Western Humanitarian Interventionists Hard at Work

[cape_royds]

Scenes from a "war of choice," courtesy of Wikileaks.

http://wikileaks.org/

and

http://www.collateralmurder.com/


You get see exactly how a lot of Iraqi people ended up on Red Dave's Body Count thread.

You get to see a lesson in comparative courage between cultures. It takes no more than a couple of Iraqis in a minivan to head to the scene and attempt to pick up a wounded man. But Americans won't pick up wounded from the exact same scene without dozens of men clad in body armour, supported by armoured fighting vehicles and helicopter gunships.

Anyone who supports a war on Iran desires this sort of thing to happen again and again, to thousands more people, for years to come.

Unfortunately, this video document only became public years after the event, and even then only by a leak. The official account given at the time was full of lies.

[rog]

Anyone who supports a war on Iran desires this sort of thing to happen again and again, to thousands more people, for years to come.

Anyone who wants that is a fucking idiot, it would not end well for anyone.

[munnki]

Another victory for democracy and freedom...

[David B]

It's late at night and bed calls.

But I presume this is about the same thing.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/we_have_seen_evil_and_it_is_us.php

David

[rog]

5rXPrfnU3G0
Might as well post the vid directly.
that 'RPG' is clearly a camera.

[Bleaker]

All hail the conquering heroes.....

[Bleaker]

that 'RPG' is clearly a camera.

Or even if it were, it was clearly aimed directly at the street a few inches from the face of the one carrying it. He'd not have needed assistance in dying.

[Notta]

This is very disturbing. And Americans are supposed to be the 'good guys'????

Hat tip to Pharyngula (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/04/we_have_seen_evil_and_it_is_us.php?utm_source=feed burner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+scienceblogs%2Fpharyngula+%28 Pharyngula%29&utm_content=Google+Reader):

5rXPrfnU3G0&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Wikileaks has decrypted some video footage of American soldiers gunning down Iraqi journalists -- and more.

(...) when a van pulls up to help a wounded man and they open fire again, fully aware of what was going on below them, and fire several bursts into the people and into the van.

Maybe they could see weapons more clearly than I can. But then how did they fail to notice two small faces peering out of the passenger side window of the van? They shot journalists and children, all the while laughing and congratulating themselves on the 'nice' pile of bodies they had produced. And when they see soldiers on the ground rushing injured children to aid, they say, "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle."

[rog]

The sad thing is, this would not have even been an issue if it were not for the reporters being killed.

[Bleaker]

The sad thing is, this would not have even been an issue if it were not for the reporters being killed.

I had the same thought, but was trying to spare everyone my little ray of sunshine. :(

[cape_royds]

I think I saw two men carrying rifles among the group (3:43 of the video, at upper left). That is not surprising: this was Baghdad in 2007, during the period of the worst strife. Reporters and others going about the city usually had bodyguards. Of course, that unfortunately makes it easy for occupation troops to claim almost anybody they kill as "armed insurgents."

I'm not singling out the helicopter crew for blame here. They're trained, aggressive killers--they're meant to act that way and if they didn't, they wouldn't much good at their job (ask yourself whether you would prefer your country's trained killers to be screaming in panic rather than laughing, or missing rather than hitting!). Note the care they take to avoid "blue on blue" fire. They're voluntary, professional, soldiers and they thoroughly enjoy doing their work.

The blame lies first and most upon those responsible for sending those killers over to Iraq. There were imperialists who wanted a war in Iraq, and we all know that those people were lying, greedy, megalomaniacal, amoral, murderous scumbags. So I don't even waste much indignation on the Cheney types.

But well worth one's indignation are the malefactors who call themselves humanitarian interventionists. Those people don't seem to understand the least thing about warfare, even as they advocate wars. Indignation is worthwhile since such people, if honest, might change their ways. If dishonest, they can at least be forced to fly their imperialist colours.

The Iraq War needed more than just imperialists to get started. The active support and advocacy of humanitarian interventionists was indispensable, in order for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to be slain and millions more to be driven from their homes.

