First page is the standard-issue "oh how horrible" stuff, but from the second page you actually start getting the perspective of a couple guys who have been on the ground in Iraq and things get interesting/informative.
nonsense by joining an army you willingly give up your ability to chose your destiny your ability to make decisions and to a large degree your humanity
frankly its not a decision a sensible human being would make
lol, isn't this just how it works?
I mean, yes the kill people like they are shooting rabbits.
But look at the trauma they'd have if they are really aware of killing people.
This is how it works, it's their job!
A war consists of killing people and making peace.
you can't just fly around and do nothing, that's just asking for trouble.
Yes, it's shocking, but it's not like this is the only place where it happens
When are the coalition forces going to realise that fighting a 'conventional' war with masses of Tanks and Helicopters against guerillas who can blend into the public easily just will not work? In order to defeat 'insurgents', the armies need to fight like insurgents.
And spend more time winning over the hearts and minds of the local public rather than carpet bombing them. Nobody seems to have learn't any lessons from the Vietnam war, and its already going the same way. Never mind the fact that the whole justification for the war in the first place is dodgy.
Exactly, that argument fails because people are not thoughtless robots and conscription is not forced in most countries, its not like the old days where you could tell all the boys going off that it was all a noble and grand thing and it'd all be over by christmas, the horrors of war are all over the TV. So there is no excuse for joining the army and not knowing what you've let yourself in for.
I have to say I did to. Not in a sick "OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE PEOPLE DIE AND SUFFER lol" way, but it really shows what it's like out there. If that makes sense. Basically I mean it in the good way, not a bad way.
There's two dudes with ak's and/or rifles in the background!? Without spending hours reading everything about this, it appears there's no mention of this?
Rewind you'll see em.
If I was in a chopper and saw this I'd probably crap my self to.
You blame the ones who sent them there, not the ones doing it to put food on the table.
btw: what's the significance of the attached fish in the above post?
but they CAN carry those RPG's to shoot at infantry and armor. War doesn't work like "if this guy cant kill me, but can kill others, I'm just going to go somewhere else".
Some are gun-ho yes. Why do they always send the poor?
You have a viscious pet dog. It bites an innocent person, do you blame the dog or the owner for not getting it trained and disciplined?
And... yes i know it's a camera, but at that distance in the 'heat' of the moment it could be mistaken as a rocket launcher. I watched the full version first before the short version, and I thought it was a gang of guys with weapons. When you have the luxury of hindsight and freeze-frame, then it's easy to see it's not the case.
because theyre the only ones chancless enough to see fighting other peoples wars as a way out
im not sure what youre trying to say here? are soldiers as stupid as dogs?
thats a seriously flawed comparison a dog isnt even self aware (will bark at its mirror image iirc)
Me too. Actually I haven't seen the short version. In the full video I really thought they had weapons and rocket launchers. I didn't see many weapons thought, just a few, but they seemed like a gang, and I guess I'd have shot them too. That one guy (with the camera) was in a very, VERY suspicious position (as if he was going to shoot, hiding behind the wall and looking back, in the direction of the helicopter), and by the time I first watched the video I was very happy to see the army managed to neutralize them. When I saw the guy on the van, I thought "OH NO HE THEY'RE BRINGING REINFORCEMENTS! quick, give your team permission to fire before they run away!". I was actually hoping they could get permission to shoot because for me, while watching the video for the first time, I was certain that van was a real threat.
I for one didn't know what was going on (I hadn't read anything about it, I went straight to the video), and I've only watched the full video once (it's quite long, you know), so I was unbiazed by the time I watched the video. While watching it I thought everything was just fine, and they had just had a normal day and neutralized another real threat. The kids being there didn't mean anything to me, I thought "it is the criminals' fault to bring children into battle; they do this to create problems and make more difficult being killed, as if the children were protection shields".
If nobody had said anything about it I would never guess that was a camera just by watching the video just once (which is what the soldiers get - they can't stop the frame and rewind to check wether it's a threat or not, they see it real time and have to make do with what they have).
By the way, the guy in the van was not any smart at all. Actually, he is an idiot. Why the hell would put yourself and some small children in a fight you don't belong to, in order to help a random guy who, by the looks of the situation, is wanted dead by some other people?!? Come on! What was he thinking? "Ok I can see about 10 dead bodies on the ground, and this guy is badly hurt. Obviously, he must be just a normal person having a bad day, so I'll just stop by my van full of children to help him."
If I saw anyone who seems to be wanted for some reason (e.g.: by the police, by the army, by other criminals), I would run away heading the opposite direction, no matter how hurt is him. Specially if I were transporting children: think how scared the children could become by seeing a badly hurt, bleeding guy inside their van on their way to school? Even if the army hadn't shot, the children could have some kind of trauma because of that. I know many "grown up" people who just can't stand seeing blood (even getting to a point in which they faint), now imagine how a small child would react!
The only reason I can think of for him to have had that attitude is if he knew the other guy. Which, for the soldiers, is still a great reason to shoot: "if he knows the enemy and is willingly trying to help him, he's our enemy too".
Who cares anyway...
PS: I wasn't supposed to write all of this, I just wanted to say a single paragraph worth 3 lines.
[edit]
You know, there are no colored pointing arrows or red/blue nicknames above them to tell you whether it's a target or not.
[/edit]
ok, without a bad comparison i'll try re-iterate my original point.
I'm assuming you meant..
"no, blame the ones who....."
I just read some other sentences blaming the soldiers for this attrocity, you seemed to hold blame at them to - I was trying to say that this is not true, they are just doing their jobs, abiet an extreeme choice of job. I'm far from calling the soldiers stupid as dogs mate. They're trained (messed up) to follow orders no matter what and taught killing is ok.
They were authorised to kill, who authorised this? Who authorised this illegal invasion? Who supplied the weapons to them? There is your blame.
A few good men... blah
a job that as i explained earlier a sane person if theyre given a real choice (its hardly suprising that in democratic countries soldiers are by and large people who have no hopes whatsoever on the job market) would never do
and they made the decision to be trained that way knowing full well that it would result in a severe loss of their own humanity
right so lets take an extreme example and assum a soldier was ordered to commit a war crime? whos to blame the one who gave the order or the one who followed it knowing full well that it is a war crime?
the answer is obviously both and like that the one who follows orders to an illegal invasion is just as responsible as the one who gave the order
no offence, Shotglass, but is there a name for that pacifist yoghurt commercial, where pink unicorns eat rainbows and crap butterflies in between giving piggyback rides to hippies, you seem to live in? What difference does your "extreme" example makes? What's similar between a command to "commit war crime" and a command to "Provide aerial backup to ground units"? Why do you hate a guy who's doing his job so much? Cause of his job? Cause he chose to? And how do YOU know they chose to?
akhem and quoting
"Currently, male U.S. citizens, if aged eighteen through twenty five, are required to register with the Selective Service System, whose mission is "to provide manpower to the armed forces in an emergency""
I'm pretty sure this means nobody chose to be trained to kill, and even if they did it doesn't matter cause they will be trained anyway.
If you're raging pacifism over "unforgiveable deaths of innocent bystanders" then how's about "they walked straight into the war zone cause it's their job". They could have chosen different jobs, the ones that wouldn't require them to stick their thick heads into the middle of a firefight with equipment that may look like weapons from a few miles away
