There are two sides to every story yet you chose to believe the story which makes the Americans out to be bloodthirst butchers.
The helo did fire on the vehicle, that is standard operating proceedure.
The helo also reported receiving small arms fire from the crowd which it then attacked.
This is a war zone and, unfortunantly, it only takes one guy with a rifle to ruin the fun for everyone else.
:w:
Firstly, I am objective and compared both facts of the stories. Allow me to present all the nescessary facts relating to the story and see the evidence for yourself.
The US military has offered two different explanations for massacring 13 innocent people and wounding more than 60 others, including children.
The first motive presented by the US military is that it was a routine operation to destroy an abandoned US military vehicle for the "safety" of the spectators and to prevent the Mujahideens from looting its weapons. They argued that they were firing on the vehicle and not the people. This explanation came shortly after the assault took place. When evidence (i.e. footage taken an Al-Arabiya crew) was available, they changed their explanation and asserted that they could not distinguish between the [insurgents] and civilians and opened fire.
Now let's look at the evidence.
The NewsStandard writes in response to the first explanation:
The first US explanations came shortly after the assault took place. "It’s not our intent to kill and injure civilians," American Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a spokesman for the foreign occupation forces in Iraq, told The NewStandard on Sunday. "We were not firing at any civilians. We were firing at the vehicle itself."
"The helicopter fired on the Bradley to destroy it after it had been hit earlier and it was on fire," Major Phil Smith of the 1st Cavalry Division said to the Independent. Without noting the irony in his statement, he added, "It was for the safety of the people around it."
But footage taken by an Al-Arabiya crew at the scene clearly shows explosions among a crowd of noncombatants some distance from the burning Bradley fighting vehicle, an armored troop transporter that resembles a tank. In fact, even though the Bradley is shown in the distant background as Palestinian TV producer Mazen Al-Tumeizi set up for a live interview at the scene, one of the missiles fired from US aircraft hit close enough to kill Al-Tameizi and wound the camera operator, Seif Fouad.
And in response to the second explanation:
Later the military would adjust its version of events in a press statement, saying that "air support was called, and as the helicopters flew over the burning Bradley, they received small-arms fire from the insurgents near the vehicle."
This official military account of the incident implies that, on their first pass, US chopper crews could clearly distinguish between "insurgents" and civilians, and engaged the former with "return fire" while avoiding the latter.
The military statement continues, "Clearly within the rules of engagement, officials said, the helicopters returned fire, destroying some anti-Iraqi forces near the Bradley and preventing the loss of sensitive equipment and weapons." The statement is written in the format of a news article to encourage direct duplication by reporters.
On their second pass, the statement says the crews chose not to engage, as they could no longer distinguish between fighters and noncombatants.
This version differs drastically from all Iraqi accounts given to The NewStandard and other reporters and bears no resemblance to television footage taken at the scene. On the Al-Arabiya video, there is no sign of fire coming from the ground, and no fire from above precedes the explosions that killed and wounded noncombatants far from the disemboweled Bradley.
In fact, photojournalist and columnist Gaith Abdul-Ahad, who was injured at the scene, wrote in the UK Guardian that he was wounded during a third round of blasts that occurred minutes after the first explosions ripped through the crowd. He recounted no shots fired from the ground, but described a gruesome scene in which dying civilians called out for help while the wounded, including a small boy whose leg a US missile had partially amputated, were evacuated from the scene.
According to Abdul-Ahad, who stayed at the scene long after sustaining injuries to help and photograph the victims, helicopters fired again more than five minutes later.
But the military statement seems to insist the helicopters only fired once, at "insurgents near the vehicle," before calling off the assault. "As the helicopters made their final pass," the official statement reads, "the Bradley fighting vehicle was on fire and a crowd was gathering around the vehicle. The aircrew could not discriminate between armed insurgents and civilians on the ground, officials said, and therefore did not reengage."
This is the account by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1303807,00.html
2. The US massive attack (riots incited by the US) who killed more than 1300 Iraqis, most of them were innocent women and children.
It was the uprising in Fallujah. The US military crushed the uprising that killed at least 1,300 Iraqis and left thousands more wounded.
It was in reprisal for the killing of the 4 (American) security guards. ElectronicalIraq.net produced an analysis of the uprising titled:
Turning Point Fallujah: How US Atrocities Sparked The Iraqi Resistance.
ElectronicIraq.net are known for their articles using credible new sources (i.e. Washingtonpost, BBC - etc).
http://electroniciraq.net/news/1947.shtml
Fallujah was a insurgent/terrorist haven and needed to be dealt with.
I do not know what you are talking about when you say 30 people were killed and one baby survived. Survivied what? An attack on a building?
