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Post by archer17 on Jul 28, 2010 10:37:20 GMT -4
Imagine if everyone treated every situation with "kill the SOB." I don't consider 9/11/01 as "every situation" gillianren. That day affected all of us, some more than others. I fall in the latter category so I admit I am guilty of thinking with my heart instead of my head regarding that SOB. I also know that if I was actually in the Oval Office back then and not blessed with 2010 hindsight I wouldn't have really used a nuke just to kill one man. It felt good typing it though...
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Post by PeterB on Jul 28, 2010 12:21:52 GMT -4
I'm also divided about the leaks, but on the balance I think they were a good thing.
My concern is that the Afghanistan War has changed from being a means to an end into an end in itself. That is, I have the horrible suspicion that there are some people (by no means all of them) in the Pentagon who are happy for the war to keep going because it gives them relevance - bigger budgets, more weapons, access to the President, and stuff like that.
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Post by gillianren on Jul 28, 2010 13:15:58 GMT -4
Imagine if everyone treated every situation with "kill the SOB." Well there'd be less cutting in line.... I do tell people that the hazard of my carrying a walking stick is the dreadful temptation to use it on people. I don't consider 9/11/01 as "every situation" gillianren. That day affected all of us, some more than others. I fall in the latter category so I admit I am guilty of thinking with my heart instead of my head regarding that SOB. I also know that if I was actually in the Oval Office back then and not blessed with 2010 hindsight I wouldn't have really used a nuke just to kill one man. It felt good typing it though... Yeah. But if someone killed my daughter, that wouldn't be "every situation" for me, either. I would want to hunt down and kill the person who did it. I would hate that person more than I had ever hated anyone in my life. (Not that you should assume I was unaffected by 9/11, though not so much as a college friend whose dad works in the Pentagon. His dad was fine, but he wasn't able to call the family and let them know for hours.) It's just that thinking with your heart is one of the things which gets us into these situations in the first place. You can't assume every urge of your heart is a good one.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jul 28, 2010 14:12:56 GMT -4
My concern is that the Afghanistan War has changed from being a means to an end into an end in itself. That is, I have the horrible suspicion that there are some people (by no means all of them) in the Pentagon who are happy for the war to keep going because it gives them relevance - bigger budgets, more weapons, access to the President, and stuff like that. Sounds suspiciously like hoax believer thinking. Do you think these same people in the Pentagon were keeping the Iraq war going for the same reasons?
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Post by ka9q on Aug 17, 2010 13:11:30 GMT -4
Actually I think throwing our military weight around is a convenient excuse to dislike us for most anti-Americans. Actually I think throwing our military weight around is a pretty good reason to dislike us. I absolutely cringe every time I see footage of a squad of American Marines kicking down the door of an Iraqi or Afghani house, pointing weapons at everyone inside - women and screaming children included - and yelling at them in a language they don't understand. Regardless of the reason for the raid, it's very easy to see why there are so many insurgents. And no, suppressing TV footage of this sort of thing won't help. Word gets around.
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Post by Kiwi on Aug 18, 2010 6:15:57 GMT -4
The worst TV I've ever seen involving U.S. soldiers (I don't know whether or not they were marines) was taken the night the U.S. entered Baghdad and I saw it once only on our late news which starts sometime around 10:30pm.
There was a convoy of U.S. vehicles on a major road in Baghdad and soldiers and a cameraman were on the back of the rear truck. Following that closely was at least one carload of Iraqi's whooping it up and cheering. There were other vehicles behind the car, and the sky was dark and the scene well-lit by street lighting.
The soldiers obviously thought the car was too close and were trying to signal it to move back with "shoo" and "stop" signs and calling out in English to the driver to do so.
I sat there staring, amazed at the sheer stupidity of this. The Iraqis were making quite a noise, but the convoy was making a louder noise, so how could the driver hear what the soldiers were yelling out? Furthermore, even if he could hear, could he understand? And could he also have understood the hand signals? Perhaps they meant something else altogether in his culture.
If it is normal procedure to get civilian vehicles to stay back from a convoy, why didn't that vehicle have signs written in the appropriate languages?
This went on for a while, then the soldiers started pointing their weapons at the car, which didn't change its position, and the Iraqis' carried on cheering, yelling and waving.
Then the soldiers started firing. Did they fire into the car's tyres and engine in an attempt to disable it? No, not at all. They fired straight into the windscreen, directly at the people inside. And not one or two shots but a raking back and forth with at least two automatic weapons.
The car quickly veered off the road, and then we were told that its occupants were an unarmed family and the father was driving his wife and kids and perhaps a brother or two. The father was killed and there were severe injuries and perhaps one or two more deaths.
I forget the exact details now and hope this recollection is reasonably accurate, but I was disgusted at one of the most obscene and horrific sights I've ever seen on TV.
I never saw that clip again, and I'll bet it wasn't widely shown in the U.S., if at all. It wasn't shown on our main bulletin at 6pm that evening, nor the following night.
"Here we are in Baghdad, folks, and watch out, because we're gonna kill you and your wife and kids even if you are just an unarmed welcoming committee. But do welcome us!"
Fixed typo so it reads "No, not at all."
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Post by gillianren on Aug 18, 2010 11:02:19 GMT -4
Good Lord. No, I'd remember that clip.
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Jason
Pluto
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Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 23, 2010 13:12:37 GMT -4
Do you have a verifiable source for this incident, Kiwi?
Also, how many US soldiers have been killed by what appeared at first to be a "welcoming party"?
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Post by Ginnie on Aug 23, 2010 17:07:01 GMT -4
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Post by laurel on Aug 23, 2010 17:11:58 GMT -4
The thing about that video is, the viewer can look at the onscreen labels identifying the journalists. The helicopter pilots didn't have labels to look at.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Aug 24, 2010 2:31:58 GMT -4
The thing about that video is, the viewer can look at the onscreen labels identifying the journalists. The helicopter pilots didn't have labels to look at. This is true, however firing into a van that you can't see inside, and is evacuating wounded people is a rather dispicable act. In this case the Helicopter crew appear to be over zealous to open fire, and permission is given when it really should not have been. Eyes on thebgtound should have been used to identify the targets and determine if they were actually a threat rather then just opening fire on people.
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Post by Kiwi on Aug 24, 2010 8:36:47 GMT -4
Do you have a verifiable source for this incident, Kiwi? No, as I say above, I only saw it once, and didn't record it. The source would have most likely been one of the U.S. news crews which joined the tanks that "invaded" Iraq and showed them doing nothing but travelling over a great deal of sand. I deliberately watched more news bulletins than usual and had my video recorder ready the next day and for a week or so afterward in case it was screened again, but it never was. There was also nothing about it in the newspapers I read. Also, how many US soldiers have been killed by what appeared at first to be a "welcoming party"?As I'm a New Zealander, I'm the wrong person to ask. I have no idea and have not heard of it happening. Ginnie, you don't say who your query is for. Being on s-l-o-w rural dialup I can't watch videos online, but the opening scene of your clip is nothing like what I saw, which was in colour and filmed from the back of a truck at ground level at night. There seemed to be a large open area on the left of the screen -- perhaps a park, a river, or both -- with modern buildings on the far side of it.
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