# US military WikiLeaks video release **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 5, 2010, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047 "2010-04-05T17:37:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/141 "2010-04-07T04:14:35Z")
[QUOTE=Ogre] How is any of this crap acceptable? [/QUOTE] I really don’t know…I always thought this board had higher standards than what I’ve seen in this thread. It’s almost like people feed on each other, building up their RO at the same time they conflate events to fit their world view and… Oh…did you mean something else? -XT ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/142 "2010-04-07T04:45:24Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Couldn’t agree more. Don’t want this kind of fuckup to happen? Then we shouldn’t have ever gone there in the first place. This kind of thing is bound to happen when you go on foreign adventures into places where everyone is shooting at you or attempting to blow you up where ever you go. And this event happened in 2006, the height of the badness. 2007 actually. And the only reason why we know about it is that Reuters made repeated FOIA requests (to no avail) and somebody leaked the video to wikileaks. I agree that this thread has been sub-standard, but post 18 by **steronz** was decent. [Here’s a discussion of the legality of the act](http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/04/the-wikileaks-video-and-the-rules-of-engagement.html) by Raffi Khatchadourian, whose has written about the ins and outs of war crimes in the past. [Matt Yglassias](http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/04/massacre-and-coverup-in-iraq.php), who is not a military expert, makes 3 points: 1. He wonders how many broadly parallel incidents there are of soldiers shooting civilians that have not come to light since none of the deceased worked for the press. I’d opine: a lot. Indeed, I seem to recall there being some controversy about the advisability of fighting urban battles from the air, due to the propensity to kill a lot of noncombatants. 2. As Reuters has had its FOIA request held up for 2 years, it seems that we have a coverup on our hands. 3. Where’s the MSM? ([NYT’s treatment](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/world/07wikileaks.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&src=igw)). [James Fallows](http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/04/further-on-the-wikileaks-iraq-footage/38541/) asks us to imagine what would happen if the people on the ground had been Americans and the men with machine guns had been Chinese, Russian, Iraqi or anybody else. “As with Abu Ghraib, and again assuming this is what it seems to be, the temptation will be to blame the operations-level people who were, in this case, chuckling as they mowed people down. That’s not where the real responsibility lies.” ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/143 "2010-04-07T06:14:51Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’ve gathered that it is standard practice for us. I recall reading about how in our attack on Fallujah, we made a point of occupying the hospitals and of shooting anyone trying to rescue the wounded. Or flee, for that matter. I was able to provide some background on this claim with about 5 minutes of internet research. [Fallujah](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/fallujah.htm) > [@Global Security](#): > > L. Paul Bremer issued a press release on 9 April 2004 announcing that U.S. forces had initiated “a unilateral suspension of offensive operations” in the Iraqi city of Al-Fallujah following five days of intense fighting there between coalition troops and Iraqi insurgents. The truce was mainly meant to allow the reopening of the Fallujah General Hospital and the Jordanian Hospital, **which had been forced to close because of the siege imposed by the Marines.** The two hospitals were “forced to shut down” after US Marines took positions on the roads leading to them. Iraqi hospital officials in Al-Fallujah report 600 Iraqis have been killed in the fighting there so far and that more than 1,250 people have been injured. The Iraqi sources said more than half of the dead are women and children. Emphasis added. I do not know whether Der’s characterization is accurate or not. But to imply fabrication seems uncalled for here: that US marines laid seige to a hospital is well documented. Heck the story even made wikipedia: [Answers - The Most Trusted Place for Answering Life's Questions](http://www.answers.com/topic/fallujah-during-the-iraq-war) : “In violation of the Geneva Convention, the city’s main hospital was closed by Marines, negating its use, and a US sniper was placed on top of the hospital’s water tower.[19]” > [@Shodan](#): > > Let’s see a cite for this. A credible one. > > Any other response is an admission that you made it up. > > Regards, > Shodan I opine that Shodan owes Der Trihs and the board an apology. Speaking generally, honest people only make accusations of dishonesty when they have performed due diligence. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/144 "2010-04-07T06:37:49Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > It’s almost like people feed on each other, building up their RO at the same time they conflate events to fit their world view and… Yeah, our Outrage about the murder of unarmed civilians and good samaritans in an unjust war of aggression is totally Recreational. America! FUCK YEAH! We’re comin’ again to save the motherfuckin’ day, yeah! America! FUCK YEAH! FREEDOM IS THE ONLY WAY YEAH! ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/145 "2010-04-07T09:58:19Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I really don’t know…I always thought this board had higher standards than what I’ve seen in this thread. It’s almost like people feed on each other, building up their RO at the same time they conflate events to fit their world view and… > > Oh…did you mean something else? > > -XT Come on, you honestly can’t see why people would be pissed off by that video and then the cover-up after the fact? Any decision to fire should have been weighing up two competing possibilities: on the one hand there’s the possibility that the men were civilians standing around in a civilian neighbourhood, and on the other, there’s the possibility that the men really were insurgents. It seems, based on the video, that only one possibility was ever considered, and from then on, everything was viewed through that lens: a journalist’s camera becomes an AK47 and a camera tripod becomes an RPG. No attempt was made to give a positive ID of what the men were holding. From IDing a group of men hanging around on a street from afar to actually “lighting them up” took, what, 3 minutes (? can’t rewatch the video: at work), a sizable majority of that time the gunner’s view of the men was occluded by a building. Yet, there was no need to rush to a decision on whether to fire: the belligerents were in an armoured gunship kilometres away from where the victims were standing, definitely out of hearing range, probably even out of sight. The idea that the victims were a threat to the gunship is absurd: as far as I’m aware, an RPG isn’t exactly as accurate as a sniper’s rifle and the chances of a successful hit (if even any of them looked like they were going to attempt to attack the Apache, even the imaginary “rooftop teams”) was virtually nil. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 10:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/146 "2010-04-07T10:31:48Z")
“[del]Cowardly[/del][del]wussy[/del]Overly-cautious American [del]killers[/del][del]butchers[/del]airmen kill innocents from safe distance, then blame the victims” - this surprises anyone? ---
**Author:** ![bannerrefugee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c68b51/32.png) [@bannerrefugee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bannerrefugee)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/147 "2010-04-07T11:15:47Z")
> [@Spit](#): > > It is extremely difficult to take a human life, so combat soldiers/pilots generally use terms like “Targets”, and make jokes about enemies rather than humanizing them. It doesn’t make them cold bastards, it just makes it so they don’t blow their heads off when they think about how they accidentally shot a little girl. I have smashed ants more carefully. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/148 "2010-04-07T11:27:30Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I really don’t know…I always thought this board had higher standards than what I’ve seen in this thread. It’s almost like people feed on each other, building up their RO at the same time they conflate events to fit their world view and… > > Oh…did you mean something else? > > -XT It’s one thing to suggest that people may not be taking the time to imagine themselves in the position of making such decisions. It’s another thing altogether to suggest that outrage over this is recreational. This video is front page news on Al Jazeera. If you think the implications of that are merely recreational, you are operating in a huge vaccuum of ignorance. I also think you’ve leapt into a position of defending the decisions made by the crew in this video without really thinking things through very clearly. It’s important to be realistic about our military. It’s not helpful to be mindlessly defensive of clearly poor judgment. Also, evidence like this is particularly damaging coming so quickly on the heels of the story of our military trying to cover up in the incident in Afghanistan, where post incident investigators tried to suggest that honor killings rather than our own actions were responsible for the deaths. Your mileage and your agenda clearly vary greatly, but it isn’t the standards of the board or any unusual social processes in play here. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/149 "2010-04-07T11:39:44Z")
The people in the helicopter had the technology to zoom onto a mole on the nose of one of the “insurgents”. Anyone see any of that going on? Or were they so under threat they didn’t have time for verification like that? Fucking scandalous. That wasn’t a battle, it was a slaughter. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/150 "2010-04-07T11:59:10Z")