Again, if the insurgents use a building to attack American soldiers from, what would you expect them to do? Not shoot back?
Have you studied how the uprising started in Fallujah? What caused it? What incited the citizens of Fallujah? What made them resistance fighters?
And you did not read what I wrote. There were no "insurgents" in the building but rather ordinary citizens of Fallujah. All of them were murdered except a 10-month-old infant.
You must be refering to the smack down that al_sadr's militias received last year?
The group that the Americans were fighting were radical Shia who had impossed their own strict version of Muslim law, forcing men to grow beards, arresting people with no authority to do so and torturing or executing those who would not step into line.
They had to be dealt with. I am not sure how many of 1,000 killed were fighters and how many were civilians. We also dont know who killed them all.
Obviously the militia was shooting, too, so isnt it possible that some of the innocents killed were killed by them?
Is that what you call the onslaught? A smack-down? It wouldn't hurt to display some form of empathy to those who died. I can assure you that if the same scenario occured in the US, it would have been a world crisis.
Most of them were civilians, this also includes the families killed at the checkpoints. As for whether the 'militia' was responsible for the deaths of the innocents, then that is a no. Because the 'militia' were ill-equiped, furthermore, it has been confirmed by the US military that they have commited the most killings during the onslaught.
40 Iraqis and 202 people dead? Where were the other dead people from?
When did this happen?
There was a error in the sentence, I meant 40 Iraqis dead (mostly ordinary people) and 202 people wounded. But the figure is controversial, some say 50 whilst others say 30. This occured in July 04 where the US claimed to have killed at least 40-50 militiaman. This turned out that most of them were ordinary citizens.
It was Iraqi NG who fired on the crowd and according to their report, they received fire from someone in the crowd.
Firstly, prior to this massacre, three mortar attacsk struck the gates of one of the main mosques in Kufa killed 27 Iraqis and wounded 63 others who had gathered to march to Najaf.
The Iraqi National guard did fire the first shot, but there was no credible report that one of the peace marchers 'fired' the first shot since they were marching for peace. They were unarmed. Witnesses observed that and there are
You must have missed the elections that took place. Iraq has freely chosen its own government and that government has requested the continued assistance of coalition forces to fight the insurgency.
It stopped being an occupation the moment the Iraqis were given power from L. Paul Bremer.
Since when was everyt election a legitimate instrument of 'democracy'?
The reason why the Iraqis voted was to get the US out of their country. That was the primary reason. But at least, it is a step to a better future when they transfered the sovereignity to Iraq, but yet violence has doubled comparing to last year.
The UN never seems to mention the money and effort the US is pouring into Iraq.
Is that so? What happend to the $20 billion dolary of Iraq's own money? The US still did not state what they did with the money. You stated that alot of money was poured into Iraq, then how come the malnutrition rates are still increasing? In addition, the efforts that you seem te talking about, where can I see the effect of this 'effort'.
Let me get this straight, is this 100,000 people dead by combat or 100,000 dead from all reasons?
And most, over 50,000 people, have been killed by US airstrikes.
Please document this one.
The highest reliable figure I have seen is 20-25,000 killed in combat related deaths by ALL SIDES.
The article was published on the Guardian site but unfortunaley, I cannot locate the exact link. Here is a copy of the article:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/t...10/30/&prd=th&
Guerilla warfare hurts the population. The advantage of fighting as a guerilla is that you can blend in easily and it makes the conventional forces you are fighting have too look much harder.
This is why so many young Sunni men are being picked up, it is almost impossible to tell who is who until they are sorted and questioned. Better safe than sorry in this case.
Perhaps it would be wise akhee to read what I stated before responding. Most of those who are detained are innocent. Furthermore, they are not questioned but rather are held with no charges.
Maj Gen Wodjakowski is supposed to have said:
I don't care if we're holding 15,000 innocent civilians. We're winning the war
um, yea, and the insurgents don't use mosques as bases?
Right. It is well known that the unsurgents snipe at the Americans from mosques because they know the propaganda effect it will have if the US fires back.
Are you justifying the attacks on the Mosques? A Muslim who is defendin' the attacks on the Mosques? That must be new one.
You call this an atrocity?
I refer you to what I said above. The Sunni insurgents regularly use mosques as rally pointsm, bases and staging areas for attacks.
I would expect them to be searched.
Concerning the detentions, I have no idea but would assume they had a reason to detain those who were detained.
It's quite amusing how you twist the whole statement. Read what I stated, "Furniture and copies of the Qur’an were thrown around during the raid"
No attacks were launched from that mosque and yet such aggression was used in spite of the fact that were not under attack. Desecrating the copies of the Glorious Qur'an and here you are, attempting to justify the raid? I want you to tell me if that raid was justified AND what purpose did it had to throw the copies of the Quran around. Clearly such acts would incite a Muslim but apparantly it does not provoke you.
