U.S. Helicopters filmed firing into crowd of civilians

[Clodfobble]

The whole point of the thread is that this time, it was caught on film. Any viewer can see that the people milling about had NO visible weapons.

HP, where did you see a copy of the video? I couldn't find any links in any of the articles.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

HP, where did you see a copy of the video? I couldn't find any links in any of the articles.

There are a couple of crappy Real Video versions of it out there... I can't watch them on my work computer here, so I don't know exactly how crappy they are.

BBC Real Video
CBS News Real Video

There are probably better versions of it out there if you look hard enough.

[lookout123]

HP - that video reiterates what i was saying. we don't know all that happened there. the reporter states that there had been heavy fighting all day. that street was involved in the fighting. a bradley was knocked out. iraqi's were celebrating at the location of the disabled bradley. we don't know what happened in the 60 seconds, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes before that short segment of video.

if the people that were milling around the were part of the forces that disabled the bradley, it wouldn't make sense to try to scatter them before launching. we have no evidence to say they were or were not a part of the force that disabled the bradley. in the end, it still stands to reason, it doesn't pay to hang out in a street where a battle just rolled through checking out disabled american equipment.

[hot_pastrami]

Originally Posted by lookout123

we don't know what happened in the 60 seconds, 5 minutes, or 10 minutes before that short segment of video.

Neither did the helicopter pilots, who had just barely arrived. All they knew is that about three hours previous, one of their vehicles was disabled there. When the helicopters arrived, there was a street filled with people, some of them looking at the vehicle, some of them climbing on the vehicle, some of them just walking down the street; on their way to work, or home, or to the store. And what do the pilots do? They lob high explosives into the crowd.

We claim to be there to liberate the Iraqi people, and instead our forces needlessly and intentionally put their lives in danger every day. Our military's disregard for innocent lives in this instance is nauseating.

Originally Posted by lookout123

if the people that were milling around the were part of the forces that disabled the bradley, it wouldn't make sense to try to scatter them before launching. we have no evidence to say they were or were not a part of the force that disabled the bradley.

That's a great, big "if." Can murder be justified with something as limp as "we didn't know or sure that they weren't insurgents"? This attack took place three hours after the original exchange, and it stands to reason that the insurgents high-tailed it out of there once the Americans withdrew... that's how guerilla warfare works. No weapons were evident, and an RPG is pretty hard to conceal. So in all likelihood, while some of the people there may have hated America, it is unlikely that any of them were armed reistance fighters.

As I said before, I don't think the pilots were killing out of hatred, they just did something unspeakably stupid, and the military's casual disregard for the lives of Iraqi citizens means that no one will be held responsible. And that is fucked up.