WikiLeaks releases footage believed to show civilian deaths in Iraq in 2007.

[Orpheus]

Lot of ignorance in this thread.

 

A ) You can't take chances in a situation like this. If it looks like a weapon, you have to take them down.

B ) Of course they're eager to kill. Would you put your faith into an army of people that is afraid to hurt someone?

C ) Accidents like these are GOING to happen.

 

Does that mean they did the right thing? Does that mean they didn't make a mistake? Absolutely not. I just don't think the entire U.S. armed forces should be condemned for it. And I agree with what Azvareth said, seems like people are more concerned with who the most popular celebrity is banging than what's going on in the world.

 

Eh, Krieg explained it better than I did.

 

The people in that footage still pissed me off, they seemed a bit... enthusiastic, to say the least. Sure, it's in the job description that you'll probably kill someone or something to that effect. And yes, accidents do happen. But as laura quoted, some of the things they said make me more and more irritable with each passing moment.

 

And I want to know why they'd fire upon the van, of all things.

[Hunterowner]

Lot of ignorance in this thread.

 

A ) You can't take chances in a situation like this. If it looks like a weapon, you have to take them down.

B ) Of course they're eager to kill. Would you put your faith into an army of people that is afraid to hurt someone?

C ) Accidents like these are GOING to happen.

 

Does that mean they did the right thing? Does that mean they didn't make a mistake? Absolutely not. I just don't think the entire U.S. armed forces should be condemned for it. And I agree with what Azvareth said, seems like people are more concerned with who the most popular celebrity is banging than what's going on in the world.

 

So your agreeing with this killing when its obviously a camera on a tripod? MAybe you should actually watch the video. Heck, those could have been my relatives or something. Guess I'll never know. Also, why did they have to shoot at that van? Please tell me that cause I'm dieing to know.

 

Sorry its not "obvious"

 

You must be blind then. The helicopter circled the civilains numerous times and also noomed in on them. With the advanced technology they have, they should have easily known that is was a camera on a tripod. Also, the civilians were not even aiming at the helicopter. Shows how stupid some people in our military can be. Lastly, why did you avoid my other statement in my post about the van? Nothing to say, eh?

[The Dark Lord]

Lot of ignorance in this thread.

 

A ) You can't take chances in a situation like this. If it looks like a weapon, you have to take them down.

B ) Of course they're eager to kill. Would you put your faith into an army of people that is afraid to hurt someone?

C ) Accidents like these are GOING to happen.

 

Does that mean they did the right thing? Does that mean they didn't make a mistake? Absolutely not. I just don't think the entire U.S. armed forces should be condemned for it. And I agree with what Azvareth said, seems like people are more concerned with who the most popular celebrity is banging than what's going on in the world.

 

Eh, Krieg explained it better than I did.

 

The people in that footage still pissed me off, they seemed a bit... enthusiastic, to say the least. Sure, it's in the job description that you'll probably kill someone or something to that effect. And yes, accidents do happen. But as laura quoted, some of the things they said make me more and more irritable with each passing moment.

 

And I want to know why they'd fire upon the van, of all things.

 

Well, it just goes to show you why we don't have the Most Professional Army. The majority of our troops in Iraq/Afghanistan are bloody kids! They may do brave things from time to time, but they are NOT to be regarded as brave patriots who are fighting and dying for the freedom of their nation. If they were, they would be fighting the real terrorists --- Congressmen. ;)

 

Of course, my post may seem unfair, but that's just how things are. They don't have a choice whether to go to the Middle East or not, but the vast majority of these kids DO have the choice whether or not to sign up for the US Army/Marines in the first place. A lot of these kids believe that it will be a thrilling experience --- like a video game ---- but they need to pick a new field of work.

[Kriegsmier]

What? No. You sign up for the military but you are told to go somewhere like that. Its a deployment, you have no choice.

 

When you sign up for the military, a variety of things can happen. Sometimes they send you to military bases around the world (the US has its own bases on virtually every western country, among others) or you could be sent to Iran, Afghanistan, or Iraq. You have no choice. Once you sign up, you effectively sell your soul to the US military --- for a certain amount of time.

 

I hope one day we achieve world piece, educate our masses, and have major control on violence before we do long term damage to the planet.

 

To be honest, "world peace" is nothing other than wishful thinking. Violence is critical to human evolution and is an innate trait of every human being; it's survival of the fittest. It's unfortunate, but violence will always exist so long as violence can solve our problems.

