DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

**mbaueee** · 05-04-2010, 10:57 PM

Aye, as there really is no need to minimize what the situation was either.

As said before, there are so many things we do not know about what took place before this attack...was this soon after a real attack occurred a short distance away?
Were they looking for possible people who just committed an attack? Were these people in an area where fighting was taking place that is off camera?

We don't know, and we never will. Thus an intelligent and objective opinion cannot be attained.

These are quotes taken from the Huffington Post article on the video, which are directly taken from the video itself and you may verify:

"Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards," says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies littering the street.

A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: "Come on, let us shoot!"

Two crewmen share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses.

And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding in the van, one crewman can be heard saying: "Well, it's their fault bringing their kids to a battle." If you watch the part where Saaed was wounded and crawling, the Apache pilots told the ground troops arriving that they "will cease fire", "we won't shoot anymore". They circle around Saaed, saw that he had no weapons, and said to each other "come on buddy, all you have to do is pick up a weapon", referring to Saaed who looks like he is bleeding to death. When the van came to help, the pilots pressured the ground troop on radio to give permission to shoot ("come on, let us shoot!"). After the shooting, they laugh and congratulated each other: "right through the windshield, ha-ha!" (seriously, it's in the video.)

Whether we agree or not that they committed a war crime, I don't think anyone who listens to their conversation should have the impression that these pilots are acting professionally, or that they were under threat- Maybe the first half, but the van part, they clearly were not under any kind of threat what so ever, especially when ground troops are about a block away.

05-04-2010, 10:57 PM	#24
mbaueee Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 447 Senior Member	Aye, as there really is no need to minimize what the situation was either. As said before, there are so many things we do not know about what took place before this attack...was this soon after a real attack occurred a short distance away? Were they looking for possible people who just committed an attack? Were these people in an area where fighting was taking place that is off camera? We don't know, and we never will. Thus an intelligent and objective opinion cannot be attained. These are quotes taken from the Huffington Post article on the video, which are directly taken from the video itself and you may verify: "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards," says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies littering the street. A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: "Come on, let us shoot!" Two crewmen share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses. And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding in the van, one crewman can be heard saying: "Well, it's their fault bringing their kids to a battle." If you watch the part where Saaed was wounded and crawling, the Apache pilots told the ground troops arriving that they "will cease fire", "we won't shoot anymore". They circle around Saaed, saw that he had no weapons, and said to each other "come on buddy, all you have to do is pick up a weapon", referring to Saaed who looks like he is bleeding to death. When the van came to help, the pilots pressured the ground troop on radio to give permission to shoot ("come on, let us shoot!"). After the shooting, they laugh and congratulated each other: "right through the windshield, ha-ha!" (seriously, it's in the video.) Whether we agree or not that they committed a war crime, I don't think anyone who listens to their conversation should have the impression that these pilots are acting professionally, or that they were under threat- Maybe the first half, but the van part, they clearly were not under any kind of threat what so ever, especially when ground troops are about a block away.
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