DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Michael Tee on June 16, 2010, 05:34:01 PM
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http://tinyurl.com/36ftsap (http://tinyurl.com/36ftsap)
<<After several days underground, the founder of the secretive website WikiLeaks has gone public to disclose that he is preparing to release a classified Pentagon video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan last year that left as many as 140 civilians dead, most of them children and teenagers.>>
Fantastic! The truth is coming out and those lying bastards can't keep a lid on it any more. Took long enough, faced with the measures of suppression of the press that the murderous scum developed over the past decade (restricted access, pool reporters, embedding) but it's amazing how, one way or another, and no thanks to the MSM, the real truth eventually emerges. Not that the American public gives a shit, but it might motivate some of the more laid-back Taliban fighters and their supporters to escalate their activities from lukewarm to red-hot. Maybe someone's heart will be moved enough to let the Taliban have some of those ground-to-air missiles they seem to need so badly. Ya never know.
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The article linked is a misleading lie that has no current basis in fact.
There is no proven evidence of any "massacre".
It is possible there was a terrible mistake.
A mistake is not a massacre.
Doubt there has ever been a war in human history without terrible mistakes.
If a mistake was made it is very sad, but attempts to demonize error usually have political agendas.
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If a mistake was made it is very sad, but attempts to demonize error usually have political agendas.
Consider the source, Cu4
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<<The article linked is a misleading lie that has no current basis in fact.
There is no proven evidence of any "massacre".
It is possible there was a terrible mistake.
A mistake is not a massacre.>>
You saw the tapes of the New Baghdad massacre. Did that look like a mistake to you? The Army called it a "battle" while refusing to release the tapes - - did it look like a "battle" to you?
These fucking bastards lie and lie and lie and lie, but no matter how many times they get nailed, you are always ready to believe their next lie.
How come?
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<<The article linked is a misleading lie that has no current basis in fact.
There is no proven evidence of any "massacre".
It is possible there was a terrible mistake.
A mistake is not a massacre.>>
You saw the tapes of the New Baghdad massacre. Did that look like a mistake to you? The Army called it a "battle" while refusing to release the tapes - - did it look like a "battle" to you?
These fucking bastards lie and lie and lie and lie, but no matter how many times they get nailed, you are always ready to believe their next lie.
How come?
Because they are not the only liars.
Did that film show us the whole story?
I can't tell , but I remember something simular a few years ago , when an edited version I saw first made the shooting of a small group of men seem unprovoked , later seeing the longer version these guys were conceiling wepons before they were shot at.
I do not know yet what the full version of this film might look like , or if I might have already seen the full version.
Being aware of the eagerness to edit < I will hold judgement untill I know more.
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"You saw the tapes of the New Baghdad massacre. Did that look like a mistake to you?"
I saw a small snippet of a day of war in a battle zone/war zone in a Baghdad
neighborhood back before the surge was completed when the country was spinning out of control.
There is no way to tell if it what took place was a mistake or not. We have no way
of telling the context of what happened in this area before the video begins.
If it was a mistake or an intentional mis-use of power then it would be a very isolated
incident that should be handled in the appropriate manner. If...big "IF" there are some
"bad apples" in this incident that in no way indicts the entire US Military.
The Army called it a "battle" while refusing to release the tapes - -
did it look like a "battle" to you?
Some of those killed were holding weapons/guns/rpg's.
This is a war zone...not the Galleria Mall.
This particular area was a "hot zone" where we
were losing American soldiers every day.
This was a very, very dangerous area.
US choppers had been shot down by RPG's in this exact area.
Yes the area appears to be a battle zone before and
after the choppers fired a shot.
These fucking bastards lie and lie and lie and lie,
but no matter how many times they get nailed,
you are always ready to believe their next lie.
How come?
I nor you have the complete story...thats why.
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Bullshit. You saw enough to convince any reasonable man that this was a massacre. Furthermore, when the army thought it could hide the tapes successfully, they claimed this was a battle. The tapes were released over a month ago. There was nothing resembling a battle on them. They've had a month to produce the minutes before the massacre and show them as one huge battle but of course have not done so.
This is obviously a documented massacre and there is no evidence to the contrary. Your arguments to the contrary are lame and pathetic. I bet you don't believe them yourself. You are just grasping at straws. Maybe there is something else that would make it not a massacre . . . Yeah, WHAT? Where is it? Why was the Army hiding those tapes forever if some part of it shows there was no massacre?
Those lying bastards know God-damn well there is no other evidence and you know it too, but continue to make lame and pathetic arguments, maybe one of those guys fired - - only nobody sees it.
Tell me, did all that laughing and joking sound to you like these guys were in a battle, being shot at, could be shot out of the sky and killed from one second to the next? Did you hear even the slightest concern for their own safety in all that time? Anything in the tone of their voices to indicate they were in a battle, were under attack? BULLSHIT!!!
If that tape didn't convince you that this was a massacre, then nothing could convince you that it was a massacre. Yet on far less evidence, you are willing to believe almost anything of "Islamonazis" etc. You are just totally destroying your own credibility to defend a bunch of lying, murdering cowards. You need, as an American, to step up to the plate, to denounce these most obvious crimes for what they are, cold-blooded murder, otherwise you become morally complicit in the crime.
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I am not just indirectly complicit.
I work to make these wepons dependable .
And no , I do not know what led up to the decision to shoot, neither do you.
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The army, when it was hiding the tapes, said that the men were engaged in a battle.
Did this look like a battle to you? Did the guys sound like they were in a battle to you? I've seen numerous newsreels of men in battle, being shot at, and none of them sounded anything like those jokers in the helicopter.
You know God-damn well that was no battle. Not even close to one.
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Michael you are completely wrong if you are implying I don't believe what I have stated.
I have arrived at a different conclusion than you. As usual you are in a rush to judgement
of anything and everything American military.
Basically in my opinion there are two explanations to this story.
#1. This action was justified when the whole picture is considered.
#2. This action was not justified, was a mistake, or was improper conduct by a handful of people
that should be dealt with in the appropriate manner if purposeful wrong-doing is proven. But this
video in no way indicts the entire US Military because there are countless stories of our men
and women in the US Military doing all kinds of good deeds and life-saving actions towards
the Iraqi people.
Michael I dont think war can be micro-managed from Starbucks Coffee counters in Berkley.
Men facing unfathomable circumstances chuckle during an engagement when they
see people carrying weapons in an area where American soldiers bodies are being
blown to bits daily.....So F-ing what?...I would probably chuckle too....I would hate
the enemy too....and I would enjoy seeing a guy with a weapon that is probably
involved in killing Americans lit up like a bottle-rocket. Give me a break...leftist
sitting in Starbucks judging - second guessing these guys while these guys are
living and dying in a hell-zone!
If I was a helicopter pilot in a very hot zone during a bloody war and was watching
fellow helicopter pilots getting shot down, watching fellow Americans being killed
everyday in this same exact hot zone battle area HELL YEAH I might be concerned for
my own safety like every minute! You think these guys are like taking a stroll down
5th Avenue?....Death could come at any moment....One RPG shot away from death.
In a war because one side is destroyed by superior force does not mean there is no
battle. These exact streets were a battle zone every single day. There are no
time-outs like in a football game.
We would prefer fighting an enemy that would not run in and out of civilians
all the time...hide behind women/children/schools/hospitals but thats the enemy's
choice. We have to deal with it the best we can...it is no easy chore fighting an
enemy that will kill you in a second with an RPG and 5 minutes later look like a
shopper with women and children in a bazaar. I can't imagine the difficulty
our guys face....and I am astounded by what an over-all great job they have
done.
Rush to judgement and second guess these guys?...while they are living
and dying in a hot, stinky, dangerous, hell zone? I dont think so. Are
there isolated "bad apples" in very facet of life? Yes. Does that
tarnish the big picture? Not in my mind.
(http://www.mpacuk.org/os/images/stories/iraqimage.jpg)
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Well, apparently it's not as cut-and-dried as I first thought it was.
Here's the Wikipedia account of the entire episode, including the aftermath:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike)
But even if I buy the soldiers' account that they really thought that the people on the ground were insurgents or otherwise a threat, how can they get away with firing on the van that arrived on the scene and was attempting to pick up one of the wounded men (who turned out to be one of the two journalists on the scene?)
There was absolutely no hostile action from the van, the driver, or the wounded man crawling towards it on his belly. That was a cowardly and inexcusable attack with absolutely no justification. To me, it's the same as firing on a Red Cross ambulance rescuing the wounded.
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There was absolutely no hostile action from the van, the driver, or the wounded man crawling towards it on his belly. That was a cowardly and inexcusable attack with absolutely no justification. To me, it's the same as firing on a Red Cross ambulance rescuing the wounded.
How would they know that the van was not carrying more insurgents? It didn't have a red cross or a red crescent on it, did it?
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Now they're supposed to be shooting at any vehicle on the streets because of what it MIGHT be carrying? There was no hostile activity whatsoever from the van, in fact it looked like what it actually was, a civilian passenger vehicle with two kids inside whose father had the goodness of heart to pull over and try to rescue an injured civilian. Nobody in the street had been shooting at them, then the van arrives and nobody in the van is shooting at them, no "insurgents" are jumping out of the van, but MAYBE there are insurgents inside so let's shoot 'em up? Keeping in mind that throughout the entire episode, no one fired a shot at them?
