Her statement was an absolute, and similiar statements made by others have likewise been in absolute terms. Of course it’s a ridiculous position–Cheney and Scalia’s hunting wasn’t likely to endanger anyone, because they knew they were in a sparsely populated area, and they weren’t shooting straight into the air.
How do we know that the situation was any different for the wedding party? The news reports describe it has a village in a remote area of western Iraq near the Syrian border. That’s hardly an urban area–it’s entirely possible that the people firing the guns had a reasonable expectation (just like Cheney and Scalia did) that their bullets weren’t going to come down near a populated place. It’s also entirely possible that they didn’t know there were patrolling American gunships near by.
I find the “they’re stupid, it’s always dumb to shoot a gun in the air” position to be insultingly arrogant: Do you think the Iraqi people are so idiotic that they knowingly put themselves at great risk by standing in a populated area and firing shots perpendicular to the ground? Contrary to what several have asserted in this thread, guns can be safely fired into the air. And unless someone provides evidence to the contrary, I’m going to show the Iraqis involved the courtesy of assuming they’re not morons and guess that they were in a remote area firing at an angle that would have put the bullets well out of an area where they could do harm.
If it was a wedding party that we fired on, then we fucked up, plain and simple.
Metacom, I don’t think anyone here has argued against your last point.
But the fact remains, if you can produce evidence that Iraqi weddings are performed solely in remote areas, you have an argument. If you don’t, then Iraqi weddings are inherently hazardous to your health, as Aldebaran says that it is in the Iraqi culture to fire weapons to celebrate weddings, and who am I to disagree?
Aldebaran: I will try to make my points in as calm and nonconfrontational manner as possible.
(a) many, many Americans do not support this war. Many of us never supported it to begin with. The vast, vast majority of us were horrified when the photos of the prison atrocities came to light. Please don’t associate all Americans with Bush and his supporters. That’s no more reasonable than for us to associate all Arabs or Muslims with Al Qaeda.
(b) Suppose the US was invaded and occupied by Martians, who were constantly flying around in their UFOs looking for armed resisting Americans to vaporize. If this were the case, and the local father/son model rocketry club went out into the park and started launching model rockets, and the Martians thought they were military rockets, and vaporized a bunch of fathers and sons, it would be a horrible tragedy, and further evidence that war is hell. But my immediate reaction would not be “ooooh, those Martians are even eviller and meaner and less sympathetic than I already thought” or “that particular Martian UFO crew must be extra-evil”. It would be “man, that was dumb of those poor bastards”.
There are stupid people in every culture. I don’t think you can say for certain whether this particular wedding party was made up of idiots or not.
I can safely stick a butter knife up my nose. It still doesn’t make it a good idea. Less so if there are armed soldiers looking around my country for people sticking butter knives up their noses.
Finally, the part I agree with. Took long enough.
I’m not saying the military is blameless on this affair, but if it turns out the party was fired upon in response to guns being shot off carelessly…well, then I’d say the blame is lessened. NOT absolved.
I don’t care about Iraqi weddings in general, I care about this specific wedding. This thread is about a specific (alleged) Iraqi wedding–one that occured in the open desert and that was fired upon by the US (allegedly).
Frankly, if the US has an AC-130 open fire on a group of Iraqis, I think the onus is on us to prove that they were an imminent threat.
I’ll give you a chance to take that back, otherwise I’m going to take you on record has being loathe to disagree with Aldeberan and will dog you with it in any future threads involving the two of you.
I find the excuse that they “might be insurgents” to be stupid in the extreme. I knew this would happen. Blame the victims.
Was there really a chance that the wedding party was going to shoot down an Apache with their pop guns? Was the Apache in any fucking danger?
If you don’t know what’s going on, and you’re not in any danger, then fly the fuck away. I know it’s more fun to kill people and to brag to your buddies about what a tough guy you are because you shot children on the ground from the safety of a helicopter, but really, act like a goddamn decent human being and fly the fuck away. You don’t have to kill everything that moves.
And it’s not like the military doesn’t know about this tradition. This isn’t the first wedding party they’ve shot up. It seems like it would only be the better part of valor to make sure that there’s really some kind of threat before you start killing.
If this situation were reversed- if a group of American civilians were “accidentally” slaughtered for any reason- and if anyone suggested that they were “stupid” or that they deserved it everyone who’s trying to justify this garbage would would show what hypocrites they really are.
Actually, it doesn’t have to be hypothetical. What about missionaries who go into hostile regions and get themselves offed? They get eulogized in the press. Weren’t THEY stupid? Don’t they have only themselves to blame?
Aldebaran is absolutely right in this thread. It is the height of arrogance for us to illegally invade another country and then to kill them for practicing their own traditions in their own country.
Let me repeat:
WE HAVE NO FUCKING RIGHT TO BE THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
That means we have no right to make any demands on how they conduct their weddings.
This may come as shock to some people but Iraqi life is just as valuable as American lives. Iraqis love their children just as much as you love yours. Our country fucked up. We did wrong. Again. Accept it. Own it. Deal with it. Quit making fucking excuses.
Oh give me a freakin’ break – you knew exactly what kind of behaviour I was talking about – I linked directly to a Straight Dope column discussing it. It had nothing whatsoever to do with hunting and your ridiculous hoop-jumping to take it there is insulting.
