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Warning: Graphic content (People die in this video)



They mistook camera's and other stuff for AK-47's and RPG's, then laughed at killing them. Shot crawling survivors and drove over bodies, and laughed about it.

Wikileaks got a hold of the video and they decided to put it online. Two of the people who died were journalists from Reuters.
The American Army claimed this was all the fault of Iraqi insurgents, and that no blame lies with the army. An employee of Wikileaks was interrogated for 22 hours, and the Pentagon has claimed that Wikileaks is "a danger for national security".

I think heads must roll for this. What kind of procedure is this that they can spot a group of men on the street, decide they have weapons and then just blow them to shit?
Shoot now, think later? Innocent civilians died here, and Wikileaks is the bad guy?

Just saw this on Pauw&Witteman.

I was soooo f*cking angry when I saw this. And the fact that I can't do anything about it just makes me even more angry.

And people still wonder why the Iraqi people doesn't want the Americans over there.

flame war..start...NOW!

Great more tax dallors wasted....

I stand corrected

That shit is crazy.

their fault for being in iraq

the 2 guys did have AK's , they were on straps around there shoulders,

and this guy


sure does look like he is aiming an RPG to me..

lol @ people bitching yet say nothing when a hum-vee full of troops is blown to hell by an IED..

America! **** Yeah!

what did you expect Einstein? you're invading a country.

wrong people, wrong place, wrong time. accidents happen, get over it.

what did you expect einstein? they killed 3000 americans.

Theres no point pointing fingers, everyone is wrong but if you want to play the blame game, its your distorted islam heretics that started it all.

Stop sensationalizing the video.

The only clear victims here are the children.

It's odd that people find it unacceptable to hear soldiers acting proud when they do their job. You have a group of people near an area that had hostile activity, carrying equipment that looks in some instances like weapons. They were clearly aware of the choppers circling them, since they huddled behind the building's corner, yet they made no effort to make themselves appear non-threatening.

So they were fired on.

I don't see anything wrong with this video?? They engaged a group of insurgents carrying rifles (2:00-2:15+) and possibly an RPG, in a war zone, with ground troops nearby.

It's easy to sit here in your comfy chair, in your comfy house, watching your clear computer screen, with pause,rewind, etc and criticize and analyze the situation. Those soldiers don't have those luxuries when it comes time to make split second life or death decisions.

It's unfortunate that civilians die, but it's a war zone. There is going to be collateral damage. That reporter, if that was an insurgent group, knew he was putting himself at risk.4

In 4 the bleeding heart responses.

Those people have been verified to have been journalist. There bodies where recovered and the information as to how they died was suppressed by the military. You should note that after Reuters began looking into their deaths this came to light the army did not deny that they were journalist, they just denied having any involvement in the shooting. Until this video surfaced and the facts were linked together the story was that the Journalist were killed by insurgents.

I really don't see how you are given a link to a video that contains links to a site that literally has all this information on it and you still come up with a BS story that not even the US military would stand behind. Those weren't AK-47s they were cameras and equipment. Now im no expert and the video is fuzzy but since those people are confirmed to be journalist and they were probably carrying around camera equipment, im gonna take a shot in the dark here and assume he was poking his head around the corner to get a good shot at something...with his camera or maybe just for safety purposes since they are in a warzone. Looking around corners before you just step out seems like the right thing to do, but like i said im no expert, just a guy with common sense. You'd also think if they were insurgents planing something they'd all be armed with camera er, guns. But they weren't. Not only that but while im sure they noticed the helicopter circling them in the air they made no attempt to hide themselves instead they were gathering in the open dressed in polo shirts and slacks.

Now that i've proven what a complete and total waste of space you are in this thread i guess i'll give my opinion of what happened...

War is a grey area and while those soldiers seemed a bit trigger happy and enjoyed driving over dead bodies and such its probably a coping mechanism for being in that kind of atmosphere. I'm not about to completely condemn their actions just like i wouldn't blindly support them because they "thought" they saw weapons and even if everything i mentioned above should send signals that they weren't insurgents had they been insurgents lives would've been saved. It was wrong of the US military to not own up to this though. However much it may cast them in a negative light that is only exacerbated by them denying, covering it up, and placing blame elsewhere. People make mistakes, soldiers make mistakes and its disrespectful to those who were killed and their families to lie to them and not give them the proper closure they deserve. It's a shame about what happened but if you're sitting there thinking "those asshole US soldiers" then you're just as bad as the idiot i quoted.

I keep hearing that some Reuters journalists often ran alongside insurgents to provide news. It's very possible that the others who were present were indeed enemy combatants, and the journalists happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Alls fair in love and war, this case being war


If you guys seen ppl with ak's and possible rocket launchers u wouldnt question it and most likely kill them to.

