Massacre in Iraq - U.S. troops kill camera men and children

[Tyrones own]

Remember....it was god who told Bush to do it......praise the lord 

Fcuk off skull you gypsy, Bush was and is a header and God had nothing to do with him going in to Iraq.

Don't mind them Stew...sure there's no bigger hatred in the minds around here than for God and America so I suppose
it's only fitting that Skull decided to bring them together for a good and proper hate fest.

All they're able to do these days is to come out with the most egregious and hateful
comments to get the desired result, they're then able to turn it around on ye, e.g. anger management.
Saul Alinksky anyone?

Sure we've only to look at the Russian Bombing thread;
a) there are some notable posters missing on what was such a blatant
disregard for human rights and indeed life.. yet not a peep, shows you what we're dealing with on here
Islamic Terrorist Good...American bad 100% of the time regardless of the situation... f**king warped or what

b) Any responses that were fired back at me where nothing short of what they thought would be an educational class for me
...cause they're all so much smarter than I  but it's fairly clear that didn't happen as is evident by the tripping over their tails heading for the door
under the guise of course that all of a sudden I'm not worth bothering with
I think my signature below is most fitting for this one

[mountainboii]

211 words in that post, but not a single one on the topic of the thread.

And you accuse others of dodging 

[Tyrones own]

211 words in that post, but not a single one on the topic of the thread.

See when caught seriously short of substance this is what you're reduced to, finding a way
to insult me by counting the words in my posts...

And you accuse others of dodging 

Yes and I will definitely accuse you of being in bad need of a life

[Stagmeister]

I think my signature below is most fitting for this one

"Fear not those who argue but those who dodge."

So what you are saying is you are afraid of people who dodge your questions..Is this true?? I dont think your signature is saying what you intended it to...

Islamic Terrorist Good...American bad 100% of the time regardless of the situation... f**king warped or what

I could be wrong as I havent read all threads on this forum but I would be very surprised if any posters here ever referred to Islamic terrorists as being good. No one is saying America is bad 100% of the time but incidents like this when american soldiers show total disregard for innocent civilians and actually seem to enjoy killing/injuring them have to be highlighted as it proves that there are acts of terrorism being carried out by both sides, not just the Islamic side, contrary to what 99% of the media reports we recieve in the western world would have you believe. I think posters here are highlighting the Americans more because they have been portraying themselves as angels for so long now when everybody knows that this is not true.

[theskull1]

Remember....it was god who told Bush to do it......praise the lord 

Fcuk off skull you gypsy, Bush was and is a header and God had nothing to do with him going in to Iraq.

Don't mind them Stew...sure there's no bigger hatred in the minds around here than for God and America so I suppose
it's only fitting that Skull decided to bring them together for a good and proper hate fest.

All they're able to do these days is to come out with the most egregious and hateful
comments to get the desired result, they're then able to turn it around on ye, e.g. anger management.
Saul Alinksky anyone?

"egregious and hateful comments"?? ....Really? I find that strange
And just to repeat myself, it was Bush who came out with the comments. I'm simply repeating them

[deiseach]

I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who think America can't do anything right. But then again, certain others seem to be unable to see why some of us get more exercised by the actions of America's agents, who rarely have to face up to the consequences of their actions, than they do about the actions of terrorists, who are generally pursued to the ends of the earth and to hell with anyone who gets in the way

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

Did I mishear on the radio today that this was from 2007? Does anyone know if the soldiers were disciplined or were they considered to have acted correctly.

Yes it was Baghdad 2007, unsure if the soldiers were disciplined, but would be surprised, considering that this footage has only just been leaked!

[deiseach]

Yes it was Baghdad 2007, unsure if the soldiers were disciplined, but would be surprised, considering that this footage has only just been leaked!

Of course they haven't been disciplined. They followed standard operating procedure. If a group of American soldiers found themselves in a similar position in the morning, they would be expected to do exactly the same thing.