Nonsense. Firing guns into the air in “celebration” is entirely different from hunting and you know it. And your contention that they didn’t know there were patrolling gunships nearby is directly refuted right in one of the linked articles, had you bothered to carefully read it… “The area… is under constant surveillance by American forces.” Have you ever been in a war zone? Have you ever been in an open, desolate desert in a war zone? I have. You cannot possibly miss patroling war planes. Can NOT miss them. Especially ones that are “constantly” patrolling the area.
I find your contortions about the stupidity of firing guns into the air in celebration, as opposed towards an object when hunting, to be insultingly arrogant, too. I guess we’re even.
Yes, I think it’s entirely possible that some Iraqi people, just like some American people and some people from every culture where guns are accessible, to be capable of idiocy so great that they’d knowingly put themselves at great risk by standing in a populated area and firing shots perpendicular to the ground. It’s not rocket science. Stupid people exist.
Contrary to what you assert in this thread, it is insanely stupid to randomly fire a weapon in the air with no target and no safety measures to ensure you or someone else nearby won’t be injured, which is exactly what you’d be doing if you were shooting guns at nothing in particular, in the dead of night in the middle of the desert with a party of dozens of people around and enemy war planes constantly patrolling the area.
Well, evidence to the contrary is that the Iraqis involved got themselves and their loved-ones injured or killed by stupidly firing guns into the air, so they did, in fact, do a great deal of harm.
Listen, the official report will identify at least *some * of the wedding party as insurgents, and will shore it up with accusations of the children being human shields. Because my president owns the media. Al Jezeera will claim the opposite is true and the truth will only be known by the dead folks at the party and God (if God exists for you).
Aldebaran I hesitate to take a swing at you but, really, this “tradition” of firing into the air at weddings that you’re defending, how old could it possibly be? Were they firing flintlocks 100 years ago? Or is this a reasonably new thing that the population can afford to set aside (for the sake of common sense, not as a symbol of submission) during the occupation? Nobody would imply that Iraqis can’t wed in these troubled times. I’m actually all misty to see true love bloom in Iraq right now…and then to see what comes of it. Bad business all around.
And if I’m in an attack helicopter and I detect gunfire I think I’m inclined to assume it’s hostile, and survive, as opposed to investigating on the off chance it’s just some people all crazy with joy and bliss for the newlyweds.
Innocent prisoners, during torture by occupation soldiers (see entry dated 15 April 2004), pointed out the remote village as a “safe house for insurgents”.
[list=a]
[li]Duck hunters in a rural area fire dozens of rounds into the air, on trajectories that lead away from where people are.[/li][li]People celebrating a wedding in a rural area fire dozens of rounds into the air, on trajectories that lead away from where people are.[/li][/list]
Please explain how these two situations are “entirely” different.
Well, gee, one of them has people who are aiming at specific targets, generally pointing away from where people can be hurt, generally (hopefully) following hunting laws that govern where and when and under what conditions it’s safe to hunt. The other has a bunch of (possibly inibriated) idiots indiscriminately firing at nothing into the air and surrounded by dozens of potential human victims.
Alan Shepherd once hit a 6 iron several miles. Tiger Woods’ longest drive is 363 yards. The circumstances involving these two shots are “entirely” different, despite both involving regulation club heads and regulation golf balls.
Sure. It’s entirely possible to bring down a helicopter with massed small arms fire. Especially if it’s surprised at night. Don’t expect your local Apache pilot to make all nice-nice with 50, 20, 10, or even three people who, as far as he can tell, are shooting at him.
If I am not mistaken (hey, it can happen!) I believe the difference would be the caliber and velocity of the projectiles. These things, among a couple others, are what determines a weapon’s lethal range.
In fact, due to simple physics (i.e. acceleration, velocity, gravity, and friction); a bullet does not have muzzle velocity for very long (if at all) once it leaves the muzzle. A bullet fired vertically decelerates as gravity and air friction take their toll, eventually reaching zero velocity. Then, the bullet accelerates at 9.8 meters/second squared as it descends to Terra Firma; air friction also slows its progress. My gut says the terminal velocity of a bullet returning to Earth is significantly less than the muzzle velocity; however, I am not going to go to the trouble to crunch the numbers involving variable shell configurations and projectile altitudes - using different caliber firearms, and variable angles of ascent/descent: I think that is best left to the Master: Cecil, as well as, my schedule does not currently allow the time for me (albeit - with aged and sluggish intellect) to perform the requisite research and calculations, even for a theoretical answer.
Alan Sheperd was exaggerating . . . it was only several hundred yards. Still pretty damn good for a 6 iron, albeit - - the conditions were in his favor!
I would love to hear a real Apache pilot in this thread respond. Remember that video a few months back of the three poor bastards trying to move an RPG getting shot by an Apache helicopter? Recall how they kept coming out in the disorder because the helicopter was so far off, couldn’t be seen, and couldn’t even be heard?
Small arms fire could bring down a helicopter, but, IMHO, only when it is attempting to hover or land at very low altitudes or for extended periods of time. The some-odd-thousand rounds per minute depleted uranium cannon of an Apache helicopter combined with the use of guided missile systems that were apparently used (people on the ground said bombs) hardly makes for a proportional response in self defense. Therefore it behooves the pilot deciding to go ahead and make an attack to invest the extra time (and risk) to definitively figure out what they are firing at.
