Crni Vuk said:
I think the US is a occupation force in the Iraq right now.
Indeed, choose your favorite euphemism.
Blakut said:
Yeah, but those guys were civilians with guns. They don't wear uniforms. They deliberately bring children to battle and do ops in civilian territories. And then, the guys that kill them are the monsters...
What guys? The guys in the video? I saw nothing that was clearly identifiable as a weapon and the people who brought there children there were rendering medical assistance to those who were injured, not reinforcements.
There is also the question of gun laws within the nation. Is it legal to own weapons in Iraq? I know their laws were very loose under Sadam. Is it illegal to carry those arms in public? If yes then the assumption that an armed civilian is an "insurgent" is ridiculous and the complete opposite of the law.
Bal-Sagoth said:
And yes, I would accept and carry out my orders to the best of my abilities without question.
Orders and policies and attitudes are seperate issues. That said, if you were ordered to fire on US civillians, would you?
Bal-Sagoth said:
Lacking empathy and respect I will give you, because I openly admit that when compared to the lives of Americans I do see those people as inferiors.
Sieg heil! Whoops, nationalism got the better of me for a second there.
Sander said:
Why are people so worried about the proprieties surrounding people killing other people?
That is how you judge whether or not the action was justifiable and reasonable. Since I think you're more asking about the attitudes of the soldiers, I think it's reasonable to want your military to be calm, rationale, and reasonable so that you can be confident that they are making rational decisions. You don't want soldiers who seem likely to just start shooting people for fun.
That said, I don't think that most of the soldiers were bad and there were really only a couple of things said that sounded like it was from a kid on the internet, laughing about running over the body was one of them
Sander said:
It's easy to condemn them when you know the context, but suppose this video was released as is, without the knowledge that innocents were being shot. What would the response have been then?
Agreed, I was thinking the same thing this morning. It'd be interesting to see what people would say about it without knowledge of what it's about.
Sander said:
Policemen don't operate in war zones.
Ah yes, but they deal with riots and other armed criminals. How exactly do you wage a traditional war against enemies without countries, formal militaries, and who don't all answer to the same leadership?
Sander said:
The initial shooting isn't breaking any of those rules. The shooting of the van might be, but I don't know the full context of what vans that sprint in usually mean in that warzone.
Shooting the van as it drove toward the bodies, maybe, shooting the van and those within it after they had gotten out and started helping the wounded is an entirely different manner. Besides which, that van hardly seemed to "sprint" in, it seemed to take it's time.
Sander said:
Do you seriously think the US military isn't trying to win?
Whether or not they are trying to win and whether or not they can are seperate issues. We know from the past that the US military isn't very good and judging whether or not a situation is winnable or not from Vietnam, as the military didn't want to leave and thought that they were winning.
Shoveler said:
Nope, the intro to the short version states that some of the men were armed. Just re-watched it. Watching the FULL version at 2:15-2:00 watching some of the guys in the background they are clearly carrying weapons, and one appears to be an RPG. What ever it is it's very long and heavy, as he rests it on the ground while still standing erect. At 2:34 is when one of the camera men pokes his head around the corner and appears to take a photo of the helo. If I didn't know ahead of time that was a camera I would easily mistake it for the business end of an RPG. Watch it closely. They were definitely with armed men.
Not really since you could see him pop around the corner and back so you could see the profile of what he was holding. If it was a RPG, it's side profile would be clear. I saw what appeared to be an RPG as well but when they stated that the enemy had RPGs the camera incident that you described. They may have been armed but the video resolution makes it hard to really point to objects and say definitively that they are weapons. I seem to remember the chopper asking people on the ground to document the scene so if there were weapons present, there should be pictures of them that the military could show as proof. Again, the manner in which the US military has handled the situation has been reprehensible.
EDIT: Still, I'm more with you. The innitial attack has a good possibility of being justifiable but the van wasn't.