Wikileaks has really misled the public • Hacker News Board

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#101

Post by foldr » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 6:51 AM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #94

foldr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. How far are you willing to take this argument? Statistically speaking, it's to be expected that invading armies will rape a substantial portion of the female population. Would it therefore be "prissy" to be outraged if this happens? >This is part of th…

The difference is that we ask soldiers to kill people, we don't ask them to rape them. To ask, pay, and celebrate them for doing the former and then fastidiously insist that they only do it in a way that conforms to our hero fantasies is incongruent. That being said, it is naive to unleash violence and not expect it to spill over. So I guess in the case of war rape I would say that while it's not prissy to be outrage…

>To ask, pay, and celebrate them for doing the former and then fastidiously insist that they only do it in a way that conforms to our hero fantasies is incongruent.

Well, it would be incongruent to do that, yes, but I don't ask them or pay them or celebrate them.

I expect the soldiers in the video are just doing what a lot of people would do in the same situation. That might make their behavior in some sense "normal", but it doesn't make it OK, or beyond reasonable criticism.

Most of what you're saying could equally well be applied to (e.g.) criticism of suicide bombers. It may well be the case that suicide bombers are not, as a rule, unusually evil people. If you have the relevant life experiences, you might even have a sense that you'd do the same thing if you were in their position -- in the same way that it's easy for an American to feel some sympathy for the soldiers in this video. Nonetheless, the actions of suicide bombers are unambiguously wrong, and are rightly subject to criticism.

(Of course, I'm not attempting to equate the soldiers' actions with suicide bombing, it's just an analogy.)

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#102

Post by alexgartrell » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 6:51 AM UTC

WalkingDead wrote: post #90

alexgartrell wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law I think it's laughable to try to draw a comparison between soldiers messing[0] up and causing collateral damage and the Holocaust. [0] edit: unnecessarily foul language

> I think it's laughable to try to draw a comparison between soldiers fucking up and causing collateral damage and the Holocaust. That's not what you said. You said... > the blood is on the hands of the people who started and continued the war > not the ones who have to actually fight it. I disagree with that statement. With the same argument, one can justify all war killings. Even the act of Nazis. We don't bring in…

but there's a difference between being a German soldier and manning the death camp. No one takes issue with the German soldiers who invaded France -- they were doing their jobs. The problem is with the people who rounded up the innocent women and children, put them in trains, and then sent them off to die.

You can certainly make an argument that they're the same, but I think there's a pretty clear practical distinction between the two.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#103

Post by ismarc » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 6:57 AM UTC

Uchikoma wrote: post #76

Maktab wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "Bushma…

They need to drive 8 minutes to get to the scene, when they are "near"? Even when halving the time for mounting and going by 20kmh they were 1km around 1.5km away. Near? What does "in the area mean"? Bagdad?

If you read the official documents on the investigation of the incident, including the sworn affidavits, the ground forces were 100-200 meters away throughout the entire thing.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#104

Post by Empact » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 7:03 AM UTC

alexgartrell wrote: post #102

WalkingDead wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's laughable to try to draw a comparison between soldiers fucking up and causing collateral damage and the Holocaust. That's not what you said. You said... > the blood is on the hands of the people who started and continued the war > not the ones who have to actually fight it. I disagree with that statement. With the same argument, one can justify all war killings. Even the act of Nazis. We don't bring in…

but there's a difference between being a German soldier and manning the death camp. No one takes issue with the German soldiers who invaded France -- they were doing their jobs. The problem is with the people who rounded up the innocent women and children, put them in trains, and then sent them off to die. You can certainly make an argument that they're the same, but I think there's a pretty clear practical distincti…

Is it really much comfort to say: well, at least we're not rounding them up into death camps?

I don't find people do much discriminating between different groups of Nazis. The infantry perpetuated violence and death just as much as the death-camp members. After all, what do you think they did to the newly-conquered populations those polite infantrymen rounded up?

There's also a difference between the world 100 years ago and today. We live in a more civilized, more peaceful time. The violence in Iraq is some of the broadest and most destructive of our day.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#105

Post by wooster » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 7:07 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.'…

"none are ever mentioned in the video"

They specifically mention a Bradley ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2_Bradley ) in the video.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#106

Post by teyc » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 7:08 AM UTC

In one short clip, the war has been shown up for what it is: a morally corrupt act that has no hope of making the U.S. friends nor assure it of future security.

