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DayWalkerz
@centurytel.net

DayWalkerz

Anon

Wikileaks shows why it was under heavy surveillance

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
»www.collateralmurder.com/

I'm not posting direct links to the video but most of know this would be released today.

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
Netgear WNDR3700v2
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4 recommendations

KrK

Premium Member

Um, your post fails to explain why Wikileaks is under heavy surveillance or if it is deserved.

If your claim is "They are bad because they posted classified material" then my response would be "Why is it necessary to classify the truth?

Because, our guys mistook cameras for weapons, and an RPG and ended up killing a number of civilians? It appears there were some armed men around. However, those guys they opened up on were not armed with anything or firing on anyone. And they got chopped to pieces. Our guys messed up here, and opened fire.

Revealing cover-ups and lies is their mission. This is the problem with War. Mistakes happen. Maybe people shouldn't be so hasty on the trigger. So explain why Wikileaks is wrong?

The more I watch this video, the more it pisses me off. Our guys are WAY to f'ing gung ho. I can forgive the original mistake, but then hosing down good samaritans who find the wounded journalist and are trying to get him to medical help and to just hose them all down is bullshit. I could see myself coming on a badly wounded man, and trying to help him and being shot from unseen assailants for my trouble.

If I was an Iraqi, I'd want to pick up a weapon and shoot the first American I saw as well, and I'm an American.

This is wrong on many levels.

Jesus Christ.

»www.youtube.com/watch?v= ··· PrfnU3G0
redwolfe_98
Premium Member
join:2001-06-11

redwolfe_98 to DayWalkerz

Premium Member

to DayWalkerz
here is a related article:

»www.huffingtonpost.com/2 ··· 569.html

KoRnGtL15
Premium Member
join:2007-01-04
Grants Pass, OR

2 edits

2 recommendations

KoRnGtL15 to KrK

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to KrK
I thought the video was disgusting. Shame on the U.S. and I am an American as well. They was laughing it up and having a good time as well. An article mentions it was like they was playing a video game. That is true with real lives though. Their are a lot of young U.S. soldiers over there that are just kids. Not even dry behind the ears yet or close. So in a way I am not really surprised at all by this.

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK
Netgear WNDR3700v2
Zoom 5341J

KrK

Premium Member

Mistakes happen in war, but this was NOT a battle. "They shouldn't of brought their children into a battle." They were good Samaritans in a van! I am pretty upset by this. Like I said, there were indeed a few guys up the street with weapons, but this was clearly a mistake--- cameras mistaken for weapons and an RPG. So I can understand it.... at first... but ffs..... Talk about wanting to just kill anything they see.... Oh look there's a van helping the wounded guy, kill 'em all!

This is sickening, sad, disturbing stuff. And I thumbs up Wikileaks for showing it.
Rojo31
join:2009-04-14
New York, NY

Rojo31

Member

said by KrK:

This is sickening, sad, disturbing stuff.
Sickening, sad and disturbing video games dehumanize the emotions of participants. These laughing kids are the byproduct.

KrK
Heavy Artillery For The Little Guy
Premium Member
join:2000-01-17
Tulsa, OK

KrK

Premium Member

I love video games.

Life isn't a game and everyone knows it. I'm not blaming this on video games... this is the old "Us vs Them" in full view.

Cabal
Premium Member
join:2007-01-21

Cabal to DayWalkerz

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to DayWalkerz
Video shows deaths of two Reuters journalists in Iraq in 2007
quote:
The U.S. investigation into the attack found that the helicopter gunship's crew mistook the journalists' cameras for weapons while seeking out insurgents who had been firing at American troops in the area. The fliers estimated they killed 12 to 15 Iraqis in the attack.

"This tragic incident was investigated at that time by the brigade involved and the investigation found that the forces involved were not aware of the presence of the two reporters, and that all evidence available supported the conclusion by those forces that they were engaging armed insurgents, and not civilians," Maj. Shawn Turner, a U.S. military spokesman, told CNN in a written statement Monday.

The Army's 2007 report on the incident found the crew had "neither reason nor probability to assume that neutral media personnel were embedded with enemy forces," according to a copy of the document released to CNN.

