Collateral Murder

[Cbrider]

Innocent people are killed all the time in conflict, its just how the pieces fall.

Its covered up because the backlash from people who either don't understand or chose to turn a blind eye to the reality that is war is outrageous. Its not worth coming clean because people refuse to look past a casualty to understand why it happened and what lead up to it.

It sounds terrible, but its true - a group of men of Arab background, walking through a LIVE war zone, with bags shouldered just as you would an assault rifle. Its going to draw negative attention in the form of cross hairs. Our enemies in Iraq don't open fire on our troops. They conceal IEDs and blow themselves up, it makes approaching suspicious individuals out of the question. Sadly, that narrows the window of deciding whether it is friend or foe.

I have faith in my government, their job is to ensure my safety and livelihood, and they are damn good at it. They could show up at my house and drag me off to a hole in the ground and put a bullet in my head. I don't give them a reason to though, I don't place myself in a position to draw that form of attention. If I whip out a lighter and reach for my shoe on my flight to Seattle, that would give them reason.

No system is perfect, U.S. soldiers have killed in cold blood before and been court marshaled and sent off to prison. This was not a cold blooded killing, there was substantial reason to suspect that the people killed could have been insurgents.

As for the comments in the video, draw your own conclusions. I have a handful of friends that have done one or more tours in the sandbox. One of them has PTSD so bad that he is dangerous to awaken. He wife made the mistake of tapping his shoulder to wake him up - he had her on her back with his hands around her throat, ready to kill her before his conscious mind even caught up.

War destroys the mind, people never come back the same.

[Doc Durian]

Whatever, CBrider.

I look with my eyes wide open.

[Mish]

I have faith in my government, their job is to ensure my safety and livelihood, and they are damn good at it.

Don't be so sure. By giving people reasons to join the insurgents and driving civilians to their recruiting stations in droves with acts like these your government is not doing you or your security any favours. Next time you hear of a suicide bombing stop and think about this. By covering up the truth and justifying murder of civilians they are really blurring the line between them selves and the monsters that they are fighting. If situation in Iraq can only be won by winning hearts and minds, well then they are a long way from winning. The only way to avoid "mistakes" like these is to give criticism where criticism is due and a lot of criticism is due for this. Sadly, noone appears to be criticisng and they're getting away with it. People are scared that by calling a spade a spade they somehow automatically transform into the enemy.

War destroys the mind, people never come back the same.

Yeh I agree

[Cbrider]

Whatever, CBrider.

I look with my eyes wide open.

You shut your mouth when you're talkin to me!

[Gribble]

Like I said in the other thread, I couldn't handle that shit.

If I'm a soldier in a warzone and I see someone not wearing my goddamn colors, toting a camera or a bag or a stick, whatever, I'm going to shoot him. I'd much rather shoot an unarmed man than hesitate and get myself shot. It's unfortunate, but it IS war.

[Cbrider]

I was starting to think I was the only one of my kind here, but DM and Gribble saved the day.

[MVPlaya]

You all drive around with Coexist bumper stickers on your cars and badmouth your governments when they make the decision to exercise their power. Yet, you get up every morning, go to work, choose where you want to eat, freely roam the web and watch whatever t.v. show you want.....any idea why you can do that everyday? Freedom isn't a right, its a privilege that requires bloodshed to attain, but some people can't handle the brutal reality of it all.

I'm sorry, Cbrider, how is my freedom dependant on the War in Iraq? Could you please explain to me how my freedoms were defended in Iraq, how my qualify of life improved in any way whatsoever, or how the War in Iraq was necessary?

All your logic here is ridiculous. You are correct when you say that war is brutal and you can't be naive about it. But you're being just as naive about this war as the people you rail against. Some are naive thinking war is never justified, you are being naive by claiming that just because war was declared, that its alright for these deahts to occur. Guess what, we didn't have to start this damn war. These people didn't have to die.

Wake up:

1) This war doesn't protect any of our freedoms... whatsoever... and has only lead to the deaths of thousands of our service members
2) We were suckered into this was under false pretenses (Weapons of Mass Destruction), and under incredibly naive notions of how the war was going to play out: supposedly, everything would be over within 3 months and the war would cost less than $100B. You want to talk about naive, that bullshit Bush sold this country and his whole cabinet was ****ing naive.
3) This was completely ruined our economy, this was has now cost our economy $3.1 Trillion... yes, trillions.

