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  • Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
    All of you who were so positive it was an rpg.,,,, Just know that in all this I never saw anything that wasn't there. I was told in this thread I have zero credibility. I only see what I see when possible, I sure try. This is why. Why do I see one thing and you another? Training. Skills in observation. Attention to detail.



    Is it still that clear after the pentagon said it was a camera?





    yes. There was no RPG




    ummm..... No RPG.


    Attention to detail indeed. You obviously didn'y bother reading the report S-2 linked to or your attention to detail would have noted pages 12 and 13 of the pdf.
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

    Comment


    • Roycerson Reply

      "All of you who were so positive it was an rpg.,,,, Just know that in all this I never saw anything that wasn't there. I was told in this thread I have zero credibility."

      You do.

      Item 6b- 0620:07Z (Exhibit Photo B) Two individuals are seen openly displaying an RPG and an AKM, while a third carries what appears to be an RPG round.

      Don't confuse the fact that those men had an RPG along with cameras. Your credibility is going below zero as you type.
      Last edited by S2; 07 Apr 10,, 05:40.
      "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
      "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

      Comment


      • Originally posted by S-2 View Post
        Have you read the AR 15-6 report?

        I can't download it but here's a link that'll get you there-

        AR 15-6 July 12, 2007

        Conclusions indicate the investigating officer believed the pilots to see a van assisting the escape of combatants. I don't know the ROI but B Co. 2-16 Inf. had been in continuous contact all morning and remained so at the scene of the incident. I know that the video indicates a description of what the pilots saw when the van arrived and their request to engage. BUSHMASTER 7gave them that permission.
        That report is good, primarily for what its missing. No one questions why the Apaches got the OK to fire on the Van. They basically lied to their higher HQ by claiming they were gathering weapons. Nothing that van was hostile and with no visible weapons and not doing anything that threatened the safety of US forces the Apaches should not have fired.


        Please review the documents that you've heretofore not read and ask yourself if you've given due process and proper context to the circumstance.
        The first engagement was clean no doubt about it. The Van was just plain wrong. Those men were obviously helping the wounded.

        Comment


        • a look inside Blog Archive WikiLeaks – “Collateral Murder”

          This, I thought, was a pretty thoughtful analysis of the video.

          (I've gotta admit that, even after having it pointed out several times, and knowing exactly when it's supposed to be visible, and looking at the highest resolution copy of the video I could find, I still don't see a single RPG anywhere.)
          "Nature abhors a moron." - H.L. Mencken

          Comment


          • Zraver Reply

            "They basically lied to their higher HQ by claiming they were gathering weapons."

            Now you're calling them liars? I saw the van slowly approach the wounded man. Others were moving on foot to the same man. I don't know what the pilots saw but I didn't see all of it from the footage.

            "Nothing that van was hostile and with no visible weapons and not doing anything that threatened the safety of US forces the Apaches should not have fired."

            They were visibly assisting a wounded man leave the scene, quite possibly a combatant. Remarkable that their appearance in a combat zone that had been active all morning with no indication of non-combatants was so prompt.

            "The Van was just plain wrong."

            I completely disagree.

            Those officers are liars eh?
            "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
            "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              That's unacceptable in an urban environment full of civilians.
              Are you freaking serious?

              Name me a better performance by any other military power?

              Let me rephrase, name me a performance by the Chinese, Russians, or even the Pakistanis that would set the bar for war crimes so that this action may be judged.

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              You might have noticed several military professionals here also sitting behind their screen in the comfort of wherever they are who are so very sure they saw an rpg. Why do they see things that aren't there?
              Are you a freaking idiot? All we have are multiple channel communications over one single camera view. Are you so stupid as to assume that all those communications saw through that one camera?

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              You are wrong. See what I mean... about people who "know" things that they don't really know. They can't be relied upon to react to what IS.
              I know you don't.

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              I was once unarmed w/ a gun at my chest. You never know how you're gonna do when that moment happens. I acted quickly and decisively and no shots were fired.
              My apologies. I was wrong.