"We regret the loss of innocent life, but this incident was promptly investigated, and there was never any attempt to cover up any aspects of this engagement," Turner added.

DayWalkerz
@centurytel.net

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Anon

to DayWalkerz
Here is the post about them being under heavy surveillance due to what they were going to release.
»WikiLeaks under an aggressive US and Icelandic surveillance

Link Logger
MVM
join:2001-03-29
Calgary, AB

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Link Logger to DayWalkerz

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to DayWalkerz
»www.msnbc.msn.com/id/361 ··· _africa/
quote:
Brett McGurk, a former National Security Council staff member and now an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, countered that the video should be seen in the context that the area was "the hottest of the hot zones" in Iraq.

But retired Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, now a spokesman for the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, said he felt the video showed "a failure of training" and that the crew did not seem to be following rules of engagement.
There is a lot to this story and I suggest gathering as much information as possible before forming opinions. While this is a very unfortunate incident and happens more often then we are told, I still find it difficult to sit in my nice comfortable low stress and safe office and say someone screwed up in a war as the fog of war is often brutal and no doubt often has the opposite effect of what was intended. Politicians really need to think and work hard before declaring a problem needing a military solution, where people will die and events like this can derail the entire effort for years.

Blake

BKayrac
Premium Member
join:2001-09-29

2 recommendations

BKayrac

Premium Member

said by Link Logger:

»www.msnbc.msn.com/id/361 ··· _africa/
quote:
Brett McGurk, a former National Security Council staff member and now an analyst with the Council on Foreign Relations, countered that the video should be seen in the context that the area was "the hottest of the hot zones" in Iraq.

But retired Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, now a spokesman for the Center for Advanced Defense Studies, said he felt the video showed "a failure of training" and that the crew did not seem to be following rules of engagement.
There is a lot to this story and I suggest gathering as much information as possible before forming opinions. While this is a very unfortunate incident and happens more often then we are told, I still find it difficult to sit in my nice comfortable low stress and safe office and say someone screwed up in a war as the fog of war is often brutal and no doubt often has the opposite effect of what was intended. Politicians really need to think and work hard before declaring a problem needing a military solution, where people will die and events like this can derail the entire effort for years.

Blake
+1, they thought they saw weapons, then they see people grabbing wounded up into a van

in that situation what would you do? it's not really as simple as 'well it wasn't guns'.............if it was, what coulda happened?

they attempted to verify there was no friendly forces in the area first, and from one report had been looking for insurgents who had already fired on/attacked US forces shortly before, if i thought i saw weapons i'd probably do the same honestly

either way, just more of a overall bad situation for all involved :|
Expand your moderator at work

Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium Member
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS

Anav to BKayrac

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to BKayrac

Re: Wikileaks shows why it was under heavy surveillance

One has to sift thru the language the nuances..... For example there was no friggin ENGAGEMENT, it was a one way massacre. I guess the technology is there to mow people down from a distance but not enough to provide an accurate view of a camera (versus a machine gun). Or perhaps too much technology, well Sarge, it has an aiming device on it, I see it has a zoom capbility and crosshairs, it could be an anti-helicopter rocket disguised as a camera, and I feel threatened.

Engagement infers a mutual or at least two sided event....
- betrothal: a mutual promise to marry
- the act of sharing in the activities of a group; "the teacher tried to increase his students' engagement in class activities"
- battle: a hostile meeting of opposing military forces in the course of a war

In terms of the military, they follow the ROEs, rules of engagement which dictate when one can fire, usually defensive as in self defense after being fired upon, or preventative, assess that one may be fired upon and allowed to take the initiative to prevent losses.

It is not clear what kind of free for all ROE they were following. Perhaps it was the carte blanche ROE. :-(
markopoleo
join:2003-04-02
Bonne Terre, MO

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markopoleo to DayWalkerz

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to DayWalkerz
First off, they had weapons and RPGs, they did NOT know Press was with them when they started shooting. So don't be mistaken into thinking it was on purpose.

Secondly, its routine that insurgents will rush in and evacuate the wounded, especially if VIP are part of them and don't want them caught or identified.

