U.S. Helicopters filmed firing into crowd of civilians

[jaguar]

If the Kurds go independent, then Turkey may just invade. Turkey that much does not want any independent Kurdish region. The politics in this region are that complex.

Not while they're trying to get into the EU they won't.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If you are truly interested in facts, and not just conjecture, the only correct answer is I don't know. But you have spent post after post claiming lie, lie, lie when you could not possibly know. Emotional? Yes in spades.

So those Weapons of Mass Destruction may still exist? So Saddam conspired to destroy the World Trade Center and Pentagon? So Saddam was a threat to the United States? So widespread looting did not occur in Iraq. So Saddam had programs of biological and nuclear weaspons? So Iraq is getting better - becoming a stable democratic nation?

George Jr claims these to be true. Even worse, George Jr had insider information that said his own statements were lies.

George Jr lied about the alumumin tubes. Facts from responsible sources said otherwise. But still many believed a lying president. How can those facts be emotional? Emotional is to deny these facts - to say "I don't know". Of course you know he was lying. Denial will not change the fact that George Jr overtly lied.

This is not an honest president. If he was honest, then we would immediately know who outted a CIA agent as revenge to her husband also telling the truth - exposing another George Jr lie. Saying that George Jr lies repeatedly is fact. Stating it repeatedly is necessary because too many here even believed lies about alunumin tubes. Too many would even forgive this president for unilaterally and illegally attacking another sovereign nation.

We once reelected another lying president. We ended up with a Constitutional crisis so major that many - including members of the Supreme Court - considered a coup d'etat as possible. Thirty years later, we may just make that same mistake again. Lying presidents - people who tell outright lies to create war - are extremely dangerous. Far more dangerous than even a medicore president such as Gerald Ford.

Curious. Confronted by fact after fact that George Jr lied - instead you says "I don't know". Some are so emotionally attached to a president that their eyes refuse to see. This president lies. This president is that dangerous to the world. He lies overtly to promote what his ideologues tell him to do. A president who does not even make his own decisons. A president who is told how to think also routinely lies.

Curious that you still deny this president lied to invade Iraq. At least you have changed. You are now saying "I don't know". I assume that is a major concession.

Months ago, George Jr had a National Security study that said all three options for Iraq are bad. Maybe he did not read that memo also. And yet just yesterday, he gave another speech about how things are getting better in Iraq. That speech is a lie. We know this from the president's own study. He lied again - just as Nixon lied. Such presidents are that dangerous to this nation.

[tw]

Originally Posted by tw

If the Kurds go independent, then Turkey may just invade. Turkey that much does not want any independent Kurdish region. The politics in this region are that complex.

Originally Posted by jaguar

Not while they're trying to get into the EU they won't.

Just more examples of how complex the region is. This is a region that the vulcans will reform? They actually believe democracy can be imposed? IOW pre-emption is really just another form of colonialism. How much more dangerous could this president be? Iran is next for reform. God won't save us. Only the ballot can.

Firing missiles into crowds of civilians happens when the entire reason for being there is wrong - just like in Vietnam. If they are Iraqi civilians, then they must be the enemy? We had to burn the village to save it? Somebody please save us from becoming a colonial power in a region we don't even understand. The disaster is called pre-emption - advocated by the George Jr neocons. Some even want colonialism by voting for George Jr.

[bluesdave]

The Turks are just so paranoid about the Kurds in Iraq, that they might just go ahead and invade, and worry about their EU status later.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

His theory is that the pattern suggests something important: Powers that be in Iraq are counting on the US's lack of resolve to continue to nation-build. So is the Kerry campaign with their plan is to be out in four years. So HP is right, you either cut off your arm (Kerry) or sit there in pain dying slowly (Bush).

Andrew Sullivan quotes the same Healing Iraq post I did and points out the same Kerry position.

http://www.andrewsullivan.com/index....39744119239594

The first post in that entry also continues a debate started with that big PDF file I linked earlier in this thread. Sully was the source of that PDF. Belmont Club takes the position that it's too pessimistic. I respect BC a lot but I don't think he's got it right this time. I think the shit is hitting the fan. But it remains remarkably difficult to know for sure.