Why can't you see the obvious? These are trigger-happy, bloodthirsty punks out for some cheap thrills which they get by blowing people up. And I have never yet seen a newsreel of men in combat where guys under fire are as happy and jocular as these guys sound. Either they're fearless supermen or they are lying punks in no sense of danger or combat whatever. It is obvious that this "battle" and "combat" bullshit was made up, before the lying bastards realized that outsiders could get their hands on the tapes.
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[snip]
From your provided link:
"The wounded Chmagh was crawling on the ground, when an unmarked van arrived at the scene. Unarmed men attempted to get him to the van. The watching helicopter crews requested permission to engage, stating the men were trying to remove 'bodies and weapons' from the scene, and upon receiving permission opened fire on the van and its occupants. Two children sitting in the front seat were wounded in the attack but survived. Chmagh was killed along with the father of the children."
This is in a combat zone, and these are soldiers. If you want them to act to like police officers and wait until they're fired upon, then you should send some Mounties over there. Police are trained to ask questions and wait for provocation, soldiers are trained to react with deadly force when in a combat situation (which means just being in a combat area, NOT waiting until they're fired on).
Also, the van was shown in the video attached to that page, you cannot see children in it. The windows are darkened.
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6,000,000 Jews were murdered in WWII. SIX MILLION. How can 6,000,000 million people act so passively as to be murdered day after day for years? Cowardice?
If that is in your history it would serve your self esteem to see Nazies everywhere and then PRETEND to fight them like a two bit punk in no threat of real battle. Like on the internet. On the internet you can call anyone a Nazi, then start insulting them, safely hiding behind your anonymity, and PRETENDING you're a lot tougher then your forefathers who were so passive they got lined up by the millions and stuffed into ovens.
Are all Jews cowards? I don't know. Are all American soldiers murdering thugs? Are all Vietnam vets torturers?
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<<This is in a combat zone, and these are soldiers. If you want them to act to like police officers and wait until they're fired upon, then you should send some Mounties over there. Police are trained to ask questions and wait for provocation, soldiers are trained to react with deadly force when in a combat situation (which means just being in a combat area, NOT waiting until they're fired on).>>
Combat zone, my ass. It's a combat zone because they call it a combat zone, nobody was firing on them and they knew God-damn well that the citizens were legally permitted to carry AKs for self-defence. Even calling that urban street scene a combat zone is a stretch.
There was absolutely no evidence in the video that weapons were being loaded into the van. The van was in plain sight as was the wounded journalist crawling towards it. Where were the weapons being loaded in? That was the bullshit those punks radio'd back to base so they could get permission to shoot up the wounded and their would-be rescuer.
It was obvious from the demeanour of those Nazi punks that this was not a combat zone and they were not under fire. Anyone who's ever watched newsreels of men under fire (and I've watched dozens of them) knows that they are nowhere near as relaxed as those punks were.
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<<6,000,000 Jews were murdered in WWII. SIX MILLION. How can 6,000,000 million people act so passively as to be murdered day after day for years? Cowardice?>>
Now I know you're fucking with me. You're not that fucking ignorant.
<<If that is in your history it would serve your self esteem to see Nazies everywhere and then PRETEND to fight them like a two bit punk in no threat of real battle. >>
Nice try. Better than admitting the obvious - - that there's little or no moral distinction between the U.S. military and the Nazis. Hurts when you're a member or former member of the U.S. military and accustomed to demanding and receiving the unthinking adulation of the ignorant American public.
<<Like on the internet. On the internet you can call anyone a Nazi, then start insulting them, safely hiding behind your anonymity, and PRETENDING you're a lot tougher then your forefathers who were so passive they got lined up by the millions and stuffed into ovens.>>
Right, next time I'll take the easy way out and pretend those sick loser fucks are heroic defenders of universal human values.
<<Are all Jews cowards? I don't know.>>
LOL. Glad to see you're keeping an open mind on the subject.
<<Are all American soldiers murdering thugs? Are all Vietnam vets torturers? >>
Put it this way - - some are and the rest of them enable and support the murderers and the torturers. Maybe five or six percent are OK, but they better hide it or they'll be hounded out of the service.
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<<This is in a combat zone, and these are soldiers. If you want them to act to like police officers and wait until they're fired upon, then you should send some Mounties over there. Police are trained to ask questions and wait for provocation, soldiers are trained to react with deadly force when in a combat situation (which means just being in a combat area, NOT waiting until they're fired on).>>
Combat zone, my ass. It's a combat zone because they call it a combat zone, nobody was firing on them and they knew God-damn well that the citizens were legally permitted to carry AKs for self-defence.
Someone want to call Tee on this, to back it up with proof, if its so "obviously" legal?
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Combat zone, my ass.
Michael are you denying that this event took place in what was a very hot combat
zone at that time of the Iraq war? Seriously there had been numerous American soldiers killed
and helicopters shot down and fired upon in this same combat zone. If you are trying...
and I am not saying you are....but if you are trying to sell the idea that this was some
docile neighborhood....Michael that is just not true. This was a very dangerous area.
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Snowblower, WWII is over. The Jews got massacred. They pulled a Palin and quit. We fought against the Germans. They were the Nazies. Go away, asshole. Cry on someone else's shoulder.
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"I have never yet seen a newsreel of men in combat where guys under fire are as happy and jocular...."
A) I have seen guys joking with each other while being under fire. I've joked with guys while we getting pounded with 120mm rockets.
B) Newsreel? This isn't WWII Snowblower.
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<<Michael are you denying that this event took place in what was a very hot combat
zone at that time of the Iraq war? >>
Come on, CU4, get real. Was there anything in that video that gave the appearance of a "very hot combat zone?" Did those guys sound scared or excited to you, like someone was firing or about to fire on them with live ammunition? Did you hear how casually, without any hint of urgency in their voices, they radio'd for permission to shoot up the van? BULLSHIT this was combat. I know it wasn't and so should you.
The Army sounds like a comedian from an old vaudeville sketch, "Who ya gonna believe, me or your own lyin' eyes?" It's funny to watch because in real life who is so stupid as to be convinced by some slick-talking con artist that what he saw with his own eyes wasn't what it all too obviously was? (Usually it's the guy caught by his wife in bed with a bimbo. "Who ya gonna believe . . . ?)
The army and those Neanderthals in the chopper want you to believe that this was a battle. They called it combat. But they held onto that tape buried in the vault and wouldn't show it to anyone. Reuters was still fighting in the courts for an order to get that tape and their chances didn't look so hot. If it weren't for some courageous whistle-blowers inside the Army itself, that tape would still be buried in an Army vault. Is that really how an innocent party behaves? Bury the evidence at all costs? Come on, CU4. If you were on a jury in a murder trial, and you heard that the accused busted his ass to hide a film of the event, that would mean nothing at all to you? If you suspected your bookkeeper had been embezzling money from you, but he hid the books and fought you in court to keep them hidden from you, WTF would you really think - - that the guy was innocent but had a genuine fear you might misinterpret the books?
<<Seriously there had been numerous American soldiers killed
and helicopters shot down and fired upon in this same combat zone. >>
When? Where? You probably couldn't find a street corner anywhere in Baghdad where some kind of shit hadn't gone down somewhere. The fact is there were no American soldiers being killed in the streets below at that time, there was no firing from the street, there was no fire coming from the van which was trying to pick up the wounded and there was absolutely zero evidence of insurgents inside the van, which the soldiers saw arrive on the scene.
<<Michael that is just not true. This was a very dangerous area.>>
Use your head, CU4? Did it look dangerous to you? Did you see any evidence of the danger? Every street corner in fucking Baghdad is probably a "dangerous area" at some point in the 24-hour, 7-day cycle, but was it dangerous to those guys at that time? Use your head, CU4 - - you heard those guys yourself. Honest to God - - did they sound scared? Did they sound like guys were shooting at them? Did they sound like their lives were in danger? Where was the urgency in their voices? Where was the tension? Haven't you ever seen combat newsreels of guys in a firefight? I'm not saying nobody jokes at all, but these guys were joking all the time, and I never saw any combat newsreels of anyone that laid back under fire, nor, I bet, did you.
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<<A) I have seen guys joking with each other while being under fire. I've joked with guys while we getting pounded with 120mm rockets.>>
I don't say nobody ever jokes under fire. I'm saying those guys were more laid back and relaxed than ANY men I've ever seen in real combat newsreels.
<<B) Newsreel? This isn't WWII Snowblower.>>
Newsreels, videotapes, live radio broadcasts from the front; WWII, Korea, Vietnam, even Iraq or Afghanistan - - what's the fucking difference? I've heard and watched lots of them and I've never seen such a bunch of laid-back, joking, laughing hoodlums as are portrayed in this tape. There isn't a single shred of evidence that indicates that they were in danger or under fire at the time. Those guys were NOT in any danger at any time.
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Those guys were NOT in any danger at any time.
Says you
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Come on, CU4, get real. Was there anything in that video that gave the appearance of a "very hot combat zone?" Did those guys sound scared or excited to you, like someone was firing or about to fire on them with live ammunition? Did you hear how casually, without any hint of urgency in their voices, they radio'd for permission to shoot up the van? BULLSHIT this was combat. I know it wasn't and so should you.
