Wikileaks Releases Video of US Military War Crimes

[Sukerkin]

Really, gentlemen, that is your actual world-view and moral-compass and you are unwilling to see where such a path will inevitably lead for your county and the 'West' in general?

Thinking in purely practical terms, for now, the balance of military power lies in American hands (largely thanks to the British, the Germans and the Russians, weirdly). History tells us the important lesson that "It will not always be so". The damage may already be done and it might not be even remotely possible to undo it. Blood calls for blood, as the old saying goes and in the media age things do not happen in 'secret' any more.

Incidents like this one do not fade away from the 'front page' in our non-print era and will provide sparks for new flames for a long time to come.

 

[Makalakumu]

If it is the corporate perversion and infiltration of all aspects of our life that you deplore, why not take it out on the greedy top execs instead of common soldiers?

Nobody goes in the Army to save or to serve AIG. Your quarrel would be better placed with the (purchased) politicians, not veterans.

Our military humor was black as well; I don't expect those who weren't there to understand. You're at a murder scene and in the back of your mind you still cannot believe people can do this..... but you have to keep on, and you can laugh or you can cry.

I understand where you are coming from. None of us are perfect, and I am only expecting people to stop doing something wrong that they know is wrong. My only beef with some veterans and most active soldiers is a seeming lack of personal accountability and a seeming lack of an honest assessment of what they are really doing.

I don't understand why people keep going back to these pointless, deceitful and rapacious wars. I wouldn't do it. I also feel like I've got legitimate questions about a guy who would blow away children, laugh, and then sign up for another tour, especially when it is a proven fact that government has been infiltrated by corporate monsters and the whole premise for the war is a lie.

Maybe nobody every grabbed the guy by the shoulders and shook him saying, "what the hell are you doing?" I am sure there are a lot of ways to justify it, but I don't buy any of them.

In the end, I don't "hate" the common soldier. I see them as victims of a wicked and greedy society who have ultimately bought into a self serving fantasy. People do that all of the time. It is a bad decision, like serving a mafia boss and killing kids in a crossfire, while trying to take out your bosses rivals. We've known that the government is a bunch of lying corrupt thieves and the wars have been pointless, rapacious, profiteering, crimes against humanity since the sixties and people still put that aside and buy the slick marketing.

I don't think we should give people a pass on that anymore. I don't think we should worship people who choose to serve a bunch of drug dealing, thieving, gangsters. If we ever want to put a stop to it, we need to stop participating and we need to change how we think about people who choose to participate. It is a matter of accepting the reality of what we are facing and making real decisions about what to do about it.

We are all going to end up in the same boat, veteran and civilian. The corporations/banks will use the government to grab our pension plans (and eventually all of our assets it seems) and throw them into the derivatives black hole, and the thieves will make off with it all.

I don't want to see anyone spit on or disrespected. I want some accountability. I want to see people deal with reality and be honest with themselves. I want people to have some empathy for what our soldiers are going through, what the people on the ground are going through, and to understand that we all own a piece of this tragedy and that we have a duty to stop it.

 

[Makalakumu]

We have all heard how you don't think service people are deserving of praise or honor before. We get it.

We? Get? Honor?

That is all a twisted and mangled mess if you think what happened in that video is honorable.

Much less serving a bunch of criminal psychopaths who will do anything for a buck.

There are no "high ideals" here.

Just cold hard reality.

 

[JDenver]

Indiscriminantly opening fire on a crowd from a gunship creates dozens of new terrorists.

Winning hearts and minds.

 

[Makalakumu]

Quote:
Originally Posted by maunakumu
Here's another point that I was thinking about.

These are hardened men. No matter what you think happened, they shot up a couple of kids and just brushed it off and that is a fact. Some of these guys have been on five (or more) tours. They are going to come back and be our neighbors, our cops, our schoolteachers. How do you feel about that?BLAH BLAH BLAH

Oh, the Crazed Veteran Meme? Again?

You know what, I get it now. This is Orwellian Crimestop.

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

Crimestop is a Newspeak term taken from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It means to rid oneself of unwanted thoughts, i.e. thoughts that interfere with the ideology of the Party. This way, a person avoids committing thoughtcrime.

In the novel, we hear about crimestop through the eyes of protagonist Winston Smith:

“The mind should develop a blind spot whenever a dangerous thought presented itself. The process should be automatic, instinctive. Crimestop, they called it in Newspeak.

