WatchmenComicMovie.com Forum

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site ... med-iraqis

Watch the short (17 min.) version, but it's important you watch it completely.

So the American military is "fighting to protect our freedoms" and "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here..."
That's not what it looks like to me. At all.

I don't hate or dislike the soldiers. I respect them and pity them. But the military... well....

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Mexicano Al Grito De Guerra

yeah this has been all over 4chan for the last few days. personally, i don't care. the military always fucks up.

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^ I absolutely care, but I was far from surprised. It's definitely nothing new.

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Mexicano Al Grito De Guerra

Indeed, but the real problem is when people think stuff like this is fully justified

EDIT: Diego, do you often visit these sites or just randomly encounter the news ?

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I always try to stay informed on these things. Not to the extent that others do, though
And I agree. I don't see this in any way justified, as the military usually claims during these horrendous fuck-ups.

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Mexicano Al Grito De Guerra

It certainly isn't. Murder is murder. Under the guise of patriotism or not. I respect soldiers and everything but there are always bad ones just like there are bad police officers or bad people.

Of course, this type of thing doesn't surprise me.

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

I'm just saying because you are kind of "in charge" of the controversial topics now, which is cool !

And seeing the video, I found it absurd how the soldiers in the chopper just ask for permission to shoot, is the superior officer seeing the same live feed as the soldiers ? because if he is not, then it really is absurd to give/ask permission.

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Well what can I say, I love controversy

I wonder how the troops on the ground felt, especially the 2 soldiers who were carrying the injured kids. Those two I most certainly respect.

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Mexicano Al Grito De Guerra

Weren't those "insurgents" ? even if they were republican guard wouldn't they still be the enemy ?

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I'm talking about the American soldiers who went into the aftermath, and pulled out the 2 injured kids from the van, saying they needed an evac.

And I wouldn't consider any of the people killed in the video "insurgents." I didn't see anyone who even seemed threatening.

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Mexicano Al Grito De Guerra

Oh ! My bad.



Well, "good insurgents" are not supposed to look threatening, yes, there really was no clear threat in this situation, but one of the characteristics about this war is that the enemy of the US army is not one to carry tatoos on their heads saying "I Hate America", they are more conspicuos (sp) and appear as your common civilian.

Of course, that doesn't mean that there is a huge green light to kill anyone who seems threatening.

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Well that's the thing. Even if one of those was indeed a "bad guy," it doesn't justify killing 10-11 others, including journalists, not to mention laughing about it.

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Mexicano Al Grito De Guerra

Yeah, that was fucked up

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Welcome to the world.

Yeah, I made myself sad...

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"The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part.

"There's a cello in your house now."

That is just truly disturbing. We had a solider who had been in Afghanistan come to talk to us at college, and he said that so much of the training to become a soldier is about overcoming the emotion/reasoning that it is wrong to kill someone, essentially desensitizing yourself to killing others. I can see why this is important for being a soldier, but, I guess that to an extent the laughing is an adverse and unintended (in some ways unavoidable) effect of this desensitizing process.

My heart always sinks when I hear about stories like this, because I think that in general the army need and deserve our support, as, in the UK, very little is reported about the military's successes in Afghanistan, but a lot of emphasis is put on the cock ups. This must be very disheartening for the families of soldiers, and for the soldiers themselves.

(By the way, sorry I haven't been on for a while, been on holiday, and it takes me a while to start posting again when I come back because there is a lot to read (this is a good thing showing the forums are still active).)

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http://www.last.fm/user/nomapple

Well it's good to have you back. I think there is a fine line that all too often gets crossed, from desensitization to the enjoyment in taking a human life. When that line is crossed, I can see no way for the soldiers to be themselves again. It's a very sad thing.

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Mexicano Al Grito De Guerra

Some of our older forum members may remember EmpiireX, who was himself a veteran. I don't remember if he posted it on the forum or told it to me via PM, but he said to never join the armed forces "unless you hate your personality so much that you want it taken from you and replaced with a prepackaged one." Or something like that.

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This is truly a madhouse. And I'm the lunatic running it. I've spent three years wondering if I should be proud or ashamed.

Ah, I miss the guy. I didn't know he was a vet, but that pretty much sounds about right.

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Mexicano Al Grito De Guerra

i think this video really underlines the concequences of seperating the soldiers from what they are actually doing.
it shows that soldiers are starting to think of war as a videogame, and the fact that they were so far away from the people they were killing meant that they couldn't see that they were firing on unarmed civilians, and kids!! they weren't attacking defensively, they should have at least waited to be fired upon before shooting.
imho, war should be fought with all sides on the same standing, mano-a-mano, not helicopters with long range gattling guns against a couple of people with AKs,

this is all a realization of the old addage, "war is not about who is right, it is about who is left" killing someone "just in case" they could hurt you in the future is not a good enough justification, and this kind of thing really proves it, and it goes against many basic human rights such as "innocent until proven guilty"

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We're all actors, Laurie. I'm just an actor who read the script.

I am surprised about the comments in here, no one has still said any justification to the actions of the soldiers.

Now that certainly IS NOT a bad thing !

But in other forums I remember that some answers to this would've been "Shit happens, maybe this was a mistake, but that's how this war has to be fought, no chances must be taken"

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