[xoxoxoBruce]

From AP news

The 67-year-old al-Ghiriri belongs to the leadership class that was supposed to be the Americans' best ally in facing down Iraqi insurgents and rebuilding the country. But this farming town and two neighboring communities south of Baghdad have spun almost totally out of government control, with insurgents backed by local tribal leaders emerging as the real power...........

"Anyone can walk up to someone and shoot him dead now," says Adnan Fahd al-Ghiriri, a tribal leader from Mahmoudiyah. "Everyone will be too scared to do anything about it and the killer will walk away."............

On a recent trip, my traveling companion was an Iraqi with a farm in the area. Not that it'll help much, he warned; his local connections were scant protection against those known here as mujahedeen, or holy fighters.........

Jalab, who is in his late 60s and wears traditional Arab robes, speaks of his joy at Saddam's fall and his later disappointment over the behavior of U.S. troops in Iraq, especially their raids on Iraqi homes in search of insurgents.
"I know they are a superpower," he said, "but must they humiliate us like this?"
His son, Ahmed Faisal, chimed in: "How can you blame me for hating the Americans after they killed so many innocent Iraqis and forced their way into our homes?
"You cannot even blame me if I become a suicide bomber."

This guy is pissed off because our soldiers raided private homes, trying to find the people that are walking up to cars and killing, undeterred. With this death before dishonor culture, predominant throughout the middle east, I think we can forget a rational settlement to anything.
In practical terms, no matter how noble our intentions, it’d be best to mind our own business. Declare a great victory and go look for Osama.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

From AP news

This guy is pissed off because our soldiers raided private homes, trying to find the people that are walking up to cars and killing, undeterred. With this death before dishonor culture, predominant throughout the middle east, I think we can forget a rational settlement to anything.
In practical terms, no matter how noble our intentions, it’d be best to mind our own business. Declare a great victory and go look for Osama.

Which is pretty much why our forefathers, who became disenchanted with an occupying force, came up with the Fourth Amendment.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

If it's not a war zone, then the principle of the 4th amendment is in effect. If it is a war zone, then our government is lying to us about the transfer of power, etc.

Just like Guantanamo is a US prison that's not a US prison, we are being told that Iraq is stable but not stable, or, as I like to think, 'dangerously safe'.

[flippant]

Law stands mute amidst arms- Cicero

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

From AP news

This guy is pissed off because our soldiers raided private homes ... I think we can forget a rational settlement to anything.
In practical terms, no matter how noble our intentions, it’d be best to mind our own business. Declare a great victory and go look for Osama.

Hello? Would you be happy if soldiers from a foreign army raided your home? Rich is correct. That was one of the things that truelly enraged the American Colonists - that King GEORGE had no problem forcing them to quarter British troops and be subject to search and seizure at any time. Our response to such policies was the American Revolution. Were we being irrational, or are some men created more equal than others and the Arab world doesn't count?

[xoxoxoBruce]

If it's not a war zone, then the principle of the 4th amendment is in effect. If it is a war zone, then our government is lying to us about the transfer of power, etc.

Is that what the 4th amendment to Iraq's constitution reads? I must admit I haven't read it.

Would you be happy if soldiers from a foreign army raided your home?

No, I wouldn't be happy, but if I was in a war zone I'd expect it and if they were hunting thugs like the mujahedeen. I'd understand it.

[wolf]

I've not really participated in this discussion, but I do have a question ...

If the whole thing is about FILM of helicopters doing a certain thing, why are there only text articles describing something that may have happened in the way described, or may not?

[lookout123]

because the film is only a snippet of people standing on and milling around the bradley then the missile hit. no film that i've found on the net so far gives anything more than a few seconds before the missile strike.

[Clodfobble]

That was the weird thing to me--the video I saw showed a group of people around the machinery, then they all scattered (but nothing happened,) then the video cut to an Arab reporter, but the background didn't even make it clear that it was in the same area as the previous shot. Then the camera is cut with static a bit and the reporter falls down, and that's the end of it. No helicopters, visible missiles, or bloody crowds in the video I saw.

[lookout123]

the clips i've seen have the reporter in them, the cameraman sweeps the street where you see the people and the bradley, the reporter points everyone blows up while the image is lost then it picks back up and you see the helicopter.

i have no doubt that US helicopters fired on a group of people around a still smoldering bradley. beyond that - i nor anyone else here knows what really happened.