They had no way of knowing who was what in van, given what they saw I would of thought the same thing they did.

jvmorris
I Am The Man Who Was Not There.
MVM
join:2001-04-03
Reston, VA

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jvmorris

MVM

Just as a basic observation.

All sorts of people were walking around in Iraq with armed bodyguards, especially in this time period. Indeed, many of them were actually armed with AK-47s and RPGs by US forces in-country at that time.

Consequently, the fact that they were armed hardly makes them hostiles -- just prudent.
markopoleo
join:2003-04-02
Bonne Terre, MO

markopoleo

Member

said by jvmorris:

Just as a basic observation.

All sorts of people were walking around in Iraq with armed bodyguards, especially in this time period. Indeed, many of them were actually armed with AK-47s and RPGs by US forces in-country at that time.

Consequently, the fact that they were armed hardly makes them hostiles -- just prudent.
Well if the US armed them, they would know if they was hostile or not :P

KodiacZiller
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A few things I noticed about this video:

1) At the beginning you hear the guys in the chopper saying "We have a guy with an RPG." If you look, there is clearly a guy with a weapon hunkered down at the end of the building like he was ready to engage an enemy of some sort. In fact, it even looked like he was looking up at the chopper. So, the question is why were these Reuters reporters traveling with people carrying RPG's and AK's? Were they simply bodyguards? If so, why did they not notify the Americans of their position? If I were a reporter in the middle of a hot combat zone, I would make damn sure the friendlies knew where I was at, especially if I were traveling with a bunch of locals carrying AK's and RPG's!

2) The guys in the chopper didn't just engage at will. As you can see they constantly had to request permission to engage from some sort of commanding officer. Was this CO held responsible? Since he is the guy with the brass, the responsibility falls 100% on him (that's what happens when you have authority, you take responsibility -- this is more true in the military than anywhere else).

3) Going back to point 1 -- the CO who gave permission to engage should have known about the reporters in the area. After all, isn't that part of the reason the guys in the field ask for permission to engage? So that the CO on the ground can verify that the target really *is* an enemy?

I am not protecting the guys in the chopper, but I am not so sure this was a matter of them being bloodthirsty thugs wanting to kill for killing's sake. Sorry, I don't see that. There was definitely a problem with communication between the reporters and the Americans -- that is, the mechanism for determining friendlies from the enemy was definitely out of whack in this instance. But I don't see malicious intent.

Friendly fire has happened in every war from time immemorial. My father was in some heavy ground combat in Vietnam ('66-'67) and he told me numerous stories of innocent Vietnamese being killed (usually by accident). My grandfather was in WWII and was second wave at the Normandy landing on D-Day. He once told how he threw a hand grenade into the basement of a house thinking it was a place German soldiers were using to fire on American troops. After the smoke cleared, he entered and found that he had killed a bunch of French women and children who were taking cover from the combat. It haunted him until his dying day.

So what's the difference in unfortunate incidents in, say, WWII and with the *accidental* killings of reporters in Iraq?

1) There weren't cameras on every street corner and on every plane and tank during WWII. Therefore, there was no way for people back home to even know about them in the first place.

2) The American people were overwhelmingly in favor of the war. Therefore, they were perfectly OK with ignoring the tens of thousands of innocent people *purposely* carpet bombed by America in Dresden, and with the hundreds of thousands killed in Japan by the two bombs. Both cases of mass murder were admittedly used just to make Germany and Japan surrender -- the innocents killed were merely a tool used to make a point. Very few people cared back then.

Nowadays people against the war go crazy at the sight of even one innocent person killed, even though the rules of engagement are 1000 times more strict today than they were in WWII. Anyone see the hypocrisy here? When everyone is in favor of the war, they ignore it. When they hate the president and big oil, they make a big deal out of every *accidental* killing.

fatness
subtle

join:2000-11-17
fishing

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fatness

said by KodiacZiller:

When everyone is in favor of the war, they ignore it.
That attitude didn't end with WWII. It's here now.

koitsu
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join:2002-07-16
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Watched the entire video. I don't have much to say other than:

This is exactly why we need to bring our troops home.

