Wikileaks has really misled the public • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#61

Post by blhack » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:07 AM UTC

:(. A lot of people seem to be completely missing the point of this video. It isn't that some journalists were killed, it's that they were killed in sport. The people speaking while they're shooting them are acting as though they want them dead, not as though they're taking their lives in an effort to protect themselves.

Did you see the part where the dying journalist is bleeding out on the curb and trying to crawl for cover? The helicopter gunner is saying something to the effect of "just pick up a weapon just pick up a weapon"; he's looking for an excuse to pull the trigger. Howabout the part before they shoot of the van that was trying to help people get out of the area? The gunner kept changing the subject back to whether or not he could open fire on it. Again, he wanted to kill the people inside, wanted to see a big explosion.

Yes, there are bad things that happen in war, this video is meant to illuminate the manner in which some of these bad things are happening.

Again, it isn't that people were killed, it was how they were killed and why they were killed.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#62

Post by kingkawn » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:07 AM UTC

lionhearted wrote: post #6

After I saw the first video, I did some googling around and reading about the rules of engagement during an insurgency. Under the Geneva Convention, clearly identified medical personnel treating combatants removed from combat are protected. However, if an armed combatant is attempting to help another combatant get to cover, they're both fair game. There's a grey area when it's not clear if a person helping a combatan…

Once you've murdered journalists in the field, the rules of engagement stop being as important in the war for public opinion. Modern war is as much about information as territory. You simply can't do this, regardless of if you can explain it away til next Tuesday.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#63

Post by coffeemug » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:08 AM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #54

I am not American; though I usually side with democratic countries as much as I can. However, if you made a really big mistake and went to war with a country which posed no credible threat to you (at least in hindsight when this shooting took place) I'd imagine people would err on the side of caution when shooting somebody's family and loved ones. At least in this part of the world, what is coming across is that your…

what gives America the moral right to talk about human rights when the Iraqi death toll exceeds well over one hundred thousand?

Well, the counter argument is that by this logic nobody can talk about human rights. Until very recently in human history the Europeans brutally conquered half the world and effectively turned the "savage people" that were unlucky enough to survive the raping and the pillaging into slaves. Listening to anyone who points out legitimate human rights violations is better than listening to no one who points out legitimate human rights violations. It's just more constructive this way.

Killing ten Iraqis to save an American soldier is not justifiable, any which way you look at it.

This is rhetoric, and isn't an interesting statement about what happened in this video, how it was handled by the military, or how it was marketed and leaked by wikileaks. What possible constructive purpose could this statement serve?

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#64

Post by prawn » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:08 AM UTC

sunchild wrote: post #16

I watched this video from end to end. It is entirely possible that this was a team setting up an ambush and filming it. The fact that a Reuters photojourno was involved only fortifies the plausibility of this theory, since wire photojournos are well-known for "embedding" with insurgents. I'm not saying one way or the other (unlike many others). I'm proposing an alternative theory that I believe is just as likely as t…

To me, it didn't seem like the other guys were moving with purpose, just out wandering around. One seems to gesture to a street that the photographer should look at.

The chopper guys talk about 5-6 guys having AK-47s but there are only two who appear to be carrying anything at all. The rest don't have bags or anything.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#65

Post by r0s » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:11 AM UTC

vaksel wrote: post #33

people are focusing on the wrong area of this story...yes killing that first group of people was a dick move, but it might get justified by ROE....killing the people in the van who tried to help was also a dick move...but it can still be justified by calling it a gray area. The actual story here is that the army decided to cover up this whole issue in the first place(i.e. them saying they had no idea how the kids got…

This is the real story, and has been from the beginning. All this discussion is very good, but it's disappointing more people don't care about censorship. On that note... http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20generals.html

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#66

Post by gruseom » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:11 AM UTC

blhack wrote: post #61

:(. A lot of people seem to be completely missing the point of this video. It isn't that some journalists were killed, it's that they were killed in sport . The people speaking while they're shooting them are acting as though they want them dead, not as though they're taking their lives in an effort to protect themselves. Did you see the part where the dying journalist is bleeding out on the curb and trying to crawl…

I find this outrage prissy. I don't know anything about war, but even I know that it's utterly naive to expect that soldiers wouldn't get off on killing people. It is completely to be expected. The fantasy that war would somehow be more acceptable or even possible without it is not serious; it's a head-in-the-sand refusal to consider the ugliness of the thing. Next up: they aren't faithful to their wives while on tour, either.

