Wikileaks Video Released!!

Damage control is working overtime ...

www.cnn.com...

Since the content is not defendable, the ex-military starts addressing the "context" of the attack. It beats me how he can defend the attack on the van with a straight face.

I just watched the video with the children and it is terribly sad what happened to them. Only now are we paying for those Childrens suffering, that should have been taken care of immediately upon reviewing the video. That family has been ruined by our pointless fantasy war, we arent even occupying that land for the reasons that were given to the American People, and they do these atrocities in our names instead.

I am also tired of hearing about how the soldiers 'were mistaken' when it comes to identifying those weapons, am I the only one who noticed that the gunmans camera had some sort of zoom. If you watch the video closely, you can clearly see it zoom in to check the situation out, actually on more than one occasion.

These soldiers were just sloppy, and blood-thirsty.

Let me ask you this, wouldnt you be pissed off and wielding weapons if you knew you were being occupied by a military force based on a LIE. (I dont think there is anyone here who actually still believes the 9/11 story, how it was given to the public back in 2001)

Just saw this video and I must say that I feel pretty damn ashamed right now

These are trained army personnel who should've known what armed men look like compared to unarmed civilians.... They have zoom in cameras for gods sake!

Utterly despicable.

And I hate it when people use war as an excuse for such an act...saying stuff like war is hell man...

BS, this was plain murder

Shame on us

I'm a new member on ATS. I don't really have much of a profile yet...no pictures etc. All that will come with time. I joined ATS because I am a truth seeker and I feel there is a great deal of truth on ATS and God knows more then ever at this time we need truth. I'm a veteran but more than that I'm a human being. I've reviewed the video numerous times; looked closely; enhanced and magnified it and in all honesty this is my conclusion: I did see what appeared to be men carrying rifles. I did see clearly men carrying camera equipment. I did see what APPEARED to be an RPG launcher or possibly a camera tripod - who knows? Yet in all fairness, depending on the rules of engagement, if carrying what appears to be a rifle makes you fair game for engagement whether your intentions are hostile or not then this is a tragedy. What I do have a problem with, after the engagement took place, the van pulled up and was clearly trying to load a dying man to evacuate him. There were obviously no weapons intended or implicated or otherwise at this point. I don't believe it is right to kill several people who are trying to remove someone from a battle site who is dying. The children are now orphans and were orphans at that moment as they were being pulled from the van. They deserved at the very least to have the best medical treatment available seeing as they were orphans and were also wounded rather than be sent to the local Iraqi police. Agree with me or not, I've told you the truth.

reply to post by Brahmanite


Hmmm....insurgents in the area with RPGs, a shoulder-fired weapon.

Cameraman puts camera on his shoulder, and surprise, the guy gets hit.

If you don't want to be struck by lightning, don't act like a lightning rod.

Originally posted by jerico65
reply to post by Brahmanite

 

Hmmm....insurgents in the area with RPGs, a shoulder-fired weapon.

Cameraman puts camera on his shoulder, and surprise, the guy gets hit.

If you don't want to be struck by lightning, don't act like a lightning rod.

And what right do we have storming around over there in the first place?

Never fails, people with an emotional investment will go to ridiculous lengths to justify their and acts of others... dehumanise the enemy, claim they deserve it, claim moral superiority as justification...

If this happened in the States all these hyporites would be cying for the blood of the pilots... thank god for indoctrination and 1st world comfort, so I can watch people die without empathy...

Originally posted by SmokeandShadow
And what right do we have storming around over there in the first place?

Is that the best rebuttal you can come up with?

I'm sure that those civilians on the ground heard the helicopter. hanging around in a crowd was begging for trouble.

I've said a fair bit on this Thread about what I think.

One thing still elludes me.

The Americans are in a Country that DOES NOT belong to them, Correct?

Forget about the Journo's for a minute and forget about anything else for a minute.

The People who live in Iraq are getting blown to bits for carrying a Gun?