Again, from the link you provided:
"According to Tom Cohen, CNN, the soldiers of Bravo Company 2-16 Infantry had been under fire all morning from rocket-propelled grenades and small arms on the first day of Operation Ilaaj in Baghdad. Al Jazeera stated that the Army had received 'reports of small arms fire' but as they were unable to positively identify the gunmen they proceeded to dispatch Apache helicopters to the area.
"The Air Weapons Team (AWT) of two Apache AH-64s (part of the 1st Cavalry Division) had been requested by the Army's 2-16 Infantry Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, before July 12 to support Operation Ilaaj. Tasked to conduct escort, armed reconnaissance patrols, counter-IED and counter-mortar operations, the two helicopters left Camp Taji at 9.24am. They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9.53am, where, according to the official report, sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued."
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Yea, obviously "no danger at any time"
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There is something seriously WRONG with some of the people in here.
This nut-job MT thinks that because he has watched a few "newsreels" he has a handle on what does and does not occur in a combat situation.
(((((((((((((((GOOD LORD))))))))))))))
((((((((((((((((((HELP))))))))))))))))))
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6,000,000 ..............
Woah there!
That ropes in a lot more than MT and seems innapropriate somehow.
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<<"According to Tom Cohen, CNN, the soldiers of Bravo Company 2-16 Infantry had been under fire all morning from rocket-propelled grenades and small arms on the first day of Operation Ilaaj in Baghdad. >>
NONE of which was going on within sight of the helicopter. None of which activity was being engaged in by the victims of the American Neanderthals. None of the victims being in any kind of firing position. All of them openly walking down a public street in broad daylight within eyesight of hovering US helicopters. Come on, don't you know bullshit when you see it? Somewhere in the neighbourhood, Americans might have come under fire. Tens of thousands of people live in the neighbourhood. There was no indication at all that this dozen or more people had any part to play in the fighting and the fact that they took no action to seek cover or attack the choppers makes it highly improbable that they had anything to do with it.
<<Al Jazeera stated that the Army had received 'reports of small arms fire' but as they were unable to positively identify the gunmen they proceeded to dispatch Apache helicopters to the area.>>
Translation: reports of gunfire from unidentified gunmen in an area bring helicopters to the area who shoot up anyone within the area. Even though there is NO indication that the victims of the shooting were gunmen and in fact with numerous indications to the contrary (the failure to fire at the helicopters and/or take cover, both before and after the helicopter attacked.)
<<"The Air Weapons Team (AWT) of two Apache AH-64s (part of the 1st Cavalry Division) had been requested by the Army's 2-16 Infantry Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, before July 12 to support Operation Ilaaj. Tasked to conduct escort, armed reconnaissance patrols, counter-IED and counter-mortar operations, the two helicopters left Camp Taji at 9.24am. They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9.53am, where, according to the official report, sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued.">>
New Baghdad is one of the nine administrative districts of the City of Baghdad, which has a total population of 6.5 million people. (see Wikipedia articles on both New Baghdad and Baghdad for this information.) Assuming all nine districts to be roughly equal in population, New Baghdad would have an approximate population of 722,222. So you have two helicopters dispatched to a district of about 720,000 people, where somewhere somebody is making "sporadic" attacks on coalition forces. Not even those fucking Neanderthals are so fucking dumb that they would mistake a dozen guys taking up no firing positions, taking no cover from helicopters, firing no weapons and walking along a street in broad daylight as the people making "sporadic attacks" on Americans somewhere in a city of 720,000 people. This is just crap.
Again use your head, CU4, Ami. Use your common sense. Use your judgment. Do these guys LOOK like they're afraid? Under fire? In danger of being shot down? Do they SOUND like it? And ask yourself, if the Army is so fucking innocent, why did they fight so hard to keep the tape from the eyes and ears of the American people? Why does it come to the eyes and ears of the people only through the agency of a whistle-blower? The answer is all too obvious. These guys are liars and murderers and everyone can see it.
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The army, when it was hiding the tapes, said that the men were engaged in a battle.
Did this look like a battle to you? Did the guys sound like they were in a battle to you? I've seen numerous newsreels of men in battle, being shot at, and none of them sounded anything like those jokers in the helicopter.
You know God-damn well that was no battle. Not even close to one.
This seems poorly thought out.
Do you beleive that the American Soldiers really have nothing to fear from the helpless Iriqui fighter?
The poorly trained and poorly armed resistance causes no worry to the mirthfull professionals that they attempt to attack in all futility?
Would you like to recruit yourself to our propaganda force?
You are a natural.
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NONE of which was going on within sight of the helicopter.
So? As I said, these are soldiers, not police. Part of their unit was reported as under attack, so they were in "combat mode". The rules for police are different, and you keep trying to apply those rules to soldiers.
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<<Do you beleive that the American Soldiers really have nothing to fear from the helpless Iriqui fighter?>>
They might have a lot to fear from a poorly armed Iraqi fighter, but these guys were so obviously not fighters, for the reasons I've given in exquisite detail, that it's pointless to argue about "Iraqi fighters." As I've said, these "fighters" were never observed to fire a shot, were not in firing position, did not take cover when the helicopters appeared, did not attack or even point their weapons at the helicopters either before or after the helicopters launched their attack.
Furthermore the demeanour of the crew was totally inconsistent with the demeanour of men under fire, in danger of their lives.
Furthermore, you and your co-defenders of these murderous swine make no attempt at all to explain how the "innocent" army fights like a lion against the release of actual videos of the event.
<<The poorly trained and poorly armed resistance causes no worry to the mirthfull professionals that they attempt to attack in all futility?>>
As if there was even a shred of evidence of an attempt to attack. The poorest trained resistance in the world would know how to take cover, take up firing positions and return fire. There is nothing I have yet seen that would indicate the Iraqi resistance are too dumb to be able to at least attempt to do so.
<<Would you like to recruit yourself to our propaganda force?>>
There's only one real job requirement for the American Army propaganda force - - a complete, total and unconditional lack of shame. The ability to tell barefaced lies with a perfectly straight face. "Who ya gonna believe, me or your lyin' eyes?" I'm working on it, but I still don't think I'd be able to qualify.
You're a natural for another "propaganda force" yourself, but unfortunately were born too late to be of any use to Dr. Goebbels. I can imagine you, BSB, CU4 and Ami assigned by the good doctor to "investigate" the "so-called gas chambers" of the "work camp" at Auschwitz. Your joint investigative report would be darkly hilarious - -
"Some of the guest workers suffered extreme anaphylactic reaction to the delousing powder in the shower stations and unfortunately a few of them died before emergency medical teams could reach the scene."
I used to be disgusted, now I am just amused. At least I will give all of you an A for effort.
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I'm surprised it took this long for Tee to pull out the Nazi comparisons
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What an asshole you are, snowblower.
I never made one comment one way or the other regarding this action. All I said was that I've seen soldier joke while being shoot at. Yet now, this stupid fucking asshole from Canada, is saying I'd be at home in the death camps.
BT, be a leader, get rid of this insulting jerk and his constant hate speech. .
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<<I never made one comment one way or the other regarding this action. All I said was that I've seen soldier joke while being shoot at. Yet now, this stupid fucking asshole from Canada, is saying I'd be at home in the death camps.>>
What I really said was that you'd accept the official explanations and blindly defend an obvious case of cold-blooded murder exactly as you, CU4, plane and Ami are doing in this thread.
I DID NOT say that you would be at home in a death camp. Read the fucking post.
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I defended NOTHING, asshole. I said nothing about the action.
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<<I never made one comment one way or the other regarding this action. All I said was that I've seen soldier joke while being shoot at. Yet now, this stupid fucking asshole from Canada, is saying I'd be at home in the death camps.>>
What I really said was that you'd accept the official explanations and blindly defend an obvious case of cold-blooded murder exactly as you, CU4, plane and Ami are doing in this thread.
I DID NOT say that you would be at home in a death camp. Read the fucking post.
I don't think I have defended anything yet.
I am refuseing to join in a condemnation at this point.
All of the evidence we have seen so far is presented by partizens who have an axe to grind , have had a chance to edit and who do not know much about what they are looking at.
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At this point (see my previous posts in this thread) the evidence of criminal action is so overwhelming that refusing to condemn is the equivalent of defending.
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Well, apparently it's not as cut-and-dried as I first thought it was.
Here's the Wikipedia account of the entire episode, including the aftermath:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike)
At this point (see my previous posts in this thread) the evidence of criminal action is so overwhelming that refusing to condemn is the equivalent of defending.
Could I wait for the defense to be made?
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Bullshit. You saw enough to convince any reasonable man that this was a massacre.
Begs the question.
Furthermore, when the army thought it could hide the tapes successfully, they claimed this was a battle.
Begs the question. Assignment of motivation.
The tapes were released over a month ago. There was nothing resembling a battle on them.
Opinion.
They've had a month to produce the minutes before the massacre and show them as one huge battle
Fact, assuming time period is correct.
but of course have not done so.
Fact assuming evidence described has not been presented. But depending on intent, the qualifier "of course" potentially begs the question.
This is obviously a documented massacre
Begs the question.
and there is no evidence to the contrary.
Speculation.
Your arguments to the contrary are lame and pathetic.
Opinion.
I bet you don't believe them yourself. You are just grasping at straws.
Ad hominem. Speculation. Assignment of motivation.
Maybe there is something else that would make it not a massacre . . . Yeah, WHAT? Where is it? Why was the Army hiding those tapes forever if some part of it shows there was no massacre?
Valid.
