Quote :

"if self-preservation is an instinct you possess."

given the tenor of some of the comments in this thread, that would be a bold assumption.

4/6/2010 9:26:51 AM

what is a greater opportunity for self-preservation than living in peace

4/6/2010 9:29:43 AM

yes, if we as a nation would just lay down our arms, we could achieve world peace


see ^^

4/6/2010 9:30:28 AM

We spend $500,000,000,000 on defense and we can't tell the difference between a fucking rocket launcher and a telephoto lens.

Fuck it.

4/6/2010 9:31:20 AM

so are you against nuclear disarmament and stopping nuclear proliferation or

4/6/2010 9:34:28 AM

why in the F would I be against nuclear disarmament? Are you daft?

see ^^^

4/6/2010 9:35:35 AM

you don't seem to think that laying down arms is a righteous first step on the path to peace

cf. swords => ploughshares

i mean...?!

4/6/2010 9:36:22 AM

k u go to somalia and do that as an experiment.

as a hated person in a hostile environment, you will lay down your arms and righteously lead that entire nation to a harmonious existence.

let us know how it works out for ya.

4/6/2010 9:38:14 AM

somehow I dont think your $500,000,000,000 figure is quite accurate.

however, maybe if Clinton had not slashed our defense budget while in office we would have had the developmental cash to invent some crazy perfection ray gun weapon that only temporarily stunned our enemies so we could disarm them and send them on their way...that way nobody would die!!

4/6/2010 9:40:25 AM

why would i go to somalia in the first place and lead them

aren't they sovereign

OR ARE YOU TELLING ME THEY MIGHT HAVE WMDS

4/6/2010 9:41:56 AM

ok then go find some other scrawny white kid that already lives in somalia and move him to the ghettos

don't nitpick me, son.

4/6/2010 9:42:57 AM

Quote :

"somehow I dont think your $500,000,000,000 figure is quite accurate. however, maybe if Clinton had not slashed our defense budget while in office we would have had the developmental cash to invent some crazy perfection ray gun weapon that only temporarily stunned our enemies so we could disarm them and send them on their way...that way nobody would die!!"

Yeah, sorry, I was too low.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

Quote :

"For the 2010 fiscal year, the president's base budget of the Department of Defense rose to $533.8 billion. Adding spending on "overseas contingency operations" brings the sum to $663.8 billion.[1][2] When the budget was signed into law on October 28, 2009 the final size of the Department of Defense's budget was $680 billion, $16 billion more than Obama had requested. [3][4] Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff expected an additional supplemental spending bill, possibly in the range of $40–50 billion, by the Spring of 2010 in order to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [5]Defense-related expenditures outside of the Department of Defense constitute between $216 billion and $361 billion in additional spending, bringing the total for defense spending to between $880 billion and $1.03 trillion in fiscal year 2010."

4/6/2010 9:50:43 AM

ITT God argues to increase the defense budget

4/6/2010 9:52:57 AM

Actually, I don't. Our defense budget is a complete fucking waste.

We spend more than ten times Russian and China, despite being separated by a goddamn ocean from the middle east, and we fucked up this war and murdered some journalists because we couldn't tell a Canon Rebel from a rocket launcher.

Fucket.

4/6/2010 9:54:14 AM

ITT God pitches a temper tantrum because the world outside his home office is scary

4/6/2010 10:01:04 AM

It actually isn't, that's the point.

4/6/2010 10:16:59 AM

Man I totally misread what you've been saying! All this time you were just trying to explain that the world is not a scary place.

4/6/2010 10:21:59 AM

ITT Solinari/Hemogoblin trolls

4/6/2010 11:21:42 AM

I thought there was an unwritten rule that you dont shoot medics or people just helpin the wounded.
Also wounding people is many times better than killing them as they will consume the enemy's resources.

4/6/2010 11:46:16 AM

But then they wouldn't get

4/6/2010 12:09:50 PM

Don't forget the invisible weapons littered all over the area that they were trying to recover.

4/6/2010 12:21:15 PM

Quote :

"I thought there was an unwritten rule that you dont shoot medics or people just helpin the wounded."

You thought wrong. However, there is a rule against shooting the Red Cross.

4/6/2010 12:21:37 PM

And journalists

4/6/2010 1:04:22 PM

And children

4/6/2010 1:08:11 PM

Had I been that apache pilot / gunner and given the weapons free signal from base I also would have opened fire without reservation.

Had I been told that they were simply members of the press later on by the same base command I would have been sad, but would not have 2nd guessed or flinched about my decision.

