Wikileaks, the US Government, and the slaughter of civilians

[ColdWizard]

Ah, so you and Ming are in agreement. You think he is this way on purpose.

Nope, he's truly broken. He thinks we've got it all wrong.

There's no reason it can't be both. Deliberately broken.

[rah]

If so, he deserves pity.

[Asher]

He needs help.

[Ecofarm]

To be fair (and I didn't read the entire abuse thread carefully, only skimming it the last few days), it seems that Ben was defending the RCC and not the priests.

Occam's Razor (given the known information) would conclude that Ben is defending his church, not pedos.




ps. This is not how to give someone the 10th Ave. Freeze-out. What's the difference between talking about Ben and quoting him? Should we start using a code-name for him so that he doesn't know we are talking about him? Frankly, I'm jealous. You people should be talking about me, pretty much all the time.

[Asher]

Ben's quotes infuriate me, talking about him doesn't.

[Wiglaf]

I love it -- you do a 180 on this, after calling the Army murderers, then blame someone who isn't even participating in this thread. This is Orwellian, and I haven't even read the book.

[Drake Tungsten]

We don't ban trolls. Or at least I don't.

Thank god!

[Traianvs]

Unarmed civilians are not to be targeted. I am not going to get into an argument about the geneva convention (I've already said I don't know if it's a war crime, I don't care...it was wrong).


I suppose it is asking a lot of a Catholic to understand morality at this point?

Not all of those guys were combatants. That's a fact. The people in the van were certainly not combatants, nor was the guy they were trying to save. They posed no threat to anyone, especially the heavily armed soldiers about to converge on the scene.

It was completely and utterly wrong to kill the people in the van and destroy it. No ethical person can argue otherwise. Hiding behind fine print in the Geneva Convention is loathsome.

Actually: Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions (concerning protection of victims of non-international armed conflicts) says:

Common Article 3 applies to armed conflicts that are not of an international character, but that are contained within the boundaries of a single country. It provides limited protections to victims, including:

• Persons taking no active part in hostilities should be treated humanely (including military persons who have ceased to be active as a result of sickness, injury, or detention).
• The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.

Clearly the shooters in the helicopter felt the desire to quench their lust for blood. Why else would you want to do this kind of massacre; if you grow up to see this kind of mayhem around you, in your home town, wouldn't you try to **** the foreigners out of your country?

[Drake Tungsten]

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told me the video recently released by Wikileaks which depicts U.S. troops killing some civilians in Iraq “doesn’t show the broader picture of the – of the firing that was going on at American troops.” In my “This Week” interview, Gates acknowledged that the video is “clearly not helpful” and “painful to see”, but that “these people were operating in split second situations.” Gates added that he doesn’t think the video will “have any lasting consequences.”

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/04/gates-on-wikileaks-video-not-helpful-but-should-not-have-lasting-consequences.html

[Asher]

It's pretty clear those people weren't the ones doing the firing, the behaviour just doesn't fit.

But don't let that stop anyone.

[Wiglaf]

For a numbers person, Asher is very susceptible to selection bias. Incidents like this probably happen every day, and yet he complains about this one. I learned about the Scientific method in 3rd grade, when will he learn?

[Asher]

How can I complain about incidents when there's no public evidence of them?

[Wiglaf]

There's plenty of record, it's like 200,000 dead civilians in Iraq. And I didn't even need to Google that, it's been so commonly reported. You have proven Newton right, the apple does not fall far from the tree, when one dies it is scandal, but 200,000? Just a number. You disgust me, you respond only to YOUTUBE VIDEOS and not to FACTS. It figures you work for a phone book.

[Wiglaf]

Here is the douche founder of Wikileaks admitting he manipulated idiots like Asher:

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/04/13/video-colbert-smacks-down-wikileaks-founder-over-collateral-murder-video/

[HalfLotus]

There's plenty of record, it's like 200,000 dead civilians in Iraq.

It's closer to a million.