The same is true with Afghanistan, where Canadian feminists have made such a splendid contribution to the killing of several thousand people in Kandahar Province alone. The vast majority of people killed by Canadian troops in Kandahar never had anything remotely to do with Al-Qaeda. But once we redefined our mission in Afghanistan to include everything to do with that country's laws and administration, the killing has widened to no fewer than three degrees of separation from the war's original ostensible purpose.

The same will be true with the prospective war on Iran.

[Jobar]

Reuters article (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6344FW20100406)

[LoneWolf]

You get to see a lesson in comparative courage between cultures. It takes no more than a couple of Iraqis in a minivan to head to the scene and attempt to pick up a wounded man. But Americans won't pick up wounded from the exact same scene without dozens of men clad in body armour, supported by armoured fighting vehicles and helicopter gunships.

Well, I won't get into that. I have personally been to a funeral of a 20 year-old corporal who died trying to do that very thing and know others who succeeded.

But yeah, the guys in that van were brave, and the ones in the helicopter were not. No argument from me there.

In fact, I would say the guys in the helicopter were murderers. I have watched the full video and can't see any way around that conclusion. Shit happens in the heat of battle. Mistakes happen. Believe me, I get that. This was NOT the heat of battle. The helo crew was not in imminent danger. They were circling around slowly, surveying the scene. Those cameras did not look like weapons. And more importantly, those men were not behaving like a threat in any way.

The helo crew was looking for a reason to kill them. Any little justification. And the attitude shown toward the injured the injured man was horrifying.

And shooting the van that was trying to pick up the injured man? WTF??!!! Even if the guy WAS an insurgent, you don't fire on people trying to give or get medical attention who are no longer a threat!

The only concession I will make in the favor of the helo crew is I don't think they saw the children in the van.

CNN has posted the story and has completely white washed it to the point it doesn't even look like the writer of the article watched the whole video and just recited what they were told by officials.

This is sickening.

[His Noodly Appendage]

16:49 Roger, I've got uh eleven Iraqi KIAs [Killed In Action]. One small child wounded. Over.
16:57 Roger. Ah damn. Oh well.
17:04 Roger, we need, we need a uh to evac [evacuate] this child. Ah, she's got a uh, she's got a wound to the belly.
17:10 I can't do anything here. She needs to get evaced. Over.
17:18 Bushmaster Seven, Bushmaster Seven; this is Bushmaster Six Romeo.
17:20 We need your location over.
17:25 Roger, we're at the location where Crazyhorse engaged the RPG fire break.
17:37 Grid five-four-five-eight.
17:46 Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.
17:48 That's right.


:nada:

[munnki]

The way mainstream media are handling this is shocking. And I'm talking about so-called respectable media. I can only imagine how 'fair and balanced' are handling this. Burmese generals wouldn't have the balls to call this justified. And these people call those who oppose them terrorists. Good job! U S A!

[Ray Moscow]

Unfortunately I think this kind of thing happens frequently. The way that the main media is whitewashing it shows how the "fix" has been in all along.

The public -- us included -- has little idea what's going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. Those who have been through wars have a better idea, I suppose, since they have seen it firsthand.

I could still slap the shit out of those commentators -- and there were many -- who argued that invading Iraq would improve the humanitarian situation there. Right, armed occupation always does that. Yes, Saddam was a bad man, but are we any better?

[DMB]

Ray, it's worse than that. There are plenty of people arguing that Iraq is better off now as a result of the invasion.

[Ray Moscow]

Ray, it's worse than that. There are plenty of people arguing that Iraq is better off now as a result of the invasion.

Yeah, I know, but it's just ignorant.

Before the current war, business people just visited the place without incident. Now they have to wiz around in armoured and armed vehicles to avoid being killed.

And that's in areas that we "control".

I think there have been some modest improvements recently since the ethnic cleansing has mostly been completed.

