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 Collateral Murder...Wikileaks video Iraq 2010

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Posted on 04-05-10 12:04 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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http://collateralmurder.com/ I was not able to embed the video...if anyone can please do it.



 
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Posted on 04-06-10 10:51 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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mudafckers, sheer brutality, no wonder why they behead them !!
 
Posted on 04-06-10 11:08 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Edit: This video was actual scene prior to 2010 so the thread headline is misleading...this particular incident took place in 2007 if i am not mistaken again!
Last edited: 06-Apr-10 11:18 AM

 
Posted on 04-06-10 1:56 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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@wtf,  did you watch the complete video? If you did, please watch it again. I am not saying that what they did was right because no innocent person deserve to die.
After knowing what really happened its easy to blame other people from the comfort of our home or apartment.  After reading all those news, we know that innocent person( journalist, his driver and the kids) were involved and were killed. We have  the luxury to look at the video over and over again and there was a arrow to show us  that there were kids in the van but from that unedited video, I don't really think what they did at that time was totally unjustifiable because from that raw video I couldn't tell if the person sitting on the passenger side of the video was a kid or adult. I agree the incident was indeed unfortunate and sad but I don't think you can totally blame the Apache crew. Yeah, everyone has their opinion and view so you are free to disagree with what I saw in that unedited video.And we are forgetting the fact that they found 'live rpg' on the scene. If they hadn't
attacked, they would have been attacked.
And did you guys notice how army personals were running with that wounded kid?

By stating this, I am not in anyway supporting what happened. US army should probably change the ROE but they can't blame those apache pilot because they were called to support  the land infantry who were being attacked by rpg.
 
 
Posted on 04-06-10 3:00 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Shonesum,
Indeed the hindsight is 20/20. What irked me and most of the people is the reaction to the aftermath. There is difference between excuse and reason. Talking about ROE, in that video you can clearly see the soldier talking about how he wishes the wounded 'insurgent' to pick up the arm, so that he could shoot him. How about the shooting of the people who had come there afterwards to collect the wounded people. I have read countless reasons of the possibility they being there to collect the weapon, which you can not say from the video. Equally, the injured children were asked to be taken to 'IP' hospital, which presumably do not have sophisticated equipments as the Americans hospitals do. Not to mention the press release by the Department of Defense, which degraded the human lives and furthermore verified the common belief of impunity to the soldiers. 

The public outrage is justified. However, I am not sure about the perpetration,which to begin with is an occupation.


 
Posted on 04-06-10 3:11 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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I wonder why they were being attacked by a rpg?? doh! no shit sherlock they started a war which they had no reason to....never did find any WMD or any link that saddam was ever linked to Al Qaida!! and are now shooting civilian and you expect people to feel sorry for em? go figure!
 
Posted on 04-06-10 4:57 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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@shonesum:
please watch the video again, and again... AND again.
... so a bystander was just walking by casually around the location of the firefight?...  live rpg?
the topic of the thread is "colateral murder"... and that being said, i think u shud be able to see it.. if not... ... peace

 
Posted on 04-06-10 5:02 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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It is different scenario to sit in the 4 walls of a air conditioned room and to be at the real battle field. So better stfu,  

 
Posted on 04-06-10 5:53 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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I will have to agree with raju161.
@ wtf First of all you might want to look at this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik




At 19:20, someone reports finding an RPG round.

At 32:54, someone asks if it's been defused yet, and is told "no, it's
still live"

and if you didn't see that or if you just ignored the fact that they had a 'live rpg' then I guess I am wrong.

@cylengend,  its not about whether they should have gone to Iraq, its about the incident that took place in Iraq where everyone are blaming those pilots.

@Bhakundebhut, From the very beginning they thought those guys were terrorist. Even then they didn't shoot at the wounded so that shows that they were following ROE. Yeah, they wanted them him to pick the weapon so they could kill them. Yeah they are wrong doing so.

about taking those kids to IP hospital, it wasn't their call it was the officer's call so  you can't blame them for taking them to local hospital. The army on the ground wanted to send the kids to the Rustamiyah so blame the high ranking official for that not the ground unit.