The bombings in Moscow reminds everybody that the price of security in the future for citizens of the US will be rule under totalitarian government. For the three hundred million people in the States, I hope you've learnt your lesson.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#107

Post by WalkingDead » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 7:14 AM UTC

alexgartrell wrote: post #102

WalkingDead wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's laughable to try to draw a comparison between soldiers fucking up and causing collateral damage and the Holocaust. That's not what you said. You said... > the blood is on the hands of the people who started and continued the war > not the ones who have to actually fight it. I disagree with that statement. With the same argument, one can justify all war killings. Even the act of Nazis. We don't bring in…

but there's a difference between being a German soldier and manning the death camp. No one takes issue with the German soldiers who invaded France -- they were doing their jobs. The problem is with the people who rounded up the innocent women and children, put them in trains, and then sent them off to die. You can certainly make an argument that they're the same, but I think there's a pretty clear practical distincti…

> The problem is with the people who rounded up the innocent women and children, put them in trains, and then sent them off to die. >

The whole point of this video is about killing of innocent man, women and children by shooters who wanted to kill. Not soldiers killing soldiers. Whether they were rounded up or not, or put on a train or not shifts the focus.

The discussion is not about does this resembles the Nazis or not. It's about: are we looking for a justification for this killing by falling so low on the morality ground, that the same logic can even be used by the Nazis for justifying their killings.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#108

Post by ahlatimer » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 7:16 AM UTC

tsally wrote: post #51

metamemetics wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone picking up the bodies and from the van was clearly UNARMED. Unarmed non-combatants were picking up the body of an unarmed non-combatant who never held a weapon.

If I was running an insurgency in Iraq, I would keep a guy in the back of an unmarked van with an RPG and I would drive around pretending to pick up bodies. I think I'd probably get a lot of kills that way. I don't think it's fair to say the van was clearly unarmed, especially when you consider the fact that the van could have been called in to make a pickup by a group of people confirmed to have at least one RPG and…

It doesn't surprise me they found an RPG on the ground after the chopper reported there was one.

I have it on good authority from people who were actually on the ground that soldiers regularly keep RPG's and AK-47's in the Humvees such that if they do kill an innocent civilian, they just place the AK-47 or RPG on or near the victim to make them look like an insurgent. I don't know if that's what happened in this particular instance, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

Edit: I guess I'm being down voted for hearsay? Well, I worked with a number of soldiers and have a few friends who are infantry. This does happen, whether people want to accept it or not. Again, it could be that there was someone, or multiple people, were armed in this particular instance. I don't know. I haven't, to my knowledge, met anyone that was involved in this incident to ask. I have, however, talked to a number of people that were on the ground, that did have to take the lives of other people, and did have to cover things up when they made a mistake.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#109

Post by marcamillion » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 7:25 AM UTC

I am not American. I did support the initial Iraq War because in some cases, I believe the ends justifies the means. Yes, we can argue that Bush went for oil - which he probably did, but that's besides the point.

At the end of the day, Iraq just had another relatively successful democratic election where there is even more accurate representation than the first one. It will likely continue to improve, with bumps as they go along, but that would have never happened had Saddam been there still. The new government will be a coalition government run by all major sects. Not one dominating and robbing everybody else.

Why Iraq? I know. Why go to Iraq and not more 'dire' situations like Rwanda, Darfur, Sierra Leone, etc.? I get it, yes those would be good too..but that doesn't take away from the fact that a few million people have some semblance of a democratic institution that works alongside their religion (despite what they had been taught for the last few decades).

I too support the escalation in Afghanistan for the same reason. When all is said and done and the Afghani people have more powerful institutions in place and it will be well worth it. Al-Qaeda will have less fertile ground to recruit from. Until then, it will be a difficult road to travel.

Like any war, there is collateral damage. I don't think the issue with this video is the fact that there is collateral damage in war. It's more the coverup.

While I tend to be pro-military, I think in a case like this, where I am SURE their post-operation analysis revealed that they messed up big time, they should have come clean. Yes, the politics might have made the war more difficult...but it would have been the right thing to do. At the very least, for the families of the reporters killed.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#110

Post by ahlatimer » Tue, Apr 06, 2010, 7:37 AM UTC

jrockway wrote: post #97

zaphar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ummmm no. The whole point of the heat of battle is death. What you mean I think is that getting into the heat of battle should be the last resort.

We have non-lethal ways of taking down an opponent. We should be doing that instead, even if it's more costly.

There's no way to have a non-lethal round come out of a helicopter that's a mile away. If you want something that will maintain any semblance of accuracy over a mile, it has to be high-velocity. Anything moving fast enough to be accurate over a mile isn't going to be non-lethal.

Now, you could argue that they could be close enough that they could reasonably fire an accurate shot with a non-lethal round, but that also puts them much, much closer to danger. At a mile away, they're comfortable enough that they (should) be able to take the time to assess the threat and figure out if lethal force is necessary. If they have to be close enough for a non-lethal round, I doubt they'd ever switch to it since at that range, you really want lethality if you're in a big target (i.e. a helicopter).