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Pentagon Monitors War Videos Online
jonfr writes "According to the BBC, the Pentagon is monitoring online war videos on YouTube and other webpages." From the article: "There is no specific policy that bans troops from posting graphic material. But troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are hearing the message that they should consider carefully what videos they upload to the web. Sites such as YouTube and Ogrish have hundreds or thousands of clips from soldiers, some set to rock music."
If you have any concerns, just speak into a nearby phone and the NSA will be right with you.
Angry Arabs aren't stupid. They do surf these types of sites, and take videos, set demonic music, throw graphics overlays of Bush chugging oil or blood sucked out of babies or something, and VCDs with this are on sale at a thousand bazaars throughout the Middle East the next day. Teenagers who stumble across these realize they have nothing else to do with their lives, and end up killing American soldiers. It is a military problem.
and that is what they are afraid of
18,000 wounded soldiers because of Iraq
that's a lot of blood
Why not give for free to the troops some nice Bach Organ works or some Schubert Chamber works. Killing people while listening to Palchelbel's Canon is pure class.-
<before>now</before>
I just surfed on over to Ogrish.com and found this headline and linked video:
Army of Ansar Alsunnah Attacks an Iraqi National Guard Recruitment Center
Friday, July 28 2006
The Army of Ansar Alsunnah, an Iraqi Insurgency group, released a 19 minute video showing a raid on an Iraqi National Guard Recruitment center. The video shows the group capturing members of the Iraqi center and then executing them on the streets. The video then ends with the militants entering the building and destroying the recruiment center with explosives.
Wow.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Americans don't like or want personal responsibility. It's always easier to let others take care of you than do it yourself. Since the majority viewpoint happens to coincide with that of our rulers we have to accept that we're inevitably going to become an authoritarian state.
If most of us didn't want things this way we wouldn't be letting it happen. The few who protest are either sneered at or ignored by the majority, who can be satisfied with relatively cheap gas, fast food, and stupid television.
Get used to it because nothing's going to change in your lifetime and that of our generation's kids and grandkids, barring a revolution, and who's going to revolt? You? Nope.
I don't choose to look at the photos, but in a way I think it's good to de-sanitize war, because it isn't.
I lost significant respect for soldiers the day I found some clips on a military-ish website.
One was a surveilance helicopter (dunno which one...probably the one with the camera/sensor ball above the rotor) and the video was from a training session. Most of the video, however, was of the crew watching thermal imaging of a couple having sex in the back seat of a convertible. So, if you think your military isn't spying on you as a civilian, you're right- "The Military" isn't, but a bunch of bored 20-somethings in multi-million-dollar toys ARE. And discipline in the military is so lax that apparently that kind of crap is tolerated.
Second sealed the deal for me. It was video from one of the big cargo-plane gunships in either Iraq or Aghanistan. The video consisted of thermal camera footage of them systematically gunning down people at some sort of small building- almost like a small church, quite possibly a mosque.
It showed people running for cover and the crew gunning them down, and it went for a good 5-10 minutes. They didn't appear to have any weapons, and were trying to hide behind walls and such (which didn't work since the gunship was circling.) That turned my stomach. However, when I listened more closely to the radio chatter, I wanted to throw up. The gunners and crew were laughing and joking. "Oh, quick, get 'im, there he goes!" "Oh, he thinks he's safe now, ahaha!", "hey, good shot there man! You really got him good!" etc. It was like a video game to them; my portrayal just doesn't do it "justice". There was no hate or malice- just very sickening joy on the part of those watching a video screen and plugging real people with real bullets and shells from miles away up in the sky.
Talk about video game violence just doesn't compare to the joy these murderers (I don't think the term "soldier" is even appropriate) took in killing other human beings. I feel a twang of guilt after a session of Battlefield 2, but these guys took joy in the real thing.
Please help metamoderate.
The problem isn't that it happened - it's that someone dares to post it.
Now what do we all think of those who fear the truth?
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
Holy shit! No wonder the Pentagra^H^Hon is worried, after all, rock music is the tool of the devil, and we can't have that!