[munnki]

Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the Establishment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to expressions of its own morality but to those of another. Obscene is not the picture of a naked woman who exposes her pubic hair but that of a fully clad general who exposes his medals rewarded in a war of aggression; obscene is not the ritual of the Hippies but the declaration of a high dignitary of the Church that war is necessary for peace. Linguistic therapy – that is, the effort to free words (and thereby concepts) from the all but total distortion of their meanings by the Establishment – demands the transfer of moral standards (and of their validation) from the Establishment to the revolt against it. Similarly, the sociological and political vocabulary must be radically reshaped: it must be stripped of its false neutrality; it must be methodically and provocatively “moralized” in terms of the Refusal. Morality is not necessarily and not primarily ideological. In the face of an amoral society, it becomes a political weapon, an effective force which drives people to burn their draft cards, to ridicule national leaders, to demonstrate in the streets, and to unfold signs saying, “Thou shalt not kill,” in the nation’s churches.

Herbert Marcuse - An Essay On Liberation

[Horrorfan]

Obscenity is a moral concept in the verbal arsenal of the Establishment, which abuses the term by applying it, not to expressions of its own morality but to those of another. Obscene is not the picture of a naked woman who exposes her pubic hair but that of a fully clad general who exposes his medals rewarded in a war of aggression; obscene is not the ritual of the Hippies but the declaration of a high dignitary of the Church that war is necessary for peace. Linguistic therapy – that is, the effort to free words (and thereby concepts) from the all but total distortion of their meanings by the Establishment – demands the transfer of moral standards (and of their validation) from the Establishment to the revolt against it. Similarly, the sociological and political vocabulary must be radically reshaped: it must be stripped of its false neutrality; it must be methodically and provocatively “moralized” in terms of the Refusal. Morality is not necessarily and not primarily ideological. In the face of an amoral society, it becomes a political weapon, an effective force which drives people to burn their draft cards, to ridicule national leaders, to demonstrate in the streets, and to unfold signs saying, “Thou shalt not kill,” in the nation’s churches.

Herbert Marcuse - An Essay On Liberation

Wow that is something new for me, thanks for posting that. I agree completely with it.

I wonder how many other innocent victims have been terrorized?

[His Noodly Appendage]

Okay.

If this fell under the ROE, then it was legal.

If it was legal, then even had they not been eager to do so, the soldiers in question could have been legally ordered to act exactly as they did.

When you join the military, you agree in advance to obey any legal order given to you.

Do people now understand why I find joining the military a morally bankrupt thing to do?

[Ray Moscow]

Okay.

If this fell under the ROE, then it was legal.

If it was legal, then even had they not been eager to do so, the soldiers in question could have been legally ordered to act exactly as they did.

When you join the military, you agree in advance to obey any legal order given to you.

Do people now understand why I find joining the military a morally bankrupt thing to do?

You have a good point.

I think we especially get these problems -- well, atrocities -- when we engage in invasions and occupations instead of actual "defense".

Just what the hell does Iraq have to do with the security of the US, other than sitting on top of about 15% of the world's oil -- which, sorry to say, doesn't belong to us.

[HinduWoman]

Iraqis are by now probably longing for the good old days of Saddam.

[LoneWolf]

Okay.

If this fell under the ROE, then it was legal.

If it was legal, then even had they not been eager to do so, the soldiers in question could have been legally ordered to act exactly as they did.

When you join the military, you agree in advance to obey any legal order given to you.

Do people now understand why I find joining the military a morally bankrupt thing to do?

Any ROE that say to target unarmed individuals or to attack a medical evacuation would by definition be unlawful. So I highly doubt there ROE said such a thing.

No, they are covering their asses by saying they THOUGHT these guys were armed and that the guys in the van were trying to get the weapons. I don't buy that excuse for a second. But it is an easy excuse for the powers that be to overlook it.

[RED DAVE]

When you join the military, you agree in advance to obey any legal order given to you.That's a fig leaf that murderers and cowards hide behind. In any event, those swine in the helicopter were lying through their teetch because they were itching to kill.

RED DAVE

[Daynna]

I am taking a class this semester titled, "Law, Morality and War." My instructor linked this article in last weeks discussion:

http://www.globalissues.org/article/128/did-nato-really-act-out-of-humanitarian-concerns

This article in particular disturbed me, though there were many other required readings from different POVs.