So apparently, these people's deaths are justified because we made the error of going to war. I disagree. This war is not justified and these people's deaths were not necessary. And when you listen to that tape, it is damn clear that these people just wanted to shoot some people. A group of people roll up in a van to grab dead bodies, and they need to die? What if its an ambulance. What if its the local doctor. What if they're checking for civilian deaths. What if they are getting the bodies of their relatives. Just because they drove there, they need to die? The fact is these people will take any excuse to kill someone.

This was not kill or be killed. These guys were flying in the comfort of their cockpit at 8,000ft to 10,000ft. These people were not aware of their existence, and even if they were, had no weapons that could even remotely threaten them, not even 1 in a million. An RPG can't target lock or fire higher than 1,000 feet. Certainly not against a moving target like this aircraft. The fact is, this guy was in a plane eager to kill people. He was looking for groups of Arab men who could be insurgents, he was hoping they had bags that could be weapons, and rather than double-checking his targets, as soon as these men fit any conceivable vague profile, he requests permission to kill them. His video feed does not go through to head command, they okay him based on two things: his location and if he sounds convincing. If he tells them he's got real targets, they believe him. The fact is he has no standards for safeguarding the lives of these Iraqis, and is over-eager to kill insurgents. The end result is that lots of Iraqi's die needlessly.

I find it ridiculous that you would say something like this: "It sounds terrible, but its true - a group of men of Arab background, walking through a LIVE war zone, with bags shouldered just as you would an assault rifle. Its going to draw negative attention in the form of cross hairs."

Guess what. all of the men living in Iraq are of Arab background. And their backyards have been turned into a LIVE war zone against their consent. So its their fault they got killed because they are an ethnicity they have no choice over and live in a place where a war is going on that they never chose to be part of. By your logic, any Arab male's death in Iraq is excusable. I.e., every civilian gets to die and you'd have some equally meaningless excuse for it. Its thinking like yours that contributes to 100,000 deaths, and then you wonder why this war doesn't end. Its because we make that place shittier day by day and cause more hatred of our occupying forces with this behavior. If your logic allows for every Arab male to die because he is carrying a bag, then clearly thats not the correct method for waging a war.

I've heard many naive things on this thread, from "I wish no one would kill anyone" to your arguments that "its war, it happens." Just because it happens, doesn't mean its necessary. And the fact that these things happen in war means we need to think twice before we start a goddamn war, not that we get to compound our mistake of starting a war with the mistakes of killing all their civilians too. Its not his fault for wearing a backpack. Its not his fault for being Arab. Its that chopper's fault for killing him. Its that chopper's fault for killing all the people in that van. Its our government's fault for starting this goddamn war.

[Gribble]

I am against the war but for the troops.

[MVPlaya]

[url=http://www.iraqbodycount.org/]Iraq Body Count[/url]

Documented Civilian Deaths: 95,822 – 104,529



edit: this post is not in response to Gribble, just wanted to add this to the thread

[Cbrider]

[url=http://www.iraqbodycount.org/]Iraq Body Count[/url]

Documented Civilian Deaths: 95,822 – 104,529



edit: this post is not in response to Gribble, just wanted to add this to the thread

Post up the death count under Saddam's rule while you're at it. Pick the lesser of two evils, that's really all that could be done.

The idea behind US freedom and Iraq was to prevent problems down the road as far as a terrorist hot spot and nuclear weapons. Both were a very possible reality and were coming closer to being that reality. It was horribly coordinated and executed, I wont deny that, but it did remove Saddam and some level of safety to the region. People were killed and still are being killed over it, but the total death count still hasn't even come close to the total death count of just the Kurds he killed. The war happened for three reasons:

1.) To flex our muscle to the world to send a message.
2.) To remove Saddam and anything he harbored that was a threat
3.) Oil

I find it ridiculous that you would say something like this: "It sounds terrible, but its true - a group of men of Arab background, walking through a LIVE war zone, with bags shouldered just as you would an assault rifle. Its going to draw negative attention in the form of cross hairs."

Sometimes the truth sounds ridiculous, but its still the truth.

We can argue this whole war thing all day, there is a clear division of whether it should have ever happened or not amongst the population. Lets save the whole community 9 pages of what-ifs. It happened and we deal with it.

Don't blame the economy on the war. Wars increase demand for products across the board and subsequently jobs. The economy collapse because of false numbers, the American drive to buy everything on credit and financial irresponsibility by both lending institutions and consumers.

[Doc Durian]

I am against the acts of invasion/aggression against a sovereign nation by the Western Powers and I'm against any POS who tries to offer me excuses why soldiers can be excused for performing the actions/orders, Gribble.

That whole, "I support the troops" line is bullroar... a throwback from the aftermath of Vietnam which also should never have happened.

When a war is wrong, a real soldier walks away.