 

However, with that said, this does not mean that countries should not practice peace and goodwill to all nations; Blessed are the Peacemakers, after all.

 

Sigh. No, you can't be sent to Iran. We are not in Iran and won't be for a while if ever.

 

Again, its easy to talk one way when you havn't been put in situations like this. The amount of firepower gets you pumped up, adrenaline...you say things like this and you act like this. Welcome to human nature. Its impressive honestly. Not saying it makes it right or wrong, but it gets your adrenaline flowing i promise you.

 

You are right, most over there are kids. So blame video games. Its what most base their actions on. Hell, all the turrets in the trucks are controlled by gear sticks and game controllers these days.

[The Dark Lord]

Sigh. No, you can't be sent to Iran. We are not in Iran and won't be for a while if ever.

 

Who says it wasn't a joke? :razz:

 

(I'm mostly poking fun at my friend who thinks that they are about to launch an invasion of Iran.)

[krimi]

What facts don't I have set straight? When I said americans killing civilians is horrendous?

Are going to say that statement isn't subjective? I'm not trying to argue or anything, but I just noticed you said that after you said someone's posts was "subjective as hell."

[Nero]

Blessed are the Peacemakers, after all.

 

I thought it was blessed are the cheesemakers.

[rangeor]

That video is propoganda and you all know it. Whether it is completely real or staged does not take away from the fact that it was designed to instill animosity towards the American military and government. What was the point of the sporadic radio transmission noises in the beginning, when they were introducing the background story? For psychological impact, of course. The video clearly followed Freytag's Pyramid with definite examples of an exposition, rising action, falling action, and denouement. Though like most propoganda films it spends more time rising and in turn takes out a lot of the falling action.

 

I'm not sure if this video is real or not and very few people will ever know if it's real because obviously both sides will argue to get people to belive it is or isn't real. I personally think it's probably real, but the way it was presented disgusts me as it is obviously propaganda. Yes, it is absolutely horrific that situations like these happen. But war has and will never be a perfect competition because humans are the competitors, and we all know how incredibly imperfect humans are. World peace is a naive concept because as humans we are engineered to enjoy hating others. People may pretend they are perfect and selfless beings, but we're all a dangerous mixture of emotions on the inside.

 

I do agree that whether this situation is real or not does not hide the fact that many situations like this have occured previously, in this war and earlier wars, and will continue to occur in future wars. This is one of the large reasons I dislike war and will never willingly get involved with any sort of military.

[RpgGamer]

Mistaking a camera for a gun?

 

Honest mistake. It sucks, but these guys were trained to shoot anyhting suspicious and they did. They did their job. As far as they knew, those really were enemy targets. It's tought to tell with these tricky terrorist types.

 

Apologies are in order, but war is war. [cabbage] happens.

 

[i think Kyle needs to work on his ammo conservation anyway]

[Faux]

What facts don't I have set straight? When I said americans killing civilians is horrendous?

Are going to say that statement isn't subjective? I'm not trying to argue or anything, but I just noticed you said that after you said someone's posts was "subjective as hell."

How is that subjective? Killing journalists/civilians is considered a war crime - you know something designed in the Geneva Convention. Try looking into it sometime

[The Dark Lord]

Mistaking a camera for a gun?

 

Honest mistake. It sucks, but these guys were trained to shoot anyhting suspicious and they did. They did their job. As far as they knew, those really were enemy targets. It's tought to tell with these tricky terrorist types.

 

Apologies are in order, but war is war. [cabbage] happens.

 

[i think Kyle needs to work on his ammo conservation anyway]

 

 

This pretty much sums up my thoughts regarding the video.

 

I will be honest, though. At first, the video DID engender my anger towards these men. However, Krieg is right. It's just an honest mistake; when their adrenaline is that high, their judgement can become impaired. Thus, some camera equipment slung over a person's shoulder somehow becomes an RPG (with their perception). If you watch the unedited footage, it appears that they are just doing their routine job.

 

Now, that's not saying that I support this war; I don't.

[Nero]

That video is propoganda and you all know it. Whether it is completely real or staged does not take away from the fact that it was designed to instill animosity towards the American military and government. What was the point of the sporadic radio transmission noises in the beginning, when they were introducing the background story? For psychological impact, of course. The video clearly followed Freytag's Pyramid with definite examples of an exposition, rising action, falling action, and denouement. Though like most propoganda films it spends more time rising and in turn takes out a lot of the falling action.