I'll leave it at that.
SUMware2
Premium Member
join:2002-05-21

SUMware2 to KrK

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to KrK
Thanks for posting the video link.
Expand your moderator at work
SUMware2

2 edits

SUMware2 to KodiacZiller

Premium Member

to KodiacZiller

Re: Wikileaks shows why it was under heavy surveillance

said by KodiacZiller:

A few things I noticed about this video:

1) At the beginning you hear the guys in the chopper saying "We have a guy with an RPG." If you look, there is clearly a guy with a weapon hunkered down at the end of the building like he was ready to engage an enemy of some sort. In fact, it even looked like he was looking up at the chopper.
Being a photographer, to me that looked like a very long telephoto lens mounted on a camera. Something a photojournalist would probably carry. Using his camera to peer around a corner first to avoid possibly being shot, or even just to capture a photo down the street. Or maybe a photo of a chopper he sees.
said by KodiacZiller:

So, the question is why were these Reuters reporters traveling with people carrying RPG's and AK's?
You assume much.
SUMware2

SUMware2 to DayWalkerz

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to DayWalkerz
If you are against innocent civilian deaths, you're supporting the terrorists.

PunkGod
join:2003-02-02

PunkGod to KrK

Member

to KrK
said by KrK:

Um, your post fails to explain why Wikileaks is under heavy surveillance or if it is deserved.

If your claim is "They are bad because they posted classified material" then my response would be "Why is it necessary to classify the truth?

Because, our guys mistook cameras for weapons, and an RPG and ended up killing a number of civilians? It appears there were some armed men around. However, those guys they opened up on were not armed with anything or firing on anyone. And they got chopped to pieces. Our guys messed up here, and opened fire.

Revealing cover-ups and lies is their mission. This is the problem with War. Mistakes happen. Maybe people shouldn't be so hasty on the trigger. So explain why Wikileaks is wrong?

The more I watch this video, the more it pisses me off. Our guys are WAY to f'ing gung ho. I can forgive the original mistake, but then hosing down good samaritans who find the wounded journalist and are trying to get him to medical help and to just hose them all down is bullshit. I could see myself coming on a badly wounded man, and trying to help him and being shot from unseen assailants for my trouble.

If I was an Iraqi, I'd want to pick up a weapon and shoot the first American I saw as well, and I'm an American.

This is wrong on many levels.

Jesus Christ.

(youtube clip)
You do relise that video has been edite.
SUMware2
Premium Member
join:2002-05-21

SUMware2

Premium Member

said by PunkGod:

You do relise that video has been edite.
To support your position, please post a link to the full video if you take the trouble to find it. Thank you.

PunkGod
join:2003-02-02

PunkGod

Member

said by SUMware2:

said by PunkGod:

You do relise that video has been edite.
To support your position, please post a link to the full video if you take the trouble to find it. Thank you.
The video I have seen the pilots are using code talk that they would normally use. In this video they are not. Gee I wonder why.

fatness
subtle

join:2000-11-17
fishing

fatness

Do you have a link to that video, or should people just take your word? Thank you.

PunkGod
join:2003-02-02

PunkGod

Member

said by fatness:

Do you have a link to that video, or should people just take your word? Thank you.
My dumbass never saves the videos I should because I don't feel there important, until I see other videos come out that are edited.

Yes, I have done this same thing with other video, and I can't find the one that I remember.

What the video doesn't say, is that two people were filming something they didn't know what, while one was holding a cell phone and not to his ear.

Haven't we seen enough videos on the internet to know what that means.
SUMware2
Premium Member
join:2002-05-21

1 edit

SUMware2

Premium Member

Prove it, Mr. God god.

paradigmfl
join:2005-07-16

paradigmfl to fatness

Member

to fatness
said by fatness:

Do you have a link to that video, or should people just take your word? Thank you.
While I have yet to watch the video (I don't think I would like the experience, thus I refrain), I have seen other parties speaking of there being different versions. Specifically one mentioned a certain version showing more than another. Just thought I'd throw this out for those who would like to know.