They kill us we kill them, its war. No second thoughts, we lost some ppl its their turn to pay.

Gtfover it and stop complaining about war.

how exactly could they appear any less threatening btw reise...

I dunno.

Reports say there were 2 journalists. Who are the other people with equipment/weapons?

Troops did end up on site there, you would think someone might see a lack of weapons and say, "Oh shit, we screwed up." But I haven't seen anything like that yet.

do you ever see anything like that?

I saw plenty of objects that could be mistaken for weapons.



People wouldn't report on it like this if we just up and said "Yeah, they were unarmed, people are being punished for it, our bad." There is a lot of info we don't have and people are exploiting that.

Thx God I wan't born in Iraq or is a soldier of America

dam why do i never see that when i get my AC130 killsteak reward.

but seriously, how the hell are the soldiers supposed to know from up there that those people are reporters carrying cameras, especially that one guy peeking his head around the corner who was acting very suspiciously. what if he was about to fire an RPG at the heli? imo they soldiers did the right thing and engaged.

you always fail in these kind of discussions Jstar.

the invasion in Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on the WTC. you're mistaken the invasion in Iraq with the invasion in Afghanistan.

The invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with the Islam.

I agree that the iraqi invasion was wrong but you still get the same kind of situations/stories in afghanistan. Your going to get civilians killed in a war period whether it was by accident or on purpose. Thats the sad part about it. Radical islam has nothing to do with this whole middle east-pain-in-the-ass-suicide-bombing? It has everything to do with it. fanatical islamists is the reason why they attacked the WTC in the first place. All that bullshit about killing americans is a task sent by god, etc. No one to blame but themselves.

i meant do you ever see any video where the military shoots up a group of people and then goes "My bad, got it wrong this time." You hardly ever hear of them admitting any wrong doing unless an investigation is initiated because someone else wants answers.

I don't disagree, those could be mistaken for weapons but just as easily as you see plenty of objects that could be mistaken for weapons you're also admitting that lots of things look like weapons, and even in war that has never been cause to suddenly open fire or civilian casualties would be alot higher than they are (and they're already extremely high on the Iraqis side in the war).

Also if you're going to blame people for exploiting the lack of information than blame the army for not releasing it without it being forced out of them, then lying about it, then trying to cover it up. If you take the video and the facts gathered for what it is then no one is being exploited anyway, its only when people stop thinking and start acting like a bunch of moronic hippies that this information even appears one-sided. In any case that's not the fault of Wiki-Leaks who just provided the cold unbiased facts of the situation...


@alot of people...also why do people find peeking around corners in a warzone to be suspicious. If you were there and obviously the city was in some kind of state of combat would you walk around corners without looking first?



@heroo the WTC attack had alot to do with our invasion of Iraq. It gathered support and generally mislead the people and misdirected attention. The whole time we were invading Iraq it was called "The War on Terror" when as we all know and realized after we stopped raging about the WTC had nothing to do with Iraq at all, it was Afghanistan. Then you start seeing popularity for the war fall and everyone starts talking about how we never should've been there in the first place when years early everyone was all gung-ho for it. So did WTC actually have anything to do with Iraq, no. Did it end up being the rallying call for the invasion of Iraq, yes. But still Jstar never does do well in topics like these...then again you're exactly proving his better here either...

why do so many people treat the american soldiers as if they are mass murdering people in afghanistan/iraq. The military situation on the ground there is different beyond probably any of you guys' imaginations unless one of us is a vet that actually was over there. Soldiers are under pressure all the time and making the right decision with only a few seconds given is incredibly difficult. Its easy for people to criticize whatever is going on when they are sitting behind a computer; its not easy for them.

@Budo keep in mind the whole reason why america is over there is because america was attacked by "true" terrorists. And the reason why the civilian count is so high is because of the terrorists tactics of using civilian meat shields and them killing civilians in general. When terrorists wear cloaks and hang around a marketplace there is absolutely no way of knowing if they are a terrorist or not. Have you ever even remotely thought of what it feels like if terrorists start shooting you while they are hiding behind civilians? Do you as a soldier shoot or watch your friends die? Its tough and to dismiss american soldiers as being cruel/evil is just idiotic.

If those soldiers knowingly killed civilians then they should be put on military court. If they didn't know, then its just an unfortunate mistake that happens a lot in war.

its not an ac130 its a UAV, and CoD is nothing like that. at least BFBC2 actually got the uav down.

UAV is an unmanned aerial vehicle. Most UAVs don't shoot like in BF:BC2, they are mainly for surveillance. The view and shooting in the video is from an apache (manned) helicopter.


AC130:
Code: Select all

Sorry this was a tad offtopic.