 

I'm not sure if this video is real or not and very few people will ever know if it's real because obviously both sides will argue to get people to belive it is or isn't real. I personally think it's probably real, but the way it was presented disgusts me as it is obviously propaganda. Yes, it is absolutely horrific that situations like these happen. But war has and will never be a perfect competition because humans are the competitors, and we all know how incredibly imperfect humans are. World peace is a naive concept because as humans we are engineered to enjoy hating others. People may pretend they are perfect and selfless beings, but we're all a dangerous mixture of emotions on the inside.

 

I do agree that whether this situation is real or not does not hide the fact that many situations like this have occured previously, in this war and earlier wars, and will continue to occur in future wars. This is one of the large reasons I dislike war and will never willingly get involved with any sort of military.

 

Erm. Considering it was a video that whistleblowers got from the Pentagon's records, is the footage from inside an attack helicopter, details a story that has been reported by numerous news sources, and is...yes, completely real. Um.

 

Also, there's this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGRS

Which gives you this (since Iraq is mostly 38S):

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=33.313692+44.512055+%28UTM:+38S++454580m+E++3686170m+N%29&ie=UTF8&ll=33.313692,44.512053&spn=0.012714,0.015771&t=h&z=16

 

Looks pretty similar to me.

[Tim]

I cant watch the video since my bandwidth went over on peak (so not until Midnight anyway), Is this tied to the Military personal up for charges of Manslaughter and Murder for shooting obvious civilians and "mistaking" them for terrorists? Despite the "war is War" part, They're also trained to NOT be stupid enough to tell the difference between friend and foe. It's like me beating up some old man walking towards my front door. I could have thought he was a mugger but the obvious outfit of a Mormon and pamphlets says otherwise.

(Bad example, I know.)

[fastortoise]

"it's their fault for bringing children into a war"

"yep"

 

WOW.... really? Made me :wall: so hard

[NorthernHero]

Mistaking a camera for a gun?

 

Honest mistake. It sucks, but these guys were trained to shoot anyhting suspicious and they did. They did their job. As far as they knew, those really were enemy targets. It's tought to tell with these tricky terrorist types.

 

Apologies are in order, but war is war. [cabbage] happens.

 

[i think Kyle needs to work on his ammo conservation anyway]

 

You seriously think apologies will cut that? People were killed there. It's easy for you watching it far away from your screen to say '[cabbage] happens'.

 

Not so easy for the relatives of those people. And we know for sure this wasn't only incident civilians were killed. Not by far. Lol, I don't know the numbers but I think it is very possible that iraq civilian deaths exeed the number of american soldiers death there.

 

This is how your so called 'terrorists' are born. People losing their relatives and friends time after time and they have no choise but to start acting. You really can't blame the rebel fighters in there.

 

Honest mistake

The mistake here was going to foreing country with intention to kill in the first place.

These people are murderers. They knew what they signed in when they joined the military. If they get hit by a suicide bomber or whatever they had it coming for them and they deserve it.

[Barihawk]

I don't think it's very fair for any of us to judge these guys. Hindsight is 20/20 so we can look back on anything with an air superiority that we "knew better" and throw around words like "obviously that's a" or "cruel." The fact is, most if not all of us have never been in a real combat situation and the closest we've come to it is a climactic battle scene in MW2. The reason people here are comparing war to videogames is because that's their only experience of it, asides from a few bytes on the news.

 

Guess what, soldiers in Iraq are stressed. They are stressed because every last person and their dog is a potential aggressor. We are fighting an enemy that will strap a bomb to a kid and remote-detonate it. Where women conceal AK's and grenades under their clothing on the guise that their privacy will be respected. Is that a camera or an RPG? Do most of you even know what an anti-air weapon looks like if it isn't an RPG-7? Not all are long tubes, and many have tripods. Or maybe it was a camera and truly was a mistake.

 

Is that van carrying do-gooders or reinforcements? What weapons could they have stored in it? Perhaps radio equipment to notify the enemy of our position. Perhaps nuns who want to be humanitarians.