It's a war. This shit will inevitably happen.


Plus THEY are the ones firing willy nilly all over civilians without giving 2 shits. In fact they are encouraging it. But yeh, USA burn to the ground for fucking up. Down with the white male,video game playing, anti-muslim, anti-black, anti-gay, christian loving, redneck bumfucks from alabama trying to unlock war acheivemnts xbox360 style.

4/6/2010 1:10:39 PM

Are you really trying to say that because "they" do something it should be okay if we do it?

4/6/2010 1:13:01 PM

no, you are the one saying that its not ok to make a mistake in the fog of war.

4/6/2010 1:19:30 PM

It is sad, but seriously, you take a huge risk going into a war zone as a combatant or journalist. Blue on blue even happens between our own soldiers on occasion. This is something that happens and will continue to happen during combat.

If you're a reporter/cameraman/etc and don't want your family to lose you or you don't want to die, maybe you shouldn't go into a fucking war zone. This is the risk you take and it's not like they weren't aware that they could very easily be gunned down.

4/6/2010 1:23:51 PM

I wonder if God finds it odd when basketball players are celebratory like a person would be playing a basetball video game on the Microsoft XBox 360.

4/6/2010 1:27:10 PM

If this mistake was preventable in some way, then it wasn't okay. I saw the same video everyone else did, and I can say that it looked like the guy with the camera had an RPG. Fair enough, mistake was made.

That doesn't excuse killing the people who were trying to assist medically. That's bullshit. Defending it by saying that people don't have the rights of legal combatants is a semantic argument that gives us an excuse to kill whomever we want.

Covering up that we made a mistake is also inexcusable. We all understand it was a mistake. Mistakes are NOT OKAY. That's what makes them MISTAKES. They happen, and of course you don't expect these soldiers to be court martialed, but you can't blame the guys who got killed, or the insurgency tactics. It's the fault of the U.S. military that these people are dead. I know it puts a higher responsibility on our soldiers, but the other option is that in order to protect U.S. lives we sanction a level of violence that results in indiscriminate deaths.

Covering this up basically says that this can happen again. I believe that the soldiers over there don't want to kill the wrong people, but given these circumstances, it happened. How can we change the policies of our men so that it is less likely to happen again? You can't say that an entire country is fair game because of the policies of a handful. These people were walking in a damn city, for fuck's sake. That's it. That was what they were "doing wrong".

Damn, they should have known to hide inside their houses for four years when the Americans showed up...a lot of the arguments some of you are making are very weak. Defending our country, defending our troops, and defending our tactics are not all the same thing. It's possible to support our country and our troops and still believe that we can do a better job.

[Edited on April 6, 2010 at 1:35 PM. Reason : j]

4/6/2010 1:32:14 PM

wouldnt it be F'ed up if we found out that when we play call of duty we're actually controlling real drones overseas.
that would make for a great movie.

but as far as not killing medics, even in braveheart people were free to walk around and help the wounded with fear of a helicopter attack. wtf

4/6/2010 1:32:15 PM

it makes total sense to allow insurgents to care for and nurse our enemies back to health so that they can kill some more of our soldiers

this is the logic of an america-hating liberal.

4/6/2010 1:40:10 PM

Quote :

"wouldnt it be F'ed up if we found out that when we play call of duty we're actually controlling real drones overseas. that would make for a great movie."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game

OLD!

4/6/2010 1:41:46 PM

And we should totally rape the women in Iraq until they're infertile so they can't have any more terrorist fuckin kids.

America, Fuck yeah.

4/6/2010 1:42:21 PM

ITT God makes wild leaps from one topic to another.

4/6/2010 1:46:47 PM

ITT You're inhuman.

4/6/2010 1:47:29 PM

soldiers thought an over the shoulder camera was an RPG during the fog of war, so therefore this is the moral equivalent to raping every iraqi woman


gg God.

troll.

4/6/2010 1:53:00 PM

so he's a troll, but calling someone you disagree with an America hating liberal isn't the same thing?

if that's the way you see things, then i think your opinion really loses any value whatsoever. it's rapidly reaching the point with those kinds of comments on such a regular basis where people should just stop acknowledging your comments at all.

4/6/2010 2:01:07 PM

Even for the Soap Box, this thread has high levels of "My way of viewing this is right and everybody who sees it differently is not only wrong, they're a complete fucking bastard."

Quote :

"We spend $500,000,000,000 on defense and we can't tell the difference between a fucking rocket launcher and a telephoto lens. "

I wonder how much money you would have to spend to make soldiers fucking omniscient.

