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Wikileaks has really misled the public

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Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#131

Post by arethuza »

__bjoernd wrote: post #122
coffeemug wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. L…

> 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 Yep, but it seems at least the Europeans have evolved from that point.

I'll agree with you on that point if we ship Tony Blair to the ICC.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#132

Post by daleharvey »

jpwagner wrote: post #100
daleharvey wrote: post #12

I am usually the last to complain about "the state of hacker news" and such, but the fact that this article has managed to amass such a large number of points so quickly does indicate that there is a need for moderation. this has nothing to do with hacker news, it is replying to conjecture with conjecture, even though the wikileaks story had a very relevant back story (power of the internet, freedom of press, etc) th…

actually you've mentioned the state of HN more than most: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1223767 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1171670 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1148739 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1086310 First of all, the flagging handles things, so why complain? And for what it's worth, the discussions on here involve many intelligent, well-informed people whose opinions are worth high…

only one of those mentions the state of hacker news

and the complaining is because the flagging does not handle things, there are always going to be popular articles that will be inevitably posted that have absolutely nothing to do with hacker news.

but yeh, the crowd has spoken.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#133

Post by jcnnghm »

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 was your solution, pull out immediately? Did we really want another Afghanistan. You can't go into a country that unstable, knock out most of the infrastructure and kill the majority of the high command, then just leave. The country would have just descended into civil war. Things aren't that simple, thinking otherwise is short sighted.

It'll be much better if the strategy continues to play out as it has been. The country is largely stabilized. More people were murdered in Baltimore last year, than US troops were killed in Iraq. In Iraq in 2009 there were 150 total military fatalities, 149 of which were US troops. In Baltimore, there were 238 homicides. Of those military fatalities, I count 75 combat deaths.

Further, Iraq has become richer and more free. Their bonds are on par with California's. If in the end, we come in get rid of the assholes that were running the place, rebuild and modernize their infrastructure, stabilize their country, make them rich, and withdraw, the Great Satan probably won't seem too bad. If this can be done in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the people in the surrounding scum-hole countries should start to wonder if they wouldn't be better off a little more like the guy next door.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#134

Post by jcnnghm »

GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #21

Wow, the apologists are springing into action. Watch the video again. At the exact moment the correspondent is in the crosshairs of the camera and you see that he is carrying a small black bag you hear the crew saying "Yeah that's a weapon." and "Fucking prick". For God's sake, it's a guy sauntering down the middle of the road carrying a little bag and the crew is making out that they're tracking a dangerous insurgen…

I watched the video multiple times. At 3:38 of the 17:47 video, you can clearly see an AK-47 in one of the mens hands. At 3:48 you can see another AK-47. Also at 3:48, it looks like a third man has either a handgun or a small submachine gun. At 4:12, it definitely looks like there's an RPG. Even more so at 4:19. The helicopter was called in by ground troops who were taking small arms fire from a small group of men in this area. I don't think it would be possible to be called in to look for a group of armed men setting up an ambush with small arms in this area, and not come to the conclusion that these are the guys. They are armed.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#135

Post by sp332 »

jeswin wrote: post #75
coffeemug wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. L…

ok, I'll bite. Well, the counter argument is that by this logic nobody can talk about human rights... All I was saying was that when you don't practice what you preach, your credibility suffers. This is rhetoric, and isn't an interesting statement about what happened in this video... Isn't this exactly what is happening on the ground, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan? Do you read any local news (easily available on…

>All I was saying was that when you don't practice what you preach, your credibility suffers.

That's not what you said. You said Americans don't have the right to discuss human rights.

>...what gives America the moral right to talk about human rights...

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#136

Post by jcnnghm »

greendestiny wrote: post #58
steve19 wrote: post #23

The following comment was posted by Deviltry on Reddit. "That's the problem with the war in Iraq... It's insurgency based. They use vans to come up and pick up the bodies, but truth be told they don't care about the bodies, they come to get the weapons/rpg's. I know it's popular to hate America and our military action on reddit, but this particular engagement is necessary. Anyone who's ever spent time on the ground i…

Insurgents might do all those things, but the people in van made no moves to go for any weapons. Considering they are happy to watch the injured guy to see if he goes for a weapon, there is no reason they couldn't have waited to see if the van people went for weapons. They misreported the situation on the radio, making it seem like the people in van were picking up bodies and weapons - but they are just surmising tha…

I don't think you understood why the gunner was watching the injured guy. At 8:29 of the 17:47 video he says "Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon." From his tone and inflection it seems pretty clear to me he wants to engage the guy because he's severely hurt, certainly going to die, and probably suffering. He can't engage him because he's unarmed, so he wants him to go for some kind of a weapon because he wants to put the guy out of his misery.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#137

Post by jcnnghm »

plinkplonk wrote: post #43
cellis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

"So you do as anyone in that situation would do, with limited information and a hell of a lot of empirical data. You neutralize the threat. You destroy them and live to see another day." What exactly was the "threat" here? The helicopter was a mile away and in no danger of not "live to see another day" ? (err why the downvotes? That was a straightforward question. The parent seemed to imply that the shooters were doi…

The troops that were 100m down the road.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#138

Post by araneae »

It's clear that the author felt "let down" by the video. But I don't think he can make a case that wikileaks misrepresented the video. Rather, I think he had unrealistic expectations.

He got his expectations up because a) Reuters had been unsuccessfully trying to obtain this video via FOIA b) wikileaks employees had been detained by various gov'ts and c) the video had been heavily encrypted. All of these things are facts, and not a misrepresentation on the part of wikileaks.

However, these facts seemed to indicate that the gov't cared about this video not getting out quite a bit, and raised his expectations. Maybe he didn't know what a helicopter video looks like; maybe he expected it to look like Generation Kill, with dudes being like "muahahha let's kill babies and rape women!"

However, I didn't think the video would really be anything but boring. What's news is that the U.S. tried to bury this video, not that it makes for great TV.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#139

Post by jcnnghm »

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…

He wasn't saying exactly that, he said "Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon." Listen to his tone and inflection, the guy is clearly very injured and going to die, the gunner wants to put him out of his misery but can't engage.

Re: Wikileaks has really misled the public

#140

Post by lolcraft »

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…

"Could have been called", "I would do so and so", "it was unclear whether they were armed", "has used similar tactics"...

If you were an USAA general, would you promote to commander someone who would gave permission to kill based on faint suspicions and their definition of "very quickly"? Because that doesn't sound like an official. That sounds like a God.

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