 

As for the cruel jokes? Dealing with stress. Many people try to deal with stress by macabre humor. Have you ever cracked an uneasy joke at a funeral? Made a sarcastic remark about something that is bothering you? I've seen many of you do the exact same and yet you judge these guys who are surrounded by death and the prospect that at any moment they will be dead.

 

Why is there so many instances of PTSD in modern wars compared to WW2? Not entirely because of "they know what they are doing is wrong" but because back in WW2/Korea, you generally had a good idea of who the bad guys were. In modern warfare, it can be anyone from an armed commando to a dog with dynamite strapped on.

 

The other major difference between modern warfare and WW2. We aren't carpet bombing anyone. We are going out of our way to minimize civilian casualties (of which there WILL be in war) yet our enemy shows no such respect and TARGETS civilians along with military personel. All the laser sights and thermal cameras in the world will not tell you who is truly friend or foe.

 

If they made a real videogame based on modern warfare, people wouldn't play it because you'd die too often and there wouldn't be a savegame to revert back to.

[Kriegsmier]

I don't think it's very fair for any of us to judge these guys. Hindsight is 20/20 so we can look back on anything with an air superiority that we "knew better" and throw around words like "obviously that's a" or "cruel." The fact is, most if not all of us have never been in a real combat situation and the closest we've come to it is a climactic battle scene in MW2. The reason people here are comparing war to videogames is because that's their only experience of it, asides from a few bytes on the news.

 

Guess what, soldiers in Iraq are stressed. They are stressed because every last person and their dog is a potential aggressor. We are fighting an enemy that will strap a bomb to a kid and remote-detonate it. Where women conceal AK's and grenades under their clothing on the guise that their privacy will be respected. Is that a camera or an RPG? Do most of you even know what an anti-air weapon looks like if it isn't an RPG-7? Not all are long tubes, and many have tripods. Or maybe it was a camera and truly was a mistake.

 

Is that van carrying do-gooders or reinforcements? What weapons could they have stored in it? Perhaps radio equipment to notify the enemy of our position. Perhaps nuns who want to be humanitarians.

 

As for the cruel jokes? Dealing with stress. Many people try to deal with stress by macabre humor. Have you ever cracked an uneasy joke at a funeral? Made a sarcastic remark about something that is bothering you? I've seen many of you do the exact same and yet you judge these guys who are surrounded by death and the prospect that at any moment they will be dead.

 

Why is there so many instances of PTSD in modern wars compared to WW2? Not entirely because of "they know what they are doing is wrong" but because back in WW2/Korea, you generally had a good idea of who the bad guys were. In modern warfare, it can be anyone from an armed commando to a dog with dynamite strapped on.

 

The other major difference between modern warfare and WW2. We aren't carpet bombing anyone. We are going out of our way to minimize civilian casualties (of which there WILL be in war) yet our enemy shows no such respect and TARGETS civilians along with military personel. All the laser sights and thermal cameras in the world will not tell you who is truly friend or foe.

 

If they made a real videogame based on modern warfare, people wouldn't play it because you'd die too often and there wouldn't be a savegame to revert back to.

 

Thank you! Perfect. Best assessment in the thread so far.

 

I've seen dogs, cows, goats, sheep.....all wired with 3-4 rounds of 155mm rounds shoved inside of the carcass. I've seen them in cars, vans, trucks, and even up on light posts and sign posts so it blows up over your head. You know the kill radius of a 155? 30-50 meters, 100-150 meters for casualty. I've seen translators one day, become aggressors the next. The amount of stuff over there that can kill you is amazing. You have to avoid trash on the road (which is plentiful), and every single pothole. You have to watch each step you take while watching the surrounding rooftops. Everyone with a cellphone in their hand is a threat. Its not fun, its not a video game, its definitely not MW2. There are no red names above your head to show enemies from friendlies, and there are no respawns. This video is just used to cause an outcry, a lame attempt at propaganda.

 

It was a running joke in our Platoon about which vehicle would get blown up each day. "Oh man you're in #2 today? Sucks for you....you're already dead."

[magekillr]

As my friend Dubba said, who lives in the region (he lives in Saudi Arabia, and Dubba isn't his real name as he is an apostate):

 

I find this deeply troubling because the ROE, it seems, allows the gunner to shoot anyone who's armed. And to do so from the helicopter without caring to discern who's armed with real weapons and who's just slinging a camera.

 

I find this deeply troubling because the ROE allows for the gunner to shoot the entire group of people when only one or two were armed.