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              Another time was in traffic and it was some kid in his mom's car. I just slowed down and let him leave me behind. A .45 is a big barrel to look at though.
              But I am not wrong that you were never shot at nor saw combat.

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              The man said 5+ people w/ AK's. That was clearly not accurate. They said they were taking fire. Also not accurate.
              And you saw what he saw? Especially when you don't have his camera views?

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              Is there one single pro-military-war in iraq type person who thinks it's important to have accurate data? Incredibly so, you can't make good decisions with bad information. If the guy can't be relied upon to accurately describe what he sees than what good is he doing speaking at all?
              It's called the Fog of War. If you don't know what that is or how to deal with it, then you have never been in a combat situation.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                Now you're calling them liars?
                Yup, the video does not show what they are telling their commanders they are seeing in order to get permission to engage. Misrepresenting the facts is called lying.


                I saw the van slowly approach the wounded man. Others were moving on foot to the same man. I don't know what the pilots saw but I didn't see all of it from the footage.
                we see enough to know they were not engaged in a hostile act.

                They were visibly assisting a wounded man
                And that act puts them into protected status.


                leave the scene, quite possibly a combatant. Remarkable that their appearance in a combat zone that had been active all morning with no indication of non-combatants was so prompt.
                It was a residential area, not a ghost town.

                I completely disagree.
                Big surprise

                Those officers are liars eh?
                Did they materially misrepresent the facts? Yes. Do normal people consider that a lie? Yes, ergo they are liars.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by zraver View Post
                  Yup, the video does not show what they are telling their commanders they are seeing in order to get permission to engage. Misrepresenting the facts is called lying.
                  Z, can you give me a timeline on the video? There were multiple voice channels over this one single view. It may be hard to judge whose voice belongs on this camera view but it should serve as a baseline of arguement.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by Genosaurer View Post
                    a look inside Blog Archive WikiLeaks – “Collateral Murder”

                    This, I thought, was a pretty thoughtful analysis of the video.

                    (I've gotta admit that, even after having it pointed out several times, and knowing exactly when it's supposed to be visible, and looking at the highest resolution copy of the video I could find, I still don't see a single RPG anywhere.)
                    Nice find, glad to see my gut reaction isn't alone and is backed by someone who claims to be part of similar decision cycles.

                    The point at which I cannot support the actions of Crazyhorse 18, at all, comes when the van arrives somewhere around 9:45 and is engaged. Unless someone had jumped out with an RPG ready to fire on the aircraft, there was no threat warranting a hail of 30mm from above. Might it have been prudent to follow the vehicle (perhaps with a UAV), or at least put out a BOLO (Be On the Look Out) for the vehicle? Absolutely without question. Was this portion of the engagement even remotely understandable, to me? No, it was not.

                    All in all, the engagement clearly went bad. I would have objected when I was a private first-class pulling triple duty as an RTO, driver, and vehicle gunner. I would have objected when I was a sergeant working well above my pay-grade as the Brigade Battle NCO. My assessment is based on my experiences in that very theater of operations. I did not see a threat that warranted an engagement at any point. I did, however, see the elements indicating such a threat could develop at any moment

                    Comment


                    • Z, further on, he stated

                      Update: I have seen several mentions of a Bradley Fighting Vehicle running over a body off in the rubble. This is highlighted at some point in the video. Crazyhorse 18 misidentifies a Canon zoom lens as an RPG7, but WikiLeaks has managed to identify a HMMWV as a BFV. I’m not even sure how that’s possible. The transcript also has the ground commander calling on the BFV crew to “drop rap” – there should be an ‘m’ between the ‘a’ and the ‘p’ – ramp is what it should read.

                      WikiLeaks claims to seek to shed the light on the truth, yet continues to allow such gross errors in reporting stand unchanged. There are many veterans with thousands of hours experience in both analyzing aerial video and understanding the often-garbled radio transmissions between units. It is not unreasonable to think any number of us would be willing to make sure everything is identified correctly, and all jargon is translated appropriately, before things go to the presses. Promoting truth with gross errors is just as shameful as an unnecessary engagement.
                      At this point, I am willing to state that we do not have the entire picture. We have one camera feed with multiple voice channels without knowing whose voice channel this particular camera view belong to.