Those lying bastards know God-damn well there is no other evidence
Begs the question. Speculation. Assignment of motivation.
and you know it too,
Ad hominem. Assignment of motivation.
but continue to make lame and pathetic arguments,
Opinion.
maybe one of those guys fired - - only nobody sees it.
Valid.
Tell me, did all that laughing and joking sound to you like these guys were in a battle, being shot at, could be shot out of the sky and killed from one second to the next? Did you hear even the slightest concern for their own safety in all that time? Anything in the tone of their voices to indicate they were in a battle, were under attack? BULLSHIT!!!
Valid.
If that tape didn't convince you that this was a massacre, then nothing could convince you that it was a massacre.
Begs the question. Speculation. Ad hominem.
Yet on far less evidence, you are willing to believe almost anything of "Islamonazis" ec.
Ad hominem, assignment of motivation.
You are just totally destroying your own credibility to defend a bunch of lying, murdeing cowards.
Ad hominem. Opinion.
You need, as an American, to step up to the plate, to denounce these most obvious crimes for what they are, cold-blooded murder,
Begs the question.
otherwise you become morally complicit in the crime.
Valid only if preceding premise is true.
The entire argument included only a few indisputable facts and a few valid arguments. Those alone did very little to advance the theme. The valid points are disputable, but rational. I would specifically dispute that the "laughing and joking" do not indicate that this is not a battle or that there is no fear on the part of the participants. It is very common to deal with high stress by laughing and joking to relieve it. When you have training and/or experience in these kinds of high-stress situations, you handle them differently than would an untrained person. I have listened to tapes of airline pilots in emergencies. The calm professionalism in their voices belies the mortal danger they are in. They often crack a joke or two to relief the stress. Years ago a passenger plane had its hydraulics go out and had to land without that control. The plane crash-landed and several people were killed, though many more survived. As it was landing, the ATC told the pilot "You are cleared to land on runway . . ." He responded. "Oh, you're gonna be particular, huh? You want it on a runway?" He was devastated after this landing, lamenting about the passengers "he" killed, but refusing to accept the accolades he received as a hero for the lives he truly did save. But during the actual emergency he kept calm and cool, and laughed about the predicament he was in. If one of those soldiers started in joking, joining in would be a rational response to an irrational situation.
Aside from those few points that are valid, though, most of this post was just poorly reasoned opinion.
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Actually, I missed one.
[Quote from: Michael Tee on June 16, 2010, 11:54:02 PM]
Maybe there is something else that would make it not a massacre . . . Yeah, WHAT? Where is it? Why was the Army hiding those tapes forever if some part of it shows there was no massacre?
[/quote]
I labeled that as valid. In totality it is, but "Why was the army hiding those tapes forever . . ." begs the question and assigns motivation. The entire argument cited in that quote, however, is valid if we simply say "Why did the army not release the tape?" It is valid to ask what evidence exists to support the argument that this was a legal action.
I haven't watched the tape, but there is another thing that makes me wonder. MT claims that people were "not taking cover" during the attack and cites this as evidence that these are not soldiers. I would argue that this tends to lean in the other direction. The natural reaction to fire even from an untrained civilian is to try to get away and hide. There are only two situations in which this natural tendency might be overridden: a soldier in performance of his duties or a suicidal person. If these people were truly not seeking cover, they may have wished to be martyrs. This DOES happen in that culture. Otherwise, I am either misunderstanding his argument or these folks were just plain NUTS!
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I'll just take issue with a few points that Pooch addressed:
Hiding or suppression of evidence is accepted by every court in the English-speaking world as evidence of guilt. In the case of Conrad Black, the Canadian financier, in Chicago, the fact that Black and his associates were caught on videotape removing boxes of potentially incriminating documents surreptitiously was a major blow against them in their fraud trial. It's similar to flight, in that it shows consciousness of guilt. Technically, it might in fact be "assignment of motivation" as you claim, but the assignment (to consciousness of guilt) is so obvious and so logical that only that one assignment is realistically possible. It's like a drowning man grabbing a floating timber - - is it "assignment of motive" to say that he did it to save himself from drowning? Sure it is, but it is an assignment that is so likely to be the correct one that the conclusion is inevitably accepted. (Although it's always possible, albeit difficult, to contradict that assignment with contrary evidence, none of which exists in this case.)
<<I haven't watched the tape, but there is another thing that makes me wonder. MT claims that people were "not taking cover" during the attack and cites this as evidence that these are not soldiers. I would argue that this tends to lean in the other direction. The natural reaction to fire even from an untrained civilian is to try to get away and hide. There are only two situations in which this natural tendency might be overridden: a soldier in performance of his duties or a suicidal person. If these people were truly not seeking cover, they may have wished to be martyrs. This DOES happen in that culture. Otherwise, I am either misunderstanding his argument or these folks were just plain NUTS!>>
They may have wished to be martyrs? All twelve of them? And in their wish to become martyrs, they just stood in the open, not taking cover, not assuming firing positions, not firing back, and waited for the American helicopters to blow them away? That reminds me of the fascist explanation for the so-called "suicide" of Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President of Chile, martyred in a CIA coup, that "He shot himself 28 times in the chest, pausing only once to re-load." Come on, Pooch, surely you can do better than that.
Too bad that you didn't watch the tape, BTW. You would see no danger on the ground, no fear in the chopper. It's as obvious as the day is long. No "expert advice" can convince you otherwise. It's like the "experts" dissecting the beating of Rodney King - - the pigs are beating the living shit out of the guy, and the "experts" are discussing the action one frame at a time explaining how it's not really the vicious beating that it appears to be. "Who ya gonna believe, me or your own lyin' eyes?" As long as the Pentagon could keep the tape hidden from the eyes of the public, they could get away with their outrageous bullshit - - the pedestrians were killed in "a battle," the helicopter crews were in mortal danger. Once you see the tapes, you can tell instantly how outrageous those lies were. OF COURSE!!! That was the whole point of holding onto the tapes, of concealing them from public view.
It is impossible for any honest and reasonably intelligent person to see the tapes and believe the Pentagon's lying bullshit. End of story.
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It's like the "experts" dissecting the beating of Rodney King - - the pigs are beating the living shit out of the guy, and the "experts" are discussing the action one frame at a time explaining how it's not really the vicious beating that it appears to be.
You continue to compare the actions of soldiers with the actions of police. They are not trained the same, nor do they have the same "rules of engagement". They cannot be expected to act similarly in similar situations. Soldiers are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.
As the character Bruce Willis played in "Siege" said when using martial law in NYC was being discussed:
General William Devereaux: The Army is a broad sword, not a scalpel. Trust me, senator - you do not want the Army in an American city.
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<<You continue to compare the actions of soldiers with the actions of police. They are not trained the same, nor do they have the same "rules of engagement". They cannot be expected to act similarly in similar situations.>>
You missed the point completely of my Rodney King example. I was not comparing or equating police action with military action. I was merely providing an example of how the plain unvarnished truth of a videotape can be dissected and picked apart by "experts" in an attempt to portray the obvious truth as something entirely different.
<< Soldiers are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.>>
On that theory, they should massacre the entire population of Baghdad. They are not trained to shoot unarmed civilians who present no threat. Particularly in a country where they are justifying their presence as an attempt to protect the citizens.
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A) as your link already provided, there was and has been a constant threat to soldiers in that area
B) you still have provided no proof what-so-ever that civilians are legally permitted to carry AK's for self defense
and so goes your theory down in flames, yet again. Ironically, it is impossible for any honest and reasonably intelligent person to accept your opinions without even some evidentiary support
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On that theory, they should massacre the entire population of Baghdad. They are not trained to shoot unarmed civilians who present no threat. Particularly in a country where they are justifying their presence as an attempt to protect the citizens.
They will respond to perceived threats, which include people carrying items that *look* like weapons and people doing unusual things (like entering an area where a firefight had just occurred to pick stuff and people up when they are not part of Red Cross / Red Crescent). As Pooch pointed out, their actions are not rational for "normal civilians" who would be much more likely to run away when a gunship opens up with 30mm rounds.
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In response to Pooch's Reply # 39 - -
<<The entire argument included only a few indisputable facts and a few valid arguments. Those alone did very little to advance the theme . . . Aside from those few points that are valid, though, most of this post was just poorly reasoned opinion. >>
Actually, Pooch, your entire post (Reply #39) contained very few valid points and did almost nothing to contradict my argument. Yes, my post did contain quite a bit of rhetoric, giving you the opportunity to rack up a lot of perfectly valid "opinion" and "begs the question" points, but the essence of my argument was not in the "opinion" and "begging the question" parts of my post, but in the actual fact and logic components, where your criticism was misinformed at best.
I'll try to save some space and time by conceding on most of your "opinion" and "begs the question" comments - - they're a waste of time to deal with, for both of us.
To begin with, your dismissal of the significance of the Army's desperate efforts to conceal the truth (i.e. the videotapes) and to refuse to release them to the public, is not a simple "assignment of motive." It is in fact powerful evidence (unless contradicted by some other valid motive to conceal) of a consciousness of guilt. The conduct of one who hides evidence of his deeds is not the conduct of someone who is innocent, it is guilty conduct and most people will recognize it as such. That is just a matter of simple common sense.
