wiki leaks - Iraq Apache

[Drofder2004]

At first 5 minutes, I was ok, they were firing on what they believe to be terrorists, they had visual on 3 weapons, and 2 suspected weapons, but from the moment that van arrived I was retching. Nobody had a gun, they were picking up a wounded man who they established had no weapon. They talk about colelcting weapons and bodies, yet all you see is one wounded being lifted to the van.

No remorse is shown for the attack even after knowing children were injured, obviously I understand they did not see the children (the zoom in at the end is not even clear...) but their comments on bringing children to a 'battle' is distateful, there was no 'battle' this was a fucking slaughter.

But, quoting Fallout, War never changes. Or War is hell.

[Drofder2004]

"playing a computer game"

Here we go again >.>

[Soviet]

Shouldn't we be blaming the people who gave them guns, training, experience, hardened minds, mental instability, and a reason to kill? You know...the government.

[Infinite]

Quite surprised that the government hasn't had that footage removed from the internet yet, and especially wouldn't expect to see that on Youtube.

However dramatic that footage may seem, I do not find it too shocking for the most part. The first 5 minutes was perfectly fine with me. The news reporters were obviously in what the American forces considered "hostile territory". When was the last time that you've walked into a war zone with a group of people and large equipment which COULD BE MISTAKEN FOR WEAPONS. When the van approached, that's when it was just blatant disregard/disrespect for life. It was a large black van picking up a wounded man, and they had nothing on them whatsoever. The one thing I don't understand is why would they bring children into a place where they just heard gunfire?

Either way, this is one of the many bad reasons why people hate America.

[Drofder2004]

Shouldn't we be blaming the people who gave them guns, training, experience, hardened minds, mental instability, and a reason to kill? You know...the government.

Sorry, but I have no compassion for these people, no matter how much training you get, you never lose you humanity, you are trained to kill soldiers and protect civilians, the moment you acknowledge you just shot two children, humanity *should* kick back in.

The government can ofcourse be blamed for the reason to be there and the weapons, etc but all people have a choice, and there choice was to engage a subject they could not clearly identify.

Innocent until proven guilty ina court of law, yet on the battlefield, the unknown is always an enemy.

Quite surprised that the government hasn't had that footage removed from the internet yet, and especially wouldn't expect to see that on Youtube.

Wikileaks has been under threat from people for years, but there is nothing they can do to remove it.
http://file.wikileaks.org/file/us-intel-wikileaks.pdf

Also, Infinite, please watch the whole things. I was typing up a similar post 5 minutes in, thinking exactly the same as you, but I thought to watch it all first. Shit changes moments later.

[Infinite]

Also, Infinite, please watch the whole things. I was typing up a similar post 5 minutes in, thinking exactly the same as you, but I thought to watch it all first. Shit changes moments later.

I watched the whole thing before my first post.

[Drofder2004]

Also, Infinite, please watch the whole things. I was typing up a similar post 5 minutes in, thinking exactly the same as you, but I thought to watch it all first. Shit changes moments later.

I watched the whole thing before my first post.

I do not see, how you can consider it "not shocking". For the msot part, I agree, it was the wrong place for them to be, the people they were with were armed in hostile territory, but the fact they were urging the wounded to pick up a weapon and the lack of remorse from children being hit, is shocking.

[Soviet]

I attribute it to psychological trauma. I know a guy who went off to Iraq a great, kind person. Yet, when he came back and was talking about stuff he did there, he talked jokingly about a time when they were driving a tank down a street and decided to run over a dog that was running across the street. He then described in detail how funny it was with the dog in the treads of the tank. He would never have done something like that before joining the military. The psychological trauma and torment these people undergo is ridiculous in any war, and operations like Iraq and Vietnam are far worse due to paranoia and harsh environmental conditions. A large percentage of the people that come back from a tour of duty are at least somewhat psychologically scarred.

[Drofder2004]

...

I am fully aware of the detatchment that can happen, but you only allow yourself to lose your attachment to humanity, you are not taught to find death funny, you are not taught to find mutilated deads bodies in a pile, a piece of modern art worthy of congratulating people on, this is something you allow to happen to yourself.

This is not similar to the cases of other Wars were people come back horrified of their actions and would be scared of the sound of a ballon popping, these people are enjoying themselves. Sadly, the best way too describe it is, like they are playing a game.

As I will state, I am not worried by the actual killing that went on, I still hold a belief that they were sure of them being hostile and they just wanted a RoE reason to fire and kill, but I just cannot accept that anybody but yourself would be accountable for those actions. He was not told to fire, he asked for permission.

[Soviet]

I am fully aware of the detatchment that can happen, but you only allow yourself to lose your attachment to humanity

That's a bit of an arguable point. To suggest that psychological disorders are voluntary is hardly accurate. A psychopath does not choose to be that way. A sociopath does not choose to have his/her life impacted in the way that it is, nor do they choose how their brains are wired. A person with depression can't control their flow of serotonin. Likewise a person subjected to extreme and torturous conditions can lose their perspective on humanity. Given the circumstance that I was forced to spend every waking hour knowing I might die and knowing I might kill someone for a year or two, I think my perception of life and death would also be permanently altered.

Many of these soldier's responses are their subconscious attempts to cope with what they are experiencing. No human mind is designed to withstand that amount of harsh cruelty, paranoia, and distress for such a long time so it finds a way to deal with it, in these instances altering one's perception of cruelty to accept the outside environment, thereby creating (whether permanently or otherwise) a remorseless individual.

[Hoogie]

Gotta agree with Drofder. The first part wasn't even that a bad call. The part were they are comming with the van is just murder.

[Pedsdude]

Gotta agree with Drofder. The first part wasn't even that a bad call. The part were they are comming with the van is just murder.

In a way though, if they're to stick by their decision to open fire in the first place then they had to act to stop what could have seemed to them as insurgents coming to rescue other insurgents.

But yeah, I definitely think they were too trigger happy and should have confirmed that they actually were weapons and not cameras, as they turned out to be. If I was the person who was crawling away, I would have probably acted dead and then explained the situation to the soldier who arrived, but then again it's easy to sit here not in that actual situation and say how I think I would act...

[Hoogie]

Gotta agree with Drofder. The first part wasn't even that a bad call. The part were they are comming with the van is just murder.

In a way though, if they're to stick by their decision to open fire in the first place then they had to act to stop what could have seemed to them as insurgents coming to rescue other insurgents.

But yeah, I definitely think they were too trigger happy and should have confirmed that they actually were weapons and not cameras, as they turned out to be. If I was the person who was crawling away, I would have probably acted dead and then explained the situation to the soldier who arrived, but then again it's easy to sit here not in that actual situation and say how I think I would act...

They don't show any remorse (or however you write it).

He just drove over a body, haha

They say something like that in the video and some other things i can't remember. But they acted like they had a pretty nice day.

[Azabael]

War criminals.