> [@EasyPhil](#): > > Why do the group of men not even react to the presence of the helicopters until they shoot at them? If they were insurgents, would they be walking in the open with the choppers clearly visible in the sky or maybe the choppers where using new stealth technology? > > Anybody have an opinion on why the men don’t react until shot at? Because they were miles away probably, and hence, under no threat whatsoever. These “soldiers” were just trigger happy shitheads and give the US military an even worse reputation than it already has. ---
**Author:** ![tbook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df705f/32.png) [@tbook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tbook)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/151 "2010-04-07T12:04:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Fucking scandalous. That wasn’t a battle, it was a slaughter. I remain unsure that the video is completely authentic. First, it appears to me that it is from the perspective of a fixed wing aircraft, like a C130 gunship, circling the scene. Why does this matter? Because we may not be seeing what the Apache crews saw. There were more than a few pair of eyes on the scene and there may have been more information available to the Apache Crews than what we have seen (or heard) so far. The voices on the video may or may not be edited so I have relied on the sworn statements of the crews rather than the tape to gain an understanding of what I can see on the tape. The subsequent Army investigation makes it clear that RPG’s, live RPG rounds and AK 47’s were found at the scene. That was indeed a battle, that it resembles a slaughter is merely a result of the viewer’s perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/152 "2010-04-07T12:08:05Z")
\*\*xtisme \*\* if the heli crew were just battling in good faith why did they lie to the people they needed permission from to engage, in order to get that permission? They said over and again that the van was “picking up bodies and weapons” yet in clear view the van helped _one wounded_ guy that they knew didn’t have a weapon because a few moments before they had been wishing he would pick up a weapon so they could kill him. Do you think they would have got that permission if they had said “there’s a wounded guy without a weapon and a van has stopped to pick him up?”. Like hell. They lied in order to be able to break the rules of engagement in order to kill someone. They are criminals. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/153 "2010-04-07T12:13:07Z")
> [@tbook](#): > > I remain unsure that the video is completely authentic. [US officials acknowledge privately that the tape was genuine](http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article7088548.ece) ---
**Author:** ![bannerrefugee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c68b51/32.png) [@bannerrefugee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bannerrefugee)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/154 "2010-04-07T12:15:48Z")
> [@tbook](#): > > I remain unsure that the video is completely authentic. First, it appears to me that it is from the perspective of a fixed wing aircraft, like a C130 gunship, circling the scene. > > Why does this matter? Because we may not be seeing what the Apache crews saw. > > There were more than a few pair of eyes on the scene and there may have been more information available to the Apache Crews than what we have seen (or heard) so far. > > The voices on the video may or may not be edited so I have relied on the sworn statements of the crews rather than the tape to gain an understanding of what I can see on the tape. > > The subsequent Army investigation makes it clear that RPG’s, live RPG rounds and AK 47’s were found at the scene. > > That was indeed a battle, that it resembles a slaughter is merely a result of the viewer’s perspective. Are you sure? ---
**Author:** ![Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@Capt.Ridley\_s\_Shooting\_Party](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/155 "2010-04-07T12:25:07Z")
> [@tbook](#): > > I remain unsure that the video is completely authentic. First, it appears to me that it is from the perspective of a fixed wing aircraft, like a C130 gunship, circling the scene. > > Why does this matter? Because we may not be seeing what the Apache crews saw. > > There were more than a few pair of eyes on the scene and there may have been more information available to the Apache Crews than what we have seen (or heard) so far. > > The voices on the video may or may not be edited so I have relied on the sworn statements of the crews rather than the tape to gain an understanding of what I can see on the tape. > > The subsequent Army investigation makes it clear that RPG’s, live RPG rounds and AK 47’s were found at the scene. > > That was indeed a battle, that it resembles a slaughter is merely a result of the viewer’s perspective. Jesus Christ, could you be any more wrong? The Pentagon doesn’t dispute that the tape is genuine, as any cursory reading on the subject would reveal. Face it: members of your armed forces have been caught red handed mowing down a group of innocents and then other members have been caught covering it up. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/156 "2010-04-07T12:25:53Z")