Edit: this comment comes across a little more harshly than I intended. The reason isn't you; it's that I just finished watching the Wikileaks founder in an interview, and his self-righteousness in making the same point really turned me off. The guy could barely contain his glee. I think this kind of outrage is all about stroking one's own moral delicacies. Expecting anything at all about killing people to be decent is foolish.

Mainly I'm angry at him for ruining my faith in Wikileaks and turning my world into one in which now no one plays that vital role. Guess I was the naive one. I had thought they were something like the Red Cross of information. Now they seem like ideologues who want to get on TV.

One more edit: now that I think of it, I should have figured this out from the way they were hyping the video before they released it.

Ok one more: there's clearly controversy about whether the soldiers followed the rules or not. That question is serious. But I highly doubt any rules of engagement have anything to say about how much fun killing is not supposed to be. This is part of the don't-ask-don't-tell contract (the real one) that society has with the military: here are the conditions under which you can be a serial killer; we will call you a hero for it; just don't tell us about it.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#67

Post by Vivtek » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:15 AM UTC

cellis wrote: post #31

dailo10 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that there were kids in the van and they were trying to help a wounded journalist.

The reality be damned. Hindsight is 20/20. Imagine you're there, in the arena, adrenaline practically oozing out of your pores. You're 500 feet above the one of the most dangerous cities in the world [1], a warzone that's claimed the lives of thousands of young men, just like you, and you've just taken out the armed enemy. That was the enemy. And that guy laying there still is the enemy. And so is anyone helping him.…

The reality is that it is fucking stupid to put young Americans and young Iraqis alike into that situation to start with. It was stupid in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and it is still fucking stupid in 2010, because we've shoveled mountains of money into Iraq and mountains of dead people of various nationalities out of it, and nobody can tell me exactly what we've gained.

This is because even though nobody wants to admit it, we've gained nothing, and we will continue to do so, because this was a publicity stunt from Day One and now it's a political third rail thanks to the morons who direct what passes for a national discourse in this pathetic shadow of a democracy.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#68

Post by steve19 » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:17 AM UTC

jeswin wrote: post #54

I am not American; though I usually side with democratic countries as much as I can. However, if you made a really big mistake and went to war with a country which posed no credible threat to you (at least in hindsight when this shooting took place) I'd imagine people would err on the side of caution when shooting somebody's family and loved ones. At least in this part of the world, what is coming across is that your…

It is sad such rhetoric gets up voted.

How many of the Iraqi causalities were Iraqi or foreign insurgents killing Iraqi civilians?

Nobody seems to care less about those numbers. The biggest threat to an Iraqi citizens life (back then) were insurgents and criminals. That is who the gunner thought he was firing on.

"Killing ten Iraqis to save an American soldier is not justifiable, any which way you look at it."

No, but surely any solider in the world would kill 100 enemy combatants to save his friend.

This incident and this war do not make any other tragedy, such as Tiananmen, any more or less terrible.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#69

Post by Maktab » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:18 AM UTC

Alex3917 wrote: post #57

Maktab wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are weapons visible at various points in the video and an RPG was found at the scene, these people were not all unarmed. That the journalists were killed is tragic and may very well be due to mistakes or incompetence or even malice, but none of that is clear from this video. What is clear is that the journalist and his driver were in the presence of armed Iraqis carrying AK-47s and RPGs at the wrong time and in…

"There are weapons visible at various points in the video and an RPG was found at the scene, these people were not all unarmed." The official military statement about the incident was as follows: "The Apache crew fired because militants 'were endangering the stability of Iraq' and because they had positive identification that the militants 'had weapons and were using them against coalition and Iraqi security forces.'…

The second-to-last photograph [1] taken by Namir Noor-Eldeen shows an American Humvee and the radio calls make it clear that there is a ground force in the vicinity which was reporting a contact with the individuals on the ground, was able to see the individuals at various points in the action and was close enough that it took only 8 minutes for them to mount up and arrive on the scene. This group (apparently "Bushmaster element") appears to be the one which radios "Yeah, we had a guy shooting. And now he's behind the building" at 04:22.

Your assertion that there were no Iraqi or coalition ground forces in the area is not supported by the video.

[1] http://duckbar.mirror.waffleimages.com/files/c7/c76f1e685afe...

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#70

Post by moo » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 5:19 AM UTC

As pilots and CO were not punished I've learned it is clear that assisting the wounded ( no weapons were picked up ) will get you full of DU bullets. Carrying anything in your hands may be the excuse for a gunship a mile away to open fire.

Given these GI Joe tactics the average Iraqi might as well be carrying an RPG, and might as well shoot down that Apache helicopter. 7+ years of murderous Yankee mayhem is enough already.