What, in any sense, makes what those soldiers did, Legal? They are on Foreign Soil.

In Texas and other parts of America you can own Guns, Can't you?

So, If I go to America and see someone with a Rifle walking with his Buddies from the Shotting Range, Can I shoot and Kill them? I'm on Foreign Soil. Why is it not Legal for me to do it?

I could think they are going to shoot me?

Oh, I know. Iraq is in a theatre of War so, all laws are illegal in Iraq and Americans, Brittish and other Coutries Troops can just Shoot and Kill people.

Ok, I got it now..

Originally posted by signal2noise

Originally posted by SmokeandShadow
And what right do we have storming around over there in the first place?

Is that the best rebuttal you can come up with?

I'm sure that those civilians on the ground heard the helicopter. hanging around in a crowd was begging for trouble.

That's right. The guys on the ground should have been aware that indiscriminate slaughter lurked overhead.

You and those who share your attitude are so right about this. The lesson from this for Iraqis is that every Iraqi should be concerned of being killed by an American soldier whether from the ground or from the air, because Americans do not botherto fairly differentiate between so-called "insurgents" and everday Iraqi civilians. They all look the same, don't they? As you suggested, they should wear clothing that indicates "don't shoot me, I'm on your side" to avoid being killed, right?

That's the message from this slaughter of people who are displaying no aggressive or hostile behavior toward those in the Apache gunship or anyone else.

And what is an "insurgent"? Any Iraqi who disagrees with and dares to resist the occupation of their country?

You are essentially saying that any Iraqi whom some American soldier chooses to label an insurgent, whether there is a basis for that label or not, is fair game for killing. And you have no problem with that, do you.

[edit on 4/7/2010 by dubiousone]

Originally posted by mr-lizard

Originally posted by Archirvion
To be honest,i dont see the bad thing in this video. I am also a former Elitesoldier and been in war. You normal and everyday living people dont know how it is down there. Its all about survival,you cant trust no one.

If you fail to see what is bad then you obviously have been 'conditioned' to thinking murder is fine.

It's NOT about survival. Those men were NOT going to harm anyone.

They didn't even have weapons. Maybe you should get your head checked?

It's not so black and white though. This situation was confusing. It was determined that weapons were present because it definately appeared that this was the case. They definately looked like they had weapons. The grouping of the people in the video was also suspicious. These are things that American soldiers are trained to look for.

What disgusts me is that children had to be involved and even after they realized this they laughed and joked about it. They showed absolutely zero remorse though because they assumed these people were insurgents. This doesn't necessarily explain away their actions however.

Noone really knows what they'd do in any given situation until they experience it first-hand. Everyone sais they'd do X if X happens. That's just unrealistic.

I'm not trying to explain away the deaths of innocent civilians. They definately died needlessly. That was followed by lies coming straight from the command level. IMO, if people end up losing their jobs it should be for lying to the American people. The actual pilots of the apache really didn't do anything wrong though other than kill what they thought was the enemy. Plus they used all pertinent procedures for command and control and they had authorization to kill the target. I would've done the same thing. Whether or not I could live with myself after knowing what had really transpired would be entirely different.

-ChriS



[edit on 7-4-2010 by BlasteR]

Finally got this on the BBC , but its just a tiny footnote , they dont go to any great length to make this extremely visible !

Because of such soldiers like this Apache pilots this war would never end. By keeling civilians they put their fiends, ailed soldiers and all community in a gear danger of retaliation and a spiral of hate and violence. If there would be another terrorist attack this people should feel that they are sharing responsibility for this violence.

With such soldiers US doesn't need unmanned faying vehicles. They are completely like emotionless robots without brains. I heard that in US this case doesn't get much attention in mainstream medias but in Europe and other parts of the world this movie was yesterday top news. It looks very bed for the US propaganda.

There’s little left to say after seventy four pages of comment, but I have to say something.