A coward does as ordered.

[MVPlaya]

Post up the death count under Saddam's rule while you're at it. Pick the lesser of two evils, that's really all that could be done.

No. Thats where you're wrong. Your standards are completely messed up if all you compare yourself to is Saddam Hussein. By your logic, if we go into any country, kill them off by gasing off their people, and electrocute rivers to kill people fleeing, then thats justified, we weren't as bad as Saddam Hussein.

You need to learn some higher standards. There are many more choices than the lesser of these two evils, we could for one: be ****ing responsible, not make all these easy cliched poorly though out excuses every time a human being dies that doesnt share our skin color:

Oh, its sad but its war.
Oh, its kill or be killed.
Oh, that soldier just has a tough time.

How about we follow our goddamn rules of engagement. How about we practice some ammunition restraint. How about we stop getting little kids flying aircrafts that look like video games telling them to rip apart human bodies first chance they get. This mindset is so ****ed and its only ruined our position in the world.

Our army is now overstretched. We have now only further emboldened sectarian violence and terrorism. We've increased Al-Qa'ida's recruitment. We've reduced our standing in the world. We've overspent by a ridiculous degree.

This war and this accompanying mindset you keep defending are bad for our military and bad for our standing in the world. I know its nice to watch some cheesy war movie and regurgitate some cliched excuse for each civilian casualty, but the fact of the matter is we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard if we want to get somewhere, and that starts by improving our accuracy in these wars and not excusing these deaths and never holding the killers accountable.

The idea behind US freedom and Iraq was to prevent problems down the road as far as a terrorist hot spot and nuclear weapons. Both were a very possible reality and were coming closer to being that reality. It was horribly coordinated and executed, I wont deny that, but it did remove Saddam and some level of safety to the region. People were killed and still are being killed over it, but the total death count still hasn't even come close to the total death count of just the Kurds he killed.

Okay first of all, I'm glad you care about the Kurdish plight all of the sudden. I do too. One of family friends is a defense attourney for Kurdish refugees, especially ex-PKK members, (the Kurdistan Workers Party).

Of course, the PKK operates in Turkey, you know, one of our allies. So the US government has deemed them a terrorist organization even though Turkish soldiers routinely oppress the Kurdish population, kill Kurdish separatists, and have displaced 3-4 million Kurds. We don't really care for the fates of these Kurds.

And of course, we didn't really care for the fates of the Kurds in Iraq either. When Iraq and Iran were fighting eachother, the United States produced nerve gas and supplied it to Iraq in the hopes that Saddam would use this substance, banned by the UN, on Iranians. And he did, but he also gased the Kurds on the side. What happened when the UN tried to investigate Saddam's atrocity against his ethnic Kurds that you just referenced? Did we tell the U.N. great idea, lets get that bastard? No, Ronald Reagan vetoed the UN investigation and stonewalled ALL efforts to hold Saddam accountable.

So if you want to count the Kurdish body count, are you sure those casualties fit so neatly in Saddam's column only?

The war happened for three reasons:

1.) To flex our muscle to the world to send a message.
2.) To remove Saddam and anything he harbored that was a threat
3.) Oil

And in hindsight its pretty clear that it was a failure on every single count. Only thing we got was removing Saddam, and while I'm glad for that, he harbored nothing that was a threat, and we've only created worse threats in the process.

I find it ridiculous that you would say something like this: "It sounds terrible, but its true - a group of men of Arab background, walking through a LIVE war zone, with bags shouldered just as you would an assault rifle. Its going to draw negative attention in the form of cross hairs."

Sometimes the truth sounds ridiculous, but its still the truth.

No, its not the truth. Its a giant **** up. You don't kill every goddamn civilian. You teach soldiers ammo restraint. You act carefully in wartime. The truth is just like these soldiers are overeager to kill civilians, guys like you are overeager to excuse their deaths. You make a happy couple. You're a part of this ****ed up mentality where tens of thousands of human lives get dumped in mass graves and we brush it off with a stupid cliche. Horrible when Saddam does it, sad but true when we do it.

The fact is that these soldiers can double-check their targets. Can be selective in who they fire upon. But they don't do these things. Some do, but the many who don't are never held accountable. And the only truth here is that this ****ed up behavior is what makes this situation so much worse. Which causes all these young Iraqi boys to be orphaned off and 9 years later into this war that 9 year old kid who lost his father for reasons I'm sure you'd have some meaningless cliched excuse for now gets to become a man at 18 and he picks up a rifle to join the insurgents, and he has a damn good reason for fighting. Thats the truth. The truth is that we don't win hearts and minds. We are in the wrong ****ing place, with the wrong set of principles, making the wrong actions. There are plenty of soldiers who try and do right, but there are enough shitheads like those in this video who are never held accountable, and they are part of the problem.