However, the Army did more than conceal the tapes. With the tapes safely (as they thought) wrapped up, they lied about the characterization of the massacre, saying the twelve civilians (two journalists included) were killed in combat. The tapes obviously showed no combat in progress. The conduct on the ground - - the victims of the massacre ambling along an open street, making no attempt to take cover at the appearance of the helicopters, nobody assuming a firing position or firing back even after the helicopters had launched their attack was totally inconsistent with the conduct of men in combat facing enemy air attacks. Again, concealing the evidence, lying about a battle that had never occurred (the original dispatch called in was about American units in the area coming under sporadic fire) - - certainly, even if you stretch the "sporadic fire" in the area into a "battle" or "combat" it is crystal clear from the tapes that the victims of the massacre were not involved in it. Lying about what happened is not "Assignment of Motivation" - - it is again a clear-cut indication of a consciousness of guilt and unless corrected by evidence of other motivation, will be taken as evidence of guilt. There again, you have common-sense evidence of guilt, accepted as such by most people.
In short, I don't think you understand "assignment of motive," or if you do you have grossly misapplied it in the instances of (a) concealing evidence and (b) lying about the facts while concealing evidence to the contrary.
In a completely different area, you made a futher gross error by characterizing as mere "opinion" my statement of fact that there was nothing in the tapes that indicated a battle was going on. That is not an opinion, it is a matter of fact. Indications that a battle was going on would include: bullets hitting the choppers, shattering parts, men on the ground taking up firing positions, men aiming and/or firing weapons at the choppers, etc. Inside the chopper, men wounded, men screaming, men yelling, bloodstains, blood and guts, etc. When I say that there were no indications of a battle in progress on the tapes, that is FACT, not opinion.
Further, while you are technically correct in stating that it is mere speculation when I say that there is no evidence to the contrary (i.e. that this was not a massacre but a battle) your point is lost if I merely rephrase my argument, as I should have done, that after the passage of a month (now more) the Army has failed to to produce any such evidence, which is FACT, and from which one can draw a pretty strong inference that there is no such evidence or it would certainly have been produced by now.
I was kind of surprised that you admitted the validity of this argument:
<<Maybe there is something else that would make it not a massacre . . . Yeah, WHAT? Where is it? Why was the Army hiding those tapes forever if some part of it shows there was no massacre?>> and this:
<<Tell me, did all that laughing and joking sound to you like these guys were in a battle, being shot at, could be shot out of the sky and killed from one second to the next? Did you hear even the slightest concern for their own safety in all that time? Anything in the tone of their voices to indicate they were in a battle, were under attack? BULLSHIT!!!>>
but I'll gladly accept any and all such concessions.
My argument was based on fact and logic. True, I was surprised by how many times you correctly pointed out "opinion" and "rhetoric" (which you labeled as "begs the question") so I guess I coulda tightened up the whole post, but effectively you admitted some key points as valid and mistakenly attacked others as "assignment of motivation." You made one technically correct point but lost it again after I corrected my own poorly worded phrasing. I don't think your counter-attack accomplished anything in the end other than highlighting my (probably seriously annoying ) overuse of rhetoric in argument.
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Naaa, Tee's arguement is apparently to continue to ignore the FACTS of military combat vs police investigation, as Ami has relentlessly addressed. Everyone of of these opinion pieces put forth by Tee claiming how this wasn't a combat zone, how there was no "battle", continues to ingore both his own links that this was indeed an area of threat to military personel AND this is a military action, NOT a police action
So no, Tee's opinions weren't nearly as much preidcated on facts & logic, but far more so a few selected facts, wrapped around an entire plethora of predisposed "what had to have happened" logic, based on the repetative underlying hatred he has for both the U.S., and its military
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<<They will respond to perceived threats, which include people carrying items that *look* like weapons and people doing unusual things (like entering an area where a firefight had just occurred to pick stuff and people up when they are not part of Red Cross / Red Crescent). >>
That is ridiculous on both counts. First of all as the video clearly shows, there was no perceived threat at all from the civilians. At the risk of repeating myself for the fourth or fifth time, they did not scatter or take up firing positions, did not aim their weapons at the helicopters, did not fire at them. The "threat" of a group of men walking down a public street in broad daylight with no evidence of any firefight in the immediate area is non-existent. Nor did the conduct of those murderous scum inside the chopper remotely resemble anything like men facing a threat of gunfire or in danger of being shot out of the sky. You continue to manufacture phony threats out of specious or non-existent evidence as does the Army itself. There was nothing unusual about men carrying weapons on a street in Baghdad in broad daylight. Many folks use armed bodyguards as a matter of necessity in Baghdad, and many carry AKs for personal protection. Every household in Baghdad, then and now, had the legal right to own at least one AK-47.
<<As Pooch pointed out, their actions are not rational for "normal civilians" who would be much more likely to run away when a gunship opens up with 30mm rounds.>>
They did not fire back. The key point here is that they did not try to run for cover after the chopper came into view and hovered. They manifested no sign of hostility or combat-readiness whatsoever. None.
They were walking down a street in their own city in broad daylight out in the open without splitting up or hugging the building facades, and this is what you and Pooch consider "not rational for normal civilians???" How else do they get around the streets?
Similarly entering the street where the firefight occurred - - there WAS no firefight. There was a massacre. The guy was driving by and like any good Samaritan would, he pulled over to assist the wounded. There is NO EXCUSE for firing on a vehicle engaged in rescue of the wounded.
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"In a completely different area, you made a futher gross error by
characterizing as mere "opinion" my statement of fact that there
was nothing in the tapes that indicated a battle was going on.
That is not an opinion, it is a matter of fact. Indications that
a battle was going on would include: bullets hitting the
choppers, shattering parts, men on the ground taking up
firing positions, men aiming and/or firing weapons at the
choppers, etc. Inside the chopper, men wounded,
men screaming, men yelling, bloodstains, blood and guts, etc.
When I say that there were no indications of a battle in progress
on the tapes, that is FACT, not opinion"
No it is TOTAL OPINION!
You have no idea what you are talking about.
You were not there...you have no idea who those guys were with weapons.
You see a snippet of a few minutes & wanna run to your anti-American preconceived conclusions.
You do not know the specifics of was happening in this neighborhood minutes/hours/days before
This area was a war-zone.
Multiple deaths of American soldiers and copters shot down.
You think our guys just fly around Baghdad & stop any ole place and
say "Golly Jeee...there's a few people down there standing around lets
just start shooting them". Thats non-sense and you know it.
Under your scenario we could never take proactive action
in a battle area even when we see the enemy walking around
with weapons where skirmishes and battles have been frequently
happening....we would have to wait until they fired or they fired
back to call it a "battle". Thats baloney.
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You have no idea what you are talking about.
You were not there...you have no idea who those guys were with weapons.
You see a snippet of a few minutes & wanna run to your anti-American preconceived conclusions.
<<No it is TOTAL OPINION!>>
Wrong, very wrong.
<<You do not know the specifics of was happening in this neighborhood minutes/hours/days before>>
No, but I never claimed I did.
<<This area was a war-zone.>>
Might have been at one time but no indication that it was at that time. NYC was a war zone on Sept. 11, 2001, you can't drive around NYC on Sept. 12, 2001 shooting people because it was a war zone the day before. These 12 civilians were shot in cold blood and the Army's claim that they were shot in combat is a lie. They weren't in combat with anyone, and there's no evidence that anyone around them was in combat. New Baghdad is an area of 700,000 people and "sporadic fire" against "some American units" does not turn the whole district into a "war zone."
<<Multiple deaths of American soldiers and copters shot down.>>
Yeah, all over Iraq, but it doesn't make that street a war zone, and even if it did, civilians in a war zone aren't fair game for every hillbilly moron with a gun. If it really was a war zone, a curfew would have been declared and no civilians allowed out on the street except during designated hours. The whole war zone claim is bullshit. Even the Army didn't go that far, they just said the guys were killed in combat. The "war zone" idea is so nuts that the U.S. Army, a notorious den of liars and murderers, didn't even bother to advance it.
<<You think our guys just fly around Baghdad & stop any ole place and
say "Golly Jeee...there's a few people down there standing around lets
just start shooting them". Thats non-sense and you know it.>>
Yeah, that's right, I guess my eyes didn't see that tape and my ears didn't hear that sound-track. That is EXACTLY what those kill-crazy redneck morons did, and that's exactly what they got away with, too.
<<Under your scenario we could never take proactive action
in a battle area even when we see the enemy walking around
with weapons where skirmishes and battles have been frequently
happening....we would have to wait until they fired or they fired
back to call it a "battle". Thats baloney.>>
No that is basically the laws of civilized warfare. You don't open fire on non-threatening civilians because of what they MIGHT do if they are not manifesting any hostility to you and do not even appear to be connected to a hostile force, i.e. are not in military formation, do not assume firing positions, do not point weapons at you, do not attempt to take cover when you appear, do not walk down the street as a fighting force would do (spread out on both sides of the street, minimum distance between each man, one or two guys covering the rear, etc. There was absolutely no indication that any of these guys was a threat or a part of a hostile force.
What is "baloney" is that this fucking massacre, unprovoked, was ever characterized as a battle. Tell me honestly, CU4, if you saw the tape, yes or no, did this look like a battle to you? Did it look like any battle you've ever seen before?
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First of all as the video clearly shows, there was no perceived threat at all from the civilians.
There was reported gun fire in the area. These people were carrying what looked like weapons. For a soldier, that is a "perceived threat".
A soldier, in that scenario, will shoot first and ask questions later.
