New Tapes of Another U.S. Massacre of Civilians About to be Released

[Amianthus]

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.

[Michael Tee]

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.

[sirs]

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

[Michael Tee]

<<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. 

[Christians4LessGvt]

"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.

[Michael Tee]

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?

[Amianthus]

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.

[Christians4LessGvt]

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

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Apache Takes Out IED Emplacement Team With A Hellfire Missile In Iraq

[sirs]

I'm guessing Tee thinks if just keeps repeating the same invalid conclusions, then it will magically turn into the truth

[Michael Tee]

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.

[sirs]

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.

[Michael Tee]

<<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

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.

[sirs]

If only you could practice what you preach, Tee

[Plane]

The range of the wepon used makes it unlikely that the target saw or heard the fireing platform.

[Stray Pooch]

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.