 

I even actually find it troubling that they'd shoot armed people without provocation. What if these guys were worried about sectarian violence? Patrolling the streets to repel thugs or mobs? What do you say, O you who believe in the second amendment?

 

I find this troubling because, it seems to me that had the Reuters cameramen not been amongst the dead, NO ONE WOULD HAVE [bleep]ING HEARD OR CARED.

 

In the end, the real war criminals are the people who started this war, and the man who is protecting them from trial.

 

Edit: Oh, and you apologists, did the soldiers just do this out of stress, too?:

 

After initially denying involvement or any cover-up in the deaths of three Afghan women during a badly bungled American Special Operations assault in February, the American-led military command in Kabul admitted late on Sunday that its forces had, in fact, killed the women during the nighttime raid.

 

The admission immediately raised questions about what really happened during the Feb. 12 operation -- and what falsehoods followed -- including a new report that Special Operations forces dug bullets out of the bodies of the women to hide the true nature of their deaths.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?ref=world

[Kriegsmier]

The rules of engagement change per year, per month, per whenever. Depends on whats going on in the region at the time.

[magekillr]

Glenn Greenwald perfectly sums up why this video is so important:

 

I was just on Democracy Now along with WikiLeaks' Julian Assange discussing the Iraq video they released yesterday, and there's one vital point I want to emphasize. Shining light on what our government and military do is so critical precisely because it forces people to see what is really being done and prevents myth and propaganda from distorting those realities. That's why the administration fights so hard to keep torture photos suppressed, why the military fought so hard here to keep this video concealed (and why they did the same with regard to the Afghan massacre), and why whistle-blowers, real journalists, and sites like WikiLeaks are the declared enemy of the government. The discussions many people are having today -- about the brutal reality of what the U.S. does when it engages in war, invasions and occupation -- is exactly the discussion which they most want to avoid.

 

But there's a serious danger when incidents like this Iraq slaughter are exposed in a piecemeal and unusual fashion: namely, the tendency to talk about it as though it is an aberration. It isn't. It's the opposite: it's par for the course, standard operating procedure, what we do in wars, invasions, and occupation. The only thing that's rare about the Apache helicopter killings is that we know about it and are seeing what happened on video. And we're seeing it on video not because it's rare, but because it just so happened (a) to result in the deaths of two Reuters employees, and thus received more attention than the thousands of other similar incidents where nameless Iraqi civilians are killed, and (B) to end up in the hands of WikiLeaks, which then published it. But what is shown is completely common. That includes not only the initial killing of a group of men, the vast majority of whom are clearly unarmed, but also the plainly unjustified killing of a group of unarmed men (with their children) carrying away an unarmed, seriously wounded man to safety -- as though there's something nefarious about human beings in an urban area trying to take an unarmed, wounded photographer to a hospital.

 

A major reason there are hundreds of thousands of dead innocent civilians in Iraq, and thousands more in Afghanistan, is because this is what we do. This is why so many of those civilians are dead. What one sees on that video is how we conduct our wars. That's why it's repulsive to watch people -- including some "liberals" -- attack WikiLeaks for slandering The Troops, or complain that objections to these actions unfairly disparage the military because "our guys are the good guys" and they act differently "99.99999999% of the time." That is blatantly false. Just as was true of the deceitful attempt to depict the Abu Ghraib abusers as rogue "bad apples" once their conduct was exposed with photographs (when the reality was they were acting in complete consistency with authorized government policy), the claim that what was shown on that video is some sort of outrageous departure from U.S. policy is demonstrably false. In a perverse way, the typical morally depraved neocons who are justifying these killings are actually being more honest than those trying to pretend this is some sort of rare and unusual event: those who support having the U.S. invade and wage war on other countries are endorsing precisely this behavior.

 

As the video demonstrates, the soldiers in the Apache did not take a single step -- including killing those unarmed men who tried to rescue the wounded -- without first receiving formal permission from their superiors. Beyond that, the Pentagon yesterday -- once the video was released -- suddenly embraced the wisdom of transparency by posting online the reports of the so-called "investigations" it undertook into this incident (as a result of pressure from Reuters). Those formal investigations not only found that every action taken by those soldiers was completely justified -- including the firing on the unarmed civilian rescuers -- but also found that there's no need for any remedial steps to be taken to prevent future re-occurence. What we see on that video is what the U.S. does on a constant and regular basis in these countries, and it's what we've been doing for years. It's obviously consistent with our policies and practices for how we fight in these countries, which is exactly what those investigative reports concluded.

