Reuters Staff Killed in Iraq

[Chimpy]

Exactly, violence is just human nature but at no other time in history has it been so pandered to if not outright encouraged.

 

Gladiators? Bare knuckle boxing? History is full of us pandering towards our violent nature and encouraging it far more than we do today.

 

So what we see is kids signing up for the military already with a desire to shoot people. I'm not trying to be anti-violent movies or anti-games or anything (i love both), i just think alot of people aren't separating that stuff from reality anymore. So you get future war criminals running around in Afghanistan and Iraq further damaging our "cause" and turning more and more of the people there against us.

 

So ban violent movies and video games!

 

More seriously there isn't any real causal link between violent movies and games with increasing amounts of violence. I can certainly see that the games and movies raise expectations about the real world but the romance of them disappears quickly in the face of reality.

[galactica]

Those journalists went there for the money.

Not to save the earth, little children, and fluffy animals.

Actually, their cameras drew the fire on the other civilians.

They knew the risks.

War is hell, sh*t is bound to happen.

 

Unbelievable. One of the most immature things i've ever read. Who the hell are you to question a journalist's motivation any more than you would a soldier? I mean, they get paid, right? War journalism has proven over more than a century to be one of the most vital components of what we now refer to as HISTORY. The people who do this essential task are extremely brave and deserve absolutely none of your scorn, you intellectual infant. Let's just point out once more that the CAMERA was a CAMERA. Jeez.

[Stealthbomber]

Who the hell are you to question a journalist's motivation any more than you would a soldier?

never mind the journo's OR soldiers, both of whom get paid for being there.

What about the residents of that area who DON'T get paid for being there and who put up with foreign soldiers blowing up local buildings with missiles while a bunch of cameramen film it?

 

I know who I feel most sorry for.

[Chimpy]

This engagement was perfectly legitimate and there was no wrong doing involved.

 

Describing the killing of perfectly innocent people as legitimate is plain scary. You just lost any scrap of moral legitimacy on this topic.

 

BTW the 'point of war' isn't to completely obliterate the enemy unless you are a 14 year old with a hardon for action movies. It's usually to achieve a particular political aim. If the only route you can see is to obliterate the opposition you are an idiot. Sometimes you just end up losing slowly by trying to obliterate the enemy, particularly when faced with duh-duh-duuuuuuh an insurgency where legitimacy in the eyes of the population is very important. Take a look at 3-24.

[spetsnazdave87]

Thing is he's possibly not put it across in the most sensitive way but he's got a point. By the ROE those pilots actions are perfectly legitimate. It's horrible,but there is no 'moral legitimacy' in what either side are doing. Kalmar's being honest.

[galactica]

Geneva conventions don't apply here. These are not enemy soldiers, they are enemy combatants... on the same level as spies, which are to be shot on sight. A lot of people are forgetting that this is a WAR. The point of a war is not to fight your enemy on equal terms, it is to obliterate them completely.

 

Amazing. How old are you?

[Chimpy]

It doesn't suprise me that you need to listen to men talking about shooting their loads to get off.

[spetsnazdave87]

Not really fair to try and belittle him by laying into his age. Obliteration of an enemy and the utter destruction of his ability to fight you has been an important strategy in warfare for centuries. Doesn't work in the same way in asymmetric warfare but he has a point.

[Chimpy]

Thing is he's possibly not put it across in the most sensitive way but he's got a point. By the ROE those pilots actions are perfectly legitimate. It's horrible,but there is no 'moral legitimacy' in what either side are doing. Kalmar's being honest.

 

Well accepting what he says about the investigation is true then yes the actions of the pilots at the time were judged to be legitimate. They genuinely believed that they were engaging insurgents. That doesn't mean in hindsight that the action was legitimate. There is clearly a failing if you kill someone based on a misidentification. So whilst there may be no culpability on the part of the people firing shots that doesn't mean there isn't anything to learn nor does it mean that the killing was legit. To give an example of this in Paul Howe's book Leadership and Training for the Fight he recounts the story of one of his men shooting at a friendly when storming seperate rooftops in Mogadishu. He notes that afterwards he had to sort out two issues, firstly that he misidentified a friendly as an enemy and secondly that he missed the shot! Leadership has a responsibility to make sure mistakes don't happen again and this clearly won't happen if it's assumed that such actions are legit.

 

Both sides claim moral legitimacy (and the US have this encoded in both the ethical and legal outlook of their military) though and I would like to hope most people are basing their opinions here on some form of ethical code where killing innocent civilians is a bad thing.

[Chimpy]

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/06/6--2nd.brigade.combat.team.15-6.investigation.pdf <--- slightly redacted Pentagon investigation

[Chimpy]

Reading that the responding forces on the ground do find weapons amongst the dead. I reverse my previous statement, if you hang out with armed insurgents shooting at US Forces as part of your work as a journalist then you are putting yourself at risk of getting shot. Bad things happen to good people and I feel for the kids in particular.