A police officer, in that scenario, will attempt to ascertain if these people are the ones doing the shooting, and only open fire if they are fired upon.
You continue to confuse police activity with military activity. The training is totally different.
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This was by definition a battle....
you like a narrow definition...but you don't control language
a word can describe different situations
Our choppers were not on a Peace Corp misson
They were on Battle Missions
They are heavily armed with live ammo...shooting live ammo at people carrying weapons in a warzone
They are in a battle vehicle
They are on a military mission
The pilots are wearing battle gear
The pilots and crew are wearing bullet proof jackets
It's crazy to pretend they were not in battle.
They are fighting a war...in a war zone.
I have seen countless videos of US Helicopters
killing terrorists that were not firing weapons,
but the US choppers were certainly on battle missions.
The choppers have intel that terrorist planted
an IED or shot at coalition forces, are planning
attacks, making bombs, terrorizing citizens
supporting the coalition...ect....the choppers
fly over them and kill them. We do this all the
time...it's called war...killing the enemy.
Apache Engage Insurgent With A Hellfire Missile In Iraq (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Milryli_c0s#)
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55l3ShQicqY#)
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoVdlADd_qE#)
Apache Takes Out IED Emplacement Team With A Hellfire Missile In Iraq (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ErZ9hfpJ18#)
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I'm guessing Tee thinks if just keeps repeating the same invalid conclusions, then it will magically turn into the truth
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CU4, your examples are not applicable to the situation being discussed.
The army says these guys were killed in combat. What is combat? I consult Random House Unabridged Dictionary Second Edition; combat is given two general definitions, and then, as definition 3, a specifically military definition:
3. mil., active armed fighting with enemy forces
That's pretty simple - - none of it meets this situation. No. 1, the "forces" (i.e., civilian victims of the massacre) were not "enemy forces." They were not engaged any kind of fighting, so "active armed fighting" was not present. There was no fighting with enemy forces.
By no stretch of the imagination were these victims killed in combat as the lying bastards of the U.S. Army first claimed. "Combat" clearly does not include a massacre of victims near, or in the same suburb as, a place where real combat has occurred, let alone where "sporadic attacks" on U.S. units has occurred.
People killed in combat with U.S. forces means people killed while engaged in active armed fighting with U.S. forces, not noncombatants massacred by U.S. forces some indeterminate distance away from a scene where some kind of combat might have been going on.
Can you understand this? - - the Army had the tapes and they lied. They refused to produce the tapes but they said the victims were killed in combat. That is one big fucking lie. There was no combat. What the hell is so hard to understand about this? Even the fucking Army didn't claim this was a "combat zone," an absurdity which only the extreme right-wing apologists for war crimes and massacres in this group have invented.
If my neighbour's wife went into labour while he was away on a business trip and I promised him to take her to the hospital, could I drive her to the general area of the hospital and dump her five blocks away on the excuse that, well, this was a hospital zone? There was or may have been a hospital nearby? Combat means combat, it does NOT mean anywhere near where combat may have been taking place.
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I hope you realize just how ridiculous your rationalizations are now getting. Hospital "zone" is analagous to a war/military zone?? You have no frelling clue what constitutes battle, and what's been made even more painfully obvious by folks like Ami & Cu4 is your repetative ignorance as to what constitutes military activity vs police activity.
Then again, we must consider the source.
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<<You think our guys just fly around Baghdad & stop any ole place and
say "Golly Jeee...there's a few people down there standing around lets
just start shooting them".>>
Nothing to do with what I think, CU4 - - that's a FACT. Here, from a soldier who was actually
there, and knows WTF he is talking about:
<<McCord said to reporter Bill Van Auken:
<<"we had a pretty gung-ho commander, who decided that because we were getting hit by IEDs a lot, there would be a new battalion SOP [standard operating procedure].He goes, "If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every motherf*cker on the street." Myself and Josh and a lot of other soldiers were just sitting there looking at each other like, "Are you kidding me? You want us to kill women and children on the street?" And you couldn't just disobey orders to shoot, because they could just make your life hell in Iraq. So like with myself, I would shoot up into the roof of a building instead of down on the ground toward civilians. But I've seen it many times, where people are just walking down the street and an IED goes off and the troops open fire and kill them." >>
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Wikileaks-Soldier-Reveals-by-Ralph-Lopez-100616-298.html (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Wikileaks-Soldier-Reveals-by-Ralph-Lopez-100616-298.html)
What your problem is, CU4, is you watch way too much MSM about the war and the Army, etc. The MSM are just a bunch of whores, they are cheerleaders for the Army and for the military-industrial complex that puts them to work as required. So they glorify these thugs and you buy into it. You think they're as clean-cut and above-board as the MSM make them out to be. In actual fact, the people who would join this force are dead-end morons, guys with no viable career opportunities and punks who join up for the thrill of blowing people to pieces, or killing them with knives or bare hands. This is especially true of the all-volunteer force. I'm not saying this is 100% of the service, but obviously it's way more than a simple majority, especially in combat units. Who else do you think would want to make a career out of killing other human beings? Get real. It is what it is, man.
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If only you could practice what you preach, Tee
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The range of the wepon used makes it unlikely that the target saw or heard the fireing platform.
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I did not label "rhetoric" as "begs the question." Rhetoric is general. The "begs the question" fallacy is a statement like "Any rational person would conclude . . ." or "It is obvious that . . ." or "Clearly this indicates . . ." which ascribe a trait of fact to that which is, in fact, merely opinion. It's a very specific type of fallacy. Rhetoric is UP saying something is AMBE, when it isn't actually any form of waste product at all. That's a metaphor.
I might say "Any rational person can see the universe MUST have been created by a God." Many people would agree with that. Someone else might say "Any rational person MUST conclude that God does not exist." Many people would agree with that. A significant portion of both sides are very rational, intelligent and well informed people.
Begging the question is a particular logical fallacy which serves to ignore or dismiss any counterargument by just saying there can be none. Any reputable scientist knows that global climate change is a fact. No sensible person could possibly look at this film and not conclude this was a massacre. Nobody fit to be a parent is would ever have an abortion. Nobody in their right mind would vote for Obama. None of those statements are true, in fact all of them are demonstrably false. But by making this kind of statement you present these false assumptions as given facts. If you look at any of those points I labelled as "begs the question" you will see that they meet this criteria.
Assignment of motivation is a fallacy in which you assume you know the intention of someone else: You only did that to get attention. The Army is hiding the film. The Army is hiding the film because it has damning evidence. He only goes to church to meet chicks. You are not omniscient and cannot simply insist that the Army is hiding something - and with malice of intent at that - to avoid producing proof of a massacre. Nobody can read someone else's mind. But you propose as a proven fact the idea that the army is up to subterfuge. Again, you insist on calling opinion fact - and this is a specific type of fallacy.
In your first counterargument, you countered this assignment of motivation with a statement that begs the question. The argument went something like (yeah, I'm too lazy to look it up) "I may be assigning motivation but it is the CORRECT assignment!" How do you support that? "No rational person can come to any other conclusion!' or words to that effect. So you are supporting a fallacy, by insisting it is the CORRECT fallacy, which therefore doesn't actually make it a fallacy, and you can prove that by citing a fallacy.
In fact, the few facts you cited were minor and along the lines of (assuming again that the information is correct - and I have no reason to doubt you on these) "The Army had a month to produce the tapes." I'll accept this as truth, but it is only evidence of a delay (and a month is no delay in the military) - not of anything else. You may validly use it, as you did, to support your hypothesis that the army is out to murder people and destroy the evidence, but it is an unconvincing argument.
The few points I labelled as valid were not logical fallacies. The most substantive valid arguments you made were concerning the demeanor of the men involved and those of the people who did not move. They were valid, in that your argument was based on reasonable interpretations of the observations you made. That doesn't make your conclusions CORRECT but it does make them logically valid. A child believes his mother never lies to him. She tells him there is a Santa Claus. He therefore quite reasonably concludes there is a Santa Claus. Assuming the premise that mommy never lies is true, Santa does, in fact, exist. His conclusion is valid but erroneous. His reasoning skills are fine, his data is just skewed. I disagree with your conclusions, but the particular points you made that I labelled valid were not illogical.
I did that exercise, however, to make a point and here it is. Your argument was not in any way based on sound reasoning, established facts or conclusive evidence. There were precious few valid or factual points in the whole post. The overwhelming bulk of it was simply opinion dressed in formal clothes, but the duchess of your flowery prose was, in fact, just another Pygmalion.
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Pooch, we are just going to have to agree to disagree.
My common sense tells me that concealment of evidence = consciousness of guilt. Each and every time? I'd say nine times out of ten.
My common sense tells me that lying about what happened = consciousness of guilt. Why conceal a truth that would exonerate? Again, nine times out of ten.
Maybe your common sense doesn't work the way mine does, and that's OK. For me, the concealment of the tapes and the lie (while the tape was concealed) that the victims died in a combat operation were both damning.
In addition there was the tape itself - - absolutely no visible evidence of hostile action on the ground or of fear or danger in the chopper. Add to that the glee with which the civilians were blown away, the glee when one of the wounded was crushed under an American vehicle, and you have (IMHO) a horrifying picture of a bunch of untouchable sadistic punks obscenely enjoying the gratuitous violence and mayhem that they are inflicting on helpless civilians, one of them the murdered father of two children they also wounded in the van.
