US military killing journalists in Baghdad

Where? By whom? In what way?

It's the accidental killing of a group of civilians. It's been verified as authentic. It happened. It was investigated internally by the military, now it's in the public domain. It's a tragedy and an important issue. I don't think it could be, would be or was "dismissed" by anyone, whatever your opinion of whether the soldiers involved were culpable for their mistake or whether you think they acted with proper care and attention...

 

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It was dismissed lithium, nothing more is going to happen over it..

Peace

 

Ah you mean the internal investigation found no wrongdoing ... they also refused to release the footage under freedom of information requests. Now it has been seen there are legitimate calls for an *independent* inquiry...

 

PMSL ... since when has the BBC been left wing

 

I'm pretty sure i saw weapons.

I didn't at first because the first time i watched it i was following the journalists, just like the little arrows pointing to them had my brain doing.

I read in a comment post somewhere that the journalists were among armed insurgents, so i looked again. I went to the collateral murder dot com link here and watched the short youtube version.

Before i go any further, i just want it clear that i am not here to give my opinion. I just saw something, and i may be the only one who has, as far as i know. I havn't studied everything about this either. But i have heard of news photographers being allowed to film both sides of a conflict. And it looks like this may be the case.

At the beginning of the video, it appears that the journalists are approaching a group of men already standing there. Perhaps to ask permission to film there among them?

I have a 19 inch Dell flat screen that's several years old, btw. I expanded the video to full screen and watched. At 3:21 you'll see the bullseye pointing to Namir. The arrow pointing to him says Namir w /camera, and the caption below says: That's a weapon. Yeah.

So at this point you'll notice that it doesn't look like a weapon at all, and you follow him. And the arrows as well. Or at least that's what i did the first time viewing.

But at that exact moment (3:21), look to the far left. There is a fat guy in a striped shirt holding something long and thin, horizontally. Watch that group follow the journalists now. At 3:38 the guys following come back into view, and the bullseye trains on them. There they are clearly holding rifles, if you ask me.

That's what bugs me the most! Insurgents (or whatever) dressed as civilians, and mingling with civilians. No wonder mistakes are made! Or were those just civilians arming themselves for protection. I don't know what's going on over there.

I just felt i should point this out, as i said. And yes, i agree the journalists were all just holding cameras. But it looks to me now that they were in the wrong place, and in the wrong croud. What a mess!!

 

Also on that point, once they had mowed everyone down with their mini-gun on their helicopter. The one man was struggling along the pavement, and the soldiers in the helicopter were just aching for a reason to finish him off. Saying in fact: "go on, reach for a weapon" as they were eager to finish the job they'd started. When, it was beyond clearly evident the person posed not one ounce of risk towards them.

 

I have to admit, Justin, they do look like weapons, especially at 3:38, but then again they also look like boom-mic's or cameras.

If I was in their position I would've probably done the same, to be honest. It's too simple to blame the soldiers in this instance; it's the mental repercussions of war on people you have to blame.

 

And that it's against international law to kill injured combatants who pose no threat... these guys were skirting right on the edge of what's legitimate, not behaving like responsible individuals undertaking an onerous role and taking their responsibilities seriously...

 

the site that spread this video to the world (wikileaks.org) has now been branded a threat to national security by the NSA. what a surprise.

 

Oh, you've got to be kidding me. *sigh*

 

I know you didn't say they were, but I wouldn't say they were right wing either, to be honest.

 

The BBC tends to get criticised by conservatives for being too lefty and criticised by lefties for being too conservative... This is probably quite a good sign that it's pretty fair and balanced most of the time.

 

That was actually what I was going to say. They do seem to lean left at times, and right at others. But ultimately they are smack in the middle most of the time.

I'm not sure where SilverHippy gets his news from; but if he does tend to watch Fox News, despite their tagline "Fair and Balanced" there is nothing fair nor balanced about them. You couldn't get more right-wing drivel if you tried.

 

I watched the tape and outcome on both Fox and CNN one left and one right, they both came to the same conclusion, weapons were found, the journalists were more than likely embedded, and the kids in the van were rushed to the nearest help by the U.S. ground troops, case closed...

Peace

 

i can clearly see guns....however it is fucked up how their attitude is, perhaps it is their way of coping with it

 

Well at least you could see them, and they were there, as for the attitude, it is a way of coping, nobody wakes up and says "yay i wanna kill somebody today"

Peace