"that" apache video

[Die Hard]

You mean like the germans and those fuel tankers in Astan?

Wasn't that USAF F-15E's?


Added: The German involvement in that incident resulted in the general inspector of the german army, General Wolfgang Schneiderhan, being sacked by the German government. I'd be willing to bet that if our incidents had similar consequences we'd have a lot less of them.

Honestly Die Hard do you think those soldiers woke up and thought, you know I am going to kill some civilians today. Oh and for giggles wound some children.

No... but that's what they did. Malice, incompetence, indifference - take your pick.

[Kazaa]

Get rid of that link Kazaa...unless you really want this thread locked.

I removed it, but you get the point.

[rabbidrabbit]

You mean like these Marines did?

[Link removed]

Just because you youtube  up something by it's title does not mean it reflects the truth.

[Kazaa]

Just because you youtube  up something by it's title does not mean it reflects the truth.

hahahaha.

"Those two people who pulled up in the white car" referring to the civilians driving through the fire fight:

Soldier 1: "I shot that guy in the white car, 'ran into the building"
Soldier 2: "I f***ing ripped him"

[gyrene81]

No... but that's what they did. Malice, incompetence, indifference - take your pick.

When you put on a uniform and volunteer for a situation like the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have to face daily...you can come back here and marvel us all with your humanitarian work.

The really galling part is you and Kazaa sitting in middle class neighborhoods with no enemies to face have not a tiny inkling of what it's like to be faced with life and death decisions or putting your own lives on the line for complete strangers...and you try to pass judgment based on ignorance of the facts...while you play games and watch movies based on the horrors of war.

[Die Hard]

I don't buy that glorification of our troops. They serve the American people, that's why it is called service. They do a job they've chosen to do, and for money. They serve the people and everything they do reflects upon the American people.

[CAP1]

i can only say one thing concerning those of you that would try to put these guys on trial.

 go over there and spend a month with them, doing their jobs, in their shoes.


i saw the video on another forum.....and they did nothing wrong.

[rabbidrabbit]

hahahaha.

Well..  that sure reflects your attitude and willingness to accept as fact anything that is convenient to your ego.  Where do they say they were innocent civilians and shot them anyway?  They don't.  It's a firefight between insurgents out of uniform and the guys filming it.  There is nothing there to indicate they are innocents caught in the middle.

Your clear willingness to act so irresponsibly and without respect for integrity is a reflection on your character which places you ill suited to judge others.

[RufusLeaking]

I don't buy that glorification of our troops. They serve the American people, that's why it is called service. They do a job they've chosen to do, and for money. They serve the people and everything they do reflects upon the American people.

Enlisted guys in the US military make very little money.  They may be motivated by duty, adventure, history, whatever, but certainly not money.

You are correct that the American military reflects on America itself.  But, because service is voluntary, it is not a representative cross section of our country.  You have mostly young, male, high school graduates.  Not criticizing them at all.  I volunteered as a young college graduate way back.  But the military takes these men and conditions them to behave in certain ways.  One of them is to make decisions under fire.

Regarding the American people, I have a memory of a conversation overheard on a plane leaving Boston in the Eighties.  Two apparent college kids were discussing a rash of kidnapping/murders in Lebanon.  One mentioned the Marine Lt Col. who was hanged.  The other smug little ... gentleman said that the Lt. Col. didn't count because he was military.  So, civilians can lack moral standards, also.

[gyrene81]

I don't buy that glorification of our troops. They serve the American people, that's why it is called service. They do a job they've chosen to do, and for money. They serve the people and everything they do reflects upon the American people.

You are severely uninformed. Look up the base pay for an E-1 in any branch of service. Then tell me if you think it's worth putting yourself in harms way for ignorant people.

[Flipperk]

no one has really put this into the big picture.

These guys fight and fly every week, every week they risk their lives to fight. When they fly around in engagement zones, they do not wait for a RPG to come at them before they decide "Hey this guy is a bad guy" and shoot back...that is just not smart warfare. You try to identify possible enemy targets and weapons and take them out before they become the nail on your coffin.

We can rewatch this video over and over and we can see where mistakes were made by these service men. Unfortunantly the service men in the video do not have this luxury, they have seconds to identify enemy weapons on a little tv screen inside the cockpit of an apache helicopter probably half a mile to a mile away and act. (Use judgment on when you hear the guns firing and when the bullets actually hit). In normal everyday operations probably no shooting would have happened, but however known insurgents were in the area fighting...so you tell me:

You are in the helicopter, a single RPG or spray of gunfire WILL end your life, you are in a battle zone and you see a group of unknowns. A couple of people ARE carrying weapons and one "might be" carrying a RPG. As you fly around a guy is crouched behind a corner looking up at you with something in his hand, it might be an RPG or nothing. But he is behind a corner looking up at your helicopter with something in his hand, known insurgents are in the area, and a battle has been taking place. What is the logical conclusion you can draw up with those facts behind your mind? If you do not take him out and he has a RPG, sucks to be you. There is only one way ensure that the ground forces are safe and that you go back home that day to eat another meal and call your wife and kids, take out all possible threats.

Like i stated these guys only have one shot, they can not take a picture and study it to make sure they are right, no they have to act by what they see on a small TV screen in a moving helicopter up to a mile away. Cause if they don't, that could be their last mistake.

[Die Hard]

If we were fighting another country you would be right, but we're not. This war is not about killing or territory, it's a war over public opinion. If the terrorists can make us look impotent or perhaps even worse than them they win. They're winning.

[Vulcan]

Sorry flipperk I'll play devil's advocate on this one.

It is not a state of war anymore. And they were operating in an Iraqi residential suburb. The camera's are not even close to RPG's, the one 'RPG' briefly glanced could in fact be an old service rifle from what I could see. US forces were some time away from where those guys were, and the helo's appeared to be circling some distance away, so neither an RPG nor small arms fire presented a direct threat to any US forces operating at the time.

Without getting into the whole WMD exist or not, the US decided to be there (I actually supported the action and still do). They are operating in iraqi cities, full of iraqi civilians, what % of the population do insurgents represent? The question you have to ask yourself is do your normal rules of war exist here - in what is now a policing and peacekeeping action? Can you justify quick snap decisions in heavily civilian populated areas, or should more care have been taken when no direct threat was presented.

Personally I believe the first half of the engagement is 50/50 - a mistake in the fog of war. The van however was clearly wrong - it even breaches the geneva convention on engaging non-combatants. The van occupants presented no weapons, nor any threat.

[Maverick]

Just an FYI. Wikileaks has a definite agenda. This is taken from the article I'll link.
"the special project URL that WikiLeaks established for it, under the incendiary name of collateralmurder.com."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100406/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1490

Now do you think you are going to get the straight info when the clip is set up under circumstances like that? Are you going to assume the video is total and complete? I sure wouldn't not with an agenda like they are posting it under. I would really like to know who is behind this so called "non profit" organization. Perhaps someone as neutral as code pink or michael moore.

[Kazaa]

When you put on a uniform and volunteer for a situation like the armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have to face daily...you can come back here and marvel us all with your humanitarian work.

The really galling part is you and Kazaa sitting in middle class neighborhoods with no enemies to face have not a tiny inkling of what it's like to be faced with life and death decisions or putting your own lives on the line for complete strangers...and you try to pass judgment based on ignorance of the facts...while you play games and watch movies based on the horrors of war.

I'm from an upper-middle class neighbourhood btw. I have more chance of dying from chocking on my donut then the apache pilot and his gunner have of dying to enemy fire, so I hardly doubt they face life and death situations daily.