Quote :

"you don't seem to think that laying down arms is a righteous first step on the path to peace"

It's righteous but it's not smart or practical. I'd rather be mediocre and alive than righteous and dead. And we can still be kinda righteous by encouraging everybody to agree to lay down their arms, and when that agreement goes into effect we can comply.

4/6/2010 2:05:33 PM

YOU FIRST

4/6/2010 2:13:50 PM

sometimes the "america hating liberal" is merely a cheap insult

not in this case.

I mean we're talking about a guy who feigns outrage at the "brutality" of us soldiers whom he's admitted made an honest mistake.... And then he gets on TWW and brags about deliberately trying to injure people on the soccer field, and taking pleasure in it.

So yea... he's obviously engaging in a double standard between his personal life and the opportunism of bashing american soldiers.

4/6/2010 2:19:43 PM

People are assholes. You can't trust assholes.

4/6/2010 2:20:27 PM

YOU CAN'T TRUST PEOPLE

ANYONE

EVER

KEEP YOUR WEAPONS LOADED

4/6/2010 2:20:59 PM

^ I'm an asshole, so I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly.

4/6/2010 2:22:02 PM

Quote :

"CENTCOM Releases Report on Apache Gun Camera Video From Iraq ...... The pilots also had reports from the ground troops that a vehicle, they weren’t sure what kind, was dropping off and picking up fighters in the area. They assumed the van was that vehicle. An unidentified Lt. Col. Who conducted the 15–6 investigation, possibly from JAG, asks the pilot why he shot the van when there were no weapons visible: LTC: Did you see anything in the van? Pilot: I couldn’t see inside the van, but they ran around right after I had seen them extract weapons and individuals. LTC: As you saw on the tape, they didn’t have any weapons. So, what drove you then? What threat made you want to engage the van? Pilot: Well the friendlies were 300 meters away and from the initial report that a black car, sedan had been coming in and dropping off insurgents, taking them out, moving them to different locations. That was my whole thought process. From reading the pilots statements, they believed the ground element was being shot at by both AKs and RPGs. They say that ground troops did find RPGs among the bodies. This is an interesting bit from the interviews when one of the pilots reflects on what happened: LTC: Did you think your knowledge of ROE and the law of armed conflict adequately prepared you for this engagement? Pilot: You know, I know we go through ROE a lot, and you’ll be like oh okay, I’m tired of talking about the ROE. I think the heat of the moment is always the one thing that sometimes you might not have control over or you have to actively stop yourself and be like wait, think through it again, you know, and I talked with some of the other guys after the engagement. The situation changes after you’ve done the first engagement or whatever, the situation is totally different. I never thought of it that way. I would have to go through those steps again. Now, what was five minutes ago was not the same. The Wikileaks report is mistaken in saying that the children wounded in the van were not evacuated to an American hospital. The report says both wounded children were taken to the trauma center at FOB Loyalty, and later transferred to an Iraqi hospital."

http://defensetech.org/2010/04/06/centcom-releases-report-on-apache-gun-camera-video/#axzz0kLSc4cdd

4/6/2010 2:22:22 PM

Basically.

The stakes are really fucking high here.

And people are assholes.

4/6/2010 2:25:02 PM

man you are the reason there are terrorists in the first place

holy god

4/6/2010 2:26:15 PM

Yep. My refusal to unilaterally disarm is the reason there are terrorists.

4/6/2010 2:28:46 PM

lol... yes, if only we would be nicer people there would never be any crime or terrorism.

4/6/2010 2:29:44 PM

I'm not outraged that they made a mistake. I understand it. I wouldn't say I'm outraged about anything. I'm disturbed and upset by the fact that a large group of people refuse to admit any fault, and that they covered it up, and until they acknowledge this, there's no chance to prevent it in the future. The idea that this means I hate America is just obtuse.

As for soccer, are you really drawing a parallel between playing tough physical soccer and condoning killing? I have never tried to injure anyone. At certain times I have hurt people, and in a fair number of those situations, I'd play the same way again, but there's a big difference between hurt and injured.

I have never injured anyone severely, but if I had, it would be my responsibility to reanalyze the level of physicality I brought to the game, to prevent it from happening again. Anyway, I'm done engaging you, because your comments are so far off base that whether you're trolling on purpose or this is actually how you feel, you've already made it clear that other people's opinions don't change yours, so my words, regardless of their merit, are destined to fall on deaf ears.

4/6/2010 2:33:18 PM