US Helicopter / Civilian Shootings (ca.2007) [Split from News Stories]

[Joojoobees]

via Twitter: @wikileaks

LEAK: Cover-up of murder of civilians and journalists through US forces in Iraq. Video online at: http://collateralmurder.com/

2007 Video shot from US helicopter with chatter audio track shows US forces fired unprovoked on civilians, including children & AP journalists. Helicopter crew clearly exaggerates threat in order to get permission to fire -- sees one telephoto (camera) lens, but calls it in as multiple AK47s and RPG. Despite no fire from the ground, helicopter crew claims ground forces are firing in order to get permission to fire.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Joojoobees

via Twitter: @wikileaks


2007 Video shot from US helicopter with chatter audio track shows US forces fired unprovoked on civilians, including children & AP journalists. Helicopter crew clearly exaggerates threat in order to get permission to fire -- sees one telephoto (camera) lens, but calls it in as multiple AK47s and RPG. Despite no fire from the ground, helicopter crew claims ground forces are firing in order to get permission to fire.

Wow, that's terrible.
A cameraman clearly holding an SLR camera with lens, and the soldier goes "he has a RPG! Can I fire at him!?"
Another soldier also identified the camera tripods as firearm.
Even though it was obvious he was extending the legs of it.

I mean, these guys were just itching to open fire.

[Vexx]

You can't keep having them beat their swords on their shields to rile them up and not expect them to want to shoot *something*. Says something about the quality control issues surrounding recruitment and training as well. Part of our overall spiral into the bin of historical oblivion....

[Joojoobees]

Originally Posted by Vexx

Says something about the quality control issues surrounding recruitment and training as well.

And it says something about the seriousness of the military's efforts to honestly confront their own mistakes. An official inquiry into this matter determined they did nothing wrong. I for one can understand mistakes -- even deadly ones -- in a war zone, but the official inquiry should have taken their own job more seriously. They should have admitted the mistake occurred and recommended some kind of action (training? procedure change? punishment?) to attempt to prevent something like that from happening again.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by Vexx

You can't keep having them beat their swords on their shields to rile them up and not expect them to want to shoot *something*. Says something about the quality control issues surrounding recruitment and training as well. Part of our overall spiral into the bin of historical oblivion....

I think that if we do ever initiate a war again we must have a draft of all eligible men to serve for that war. The draft insures wars are fought with majority support of people and not the executive orders of the president, and it insures our military is not solely the poor or the "rejects" of society. I mean our current Army has qualities very similar to the hessians, or even some of the outsourcing we do should not be done at all, war should be run by the government, not industries out to make the quick buck.

[mg1942]

Military are the LAST people who want the draft. Oddly, the only ones pushing it are northeastern liberals, most of whom don't know one end of a gun from the other, nor would wish to learn so. And those are the very people who will make sure that there are loopholes so that neither them nor their children could be forced to serve.

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A volunteer army has a better selection of soldiers than those forced to fight via the draft. You have to be at least a C student with NO juvenille convictions and clean of tattoos that are in the "noticeable" areas, just to get a ground pounder job.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by mg1942

Military are the LAST people who want the draft. Oddly, the only ones pushing it are northeastern liberals, most of whom don't know one end of a gun from the other, nor would wish to learn so. And those are the very people who will make sure that there are loopholes so that neither them nor their children could be forced to serve.

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A volunteer army has a better selection of soldiers than those forced to fight via the draft. You have to be at least a C student with NO juvenille convictions and clean of tattoos that are in the "noticeable" areas, just to get a ground pounder job.

Well with these trigger happy highschool drop outs fighting our wars, or those with only a highschool education what do you expect. A Draft with no exemptions, would force wars to supported by the people, not just the poor looking for a chance at money to better their lives. Wars should not be fought for the sake of fighting wars, and the notion that the what the military wants is the right train of thought is completely backwards. The military wants people who have no future to join the ranks, to give false promises of social and economical advancement, and they deny gays the right to serve, until the rich bear the burden of war, wars will continually be fought to enrich the rich with no second thought.

[mg1942]

Trigger happy teenage Dropouts helped win WWII. Many lied about their age to serve.

[iLney]

So, the main problem with our army is that we recruit too much troop, and thus drop the overall quality; and you want to solve that problem by a draft? Hoho, I must love liberals' way of thinking.

[mg1942]

In 1995, the average black enlistee scored at the 59th percentile on the AFTQ (the test used in the Bell Curve), compared to the 14th percentile for non-military black youths. The average white enlistee scored at about the 81st percentile, compared to the 61st percentile for the average white young person.

I pulled the above paragraph from another bulletin board....so I don't know the original source. But the results given are very similar to others that I have seen that show that the average serviceman scores higher on IQ and ability tests than does the average civilian. That means that, as smart as you may think you are...there's someone in the military who is smarter.


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The rich can be just as patriotic as the average citizen. More than a few of the richest of our Founding Fathers bankrolled the American Revolution. Washington spent considerable sums of his own money to help equip the Continental Army. Others literally spent every penny they had....or had their property and wealth seized by the British. When the war ended some were penniless....and remained so until their deaths.