 
Posted on 04-06-10 8:52 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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and it's about killing civilians in the name of war....put yerself in the iraqis shoes and perhaps you shall understand.
 
Posted on 04-07-10 12:33 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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@shonesum, i take it that you did not look at this, did you?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-FvRngn81Y&feature=related


 
Posted on 04-07-10 1:32 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Shonesum,
Again, whatever you have said is nothing more than what the apologists have been saying. Yes it is war- a unilateral war. Just by labeling it a tag of war, the US army can not get away from such cold blooded murder. Such an utter disrespect of human lives maybe a routined job for them, but not to the whole civilized world. Throughout the video, I felt like a kid playing a video game. Their mentality of war has been ingrained so deeply that they see everyone as a terrorist, not that it being a mere possibility. That certainty led them to see those cameras as RPGs, innocent Samaritans as accomplices of the insurgents etc. When you say that it's not the pilots are to be blamed, tell me where the buck stops?

Are we going to say the incident is really unfortunate one and sip another cup of tea/coffee. I prefer tea over coffee.
Last edited: 07-Apr-10 01:35 AM

 
Posted on 04-07-10 11:45 AM     Reply [Subscribe]
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@CyLegend: I am just trying to say that what they did at that time was justifiable. I am in no way supporting the invasion of Iraq. I would revolt against the foreign forces too if it were to invade my homeland. They are just soldiers. What i am trying to say is that they should hold High ranking official responsible for waging war against other country for such a long time without any reason.
@wtf, I repeat, instead of watching a edited video please watch full 39-40 min long unedited video and make a comment. Its easy to judge after you know the truth. Moreover, there were definitely few insurgents in that group because they were carrying RPG.
@bhukunde bhut, As I have mentioned above, I am not supporting war in Iraq. Even though we are from Nepal, we are paying tax to US government so I agree with you on waging a unilateral war against Iraq. All I am trying to say is that you can't hold the US troop involved in that incident. I would like to disagree with few of your statement. There are moments where they could be blamed for making some disrespectful comment but at a same time they were assuming them to to terrorist or the better term would be insurgents. Yeah i agree that they mistook that camera for rpg but there were few insurgents in that group for sure which is proved by the fact that they are 'live rpg' on the scene.


 
Posted on 04-07-10 12:01 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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How can you justify it?

These people were just walking along the street doing their own thing. They were not hostile. They didn't even look up.. Even after attack there was no sign of hostility or returned fire. It is a known fact that in lot of muslim countries even civilians carry weapons. Also the US army didn't even verify if these were Iraqi government soldiers.

It seems like bunch of trigger happy americans who just wanted to kill people just for the fun of it. It reminded me of a bunch of kids asking permission to play a game. "can we kill? please??"

shooting at the wounded man trying to crawl away, shooting at the van which came to pick up the bodies. The van was shot for no apparent reasons. Are these human beings so condemned that they can't even pick up their dead?

This just shows how the US values lives of people from another country.

Only americans are supposed to have any rights the rest are condemned and can be shot at like animals at some american teenagers whims. This is some sort of racism this is countryism. This is an offshoot of the old white supremacist (race centric) cult to the new americist which is a blend of race and religion world dominance of the - I will do whatever I want and if you have problems with it I am going to shut you the fuq up - order.

 
Posted on 04-07-10 12:30 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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full video or short, the conclusion is crystal clear!


grgDai, u spoke my mind. thanks!!


 
Posted on 04-07-10 12:48 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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The spotter made a huge blunder that got the innocent people killed. still it should be made clear that an invading force will never be right, esp in sensitive issue as such, esp when Iraqis have very little trust in the invading forces, esp where margin of error is low for the invading forces. This is not the first time innocent civilians have been casualty of war in iraq, there has been report throughout the start of the war to present day that civilians have been targeted intentionally or unintentionally in the name of security. In one of the videos in a missile attack, a pedestrian strolls into view completely unaware of what's going on, and the soldier decides to let a hellfire missile slip anyways. Then when people are gathering outside, who look like friendlies to me, they continue to shell the place. Am I missing something? (Although the video has already been removed by youtube I will post it once I find it.)