 

The WikiLeaks video is not an indictment of the individual soldiers involved -- at least not primarily. Of course those who aren't accustomed to such sentiments are shocked by the callous and sadistic satisfaction those soldiers seem to take in slaughtering those whom they perceive as The Enemy (even when unarmed and crawling on the ground with mortal wounds), but this is what they're taught and trained and told to do. If you take even well-intentioned, young soldiers and stick them in the middle of a dangerous war zone for years and train them to think and act this way, this will inevitably be the result. The video is an indicment of the U.S. government and the war policies it pursues.

 

All of this is usually kept from us. Unlike those in the Muslim world, who are shown these realities quite frequently by their free press, we don't usually see what is done by us. We stay blissfully insulated from it, so that in those rare instances when we're graphically exposed to it, we can tell ourselves that it's all very unusual and rare. That's how we collectively dismissed the Abu Ghraib photos, and it's why the Obama administration took such extraordinary steps to suppress all the rest of the torture photos: because further disclosure would have revealed that behavior to be standard and common, not at all unusual or extraordinary.

 

Precisely the same dynamic applies to the Pentagon's admission yesterday that its original claims about the brutal February killing of five civilians in Eastern Afghanistan were totally false. What happened there -- the slaughter of unthreatening civilians, official lies told about the incident, the dissemination of those lies by an uncritical U.S. media -- is what happens constantly (the same deceitful cover-up behavior took place with the Iraq video). The lies about the Afghan killings were exposed in this instance not because they're rare, but because one very intrepid, relentless reporter happened to be able to travel to the remote province and speak to witnesses and investigate the event, forcing the Pentagon to acknowledge the truth.

 

The value of the Wikileaks/Iraq video and the Afghanistan revelation is not that they exposed unusually horrific events. The value is in realizing that these event are anything but unusual.

 

Well said, Glenn.

 

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/06/iraq/index.html

[NorthernHero]

I think we can all agree that it's very stressful for the soldiers.

 

However that can't be an excuse for what we see on that video.

The truth in the end is, those sivilians were killed, and those soldiers live.

 

There is difference between the soldiers and the civilans is, the soldiers choose to go there, out of their free will. They are the indruders. They shouldn't be there in the first place. Those kind of 'mistakes' are bound to happen in the enviroment they created there.

 

You know, it never ceases to amaze me how people time from time again fail to see the big picture. Don't you know the history? Haven't you learned anything from it? Nazi germany. Good example.

Kriegsmier, let me ask you a question. Would you have been a nazi if you lived in germany 1940? I'm pretty sure you don't agree with what nazis did back then. But most of the nazi soldiers weren't monsters, they were normal people just like you and me. Now, you just have to see that this situation we have in iraq today is really not much different from nazi germany. There were people back then who resisted and didin't go with the killings of innocent people.. and then there were those people who were weak. I'm pretty sure they used all kinds of excuses aswell. They must have been under alot stress too.

 

Think about it. One single civilian killed is too much. There is no excuses for this, stress, job, money, 'because i was ordered to'. No excuses. We as human beings can choose our actions. Those soldiers chose their profession. It was not a honest mistake.

[Rainy_Day]

I can see how the items in the peoples hands could have been mistaken for weapons, however, shooting an entire crowd of people & at a person running away without a weapon? Then shooting at a van with people who did not pick up weapons, merely helped the wounded? It's plain stupid. Every army has a dark side, I know the army for my country (England) has had some terrible incidents, but in this day and age you would think emotion and common sense would kick in.

 

The people wanting the civilians to pick up 'weapons' and asking over and over to 'engage' just shows that such people are getting sick kicks out of being in a war. And to be frank, those are not the people I'd want my country working with in a war (currently Afghanistan), heck I don't think we should be there in the first place. It does not sum up the US Army, but that is a down-right stupid incident to happen.

[NorthernHero]

Well said, Glenn.

 

I agree.

[obfuscator]

It's a tragic event. I mostly agree with Bari's post as well - soldiers have a terrible and stressful job, and were just trying to do it.

 

It's the firing on the already wounded and the van that bugged me. The camera for gun was an honest mistake imo.

[AirWales]

Have they found weapons of mass destruction yet?