You can find examples of other wealthy Americans who supported the military with their money and their lives in every war our country has fought. The military has had enlistees from all social, monetary, and educational classes.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by mg1942

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The rich can be just as patriotic as the average citizen. More than a few of the richest of our Founding Fathers bankrolled the American Revolution. Washington spent considerable sums of his own money to help equip the Continental Army. Others literally spent every penny they had....or had their property and wealth seized by the British. When the war ended some were penniless....and remained so until their deaths.

You can find examples of other wealthy Americans who supported the military with their money and their lives in every war our country has fought. The military has had enlistees from all social, monetary, and educational classes.

What is money with out life, the rich don't fight the wars, they only direct them. The rich don't serve on the front lines, the poor do.

So, the main problem with our army is that we recruit too much troop, and thus drop the overall quality; and you want to solve that problem by a draft? Hoho, I must love liberals' way of thinking.

This made no sense whatsoever.

[Evil Rick]

Originally Posted by Joojoobees

via Twitter: @wikileaks


2007 Video shot from US helicopter with chatter audio track shows US forces fired unprovoked on civilians, including children & AP journalists. Helicopter crew clearly exaggerates threat in order to get permission to fire -- sees one telephoto (camera) lens, but calls it in as multiple AK47s and RPG. Despite no fire from the ground, helicopter crew claims ground forces are firing in order to get permission to fire.

hmm... I'm not militar but in the amry, by just saying "I think that guy has a gun" is enough to shoot him and shoot everybody around him or anybody who try to help him?

In 2007 they said the reportes and civilians died in the middle of cros fire between the army and terrorists, someone must make an explanation. NOW.

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

What is money with out life, the rich don't fight the wars, they only direct them. The rich don't serve on the front lines, the poor do.

You missed the reference above... so I'll spell it out for you. Tillman.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by mg1942

You missed the reference above... so I'll spell it out for you. Tillman.

Tillman was one man, generally the rich do not enlist, they serve as commanding officers. And your example of Tillman... killed by friendly fire, followed by military cover up to mask the true cause of his death.

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

And your example of Tillman... killed by friendly fire, followed by military cover up to mask the true cause of his death.

How he died has nothing to do with why he joined.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by mg1942

How he died has nothing to do with why he joined.

Again one example, does not change reality that the majority of the "grunts" are poor and enticed by the money the military pays. The military actively recruits those that don't plan to go to college, on the football team I played for in High school, nearly half the players who didn't plan for the future were recruited to join the marines, whereas those with affluence that were joining the military where either navy or airforce and they were all rotc candidates versus those on the football team.

Honestly I don't really care what our nation does with the recruitment of people, just as long as they don't kill innocent civilians in my name, and for my freedom, then I'm fine, do what you have to but the spilling of innocent blood is not just collateral damage, those people who die out there are REAL people, REAL humans, that bleed, that love, that hate, that deserve to treated more than just bugs under the feet.

[mg1942]

Whether they 'serve as enlisted men' or not is a non sequitur....plenty of commanding officers have been killed in combat.

US military history is replete with examples of wealthy men or the sons of wealthy men willingly placing themselves in harms way to defend their nation:

Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt II
Joseph Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy
George S. Patton
George H. W. Bush

...just to name a few.

[mg1942]

This report finds that:

-U.S. military service disproportionately attracts enlisted personnel and officers who do not come from disadvantaged backgrounds. Previous Heritage Foundation research demonstrated that the quality of enlisted troops has increased since the start of the Iraq war. This report demonstrates that the same is true of the officer corps.

-Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 percent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods—a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.

-American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted personnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18–24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelor’s degree.

-Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service.

-Whites are proportionately represented in the officer corps, and blacks are overrepresented, but their rate of over representation has declined each year from 2004 to 2007.

-New recruits are also disproportionately likely to come from the South, which is in line with the history of Southern military tradition.

[Nosauz]

Originally Posted by mg1942

Whether they 'serve as enlisted men' or not is a non sequitur....plenty of commanding officers have been killed in combat.

US military history is replete with examples of wealthy men or the sons of wealthy men willingly placing themselves in harms way to defend their nation:

Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt II
Joseph Kennedy Jr., John F. Kennedy
George S. Patton
George H. W. Bush

...just to name a few.

Again that is NOT THE NORM, but keep listing single numbers of the rich, while the rank and file fight and die to protect the profits of the wealthy, and when they comeback injured, they get tossed aside, don't patronize me with a couple of well know wealthy people who went to fight the war, and mind you on President Bush, he didn't even fight in the war. For each person you name your not naming the real soldiers, not this little mask you put up to represent your noble wealthy.

Most enlisted recruits do not have a college degree because they enlist before they would attend college. However, many recruits use the educational benefits offered by the military to attend college after they leave the armed forces.

This is quoted from the heritage foundation article you site, wealthy families don't need the education benefits for their children, the system is setup to reward those without the money to get advanced education to serve, how hard is that to grasp?

Also AQFT is a joke, this test is easier than the SAT, hell a 6th grader with basic understanding of algerbra could pass this test.

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by Nosauz

Again one example, does not change reality that the majority of the "grunts" are poor and enticed by the money the military pays.

No but that fact that you are WRONG does

-Members of the all-volunteer military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods. Only 11 percent of enlisted recruits in 2007 came from the poorest one-fifth (quintile) of neighborhoods, while 25 percent came from the wealthiest quintile. These trends are even more pronounced in the Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program, in which 40 percent of enrollees come from the wealthiest neighborhoods—a number that has increased substantially over the past four years.