 
Posted on 04-07-10 1:08 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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I might have missed the complete story, but what were those Iraqi reporters doing there when they knew they were under constant vigilant sight of attack from their enemies (American army)? It's one thing to be dutiful and brave reporters (covering stories of war, bringing facts to people across the globe in challenging circumstances) and completely another to be stupid and put your life in peril knowing you might be mistaken for terrorists, especially in a war-time when even innocents could be made scapegoats of the circumstances. War is war - you don't question its fairness. When the country is in war, you don't ask for reasons of the mishaps. That said, may those deads rest in peace!
 
Posted on 04-07-10 1:14 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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if war is war why do we have war crime tribunals??
 
Posted on 04-07-10 1:18 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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People who can justify this kind of thing actually justify the Nazi war on Jews.

 
Posted on 04-07-10 3:51 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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I am not justifying the killings. Heck I don't even justify the war itself in the first place. But once a war has started, you gotta be more careful of the things you do. Each of your steps could be under scrutiny even your motives are good. I remember once when there was a curfew in Ktm, I took things lightly being a naive teenager and was trying to surpass a group of armed police pretending as if it was a normal day. Next thing I knew, they had held their guns pointing at me and I was warned to get back else I would be shot right there. I turned back right away and moved towards the safer territory. Did I have a choice? Yes I was just a normal citizen, but not someone who could not be suspected. Yes my motives were clean, but my moves could not prove that I was just being plain naive there. And this was just a curfew order; not anything like war in Iraq.

Hope you got where I am trying to get at. 

 
Posted on 04-07-10 9:34 PM     Reply [Subscribe]
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Iraq War Vet: "We Were Told to Just Shoot People, and the Officers Would Take Care of Us"



by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Report


photo
(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: The U.S. Army, K. OS, whiteblot)



On Monday, April 5, Wikileaks.org posted video footage from Iraq, taken from a US military Apache helicopter in July 2007 as soldiers aboard it killed 12 people and wounded two children. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency: photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh.


The US military confirmed the authenticity of the video.


The footage clearly shows an unprovoked slaughter, and is shocking to watch whilst listening to the casual conversation of the soldiers in the background.


As disturbing as the video is, this type of behavior by US soldiers in Iraq is not uncommon.


Truthout has spoken with several soldiers who shared equally horrific stories of the slaughtering of innocent Iraqis by US occupation forces.


"I remember one woman walking by," said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. He told the audience at the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March 13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland, "She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces."


The hearings provided a platform for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan to share the reality of their occupation experiences with the media in the US.


Washburn testified on a panel that discussed the rules of engagement (ROE) in Iraq, and how lax they were, to the point of being virtually nonexistent.


"During the course of my three tours, the rules of engagement changed a lot," Washburn's testimony continued, "The higher the threat the more viciously we were permitted and expected to respond. Something else we were encouraged to do, almost with a wink and nudge, was to carry 'drop weapons', or by my third tour, 'drop shovels'. We would carry these weapons or shovels with us because if we accidentally shot a civilian, we could just toss the weapon on the body, and make them look like an insurgent."


Hart Viges, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army who served one year in Iraq, told of taking orders over the radio.


"One time they said to fire on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation.... One of the snipers replied back, 'Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?' The lieutenant colonel responded, 'You heard me, trooper, fire on all taxicabs.' After that, the town lit up, with all the units firing on cars. This was my first experience with war, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the deployment."


Vincent Emanuele, a Marine rifleman who spent a year in the al-Qaim area of Iraq near the Syrian border, told of emptying magazines of bullets into the city without identifying targets, running over corpses with Humvees and stopping to take "trophy" photos of bodies.


"An act that took place quite often in Iraq was taking pot shots at cars that drove by," he said, "This was not an isolated incident, and it took place for most of our eight-month deployment."


Kelly Dougherty - then executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War - blamed the behavior of soldiers in Iraq on policies of the US government.


