WikiLeaks under attack – The US & France doing a wonderful China Impresion.

“Does anyone, anymore have the gall anymore to say “why do they hate us?”
An interesting stereotype and generalization. First of all, “they” don’t all hate us. You can’t even say most of them hate us, because none of us are on the ground over there to actually ask the question to them personally and count a show of hands.

Second, a better question might be, “Why do they hate YOU?” “You” being anyone who repeatedly apologizes for them and denounces the actions of their own country. They hate anyone that doesn’t practice THEIR religion, peaceful or otherwise. They hate anyone that lives in the US, Canada, or anywhere in the west, child or otherwise. They hate someone in spite of the fact that they might criticize the actions of their own country, because in spite of all the talking, that person continues to enjoy the spoils. That’s why “they” hate us, and no matter what we said or did, would still want us dead.

As for the video, how deliberately blind can one be? The pilots aren’t up there with the luxury of zoom and freezeframe. They can’t “call up to the booth” and see which freezeframe resembles a reporter they know, or if anyone besides the driver is in a vehicle.

They had to make a quick decision regarding ARMED MEN with AK-47’s and one with an RPG crouched behind a building. His position is “Relaxed?” Please. It’s called “taking cover with a weapon”, which was a direct threat to the chopper’s safety. The RPG can’t line up a shot but by 4:26 the AK-47’s are firing upon them. They seem to believe the choppers are gone when they come back around. Maybe the reporter was going to get a nice little picture of the RPG guy behind the wall in a “this is how I shoot down helicopters” kind of pose. Who cares. Still insurgents, still armed, still a threat.

“They appeared ‘relaxed'”. Ya, I guess insurgents are only those who run around in a wild-armed frenzy. Those heading somewhere with AK-47’s and RPGs don’t count. One minute they’re calm and relaxed, then when you move away they set up an ambush. Believe it or not, deception is a part of war, and they weren’t hiding much with weapons clearly out in the open. Sadly in this case, the chopper acted appropriately.

Disagree if you want to, but if there was no captions on that film no one could have been able to tell whether that was a camera or a weapon, or who in that group of armed men was a reporter vs. an insurgent. If they hadn’t zoomed the video afterwards, you would have also never known there were children in the front seat of the van, either. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. Judging by their reaction to the gunfire, the choppers were quite far away, too, which would have made a camera difficult to distinguish from a weapon.

The pilots made a tragic decision based on incomplete information. It’s sad that the reporter lost his life, but a risk that he willingly took being there.

Let me ask – do you blame the insurgents when reporters get killed, or do you simply blame the allies for being there in the first place? Interesting double-standard if it’s the latter.

The reporter put himself there. Him mingling with insurgents is like me mingling with the local gang, getting shot by police, and then complaining that the “police state” I apparently live in doesn’t care about innocent people.

This isn’t an “anti war” or “anti-USA” example, it’s a “If you hang around insurgents carrying AK-47’s and RPG’s when two attack choppers are nearby pointed at you, there’s a good chance you’ll get SHOT” example.

It’s also a “Hey dumbass, don’t race your van into a 30mm gunfight when you have two children with you” example. It’s horrible that the girl was injured, but shouldn’t your childrens’ safety be first? “Hey, not only was it innocent me hanging with my gang buddies brandishing weapons that day (all “relaxed”), I also snuck my kid in there to help me pick up a wounded buddy.”

Judging by their actions with the wounded, it’s clear those pilots would never have fired had they known, or if it was even reasonable to assume, that there were children present. If they really had the lack of restraint all the anti-military folks try and suggest, there would have been no wounded whatsoever – only dead.

If you’re going to post a “Bad, Bad, USA” film, perhaps one where soldiers AREN’T following the rules of engagement and people AREN’T being killed out of their own stupidity would work better than this one.

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Whether it’s under Bush or Obama, we’re not saints over there, nor are we perfect. I posted on my blog how things like this (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/18/AR2010111806856_2.html?sid=ST2010111806890) don’t make a lick of sense to me, i.e. that blowing up someone’s field has a “side benefit” of making him come in to talk to you.

However, I’m not hypocritical in “supporting our troops” on the one hand and then basically calling them all psychotic robot butchers on the other.

Collateral damage is part of ANY war, even the “good” wars. War will never be perfect, but the reality is in those parts of the world if it’s the only language they speak, it’s necessary.

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The particularly radical religious need to be marginalized, so that even their own start looking at them for the yahoo’s that they are and calling them on their mythical bullshite.
I fully agree, but how can you really do that? They don’t read, they don’t write, they don’t watch TV. Unlike in America, we can’t have their kids recognizing Ronald McDonald more than they recognize Allah. Heck, they can’t even get laid.

On top of that, they hallucinate, they hear voices, and all the while they’re doing that they have weapons, want to kill, and value death more than life. Where in all that does one fit in a rational conversation? None of the leverage we have in the western world works in their world, so how can we even get them to be open to listening? The only language they seem to understand is force. Therefore, I think the only option we have left to marginalize them is to do so by force.

Would the people of the US been so happy to go to war if unedited war footage was available to them from the beginning?”
I think that’s an overgeneralization, Arb. I think only a marginal few are “happy” that we went to war when we see our soldiers coming home in flag-draped coffins, or alive and missing limbs.

If I could try and speak for the majority, I think we wanted retribution for 9/11, not sanctions, so in answer to your question, initially, I’d probably argue “yes”, we were happy to go to war. We wanted to capture Bin Laden, and we knew that would take troops, and it wouldn’t be pretty. We were all well-aware of what the Taliban would resort to in terms of women, children, and civilian males as part of their tactics. The hope was that as bad as it was, it would be over quickly.

But after that initial rally, and once we saw our troops coming home, I think the vast majority of people wanted the country to secure itself so we could bring everyone out safe. In true American fashion, that was underestimated as to what that would look like and how quick that would happen. Shocker.

Now we’ve got a police force there to try and train from scratch that is largely illiterate, lethargic, and corrupt. Because we’re always talking about reducing troops and pulling out, the average citizens can’t marginalize these wackos for us. Instead, they are compelled to play it safe by playing both sides, or worse, continuing to side with the enemy.

We reduce our ROE to the point where our troops can’t do their job, which emboldens the enemy, and sends the wrong message to the citizens that the enemy can, could, and maybe even will win. All this is what I think is truly prolonging the war, not some desire to “smoke out the evil doers” and blow $hit up.

That’s why I don’t like the video you posted. Public pressure from things like that could be enough to create a new ROE that you can’t shoot a van rushing to a fight without identifying first who’s in it. Next thing you know, that van is now full of explosives driving into a group of soldiers or civilians. BOOM! Meanwhile, the Apache was still trying to get a close up on the passenger side window and getting a quadruple-confirmed authorization over the radio while swaying left and right dodging someone else’s RPG’s.

If those types of videos help AVOID a war, great. But once we’re in one, spinning legal actions in a negative light can do far more harm than good. We may have saved one cameraman that day had we acted differently, but we could have lost 50 soldiers and even civilians that day letting insurgents go free with weapons in hand.

On the other hand, if there’s videos that show illegal actions on behalf of our troops, I’m fully with you there. Supporting them means not letting actions of a few bad soldiers tarnish the actions of the many good ones.

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