[-Angel-]

If they believed the initial group were insurgents, then people coming to thier aid are likely to fall into the same category.

 

Are there any after-action reports confirming who the other men were? Were they actually insurgents?

Reading that the responding forces on the ground do find weapons amongst the dead. I reverse my previous statement, if you hang out with armed insurgents shooting at US Forces as part of your work as a journalist then you are putting yourself at risk of getting shot. Bad things happen to good people and I feel for the kids in particular.

 

There we go.

[Chimpy]

Yeah it's definitely easier when there is actual evidence that they were insurgents and not other journalists/civilians.

 

It's good press work as well by the DoD to release the report so quickly. Won't stop some die hards believing what they like but it cuts down the speculation quickly.

[Seraphim989]

I had heard the Army's investigation showed that the wikileaks video had been edited. That they had both slowed down the video and had edited out some of the people who had guns. Now, I'm not saying this is true, but it also means Im not willing to accept that video as 100% fact, especially since its the only source of evidence people are going on

[Chimpy]

Last thing camera guy saw before turning into pink mist.

 

 

Thing to remember is that he was a journalist, would you make the same joke about the photo of an IED that killed a journalist traveling with US Forces?

[Chimpy]

Oh, you mean the journalists that properly distinguish themselves as press? The ones who display the proper credentials and notify the military of their presence? Or the ones who embed themselves with the actual US military - you know, the guys who are clearly soldiers and enemy targets? In that case, no.

 

But for someone who clearly did none of the above? Yeah I'm just gonna laugh.

 

All the above is a requirement to ride with the US. It's not a requirement to do any of those things to be a journalist and cover stories. These guys were out there working for one of the most respected news organisations in the world not some scummy Islamist outfit trying to drum up recruits for the global jihad. Certainly precautions such as clearly identifying themselves as press would be useful but perhaps counter-productive to the story they are trying to cover? They were probably aware of the risks of covering closely an insurgent group and unfortunately for them paid the ultimate price. Forgive me for not finding anything amusing about that.

 

What's worse is that you know these guys are just journalists and are still so callously juvenile as to laugh. You aren't honourable or a credit to your country.

[transist]

[Chimpy]

Well maybe if they did those things they wouldn't have ended up a grease spot on the sidewalk.

 

Maybe they made a conscious decision not to in order to get something done. Doesn't make it right to laugh at their deaths.

[aliensexgangchildren]

All the above is a requirement to ride with the US. It's not a requirement to do any of those things to be a journalist and cover stories. These guys were out there working for one of the most respected news organisations in the world not some scummy Islamist outfit trying to drum up recruits for the global jihad. Certainly precautions such as clearly identifying themselves as press would be useful but perhaps counter-productive to the story they are trying to cover? They were probably aware of the risks of covering closely an insurgent group and unfortunately for them paid the ultimate price. Forgive me for not finding anything amusing about that.

 

What's worse is that you know these guys are just journalists and are still so callously juvenile as to laugh. You aren't honourable or a credit to your country.

 

he very much isn't, i agree

[Chimpy]

Doesn't mean you should get all butthurt over it either.

 

I wasn't. I was pointing out how much of a crass idiot you were. Which you then went on to further prove.

[ThaFlash]

Yeah... this will definitely go down in the L column for us in the long term.

 

Most of my fellow citizens seem to be too stupid to realize that this is the 21st century and the killing part of the war is not where the real battle is being fought. Unfortunately, plenty of them are in charge of the policies that determine how we approach this war. According to these people America is not made up of imperfect people who are capable doing making mistakes and anything handed down by our government is the word of God, unless it's taxes.

 

Kalmar's picture and quote seem to paint the picture clearly.

 

It's sad.

[aliensexgangchildren]

He is obviously just a trolling *albatross* chimpy so don't satisfy him with a response. See what i mean from earlier though? Total sociopaths, all you can do is feel ashamed that morons like this have internet access.

[ThaFlash]

He doesn't feel nearly as ashamed as we do.

[ThaFlash]

Remember that the next time the real world blows up 2000 of your fellow citizens.

[Seraphim989]

Oh! Favorite quote time. "You didn't know they existed until they stopped existing." Also, how have you guys used the internet for any appreciable length of time and not encountered trolls? Sheesh. The journalists knew they were going into a dangerous area, and they took extra risks by traveling with forces who are often on the receiving end of violence. Sure, its probably not the best method for the war at this point, but it is also not the usual course of action, and those pilots probably feel like *suitcase* as it is, so why don't you guys get off your high horses. You have no idea of how you would act in that situation