"The abuses committed in the occupations, far from being the result of a 'few bad apples' misbehaving, are the result of our government's Middle East policy, which is crafted in the highest spheres of US power," she said.


Michael Leduc, a corporal in the Marines who was part of the US attack on Fallujah in November 2004, said orders he received from his battalion JAG officer before entering the city were as follows: "You see an individual with a white flag and he does anything but approach you slowly and obey commands, assume it's a trick and kill him."


Brian Casler, a corporal in the Marines, spoke of witnessing the prevalent dehumanizing outlook soldiers took toward Iraqis during the invasion of Iraq.


"... on these convoys, I saw Marines defecate into MRE bags or urinate in bottles and throw them at children on the side of the road," he stated.


Scott Ewing, who served in Iraq from 2005-2006, admitted on one panel that units intentionally gave candy to Iraqi children for reasons other than "winning hearts and minds.


"There was also another motive," Ewing said. "If the kids were around our vehicles, the bad guys wouldn't attack. We used the kids as human shields."


In response to the WikiLeaks video, the Pentagon, while not officially commenting on the video, announced that two Pentagon investigations cleared the air crew of any wrongdoing.


A statement from the two probes said the air crew had acted appropriately and followed the ROE.


Adam Kokesh served in Fallujah beginning in February 2004 for roughly one year.


Speaking on a panel at the aforementioned hearings about the ROE, he held up the ROE card soldiers are issued in Iraq and said, "This card says, 'Nothing on this card prevents you from using deadly force to defend yourself'."


Kokesh pointed out that "reasonable certainty" was the condition for using deadly force under the ROE, and this led to rampant civilian deaths. He discussed taking part in the April 2004 siege of Fallujah. During that attack, doctors at Fallujah General Hospital told Truthout there were 736 deaths, over 60 percent of which were civilians.


"We changed the ROE more often than we changed our underwear," Kokesh said, "At one point, we imposed a curfew on the city, and were told to fire at anything that moved in the dark."


Kokesh also testified that during two cease-fires in the midst of the siege, the military decided to let out as many women and children from the embattled city as possible, but this did not include most men.


"For males, they had to be under 14 years of age," he said, "So I had to go over there and turn men back, who had just been separated from their women and children. We thought we were being gracious."


Steve Casey served in Iraq for over a year starting in mid-2003.


"We were scheduled to go home in April 2004, but due to rising violence we stayed in with Operation Blackjack," Casey said, "I watched soldiers firing into the radiators and windows of oncoming vehicles. Those who didn't turn around were unfortunately neutralized one way or another - well over 20 times I personally witnessed this. There was a lot of collateral damage."


Jason Hurd served in central Baghdad from November 2004 until November 2005. He told of how, after his unit took "stray rounds" from a nearby firefight, a machine gunner responded by firing over 200 rounds into a nearby building.


"We fired indiscriminately at this building," he said. "Things like that happened every day in Iraq. We reacted out of fear for our lives, and we reacted with total destruction."


Hurd said the situation deteriorated rapidly while he was in Iraq. "Over time, as the absurdity of war set in, individuals from my unit indiscriminately opened fire at vehicles driving down the wrong side of the road. People in my unit would later brag about it. I remember thinking how appalled I was that we were laughing at this, but that was the reality."


Other soldiers Truthout has interviewed have often laughed when asked about their ROE in Iraq.


Garret Reppenhagen served in Iraq from February 2004-2005 in the city of Baquba, 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) northeast of Baghdad. He said his first experience in Iraq was being on a patrol that killed two Iraqi farmers as they worked in their field at night.


"I was told they were out in the fields farming because their pumps only operated with electricity, which meant they had to go out in the dark when there was electricity," he explained, "I asked the sergeant, if he knew this, why did he fire on the men. He told me because the men were out after curfew. I was never given another ROE during my time in Iraq."


Emmanuel added: "We took fire while trying to blow up a bridge. Many of the attackers were part of the general population. This led to our squad shooting at everything and anything in order to push through the town. I remember myself emptying magazines into the town, never identifying a target."