I watched the entire video. It made me feel physically sick, angry, and entirely helpless. I wish now I hadn’t seen it, but realise just how important it is to have sat through it.

Trying to gather the words to express what I need to say, but it’s difficult not to be overly emotional.

What have we become when the reaction of those who are ripping fellow humans to pieces with machine guns becomes the stuff of video games? The pilot and gunner’s happy and triumphant verbal responses to the carnage they inflicted, and the delight at their being able to place bullets through the rescue van’s windscreen, was, to be absolutely honest, utterly, utterly deplorable.

The sheer waste of human life was sick-making in itself, but it was their gung-ho, absolutely dismissive attitude to that loss of human life that makes the whole assumed ethical cause for this war a farce.

There should not be, no matter what the reasoning for armed conflict, be any pleasure taken in killing an “enemy”.

Dear God, they were laughing.

I remember my father, towards the end of his life, telling me about things that he and his regiment did during WWII, things he wasn’t proud of. How human life became cheap.

I knew him telling me wasn’t something he wanted to do, but something he needed to do. They had obviously festered in him for too long. There was a deep and terrible shame behind his eyes.

It was evident the effect of those actions even fifty years after they happened. It was not easy seeing a seventy year old man seeking absolution through confession disguised as reminiscence, as confession it certainly was.

And it was not easy seeing a formerly strong personality so visibly undermined by the cancerous regret caused by taking human life without concern or care.

I don’t wish my father’s remorse on anyone. But the Apache crew in the video may well have to live with their actions not now, but in the years to come.

If that happens, then I don’t envy them.

They will be in a very dark place, and not even their family will be able to help them out of it.

Originally posted by jerico65
reply to post by Brahmanite

 

Hmmm....insurgents in the area with RPGs, a shoulder-fired weapon.

Cameraman puts camera on his shoulder, and surprise, the guy gets hit.

If you don't want to be struck by lightning, don't act like a lightning rod.

If ATS members could give you thumbs-down votes like on YouTube and some news sites, your disgusting comments wouldn't even be seen.

This propably will get burried and never be spoken of again, except on ATS and other similar sites.
There' ll be no further consequences out of this. the occupation of Iraq will continue as if nothing would have happened.

I really don't get how there can be any apologists of this video.... anyone defending as an act of war...

This is purely Killing People for fun/sport.... and dehumanising them so they don't seem like people with lives and thoughts and rights.
This is cold blooded murder.

And as bad as the killings are the laughing, mocking and blood-thirsty bastards who took actual pleasure in gunning these people down.... the were itching and pleading with their superiors/commanders to be allowed to kill these people..
In that time they could have probably zoomed in, got confirmation of what these people were doing and carrying...

But no.... It's the typical attitude of shoot first, Ask questions later.

America is going down and will not recover , it´s sad but true .

I have known this since I was kid with little to no knowledge of the states.
The USA will cease to exist , trust me ...or just trust yourself , you know it´s true.

They laughed.
They admired their work.

This is just entirely wrong. I knew this was the reality, in my mind I knew. But now I've actually seen it and heard it, I can't trick myself into seeing something past the evil intent in sending these people to Iraq, as troubled a place as it seemed to be. I see no altruism, no nobility, no good intentions, nothing even slightly redeemable at all.
It's all been 100% lies!

In the decades to come I look forward to reading the books about the Iraq War and how it was an unmitigated disaster and ultimately sounded the death knell of the American empire.

Even if in the video the group of people were carrying weapons (which I do not believe they were) why were they killed if they didn't open fire?

Is it just shoot first and ask questions later? If a person who has anything on them which even remotely resembles a weapon they are shot dead?

How far out was that American chopper? Let's face it they can't have been in any danger as the group of men made no attempt to fire on them. Don't mention the man looking round the corner with the alleged RPG. He did not fire and the rest of the group did not scatter or assume any kind of firing positions like you would have imagined them too.