Honestly, I pity anyone who can defend or rationalize that kind of conduct when it's so in-your-face obvious as to what's going on .
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the truth is probably closer to this...we aren't getting the full picture
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/ItsZep/Politics/L16.jpg)
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<<the truth is probably closer to this...we aren't getting the full picture>>
Actually, CU4, you DID get the full picture - - you got the tapes the Army tried to hide, thanks to a courageous whistle-blower and thanks to WikiLeaks.
What you got from the Army was a lot of lies and bullshit, about those 12 civilians being killed in a combat operation. You did not get the full picture because the Army was covering up the biggest part of it, the actual videotapes of the incident. They refused all applications by Reuters News to produce their tapes.
When you finally DID get the full picture - - no thanks to the Army - - you couldn't handle it.
Really, CU4, I honestly don't know what else I can say to you at this point. If you can't see the truth by now, the odds are there is nothing else I can think of that would make you see it.
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Actually, CU4, you DID get the full picture - - you got the tapes the Army tried to hide, thanks to a courageous whistle-blower and thanks to WikiLeaks.
Tapes that are missing a 20 minute section is hardly "the full picture."
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<<The picture on the left is a widely circulated photograph . . .>>
What a crock of bullshit. Who the hell knows the real story behind THAT?
First of all, until this morning, I never in my life saw the "widely circulated photograph." Where the hell was it "widely circulated?" In the DEBKRAP cafeteria? Secondly, WHO "widely circulated" it? DEBKRAP? The Mossad? For what purpose? To sting the media by coming out later with the "full picture" they themselves held back when they "widely circulated" the cropped version? To discredit in advance or retrospect any and all photos of wounded or dead Palestinians or Lebanese?
With 1,400 civilians killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza and thousands more in Lebanon, many of them children, it just staggers the imagination that the ONLY pictures available of wounded Arab children had to be faked. What on earth would be the point of it.?
What you are distributing, CU4, is an OBVIOUS bit of the usual ZioNazi propaganda, so crude and stupid that it is kind of surprising you couldn't recognize it as such.
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Michael you probably correct...we are not going to agree.
I can't agree with someone I see as being so far from reality.
Someone that thinks US Military choppers just headout
on thousands of missions and that it is routine and/or
common practice to just liftoff and look for innocent
civilians standing around on street corners to kill.
That you really think along those lines amazes
me because I see you as bright and pretty honest.
But unlike some people we can "respectfully disagree".
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<<Tapes that are missing a 20 minute section is hardly "the full picture.">>
That's really hilarious. After the Army tries to bury the whole fucking tape, now they are complaining that there are still 20 minutes of it that they are still holding back?
First of all, who says the tape is missing 20 min.?
Secondly, even assuming that 20 min. are missing, what does it mean? The only two REALISTIC possibilities here are that the missing 20 min. are even more incriminating than what we've seen or that the Army's PhotoShop specialists are hard at work fabricating the "missing 20 minutes" which were never missing in the first place to show fake evidence of battle, of fear inside the chopper, etc.
Oh, and one more possibility - - 20 minutes of flying around looking for action and bitching that they've wasted 20 minutes and still haven't found any plausible targets to kill.
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What on earth would be the point of it.?
Staged desperation
Watch out for co-liars - this is the way the press cheats us
You've probably seen dozens of pictures of Palestinian women crying.
The wire services love 'em, decent people sympathize with them.
We all were misled once or more.
Have a look now for a second behind the scenes. Today another revealing photo slipped
through the ideological filters, showing the scene as a Palestinian woman performs for a
hungry battery of cameramen, staged carefully in front of a picturesque section of the
security wall.
By mere co-incidence she chose the English inscription where to cry. One look
at the smiling child on the right side makes it clear that this kid well understands the
cheating media circus. Is it possible that hundreds of news editors and human
right organizations do not?"
(http://www.take-a-pen.org/images/Lies/StagedDesperation.jpg)
Photographers take pictures of a Palestinian woman as she cries next to the 8-meter-tall wall part
of the barrier Israel is building to separate the outskirts of Jerusalem from the West Bank in the village
of Abu Dis Saturday Feb. 7, 2004. .. (AP Photo/Enric Marti)
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<<Someone that thinks US Military choppers just headout
on thousands of missions and that it is routine and/or
common practice to just liftoff and look for innocent
civilians standing around on street corners to kill.>>
That's not how I see it going down, CU4. I see a bunch of bored, trigger-happy cowboys looking for action, hoping each time they lift off that they're going to get some. They probably wouldn't light up a street full of women pushing baby carriages because it's kind of hard to say they perceived any threat there, but 12 guys walking down a street and some with a couple of AKs and a camera that looks like an RPG? Hey, close enough, man! Forget that they're not running for cover or taking up firing positions when they see the gunships; forget that they're walking the street in a distinctly non-military manner, just out in the open, casually strolling. Forget that there's not hostile actions. They're looking for action, and any male civilians are fair game.
Not only this one time, CU4 - - it's happened over and over again. That other post I put in this thread, about the orders to shoot up the whole street if an IED goes off, that's just one other example. These guys are thugs - - ask yourself, who else would volunteer for a career in an organization whose sole purpose is to kill other human beings.? The aggression levels in these guys has to be abnormal.
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That's not how I see it going down, CU4.
So now you disagree with what you stated on page 4 of this thread?
CU4: "You think our guys just fly around Baghdad & stop any ole place and
say "Golly Jeee...there's a few people down there standing around lets
just start shooting them". Thats non-sense and you know it."
Michael Tee: "Yeah, that's right, I guess my eyes didn't see that tape and my ears
didn't hear that sound-track. That is EXACTLY what those kill-crazy redneck morons did,
and that's exactly what they got away with, too"
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<<Have a look now for a second behind the scenes. Today another revealing photo slipped through the ideological filters, showing
the scene as a Palestinian woman performs for a hungry battery of cameramen, staged carefully in front of a picturesque section
of the security wall.
<<By mere co-incidence she chose the English inscription where to cry. One look at the smiling child on the right side makes it
clear that this kid well understands the cheating media circus. Is it possible that hundreds of news editors and human right
organizations do not?" >>
Same story as the other one, CU4. First of all, English slogans are common everywhere. You should have seen the Berlin Wall, which my wife and I viewed in 1988, before it came down. Probably more English than German. Slogans are propaganda. Propaganda is aimed at specific targets. The Palestinians know they are oppressed, the Israelis know that they are oppressing the Palestinians, who is the propaganda aimed at? The Americans, who support the Israeli oppression, many of whom don't know what the hell is going on. So the propaganda is aimed at the Americans to let them know WTF is going on, WTF their tax dollars are actually doing, and what language do the Americans speak? You got it, English!! So there are probably plenty of English slogans on that wall.
Also, what is the job of the journalist? To tell the true story. Of the photo-journalist? To take pictures that convey the true story. What was the story here? That the woman was crying because of some Arab policy that was fucking up her life? Of course not. Yet had the photo shown the woman crying against a BG of unintelligible Arabic script, who the fuck would learn anything at all from the picture? In front of the English inscription, the picture DOES tell a story. She was crying in front of THAT WALL, and the picture tells us WHAT wall.
Finally the smiling baby. Did YOU see a smiling baby? I sure as hell didn't and even if I did, WTF does a baby know? What are these fucking morons trying to tell you, that the mother doesn't know shit and is crying for nothing but the baby knows everything and doesn't see any problems? Honest to God, CU4, this DEBKRAP shit gets crazier day by day.
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<<Michael Tee: "Yeah, that's right, I guess my eyes didn't see that tape and my ears
didn't hear that sound-track. That is EXACTLY what those kill-crazy redneck morons did,
and that's exactly what they got away with, too">>
That's pretty much what I said about cowboys flying out looking for action, minus the colourful description of "kill-crazy redneck morons."
"Cowboys looking for action" is pretty much the same thing. IMHO
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"PALLYWOOD":
Watch the Palestinians create fake "news items"
Watch the Palestinians create "news items" of faked wounded and killed:
http://www.takeapen.org/takeapen/video/pallywood.wmv (http://www.takeapen.org/takeapen/video/pallywood.wmv)
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Here's my question for CU4:
Do you believe that the invasion of Gaza killed approximately 1,400 people, and that about 400 of them were children?
Do you believe that hundreds of children must have been wounded in the invasion of Gaza?
Do you think there is any obstacle that prevents any journalist, Jewish or Arab, from photographing any of the children wounded or killed in Gaza by the Israeli invasion?
If you answered Yes to the first two questions and No to the third, then why in hell would the Palestinians need to fake pictures of wounded and killed Palestinian children?
(Same question applies to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, BTW.)
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Finally the smiling baby. Did YOU see a smiling baby? I sure as hell didn't and even if I did,
WTF does a baby know? What are these fucking morons trying to tell you, that the mother
doesn't know shit and is crying for nothing but the baby knows everything and doesn't see any problems?
Honest to God, CU4, this DEBKRAP shit gets crazier day by day.
Michael before you trash others accuracy you should consider your own.
It does not say a "smiling baby".
It says a "smiling child".
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y273/ItsZep/Politics/d051ade4.jpg)
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Thanks for the correction, and the graphic assist,CU4 and sorry for the mistake. But I still don't see a smile on the kid's face - - could be anything, smile or grimace. "Awww, Maw, cut it out!" Who knows what kids that age are thinking and who can tell based on facial expressions? No indication the kid even belongs to the woman.