Emmanuel spoke of abusing prisoners he knew were innocent, adding, "We took it upon ourselves to harass them, and took them to the desert to throw them out of our Humvees, while kicking and punching them when we threw them out."


Jason Wayne Lemue is a Marine who served three tours in Iraq.


"My commander told me, 'Kill those who need to be killed, and save those who need to be saved'; that was our mission on our first tour," he said of his first deployment during the invasion.


"After that the ROE changed, and carrying a shovel, or standing on a rooftop talking on a cell phone, or being out after curfew [meant those people] were to be killed. I can't tell you how many people died because of this. By my third tour, we were told to just shoot people, and the officers would take care of us."


When this Truthout reporter was in Baghdad in November 2004, my Iraqi interpreter was in the Abu Hanifa mosque that was raided by US and Iraqi soldiers during Friday prayers.


"Everyone was there for Friday prayers, when five Humvees and several trucks carrying [US soldiers and] Iraqi National Guards entered," Abu Talat told Truthout on the phone from within the mosque while the raid was in progress. "Everyone starting yelling 'Allahu Akbar' (God is the greatest) because they were frightened. Then the soldiers started shooting the people praying!"


"They have just shot and killed at least four of the people praying," he said in a panicked voice, "At least 10 other people are wounded now. We are on our bellies and in a very bad situation."


Iraqi Red Crescent later confirmed to Truthout that at least four people were killed, and nine wounded. Truthout later witnessed pieces of brain splattered on one of the walls inside the mosque while large blood stains covered carpets at several places.


This type of indiscriminate killing has been typical from the initial invasion of Iraq.


Truthout spoke with Iraq war veteran and former National Guard and Army Reserve member Jason Moon, who was there for the invasion.


"While on our initial convoy into Iraq in early June 2003, we were given a direct order that if any children or civilians got in front of the vehicles in our convoy, we were not to stop, we were not to slow down, we were to keep driving. In the event an insurgent attacked us from behind human shields, we were supposed to count. If there were thirty or less civilians we were allowed to fire into the area. If there were over thirty, we were supposed to take fire and send it up the chain of command. These were the rules of engagement. I don't know about you, but if you are getting shot at from a crowd of people, how fast are you going to count, and how accurately?"


Moon brought back a video that shows his sergeant declaring, "The difference between an insurgent and an Iraqi civilian is whether they are dead or alive."


Moon explains the thinking: "If you kill a civilian he becomes an insurgent because you retroactively make that person a threat."


According to the Pentagon probes of the killings shown in the WikiLeaks video, the air crew had "reason to believe" the people seen in the video were fighters before opening fire.


Article 48 of the Geneva Conventions speaks to the "basic rule" regarding the protection of civilians:


"In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives."


What is happening in Iraq seems to reflect what psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton calls "atrocity-producing situations." He used this term first in his book "The Nazi Doctors." In 2004, he wrote an article for The Nation, applying his insights to the Iraq War and occupation.


"Atrocity-producing situations," Lifton wrote, occur when a power structure sets up an environment where "ordinary people, men or women no better or worse than you or I, can regularly commit atrocities.... This kind of atrocity-producing situation ... surely occurs to some degrees in all wars, including World War II, our last 'good war.' But a counterinsurgency war in a hostile setting, especially when driven by profound ideological distortions, is particularly prone to sustained atrocity - all the more so when it becomes an occupation."


Cliff Hicks served in Iraq from October 2003 to August 2004.


"There was a tall apartment complex, the only spot from where people could see over our perimeter," Hicks told Truthout, "There would be laundry hanging off the balconies, and people hanging out on the roof for fresh air. The place was full of kids and families. On rare occasions, a fighter would get atop the building and shoot at our passing vehicles. They never really hit anybody. We just knew to be careful when we were over by that part of the wall, and nobody did shit about it until one day a lieutenant colonel was driving down and they shot at his vehicle and he got scared. So he jumped through a bunch of hoops and cut through some red tape and got a C-130 to come out the next night and all but leveled the place. Earlier that evening when I was returning from a patrol the apartment had been packed full of people." 


Source: http://www.truthout.org/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us58378


 


 



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