Video: US mercenaries Randomly Shooting Iraqis

I thought it was a very interesting review of the video. Great for denying ignorance.

You have voted BobCooke for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

[edit on 12/9/2005 by Zaphod58]

It seems all of the outrage has had an effect.

Good work people

The US military in Iraq has launched a formal investigation into a video that appears to show security contractors firing randomly at Iraqi civilians.
The video appeared on a website reportedly run by a former employee of London-based Aegis Defence Services.

The company, one of the largest private security contractors in Iraq, has launched its own investigation.

The video, shot from the back of a vehicle, shows cars coming under fire as Elvis Presley music plays.

One car swerves off the road and crashes after being hit by bullets.

Gunshots can be heard on the clips, but those doing the shooting are not visible.

Continued....

I hope the guy gets the book thrown at him.

He is a terrorist plain and simple.

I hope the guy gets the book thrown at him.

He is a terrorist plain and simple.

If he is found guilty I completely agree with you, he should be pushed.

However, your claim that they are US Mercs is still wrong Arch, no amount of ignorance on your part is going to change that.

However, your claim that they are US Mercs is still wrong Arch, no amount of ignorance on your part is going to change that.

From the recent article I posted above:

Aegis Defence Services Ltd won a $293m (£169m) contract from the US government last year to provide a range of services in Iraq.

If he works for the US STATE he is a US Merc.

Please continue to argue if you will, but don't think the purpose will be to convince me of anything other than what I believe.

Blame the head, not the tail.

So if you work for an american company then you are american?
Therefore I am english, even though I am scotish.
With respect arch your talking out your rear, I am scottish yet I work for an english company that doesnt make me english.

So if I am an Egyptian and work for an Egyptian company that is contracted by Britain, and I come to work one day and shoot one of my co-workers. According to you, not only does that make me British, but the British government should be held responsible for my actions? Great logic genius.

Well the guy at the start, and the guy with the higher pitched voice when shooting the merc both sound from the east coast of scotland, midlothian/fife.

And there's an English voice in there nearer the end too.

If it is a UK security team it could have people from all over the world in it, but most likely ex UK forces I would imagine.

Well the guy at the start, and the guy with the higher pitched voice when shooting the merc both sound from the east coast of scotland, midlothian/fife.

In one of the references early in the thread its stated that he is a South African National.

SA whites have an accent similar to Irish/Scott.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
So if I am an Egyptian and work for an Egyptian company that is contracted by Britain, and I come to work one day and shoot one of my co-workers. According to you, not only does that make me British, but the British government should be held responsible for my actions? Great logic genius.

If the opposition party in a third world nation hired some American citizens as Mercs to assassinate their rivals, and they were caught would you argue against this thread title?

US Mercs Captured in International Coup Attempt

If an American Baseball player moves to Japan to play in their league wouldn't he then be a Japanese Ball Player?

Do you know it's funny i thought the guy shooting the merc had a hint of a SA accent, but I thought it was just the mic on the camera making his voice sound different.

Just goes to show that you should go with your first thought

You get bad people all over the world, they must have just been bored and decided to take pot shots at civilians

Originally posted by ArchAngel
In one of the references early in the thread its stated that he is a South African National.

I thought he was a US Merc.

A lot of sick people in this world. And Thank Bush & Blair for allowing it to all happen.

The voices in the car are South African,

He says "Right, slowing down for this one Peter"

The voice at the end sounds like it's coming across a radio, possibly there is a "buddy" vehicle up ahead. He describes the vehicles he has infront of him aomething sounds like "packhard" but the accent is definately SA.

I'll also say that because there is a buddy vehicle up ahead, we are here talking about a small convoy a VIP protected by atleast two security vehicles.

This sort of thing probably goes on all the time in Iraq. In my opinion they are not randomly killing people for fun. They are doing their job.

When the convoy slows down they try to stop any vehicles from closing in on them from behind. They do it ruthlessly and murderously, for example the mercedes, I'm sure they killed the driver....It's a pity the mercedes veered to the left, it would have been much better if it had just kept straight and crashed into them (hopefully killing one of the mercenaries but this would have been unlikely to happen)

The firecracker incident....the convoy slowed down so they threw a fire cracker out to try to stop vehicles from behind closing in, unfortunately the fire crackers last only a few seconds, then a vehicle comes in from behind. They shoot the vehicle, and thankfully in this incident it looks as though the driver gets out and is ok.

What this shows is the complete ineptitude of the british and american forces to put into practice sensible rules and regulations to avoid this type of anarchy and chaos. Something I can come up with in 2 mintes of thinking is that all vehicles of this type should have a large array of red/blue strobe lights on the back of the vehicles and a TV campaign to inform all Iraqis not to close in on vehicles of this nature. For those of you who will wish to attack my idea saying it will be an easily identifiable target for insurgents, well, I reply that a convoy of security vehicles is an easily identifiable target for insurgents *at the side of the road* anyway, and measures have to be put inplace to protect the public, if that draws more attention to some VIP carphole then so be it.

A modification of my idea is to have the warning lights inside the rear window and to only put them on when they want to tell the vehicle behind to stop closing in. This would lessen the effect of them being an easy target.

It is totally understandable why Iraqis are prepared to join insurgency movements, when this sort of thing is an everyday above the law event. Every time these people kill someone, their sons and brothers become potential insurgents.

[edit on 31/12/2005 by Wig]

US and UK forces not imposing any law?
With respect, I find it sick that you wish these men dead.
This is an isolated incident, most people are not like this but ofcourse the few make more noise than the marjority.