                      It was a bad shoot. No question but what else did others not on this camera view saw, we do not know.

                      Comment


                      • Zraver Reply

                        "Yup, the video does not show what they are telling their commanders they are seeing in order to get permission to engage. Misrepresenting the facts is called lying."

                        Just wanted to clarify your view for the record. You seem to know more than can be construed from this video. Perhaps you're simply a tad unbalanced by your overwrought emotional investment. Hard to say but leveling a charge like that without full awareness is thoroughly undeserved IMV.

                        "...we see enough to know they were not engaged in a hostile act."

                        We see enough to know there's a vehicle clearly not medical and crewed by military age men whom aren't wearing any identifying features to delineate they are non-combatant medical personnel exclusively engaged in medical assistance. Weren't those the requirements specified by articles 24 and 40? They are removing a wounded potential combatant from the scene but NOT rendering medical assistance at the scene.

                        That's what we see. That act was evidently sufficient for BUSHMASTER 7 to authorize engagement under whatever ROE he was to adhere. Do you know that the engagement of such wasn't authorized by the ROE? I don't but I didn't have the authority to make that decision. BUSHMASTER 7 did.

                        "And that act puts them into protected status."

                        You seem to have omitted "...leave the scene...". Don't dissemble my words.

                        There's nothing I've read which suggests assisting a potential enemy combatant, wounded or otherwise, from leaving the battlefield as "protected status". Certainly not in the absence of identifying emblems denoting their medical status. These men had none of that.

                        "It was a residential area, not a ghost town."

                        You speculate. It could easily have been a commercial district with shops. Given the AR 15-6 report you now can access, you know that there were no indications of noncombatants in the area.

                        "Big surprise"

                        So too your allegations against those pilots.

                        "Did they materially misrepresent the facts? Yes."

                        Judge, jury, and executioner.

                        "Deliberate hiding or falsification of a material fact..."

                        I strongly doubt you can prove deliberate as you neither can see all the footage nor, even if so, could prove deliberation in the midst of an engagement. You've leaped to accusation without full cause. You should cease while you can.
                        "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
                        "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
                          Dude, I'm young and live in America. Of course I personally know several soldiers. ALL of them laugh about torture and ALL of them believe Innocent Iraqi is an oxymoron or at least rare enough not to matter. You might tell me go out there and talk to soldiers one on one and see what they say when the cameras are off. I have. They say: "I kill people for college money".
                          My son is a infantryman in Afghanistan. By my experience, your depiction is a vicious parody of him and his fellow soldiers. Perhaps you believe what you say; perhaps some of what you say actually has some basis in fact or even in personal experience. Perhaps. For whatever reason, it seems that you have deep seated animosity towards American soldiers, if not towards soldiers and/or Americans in general. For what it's worth, I find your claimed experiential generalizations in this thread implausible, irritating, and spiteful. Your ruminations play here about as well as the movie "Green Zone" played in American movie theaters, and for very similar reasons, I suspect.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
                            The van was two blocks away at the time of the shooting. After all were dead except one unarmed guy crawling along and the guys in the apache were talking about how much they hoped he would find a weapon so they could finish him off a van that had been 2 blocks away at the time of the shooting arrived and tried to help the wounded unarmed man. The van was inhabited by a man and two children. The Apache then opened fire on the unarmed man whom they previously felt they had no justification to open fire on. They also opened fire on the van and it's occupants at that time.

                            Wal mart truck with water is old and common news.

                            No word on whether it was National Guard troops doing the enforcing for FEMA but that is who was their performing that function in general.

                            Soldiers at Katrina unconstitutionally confiscating weapons is a court case that has been tried and won by the victims.


                            People being forced into the superdome when they wanted to stay in their homes is old and common news.