> [@tbook](#): > > I remain unsure that the video is completely authentic. First, it appears to me that it is from the perspective of a fixed wing aircraft, like a C130 gunship, circling the scene. Nonsense. > [@](#): > > The subsequent Army investigation makes it clear that RPG’s, live RPG rounds and AK 47’s were found at the scene. > > That was indeed a battle, that it resembles a slaughter is merely a result of the viewer’s perspective. Usually a battle involves people fighting back. And lest we become too confident in the complete veracity of subsequent investigations, here’s more detail about the incident I was referring to earlier: [http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?ref=world](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/world/asia/05afghan.html?ref=world) > [@](#): > > Three women also died that night at the same home: One was a pregnant mother of 10 and another was a pregnant mother of six. NATO military officials had suggested that the women were actually stabbed to death — or had died by some other means — hours before the raid, an explanation that implied that family members or others at the home might have killed them. > > Survivors of the raid called that explanation a cover-up and insisted that American forces killed the women. Relatives and family friends said the bloody raid followed a party in honor of the birth of a grandson of the owner of the house. > […] > And in what would be a scandalous turn to the investigation, The Times of London reported Sunday night that Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also “dug bullets out of their victims’ bodies in the bloody aftermath” and then “washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened.” Also, somewhat tangentially, but here’s a stunningly candid description from General Stanley McChrystal: > [@](#): > > In a stark assessment of shootings of locals by US troops at checkpoints in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal said in little-noticed comments last month that during his time as commander there, **“We’ve shot an amazing number of people and killed a number and, to my knowledge, none has proven to have been a real threat to the force” . . . . [T]o my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I’ve been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it."** Bolding mine. > **[Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com](https://www.salon.com/writer/glenn_greenwald)** > > Est. reading time: 1 minute ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/157 "2010-04-07T12:30:10Z")
> [@tbook](#): > > The voices on the video may or may not be edited… Yes, I agree. They’ve probably edited out the real whooping and hollering and we are just hearing it after the soldiers have calmed down. ps. When I say “they”, I mean the military, in case that isn’t obvious. ---
**Author:** ![Mekhazzio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b38774/32.png) [@Mekhazzio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mekhazzio)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/158 "2010-04-07T12:47:35Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#): > > The people in the helicopter had the technology to zoom onto a mole on the nose of one of the “insurgents”. Anyone see any of that going on? Or were they so under threat they didn’t have time for verification like that? What you saw on the video was the highest level of magnification available, and as you can see, the image is still not particularly sharp. It’s almost a 30 year old system, what was state of the art then is well below expected standards today. The perceived threat was not to the helicopter, it was to the US forces that were advancing down the road into that courtyard, as was mentioned multiple times on the radio traffic. ---
**Author:** ![LIONsob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/76d3ee/32.png) [@LIONsob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LIONsob)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/159 "2010-04-07T13:16:15Z")
> [@Mekhazzio](#): > > What you saw on the video was the highest level of magnification available, and as you can see, the image is still not particularly sharp. It’s almost a 30 year old system, what was state of the art then is well below expected standards today. The perceived threat was not to the helicopter, it was to the US forces that were advancing down the road into that courtyard, as was mentioned multiple times on the radio traffic. I know that the video was sharp enough for me and the two other people who watched the video with me to spot the two children sitting in the front seat of the van before the butcher bird opened up on it! Watching that video made me sick to my stomach, it was cold blooded shot in the back murder. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047/160 "2010-04-07T13:19:43Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I opine that Shodan owes Der Trihs and the board an apology. Speaking generally, honest people only make accusations of dishonesty when they have performed due diligence. You want to shift the burden of proof for the crap he spouts? Good luck with that. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-military-wikileaks-video-release/535047.md?page=9)