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First of all, who says the tape is missing 20 min.?
From one of the links you posted:
"There is a period of 20 minutes not included on the leaked tape. According to the internal legal review, the helicopters engaged a group of armed insurgents, and that some were seen entering a nearby building."
Sorry that you failed to read all of your own sources.
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<<According to the internal legal review, the helicopters engaged a group of armed insurgents, and that some were seen entering a nearby building.>>
So if that's what the tape showed, where's the tape?
Also, what's the relationship between the building the "armed insurgents" entered and the site of the massacre?
Furthermore what's the credibility of an "internal legal review" of an entity that tried to conceal the entire tape in the first place?
Without the production of the 20 minutes, you have to assume that they are damning to the Army's case.
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Without the production of the 20 minutes, you have to assume that they are damning to the Army's case.
depends on whose cutting floor the missing 20 minutes ended up on.
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According to the Daily Beast (the source of the Wikipedia assertion that 20 minutes were missing, sorry I don't have the link now but it's footnote 17 in the Wikipedia article) WikiLeaks received the tape with 20 minutes already missing. (That's if you accept the claim of the "internal review" that 20 minutes were missing.)
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Did the leaker edit the tape?
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It's not clear from what I've been able to find out who edited the tape. It's really not clear that there are 20 min. missing. As far as I can tell, this is only a claim by the "internal review committee," who are probably trying to edit tapes from other missions into their copy of the tape and trying to do it in a way that will avoid detection of the doctoring. The fact that they refused to release the tape they had is of course highly suspicious. Now when they finally release it they will have had all the time they needed to make a foolproof fake tape with the "combat with insurgents who went into a nearby building" now an integral part of the record.
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Pooch, we are just going to have to agree to disagree.
My common sense tells me that concealment of evidence = consciousness of guilt. Each and every time? I'd say nine times out of ten.
My common sense tells me that lying about what happened = consciousness of guilt. Why conceal a truth that would exonerate? Again, nine times out of ten.
I will have to admit , I have the same attitude and have used the same sort of arguement to support my contention that Stalin and Mao killed many and used extreme controll of information to make their awfull secrets safe.
Luckyly Stray Pooch was not present to correct me last time I did that.
When the whistleblower took his copy of the tape , do you suppose he picked the worst one he could find? Do you suppose he left an unedited copy in the files?
I expect that more is coming. The full length tape perhaps , but the only one who is certain to have a copy is the leaker who might have edited it.
Perhaps a more complete account of the battles that were occuring nearby , perhaps even some ideas of why those news men thought this group of men were news worthy.
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<<When the whistleblower took his copy of the tape , do you suppose he picked the worst one he could find? Do you suppose he left an unedited copy in the files?>>
Nope. Too much trouble. I think the whistleblower would have taken the only copy of the tape there was, the whole tape. Then maybe he edited it. In which case of course the Army has the undedited copy. Or he released the whole thing, and there is no unedited copy.
Now if he (whistleblower) edited the tape he stole, the Army has the whole copy. I can think of no reason at all why they would not then IMMEDIATELY produce the unedited copy and say, "Look, jackass, here's the whole story and it proves those guys were the same insurgents previously shooting it out with the choppers."
OTOH, if there was no extra 20 minutes of tape, I could see the Army claiming immediately "That's not the whole tape!!! We were framed!!!" and then going into overdrive to splice extra combat scenes into the original, probably using air-to-ground shots of other combats and using crew voice-overs. But this would take some time to get right, so that the fakery would be undetectable. Which might be still going on as we speak. Sooner or later the tapes would be produced, when the Army thought they had a fool-proof product. Or they could just claim that 20 minutes are missing and never produce the tapes on the grounds of "national security."
In any event, if and when the Army finally releases what it claims to be the whole tape, it'll never have any credibility because they'll never be able to account for their delay in producing it.
<<I expect that more is coming. The full length tape perhaps , but the only one who is certain to have a copy is the leaker who might have edited it.>>
The Army would be the likeliest to have the unedited tape in full, since that would probably be what the leaker stole. But then the delay in producing it could never be explained satisfactorily. It would be obvious that what they were producing as the full tape would have to be a fake, with 20 minutes fabricated to exonerate them.
<<Perhaps a more complete account of the battles that were occuring nearby , perhaps even some ideas of why those news men thought this group of men were news worthy.>>
It was my understanding, from a comment posted somewhere by another journalist, that journalists from the West usually attract a crowd of hangers-on, people who want jobs or favours. They were in all likelihood following the newsmen, not the other way round.
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It's really not clear that there are 20 min. missing.
It's pretty clear that it's missing based on the timestamps in the video.
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<<When the whistleblower took his copy of the tape , do you suppose he picked the worst one he could find? Do you suppose he left an unedited copy in the files?>>
Nope. Too much trouble. I think the whistleblower would have taken the only copy of the tape there was, the whole tape. Then maybe he edited it. In which case of course the Army has the undedited copy. Or he released the whole thing, and there is no unedited copy.
Now if he (whistleblower) edited the tape he stole, the Army has the whole copy.
If the whistleblower had access to more than a few tapes , then he probly picked the worst , if they were classified there were probly only a few copies , possibly only one.
The only one we know has the unedited copy is the leaker , will he produce the whole thing after a while?
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I think it's inconceivable that the Army which produced the tape in the first place would have no backup copies of it. The most that the whistleblower could do would be to steal either an edited copy or an unedited copy, in either case leaving the whole copy in the possession of the U.S. Army. The whistleblower could probably not steal ALL of the Army's copies. So at this point, whether or not there was any editing done by the whistleblower is totally immaterial for the simple reason that the U.S. Army possesses a full copy of the tape.
For the above reasons, the Army's failure to produce the whole tape is doubly damning: 1) it could mean that there IS no missing portion or 2) it means that the missing parts of the tape do not exonerate the Army in any way.
At this late stage in the game, anything produced by the Army and supposedly representing a "missing" 20 minutes of tape would lack all credibility anyway.
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I think it's inconceivable that the Army which produced the tape in the first place would have no backup copies of it.
Oh?
To the Army ,what would be the purpose of back up tapes?
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At this late stage in the game, anything produced by the Army and supposedly representing a "missing" 20 minutes of tape would lack all credibility anyway.
In other words, its damned if they do, damned if they don't. Nice, how that works
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<<Oh?
<<To the Army ,what would be the purpose of back up tapes?>>
The Army? It's a vast bureaucracy, is it not? I thought you were the expert on the bureaucracy, on its waste, its inefficiencies, its needless duplications. Are you now telling me that the Army does not keep backup tapes? I am shocked, plane. Shocked.
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<<Oh?
<<To the Army ,what would be the purpose of back up tapes?>>
The Army? It's a vast bureaucracy, is it not? I thought you were the expert on the bureaucracy, on its waste, its inefficiencies, its needless duplications. Are you now telling me that the Army does not keep backup tapes? I am shocked, plane. Shocked.
Are you answering the question?
No there are not always duplicates of ugly secrets.
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Are you answering the question [to the Army ,what would be the purpose of back up tapes?]?
I thought the answer was implicit in my question, but in any event: you make back-ups of everything "just in case." It's more time and money wasted to figure out what to back up and what not to back up than just to back up the whole fucking mess, and if you need it, you've got it and if you don't need it, so what? Besides, there seems to be some unwritten principle of office life, known to me from bitter experience, that just as soon as you decide you don't need a specific file or document, you find out just after it was shredded that you do need it after all. Backing up is insurance against human error in deciding what should or shouldn't be backed up.
<<No there are not always duplicates of ugly secrets.>>
Since the Army was resisting Reuters' courtroom attempts to get the whole tape, right up to and past the time when WikiLeaks got what it showed, I think it's a safe bet that the Army has the whole thing all locked up safe and sound in multiple copies.
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Are you answering the question [to the Army ,what would be the purpose of back up tapes?]?
I thought the answer was implicit in my question, but in any event: you make back-ups of everything "just in case." It's more time and money wasted to figure out what to back up and what not to back up than just to back up the whole fucking mess, and if you need it, you've got it and if you don't need it, so what? Besides, there seems to be some unwritten principle of office life, known to me from bitter experience, that just as soon as you decide you don't need a specific file or document, you find out just after it was shredded that you do need it after all. Backing up is insurance against human error in deciding what should or shouldn't be backed up.
<<No there are not always duplicates of ugly secrets.>>
Since the Army was resisting Reuters' courtroom attempts to get the whole tape, right up to and past the time when WikiLeaks got what it showed, I think it's a safe bet that the Army has the whole thing all locked up safe and sound in multiple copies.
I don't agree.
Even if there were a second copy , this leaker might have taken that too.
If the whole thing is timestamped anyone who had it could prove that they were releaseing the whole thing couldn't they?
Oh wait, did we decide that time stamps mean something or that they didn't? I loose track.
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Oh wait, did we decide that time stamps mean something or that they didn't? I loose track.
Depends on the time stamp. Purely digital time stamps (like those contained in EXIF tags on images) can be manipulated easily, at will by anyone, and nearly impossible to detect. Those contained in this video, which includes an image of the time stamp as pictured in every frame of the video, are much more difficult to alter, and because of the type of compression used, trivially easy to determine if it's been altered (many people familiar with the techniques can spot these changes with the Mark I Eyeball).