Here is the original release by wikileaks for reference.

Collateral Murder

there is a short and long version.

Andrew

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“...corporations and those who run them cannot stop exploiting resources and amassing wealth until they have... .I cannot finish this sentence, because the truth is that can never stop; like cancer, they can only continue to expand until they kill the host.”

-- Derrick Jensen

I don't know how anyone would mistake a camera lens for an RPG launcher.

Here's a Canon 400mm f/2.8L, one of the physically largest lenses Canon makes:



Here's an RPG launcher:



Even someone with only a rudimentary knowledge of either could tell that they look nothing alike.

Odds are the guy is using a 100-400mm zoom lens, which is physically much smaller than the lens shown above...

so is this:

and so is this:

RPG is a generic term. It could mean anything from an RPG-7 to an AT4 or a WW2 era bazooka. Peaking around the corner like that it did look a lot like an M72 or an AT4 (both examples of RPGs)

Rudimentary indeed.

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Those on the left in this country are anything but liberals.

I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

several posts went by between what you posted below and my remark, you do remember what you have posted in the past I take? especially when its right there.



sometimes when I read blurbs like yours I want to ask why you and others seem to think people are sitting in the bleachers rooting for or against, as if their mind isn't made up already? What? This is going to change someones mind? Really?

okay- the vid is going to change someones mind? they are on the fence? ( is that in your dictionary?)they don't know who they feel about iraq and us already? erode our 'reputation further'...doubt it, their minds are made up, we are good or evil..... means squat...is that clear enough?

next-

And frankly, if it does, then they were ready to trade their ability to think outside emotion and logically for any old shill anyway, if it wasn't this, it would be something else, they and are willfully vaporous intellectually in any event, their axe is just sitting their ready for grinding.

Since their minds are made up ,they don’t think at all anymore and will fall for whatever is put in front of them ( shilled), thye feel no need to real look at each event alone and if they are that partisan, fuck’em……

Is that better?
Shill- use of questionable speech, product , method to sell, or purposefully misleading to sell or convince…..


"hyperbole alert"......do I need to explain this?

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

dude quit riding coattails, its not flatteriing.



oh and it appears you are ignoring Iams points on purpose. I suppose you have never ever preformed an act you regretted later blaming it on impulse, fatigue etc. ..?

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

If those Apache pilots would not have had to ask for permission to engage, they could have destroyed the rocket before it fired, and killed a bunch of insurgents, as well.

As it relates to the original video, it is no wonder that the other pilots were in a hurry to engage. How many times had they had insurgents in their sights, but were not given permission to engage before it was too late? Those pilots knew that there were U.S. troops on the ground close by. I'm sure they didn't want to let the insurgents get off any shots at their fellow soldiers.

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Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law" because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac H Tiffany (1819)

lookin' good steve!!!!



your point is well taken....I agree.

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

What coattails. I can't understand what the fuck you are saying.


I've never killed anyone. And while I have done things that I regret later based on impulse, fatigue, etc. that doesn't mean that I am not responsible for those things.

Again, if the pilot was unfit to doing what he was given the responsibility of doing, then the person who assigned him that duty is culpable.

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First they came for the mimes, and I did not speak out, because I was a mime.

I mentioned something in a previous post, that the pilots may have been a bit too hasty to get clearance to fire since they had a decent shot and they were all grouped together. Usually it takes a long ass time to get clearance to fire, so I was a bit surprised at how fast they got it in this latest vid.

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Well, yes, that's what I would say for the simple reason that's how it is.

I, and most people that will watch the video, do not think in such simplistic terms of good guys and bad guys. If I were to write down all my thoughts on all aspects of the American intervention in Iraq, or rather both interventions, I would need a 60-page essay.

While that does make sense given the nature of these insurgents it backfires when you realize that your troops have been dealing with them for no less than seven years now. The well-trained, well-disciplined and well-organized Wehrmacht and all related forces were overcome in a fraction of that time. Something doesn't add up here.

That sounds suspiciously like a carte blanche to blow anything up or shoot anyone down.

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There IS an RPG.

Referencing the 17:47 version of the tape, at the 3:38 mark 4 guys enter the frame top/center while the camera man exits frame bottom/center. If you look at the 4 guys at the top of the frame you can see than the 2nd guy from the right is carrying an RPG tube. The guys to his right and left are carrying AK's which can be seen over the next 6 seconds as they walk.

At the 3:47 mark the guy with the RPG stops and loads the tube. He and one of the AK guys can be seen directly in fron of the tall pole.

At 4:02 the guy with the now loaded RPG walks behind the building and out of sight of the camera.

At 4:08 someone sticks something around the corner of the building. I'm guessing that it's a camera because it doesn't appear that the RPG guy would have enough time to get into that position. It is at that point, however, that one of the Apache pilots says "he's got an RPG". I'm guessing that this is the pilot from the other Apache that we don't have the film from. This guess is based on the subsequent phrase "I'm gonna fire" from the same voice. The pilot of the Apache we are watching the action from had no target to fire at and then "comes around" to get a shot.

Just before the Apaches open up you can see the RPG in the hands of the guy withthe striped shirt (4:50 mark)

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"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." - Alexis De Tocqueville

well thats a good point, my initial response is there was a lot of action around, we don't know what the overall military situation in that sector or part of city was, lots of contact, maybe reports of ambushes, IEDS, firefights etc..if it was a 'heavy contact" day, that would have made it easier to get quick "guns free" etc.

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

Bis interimitur qui suis armis perit...

Short version of the video on Wikileak:

Beginning at 3:40 there are two guys on the left hand side of the screen.

One guy is wearing a striped shirt. He's carrying an AK47.

The guy next to him is carrying either an RPG or more likely an RPK or PKM (the butt/exhaust is toward the ground, he's holding the weapon by the barrel).

I concede that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of cameras and weapons wouldn't mistake a camera lens for an RPG.

We can discuss whether it's a machine gun or a rocket launcher in that video at the 3:40 mark but it simply isn't a camera.

And by the time you get to the point where you're trying to figure out if the group of guys milling around behind cover with rifles and cameras also have either a machine gun or a rocket launcher does it even really matter which it is?

I think it kinda becomes immaterial from the perspective of both the helicopter crew and the patrol on the ground. A belt fed machine gun can ruin either of their day just as quick as a rocket.

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...Old Europe, a once-dominant region now reduced to sucking at the geopolitical teat of America... they spent the better part of the last millennium conquering the world and taking the good stuff home with them... And what do they get for their troubles? Ungrateful colonies demanding their independence. And after you taught them how to play cricket!...

-Jon Stewart

Nah, that is the same dude who was standing next to him earlier, also holding an AK or one of its variants.

EDIT: I was looking at the wrong guy. You're right.

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Those on the left in this country are anything but liberals.

I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Yep, you are right. That is an RPG-7 tube.

I don't think he is loading, but he is definately standing there with it. Almost looked like he had a rocket in it already.

Yep, you are right dude. When they said RPG I thought they were referring to the guy popping around the corner of the building. THAT was a camera in his hands. Good catch.

__________________
Those on the left in this country are anything but liberals.

I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.