                            That guy wasn't killed at the superdome but he was the first I saw. Some went there voluntarily, some didn't.

                            The reasonable conclusion that they would shoot me in similar circumstances comes from the fact that If I were in that van I would have stopped to help. They shot the guy who was with his kids and stopped to help. When an earthquake comes here and my neighborhood is declared a national disaster area and that guy is walking my streets, I hope he's better at killing bad guys and missing good guys than he is now. Right now he shoots up cars full of good samaritans. Apparently that's pretty much OK w/ everyone except me and Hitman.
                            So no proof. FEMA had officials on the ground. FEMA made the call.

                            It was NOLA officials that pushed folks to the Superdome. That was the city plan. That was where they told people to go.
                            "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by S-2 View Post
                              Just wanted to clarify your view for the record. You seem to know more than can be construed from this video. Perhaps you're simply a tad unbalanced by your overwrought emotional investment. Hard to say but leveling a charge like that without full awareness is thoroughly undeserved IMV.
                              Holding officers and warrant officers to the highest standards of conduct is not undeserved. They did not factually report what they saw, they reported what they wanted to see so they would have permission to fire. A similar situation in 91 cost 1/41 infantry and the British dead and wounded. In this case it left children orphans.

                              We see enough to know there's a vehicle clearly not medical and crewed by military age men whom aren't wearing any identifying features to delineate they are non-combatant medical personnel exclusively engaged in medical assistance. Weren't those the requirements specified by articles 24 and 40? They are removing a wounded potential combatant from the scene but NOT rendering medical assistance at the scene.
                              Generally speaking wounded go to hospitals, hospitals do not come to them. Your not suppsoed to shoot the wounded or those who are rendering care and transport to a doctor is care.

                              I bet it would (based on your over use of the phrase- military aged men) surprise you to learn that the majority of military aged men in Iraq are innocent civilians.

                              That's what we see. That act was evidently sufficient for BUSHMASTER 7 to authorize engagement under whatever ROE he was to adhere. Do you know that the engagement of such wasn't authorized by the ROE? I don't but I didn't have the authority to make that decision. BUSHMASTER 7 did.
                              Commanders can be mislead, we saw that on the video.

                              You seem to have omitted "...leave the scene...". Don't dissemble my words.
                              Leaving the scene with a wounded man is not illegal, the qualifying act is rendering aid.

                              There's nothing I've read which suggests assisting a potential enemy combatant, wounded or otherwise, from leaving the battlefield as "protected status". Certainly not in the absence of identifying emblems denoting their medical status. These men had none of that.
                              They were rendering aid to a wounded man already positively identified as being unarmed.

                              You speculate. It could easily have been a commercial district with shops. Given the AR 15-6 report you now can access, you know that there were no indications of noncombatants in the area.
                              The large number of homes would see seem to indicate there were. people don't vanish.


                              So too your allegations against those pilots.
                              Really, my expecting officers to meet the highest standards so the wrogn people don't end up killed is a surprise?

                              Judge, jury, and executioner.
                              Yes they were

                              I strongly doubt you can prove deliberate as you neither can see all the footage nor, even if so, could prove deliberation in the midst of an engagement. You've leaped to accusation without full cause. You should cease while you can.
                              I watched the video, it showed what the pilot saw, and his claims to his commander do not match up with what he was seeing. And if I don't stop what are you going to do? You going to try and label me disloyal because I want our officers to uphold the laws of war and perform to the highest standards? Just about every fubar'd situation in Iraq that has made the US look like a global assclown has a failure of leadership behind it. At the same time, we've seen just how effective good leadership can be. I prefer less of the former and more of the latter.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Shek View Post
                                So no proof. FEMA had officials on the ground. FEMA made the call.

                                It was NOLA officials that pushed folks to the Superdome. That was the city plan. That was where they told people to go.

                                Not only did the city tell them to go to the Super Dome and the Convention Center, but it then designated them as shelters of last resort so that they did not have to staff or equip them. The city did also not mobilize its massive bus fleet. Ray Naggin tried to save money and it killed people.

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