it all
     Staff Member Admin Orderite

    18,831
    Jul 5, 2003
    I like how you can read my mind.
    But ehm, this approach to numbers doesn't work. Because the US is almost as heavily involved in Afghanistan as it is in Iraq, so the disparity actually proves that the situations are largely incomparable. Perhaps you should try looking at a larger sample of wars and different combatants.

    No, because I don't see how. I think their actions are largely reasonable in a field of war, and the only question marks I place relate to the shooting of the van.

    You are missing my point.
    Here's what this thread is about: US soldiers kill innocents in tragic incident.
    That has nothing to do with why the US military is in Iraq. The soldiers have no say in that anyway, and that incident would also have happened if the US were there for entirely different reasons. The incident is isolated from the reasons the war got started.

    It does in a warzone. That's the problem with a warzone where the enemy dresses and acts like civilians: shit like this happens.
     
    Sander, Apr 6, 2010
    #58
  19. Bal-Sagoth

    Bal-Sagoth Water Chip? Been There, Done That

    996
    Nov 1, 2008

    Bullshit, how easy it must be for you to sit there and say that when it is not you are safe at home typing away on a computer, you have no real idea what it is like for those Marines and Soldiers in these videos. Most of us here don't, I can only think of a few people on these forums who do and none of them that I know of are in this thread.

    They were under fire, they asked permission, they received permission and returned fire on what they thought to be a hostile group. Hesitating in every engagement would cost the lives of American Marines and Soldiers. Confirming every target several times over is not a luxury the fighting men of our nation have in a war.
     
    Bal-Sagoth, Apr 6, 2010
    #59
  20. Kahgan

    Kahgan Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!

    2,247
    Nov 25, 2003
    I'm not really a war historian, but I have read some literature by real soldiers who fought in real wars. I can mention "All Quiet On The West Front" for instance, by a true common soldier who fought in WWI. And generally the soldiers are depicted as treating each other "respectfully", as far as it's possible while being enemies. In older literary sources from wars fought in for instance Anglo Saxon England, Norse Scandinavia, etc., there is little eveidence for this kind of juvenile behavior, and on most occasions where it occur it is disencouraged.
    I firmly believe that professional soldiers could (and should!) be capable of judging a situation like that objectively without sounding like 16 year old gamers. I'm not a pacifist or anything, but if you're going to kill someone you might show some damn respect, or at least self-respect. And I know people who could beat the average GI-Joe (or marine :roll: ) like a baby seal, but would never steep to the level of intelligence and lack of empathy shown in that video.
    Lastly, I can't really see how this could be called fighting, the guys were sitting there and pressing buttons, they weren't fighting.
     
    Kahgan, Apr 6, 2010
    #60
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