Moreover, it is not an atrocity, but an act of aggression.
[quoted]The Americans didn't do this, the Iraqi's did this themselves.
But if the Americans would have acted to defend these things some would have been calling that an atrocity.
Damned of you do, damned if you don't.[/quote] The fault of the Iraqis? The US did not have orders to defend the museums bot ironically enough, they did have orders to protect the oil ministry. The Pentagon was brass aware of the potential for looting and chaos but did not attempt to protect the museums.
So I suppose your theory is that US pilots fly around looking for weddings to "crash?" Come on, look at it objectively and realize there is another side of the story.
I would wager it was a tragic accident and not a premeditated slaughter. A very tragic event but not an atrocity.
Like I stated at the top of the post, I never make a judgement without analyzing both sides of the story. And it is absurd to claim that they are hunting for weddings to destroy. That is preposterous and goes against common sense. If they had the authority to 'destroy' weddings and not being accounted for, they would have done so.
And like I said, they produced a fabricated story to cover it up.
'Wedding video' clouds US denials
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3741223.stm
Iraq: The Wedding Party Massacre
http://www.sundayherald.com/42229
Now you're confronted with evidence, the only escape is to affirm the evidence and acknowledge that it was a massacre.
What was not reported was that a Marine from the same unit had been killed the day before when a supposedly wounded insurgent pulled a gun and shot the Marine.
As I said, there are usually two sides to every story.
What you just stated is incorrect. The day-before story was that a dead 'resistance fighter' had explosives planted on his body which triggered somehow. However, when comparin' that story with this one, one concludes that the resistance fighter who got murdered was UNARMED. He was confirmed unarmed but yet, he shot him point-blank. Did you read the report of what the US soldier stated? Apparantly not. He claimed that the unarmed wounded resistance fighter was reaching for his weapon but evidence states otherwise.
This was before the handover.
Why should the coalition allow al-Sadrs paper to print while he was launching a rebellion? Propaganda is, indeed, a weapon of its own.
The word that you seem to missing out is 'allegedly'. The so-called 'inciting violence' allegation has not been confirmed.
Could I ask you to not stereotype Americans as well? One of my oldest and best friends is serving in Tikrit right now and he is not there to kill Iraqis. He is there to help Iraqis
Since when did I stereotype the Americans? I specifically pointed out the atrocities commited by the US military which you fail to acknowledge. I deliberately inserted the word 'aggressors' in almost all of my replies. But I suppose you do not acknowledge the actions of the sincere Mujahideens striving in the cause of Allah who rebel against the US aggressors and do not target the civilians. You detest them whilst the believers should support the sincere Mujahideens and not choose them over their enemies.
And furthermore, I am against the occupation like the majority of the Muslims.
Did I say that American soldiers "did not commit atrocities?"
I don't remember ever saying that. Certainly it has happened, but when it does it is usually a few Americans doing it, such as the Abu Ghraib incident and the murder of a prisoner here or there.
It is not US policy to murder Iraqis. The vast majority of US soldiers are not blood thirsty killers just looking to murder Iraqis. That is not how we do things.
I know 5 men in Iraq and all them are good men and none of them have the capacity to cold bloodedly murder anyone, much less women and children.
Why is it then, akhee, that you vehemently defended every atrocity that I listed. I guess only "a few Americans" are accounted for the lives of 100,000 civilians. And I am not here refering to any policies. Atrocity does not connote to any policies. I also did not argue that the vast majority of the US soldiers are blood thirsty killers, rather, they are deluded in the false scheme of Bush. But since you did not brand the actions of Bush as murderous, I have to presume that you support his actions.
I am defending the US soldiers because I know Americans, I was born an American and raised with Americans. I grew up in a military family and shared the same values these men have for the vast majority of my life.
I will not stand idly by and watch people defame the whole for the acts of the very few.
Well that is rare. You support the US soldiers because they 'share' the same values that you have. Why didn't they put their values into action and prevent the lives of 100,000 innocent civilians.
And their reputation has already been damaged for they were duped by Bush in to thinking that are fighting for the right cause. Thousands of them died with the mindset that they fought for the right cause. Whilst some of them have decent moral values, I am still of the opinion that with thousands of troops in Iraq deployed; 'liberation' has not yet been achieved.
Did you forgot to read what was stated at the bottom of the article?
The articles posted on this page reflect solely the opinions of the authors.
On HRW I find many articles condeming the US in Iraq but NONE condemning the vicious insurgency.
I say, search again. I have just searched, entering the right keywords, and at least 10 pages appeared on the subject.