And people who excuse their behavior are part of the problem too. As long as people keep defending them and letting their behavior slide, we allow this to continue. Certainly civilian deaths will always happen in wars. But they don't have to this extent! We can kill fewer civilians, we can be more careful, we can urge more restraint, we can urge better practices on checking targets, we can hold soldiers accountable for their actions. But we don't do these things consistently or across the board, and so our civilian casualty rate is far higher than it should be. Compare this war to the war in Yugoslavia. Civilian deaths were lower because NATO had higher standards. Even though they didn't live up to their standards to the degree they should've, they still did a far better job than we do in Iraq.

We can argue this whole war thing all day, there is a clear division of whether it should have ever happened or not amongst the population. Lets save the whole community 9 pages of what-ifs. It happened and we deal with it.

You deal with it? Do your friends get killed in crossfire? Does your house get destroyed by 'smart' bombs? Do you have more cliches to throw out? The fact is that the legitimacy of this war is at play every single goddamn day. It didnt 'happen so just deal with it,' every time this bullshit happens, people need to be reminded of their decisions so they that they don't do this same stupid shit again. I guarantee you that when the next administration wants to invade Iran, every person who excused the war in Iraq and later said, oh we might've ****ed up, will proudly wave their flag and get ready to make a mistake in the next war. And I'm sure I'll get to hear great cliched excuses about, "oh its war" when people who are trying to live their lives today get brutally murdered then for reasons completely beyond their control.

So no, I will keep talking about what a mistake this war was and continue reminding people, because I know they what they lack in conscience they make up for with selective memories and cliches that they're more than ready to use when the next 100,000 brown-skinned civilians need to die.

Don't blame the economy on the war. Wars increase demand for products across the board and subsequently jobs. The economy collapse because of false numbers, the American drive to buy everything on credit and financial irresponsibility by both lending institutions and consumers.

No, wars do not increase demand for products. Did you end up buying a new television set because a humvee got retrofitted? All that war does is increase government spending. But spending without creating something productive is just wasting your money. We threw $3.1 Trillion down the drain. You know what $3.1 Trillion gets you? Well, universal health care for 30 years and free college for everyone. That would've increased demand in our economy. That would've raised productivity. That would've helped set us on the right path. This was a giant waste. Certainly that $3.1T was spent somewhere, but the money was spent inefficiently, contractors regularly overcharge, they pocket excess profits, and that money doesn't keep stimulating the economy. In terms of government spending that stimulates the economy, the Iraq war is probably the worst example in American history since 1900.

This economy certainly had more factors involved in its downturn, but here's what you're not seeing. If we weren't so overeager to spend trillions of dollars on the war in Iraq, then we would have had a cushion that we could have used for better bailouts, for giving people real relief, for giving proper tax cuts to those who need it most, for moving faster in recapitulating toxic bank assets, for transferring Non-Performing Loans, and for stimulating real spending in this economy. Instead, we overspent, worsened our economy, and when the double-whammy of the housing crisis and Wall Street deception hit us, we were already in such a precarious and defenseless position that it nearly brought down the world economy.

Keep in mind that the $3.1T we spent is much greater than the amount by which our GDP contracted during our financial crisis.

[Doc Durian]

Better bailouts?

heh...


That's like mortals being forced to provide free dentistry service to a small number of top hierarchy vampires who can't self manage their feeding frenzies and regularly chip their fangs on their victims vertebrae . But of course, the same vampires control all the processes of physical wealth and in another financial frenzy, charge in excess and take the proceeds to develop new regions of feeding frenzy.... under the guise of saving the world from blood poisoning, tooth decay, and your neighbour preying upon you in the dark of night.

Nevermind the bailouts... that's old news... peanuts...

Maguire's recent revelations regarding JP Morgan and the pm shorts scandal with accompanying near total media blackout is far more advanced than what we've come to know of the "bailouts" (cough cough cough).

Hardcore "collateral murder" which some have even deemed treason...

A bad time to be a thorn in anyone's heel as fog happens...

[Doc Durian]

You shut your mouth when you're talkin to me!

Thank you. May I have another, please?

[Mish]

I wonder what those who support these acts would say if that was an Iraqi in that helicopter shooting US civilians? I bet all those arguments about carry bags and them being in a metropolitan "warzone", injustices of war would vanish instantly and their reaction to the same incident would be of horror calling for the heads to roll.

Do I sense hypocrisy?