He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions -- 'the Party says the earth is flat', 'the party says that ice is heavier than water' -- and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the arguments that contradicted them.

”Orwell also describes crimestop from the perspective of Emmanuel Goldstein in the book The Theory and Practice Of Oligarchical Collectivism:

“Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

The "blah, blah, blah" gives it away.

 

[72ronin]

- The choppa was not aware of the children, the crew also mention weapons retrieval was possibly taking place.

- There was clearly a RPG and a AK being carried.

- As soon as ground troops are aware of injured young ones they sprint off with them to get them immediate care.

- Its completely possible that the vehicle did not see the body amongst rubble etc

- Place yourself in the warzone for a moment, are you going to trot on down the road with a couple of heavily armed people and talk about the weather? Knowing full well what could take place any second??
Do you really think it would be a fine day for a walk with ya AK just cos its tradition? with a friend and his RPG!! Just headin down the shops hey!!.

- What needs to be realised is that if the choppa did not engage, they very well may have lost the target and we would have lost more troops with the obvious planned attack on nearby patrol.

Not an option, Right?

 

[blink13]

... but alas it is much like the Standford study in which people administered electric shocks to actors even to the point of thinking they were killing the other person. Very few refused to participate.

Not the point of the conversation, I know, but you're confusing the Stanford prison experiment with the Milgram experiment at Yale.


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

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

 

[Makalakumu]

It's interesting. I've gotten to know a lot of Marines living on this side of the island. My neighbor is a retired captain, we have a ton of guys in the dojo, and I go on base to surf regularly. They got the best surf spot on this side of the island on base and civilians need to be escorted on base in order to get there.

Inevitably, as we get to know each other, I ask about the WMD thing, Iraq, and the legality of the war. Almost to a man, they can't stand it, they can't stand being there, and really hate having to go. But they feel trapped by the law and by the pressure of trying to support their families and they hope it will end soon.

These are decent guys who are in a really bad situation. I have a lot of empathy for this tragedy. About all I can do is encourage them to get out as soon as they can. I can't imagine what it must feel like to be a moral person and know deep down that you are serving some pretty wicked people and then to be forced to do that with threats of prison and stop/loss.

You can look at this video and rationalize it, but this is what it comes down to IMO. None of it was ever necessary. All of the killing, all of the sacrifice, all of the degradation of humanity was pointless. I can't imagine what it feels like to have done all of these monstrous things, to be responsible for so much destruction, and not have any of it be worth it in the end.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I found this story in the New York Times to be interesting and useful:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/08psych.html?scp=2&sq=psychology&st=cse

Military training is fundamentally an exercise in overcoming a fear of killing another human, said Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, author of the book “On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,” who is a former Army Ranger.

Please take the time to read the entire article, I think it sheds a lot of light on the subject.

 

[Makalakumu]

I found this story in the New York Times to be interesting and useful:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/08psych.html?scp=2&sq=psychology&st=cse



Please take the time to read the entire article, I think it sheds a lot of light on the subject.

Thanks for posting that, Bill. It's another reminder of why I would never be fit for military service in the US. I refuse to allow a government filled with seeming psychopaths to tell me who the enemy may be.

Another thing, no matter what you think of the MSM, when it comes right down to it, they will defend the government. Even to the point of ignoring over a million dead caused by the war.

I've read Grossman On Killing, I understand the need to mentally prepare, but this is over the top and unnecessary. We have a created a killing field approaching the worst of the Rwandan genocide and there was no fundamental reason to do this.

Worse then that, we have every reason expect that war profiteering, oil, and a broader corporate geopolitical strategy is totally responsible for the Iraq war. It has nothing to do with "protecting America" or any of the so called "higher ideals" that soldiers reputedly serve.

For me, this video and story has less to do with the realities of war on the ground and more to do with the ultimate political reality behind the whole enterprise. It was corrupt for the very beginning and people are being needlessly killed, needlessly hurt and needlessly soiled because of that.

All of my countrymen will pay a price for supporting this ridiculous fantasy. We need to stop supporting people who want to join in on this bloodbath.

 

[Archangel M]

Grossmans research is questionable at best. A little goggling will present you some interesting counter theories to his well sold/well packaged stuff. An interesting theory but stretched WAAAYYY to far IMO. I've seen him in person and he makes good points but don't drink the kool-aide without looking around.