I do wish them dead yes, they are scum they put this trophy video up with elvis soundtrack for entertainment, they clearly murdered the Mercedes driver and how many more of those shown were fatally wounded?

I wish for all people of this type to die over night so when we all wake up (the ones who do wake up) the world is a better place.

I said if you read it again, the US & UK not imposing rules and regulations to stop this from happening. Jeez! the stupid morons only recently thought about mounting loud speakers on the US forces Armoured vehicles, and to have an Iraqi speaking national inside the vehicle, to shout warning to "STOP" in Arabic at vehicles approaching them too fast or on the wrong side of the road. Up until now they have just shot them up and moved on.

The Geneva convention requires occupying forces to provide security for the civillian populations, something they have so far failed to do, the situation is getting slowly better but they have killed many thousands of innocents along the way because of their incompetance, and lack of sensible ideas.

And who says it is isolated? it is one video, it is not an isolated video, there are other videos, one was linked to on this thread, there are other videos no doubt, and thousands of video hours as yet unreleased. I will bet my life that this sort of thing happens everyday in Iraq, as I'm sure the Iraqis would be only too keen to tell you.


[edit on 31/12/2005 by Wig]

[edit on 31/12/2005 by Wig]

Yea right.

All fire from the obviously redneck "security" SUV was directed to the 6 into civilian traffic. All targeted vehicles were different, none exhibited any sings of ambush maneuvering and clearly posed no danger what soever. Not a single round was fired from targeted civilian vehicles. Insurgent in the business of ambushing the occupational forces simply know better then attempting a drive by.

Notice the continues flow of traffic from 12 o'clock, which by the basic ambush tactics pose the BIGGEST danger of cutting of the lead vehicle, allowing the side gunners to engage the blocked target.

If the so called "security" forces are untrained for example, and are freaked to hell and fire indiscriminately in all directions to escape the hot zone while taking fire, that would be some what understandable, but to casually strafe the cars behind you to teach everybody a lesson, with a nice tune in the background, clearly depicts a leisurely safari drive. Just check the comm traffic in the background.

All it depicts is a daily occurrence of terror tactic used to show the Iraqis who's the boss, who owns the road and so on. Evey single occupation force in the history of civilisation had to enforce the state of "street terror" in order to control the population. The fact that our hillbilly "security" forces are let lose to do that in Iraq clearly shows that US forces do the same as a standard practice and that there is zero accountability for such tactics. In other words, chaos.

This is a good one;

"Evasive action? Like speed up or weave thru traffic? That stuff don't work, and anybody who has any EXPERIENCE in this field will tell you that. You have to maintain a protective bubble and anything that enters it has to be evaluated as a possible threat. "

The only goal of security driver training is to hammer into ones head how under panic to maneuver the vehicle out of the line of fire, and gain as MUCH momentum (speed) as possible, so the vehicle will continue to move out of the kill zone even if it receives immobilising fire.

Bodyguard 101, speed is life, not a casual safari drive with imaginary "bubbles" of protection. Locals identify "dump" cars right away, and avoid them like the plague. Their car flea markets are a dead give away of the laced junkers, the word spreads fast and locals know it, while street "bubble" is simply the first sign of a rpg ambush or ied, followed by small arms spray and run, and not some bs measure of threat assessment, it's that simple and it always been that way.


All other statements such as;

"They could have been shooting at people we can't see on camera that had guns. There could have been weapons in the cars they shot at, etc. "


"War is a terrible, terrible thing and until you experience it, it is difficult to understand why things are done in certain ways. "

are simply full of crap.

Trunk Monkey, my condolences.

So based on the like THREE SECONDS maximum that you could see each car, you KNOW BEYOND A DOUBT that there was absolutely NO ambush driving, and those drivers did NOTHING that would appear wrong to the guys in the SUV.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
So based on the like THREE SECONDS maximum that you could see each car, you KNOW BEYOND A DOUBT that there was absolutely NO ambush driving, and those drivers did NOTHING that would appear wrong to the guys in the SUV.

It's bleedin obvious to me what is going on in the video, they are the tail end of a convoy, they have the job of stopping vehicles behind closing the gap, they wish to remain in a security bubble.

They achieve this by shooting at approaching vehicles, the closer they get the more damage they attempt to inflict on the approaching car.

A far more sensible approach would be to have a national education programme, TV, newspapers etc.. to explain when you are approaching a car from behind and suddenly a VERY BRIGHT strobe red light comes on under no circumstances are you to close in on that vehicle. Simple & effective = Job done.

Which is why I said earlier they have no common sense at all.

Originally posted by Wig
It's bleedin obvious to me what is going on in the video, they are the tail end of a convoy, they have the job of stopping vehicles behind closing the gap, they wish to remain in a security bubble.

Care to elaborate on how you draw that conclusion? Being there was never any view out the front of the shooter vehicle, your conclusion can only be, at very best, an assumption far from obvious.

I don't know how it is now, but my days in the military, the rear of the convoy was any class of an armored vehicle with barrel ports (APC, Bradley, etc), not a windowed van/suv with firearms out the side window.

NN

It's just common sense that this is what's happening. listen to the radio (not elvis! the comm radio) Also they are mercenaries security body guards that's why it's just a normal car & not military, plus it would help them to be anonymous / blend in and all that.

So I ask you, hypothetically I'm correct it is a security convoy guarding a VIP (not very important to me but there you go). Do you agree that my idea is a sensible thing to implement?