[muppet]

I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who think America can't do anything right. But then again, certain others seem to be unable to see why some of us get more exercised by the actions of America's agents, who rarely have to face up to the consequences of their actions, than they do about the actions of terrorists, who are generally pursued to the ends of the earth and to hell with anyone who gets in the way

This is the problem. The NeoCons quickly polarised all debate into 'them and us' after 911. You are either 'with us or against us'. They left no room for moderates. IMHO they brought it (world opinion turning against the US) on themselves. Of course that in their logic means I hate them. I don't.

Here is another problem as I see it. A lot of US military recruitment is not from the educated or middle classes. (see Michael Moore asking Representative in Washington why their sons aren't in Iraq) . A lot of these guys on the front lines don't know where they in the world and they don't know anything about the cultures they are dealing with. With some notable exceptions such as General Petraeus lots of these soldiers are poorly led, no attempt is made to integrate or even understand anything about locals and they become desensitised to what they witness and what they do to the locals.

They world naturally gets up in arms when a 'leaked' report shows US troops misbehaving. In the States there will be shock at this behaviour as well as everywhere else but the difference is that the US will scapegoat the individual troops. They world will blame those at the top and that points the finger at 8 years of NeoCon Republican rule.

The word Republican in that sentence is what certain people here find objectionable and means, in their logic, they can ignore everything else and simply hide behind straw man arguments about Democrats, Obama, Clinton and anything else that doesn't address the decade of warmongering.

[seafoid]

That wikileaks video gets in the way of the US media management of the wars in Iraq and afghanistan. americans aren't supposed to see images like that. they are supposed to be sponfed sympathetic media reports from embedded journalists and compromised mainland editors , breathe in "God bless America" and believe that the US is doing right in the region.

Watch al jazeera for an hour and see what reality looks like.

The US has already lost in Iraq and is going to lose in Afghanistan. Neoliberal war is appalling regardless of how it is dressed in the media. 

[pintsofguinness]

Remember....it was god who told Bush to do it......praise the lord 

Fcuk off skull you gypsy, Bush was and is a header and God had nothing to do with him going in to Iraq.

Don't mind them Stew...sure there's no bigger hatred in the minds around here than for God and America so I suppose
it's only fitting that Skull decided to bring them together for a good and proper hate fest.

All they're able to do these days is to come out with the most egregious and hateful
comments to get the desired result, they're then able to turn it around on ye, e.g. anger management.
Saul Alinksky anyone?

Sure we've only to look at the Russian Bombing thread;
a) there are some notable posters missing on what was such a blatant
disregard for human rights and indeed life.. yet not a peep, shows you what we're dealing with on here
Islamic Terrorist Good...American bad 100% of the time regardless of the situation... f**king warped or what

b) Any responses that were fired back at me where nothing short of what they thought would be an educational class for me
...cause they're all so much smarter than I  but it's fairly clear that didn't happen as is evident by the tripping over their tails heading for the door
under the guise of course that all of a sudden I'm not worth bothering with
I think my signature below is most fitting for this one

You have to cut that out TO, you come across like a right looney when you go on like that.   

[Arthur_Friend]

Remember....it was god who told Bush to do it......praise the lord 

Fcuk off skull you gypsy, Bush was and is a header and God had nothing to do with him going in to Iraq.

Don't mind them Stew...sure there's no bigger hatred in the minds around here than for God and America so I suppose
it's only fitting that Skull decided to bring them together for a good and proper hate fest.

All they're able to do these days is to come out with the most egregious and hateful
comments to get the desired result, they're then able to turn it around on ye, e.g. anger management.
Saul Alinksky anyone?

