If you have watched the WikiLeaks video, what do you think?

[branders seine]

[Oregone]

1. Look, it was the only acceptable solution

The conservatives wanted to torture and hang these men, while liberals wanted to give them freedom and universal health care. The only reasonable centrist solution was instant universal obliteration. Reaching for the "center", across the isle, has true value.

[branders seine]

4. LOL

and groan.

[Swamp Rat]

21. I believe the procedure is called 'youthinasia'

which means, 'kill youths in Asia.'

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Yes it is a tragedy, yes it is war

but once you start covering things like this, then all your justifications for anything start to go away.

And yes I do get it, secrecy and war and that shit, but this should have been investigated, if crimes committed prosecuted (before you scream laws of war are not that cut and dry) and a whole sale review of Rules of Engagement.

Oh and I do get it WHY they decided to go for the cover-up... but that in itself is generating all the "bad press" they wanted to prevent.

Oh and I am not blase about civilian casualties in a war zone, but my perspective is a little warped... after all I got shot at riding in a nice vehicle with a target acquisition device a few times. (Otherwise known as a Red Cross)

And yes, I KNOW I am lucky to be alive. But that kind of changes your perspective just a smidgen.

[Duer 157099]

3. Other: It was an atrocity and so is the coverup n/t

[spanone]

5. other...war is fucked.

[underpants]

6. They had the time and the opportunity not to shoot especially a second time

there were troops in the area from what I heard on the video

there was no reason to shoot in the first place-yes the guy poking his head around the corner looked up to something but they could have stayed covered by the buildings. IF someone popped out into their view then yes they could shoot.

It is a "bad" area from one excuse I heard. Well that probably means that a lot of people are carrying weapons so it is reasonable to think that the guys withOUT the weapons have security--a lot of people are carrying weapons right? This is really a perfect little synopsis of the reasons for the war itself, there is danger so we must take the danger to them.

The gunner was not that great. I say that having been a gunner on a Bradley. He just have a massive volume of fire (he missed the van a lot) other than that not so great.


We do get rare look into how slow things work in war. Not that I have been in one. They had plenty of time and reason to not fire. We are not invading anymore (it would be more understandable if they were still in that mode) so this defies everything that we are told ( and civilians DO get to make the decisions) about our current mission.

This was unnecessary and completely against the rules of engagement.

[branders seine]

8. By the time they blasted the rescuers and the van,

this was a full-blown atrocity.

[branders seine]

7. Also, remember, this was during the heat of 'The Surge'==

biggest rah rah, we're murkans let's go kill some hajis push since 2003.

[TexasObserver]

9. atrocity

[branders seine]

14. yes, it is.

it is reprehensible, but technically defensible at first, but by the time they start shooting up the vans and the rescuers, with zero evidence of any weapons, it's an atrocity.

[Brickbat]

10. Other:

It gave me a very clear idea of how it's possible to see what you want to see or are afraid of seeing in a war zone, and of how you don't see what you don't expect to see in a war zone. I didn't see the kids in the front seat either, because I was watching the guys pick up the wounded journalist.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. And the telephoto lense was your gun

precisely.

That is what the crew was looking at.

[kenny blankenship]

12. Especially if what you want to see

is some action.

[Brickbat]

13. Yup. It was clear that's what they wanted, and they got it.

Sad all around.

[Junkdrawer]

15. Cold blooded murder of a journalist. One of many in Iraq....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8097833

[backscatter712]

16. The shooting's an atrocity and the coverup's an atrocity.

Wikileaks staffers have been getting CIA threats over this video.

And of course, the media doesn't want to talk about it - the corporatists want to sweep this under the rug.

[Xithras]

17. The person who requested clearance to fire the second time should rot in a prison cell.

I'd give the military the benefit of the doubt if the shooting had been confined to the initial exchange where the reporter and his team were shot. They were armed, the camera did vaguely look like and RPG, and it's a hellish warzone. Things like this are bound to occasionally happen.

My tolerance came to an abrupt end when they asked for clearance to start shooting the second time. The shot caller had already stated that he wouldn't be firing on the wounded guy unless there was a weapon showing, and they watched him impassively for over a minute while he struggled on the sidewalk. No sign of a weapon.

Then an obviously civilian van came into the scene (long after the shooting had stopped, when there were no soldiers in sight), a couple of guys hop out, and they started looking over the wounded guy. No weapons, no hostile acts, nothing.

How does the shot caller react? He requests clearance and opens up on the van, killing innocent civilians who were simply trying to help a wounded person, killing the previously wounded man who the caller had ALREADY DECLARED to be unarmed and not a threat, and nearly killing two children who simply had the misfortune to be in the car when their parents stopped to help.

The guy needs to spend the rest of his life in a prison cell. That was simply murder.

[Marr]

22. I agree-- that's how I saw it, too.

[TheKentuckian]

18. Other: Atrocity but the cover up was and certainly is worse

The media edit/delete/wipe/dangle is putrid.

[Subdivisions]

19. Kicking this and sending it to the Greatest Page. n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

20. Atrocity. Please remind me, why is the US in Afghanistan?

...I mean, other than for the oil pipeline, the drugs, and corporate profits?

[branders seine]

23. political posturing and triangulation too

[VMI Dem]

24. Murdering fuckers.

[Cali_Democrat]

25. Definite atrocity and cover up.

How can anyone argue otherwise?

[branders seine]

26. what should be done?

who is accountable?

[Cali_Democrat]

27. Withdraw from Iraq

call it a day.

[branders seine]

28. the right will use this lingering presence to pin the inevitably awful

outcome and the rise of a new totalitarian regime in Iraq (also ineveitable) on Obama.

Obama snatched defeat from the jaws of a glorious American victory.

Staying there is idiocy of the first order.