Sure we've only to look at the Russian Bombing thread;
a) there are some notable posters missing on what was such a blatant
disregard for human rights and indeed life.. yet not a peep, shows you what we're dealing with on here
Islamic Terrorist Good...American bad 100% of the time regardless of the situation... f**king warped or what

b) Any responses that were fired back at me where nothing short of what they thought would be an educational class for me
...cause they're all so much smarter than I  but it's fairly clear that didn't happen as is evident by the tripping over their tails heading for the door
under the guise of course that all of a sudden I'm not worth bothering with
I think my signature below is most fitting for this one

Your signature is moronic.

[tyssam5]

Yes it was Baghdad 2007, unsure if the soldiers were disciplined, but would be surprised, considering that this footage has only just been leaked!

Of course they haven't been disciplined. They followed standard operating procedure. If a group of American soldiers found themselves in a similar position in the morning, they would be expected to do exactly the same thing.

Not in Afganistan according to new policy there, not sure about Iraq.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/world/asia/22airstrikes.html
"Air power contains the seeds of our own destruction if we do not use it responsibly," General McChrystal told a group of his senior officers during a video conference last week. "We can lose this fight."

The episode in the video should be viewed in the context of the 'surge' i.e. there was a period of fairly heavy fighting in that part of Baghdad at that time. Doesn't help much I suppose. It would be good if the public here were exposed to more reality TV like this, they might learn a bit more than they do from 'reality TV' like 'Jersey Shore' etc.

[Declan]

Stop Being and Funding the Evil We Deplore
by Medea Benjamin
"Let us not become the evil we deplore", warned Cong. Barbara Lee when she cast the lone vote against going to war in Afghanistan in September 2001. Well, it's time to look in the mirror—and it's not a pretty picture.

Just contemplate these two incidents, one that took place in Iraq in 2007 and has now gone viral on the internet, the other that took place in Gardaz, Afghanistan in February 2010.

Baghdad: U.S. aerial shooters chuckle as they let loose a torrent of bullets, killing over a dozen people, including two Reuters staff. Then they unleash another round on an Iraqi who—passing by in his van—tries to help the wounded. When the American soldiers discover they have hit two children in the van, they can be heard snorting, "It's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."

No one—from those who pulled the triggers to those who gave the okay—has been punished for the murder of these innocents. That's because this blatant disregard for human life falls within the rules of engagement. And the only reason the incident came to light is thanks to Reuters for its persistence and to Wikileaks for procuring the footage and putting on their site.

Gardez, Afghanistan: US Special Operations forces surround a home where a party is taking place for the birth of a grandson. Two men come out to see why they are being surrounded. They are shot dead. The US soldiers later report they found three women inside the house, gagged and murdered by their own relatives.

The Times of London later reports that the women were killed by the American soldiers. Not only that. To hide the murder, the soldiers dug bullets out of the women's bodies and washed the wounds with alcohol to hide the evidence. One of the women was a pregnant mother of 10; another was a pregnant mother of six; the third was a teenage girl.

No one has been punished in this incident either. General McChrystal was briefed on the case in March but said nothing about it. The murders only came to light because the Times reporter Jerome Starkey visited the family and talked to Afghan investigators.

While McChrystal issued a new directive in July 2009 restricting activities likely to result in civilian casualties and urged troops to act with greater sensitivity to Afghan cultural and religious concerns, the killing of innocents continues. According to the UN, at least 98 Afghan civilians were killed in night raids in 2009.

The same is true at checkpoints. In a rare moment of honesty, while addressing a virtual townhall with troops in Afghanistan, General McChrystal admitted, "We really ask a lot of our young service people out on the checkpoints because there's danger, they're asked to make very rapid decisions in often very unclear situations. However, to my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I've been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it...We've shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force."

Our killing of civilians has spread to Pakistan, where the most deadly attacks come from unmanned drones. A report by the New America Foundation speculates that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan have killed somewhere around 700 to 1,000 people, one-third of them civilians.

[Aerlik]

TO, I ask you this:  earlier this week more than 75 Indian policemen were killed during a battle with, and I quote "Maoist Rebels"; is there any significance in the cited wording compared to the murders of innocent civilians as depicted in that video footage?