Not having a clear policy doesn't make it any better, and probably worse. There's a line, and if you cross it, you're fucked. But we're not telling you where the line is. The pentagon has certainly learned a lot from FCC, probably thanks to the initiative to bring all government agencies closer together, or something.
I understand the reason this is in the censorship section is related to videos showing abusive behavior by US troops, but the Pentagon has far better reasons for clamping down on these videos. Just as they censored the embedded news reports during the initial push into Iraq, they should censor some of these videos because they can reveal operational protocol and troop movements, which would make it even easier to inflict damage on our troops.
Despite what a lot of people want you to believe, most of our troops are good people trying to help establish infrastructure and order in Iraq. It's a small handful of people that are giving the US military a bad image, and those individuals should be exposed and punished for their behavior.
Everything isn't always black and white... this is definitely one instance where there's a lot of gray area.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
This is not a YRO issue. Every soldier knows that they are not allowed to provide information to the "enemy." Sure, it would be great if we could release videos of everything we did, but we dimply can't. There is a very good chance that someone will see it that could use it against other soldiers. Say for instance you send a video showing you introducing the viewers (initially family and friends) to your life at a base in Iraq. During the video you walk around the entire base describing what each building is. Innocent? Sure. Is it a good idea? Hell no. Realistically, there is no way to completely keep information from falling into enemy hands, but we can make sure that it isn't widely available.
"Talk about video game violence just doesn't compare to the joy these murderers (I don't think the term "soldier" is even appropriate) took in killing other human beings. I feel a twang of guilt after a session of Battlefield 2, but these guys took joy in the real thing."
Video games don't cause violence, er, um...something does.
But they are paying all these people money to monitor what has been posted...? If they are honest in saying that such stuff is not banned what are they doing when they find the next video with U.S. soldiers blowing up Iraqis? Send them threats? Kidnap them, drug them, put them on a plane and fly them to Romania for torture?
The goverment is used to controlling the media (directly or indirectly) but when faced with blogging and YouTube it is fighting a losing battle.../sorry Uncle Sam... ;-(
But the military doesn't want the image of an organization full of borderline headcases. They want the image of a group of skilled, professional technicians who do their job out of patriotism and a love of excellence. This is what drives the marketing. The marketing is aimed at the public at large, and feeds into public perception, which feeds into funding. The image of the military is a Big Deal, which is part of the reason (along with OPSEC) they are monitoring what the soldiers/marines/seamen/airmen post online. It may be true that a lot of military members just love blowing stuff up and jacking people up, but the generals can't really let that cat out of the bag, even though doing so would attract the people they want--the price would outweigh the benefit. If the public starts mentally associating the military with people who get their jollies with wanton carnage, then the squeaky-clean image of the military starts to erode, and support for a $.45 trillion budget might evaporate. Besides, it's not as if those kind of people don't already know that the military is the job where you get to go to distant lands, meet interesting people, and kill them. So the adrenaline junkies already know what the deal is.
Also, they don't want to lean too heavily on the psycho angle. People have to be controllable--their aggression has to be channelable. War is controlled chaos, but the control is a very important component. They aren't just passing out grenades to any glassy-eyed wacko who walks through the door.
I wonder -- Should soldiers really expect the same rights as far as freedom of speech as other civilians? They are already severely limited in that respect according to the military code of justice. I realize this is about pentagon surveillance (possibly to limit negative propaganda, possibly under the cover of protecting top secret information), but can't they just order them not to post videos? The troops are now "hearing the message". What does that mean? Strong hints along the lines of "if you do this, your chances of promotion may be more limited..."? It seems like if the Pentagon would just clarify their policy, this shouldn't be a point of debate at all. As much as I oppose the war, I realize that for a soldier, the buck stops with the chain of command, in this case up to the Pentagon.
Do you honestly - I mean really, honestly - think that the insurgents are going to get more sensitive information from videos posted days or weeks later on the internet than they will get from their people on the ground, at the site, survivors from our operations or civilian sympathizers from across the street, using cell phones or email/sms/im or face to face conversations to pass on information?
That's just plain ridiculous. You haven't thought it thru.
Y'know, maybe if more people around the world get some upfront video of just how vicious war can be, maybe there would be less... Perhaps especially among young would-be terrorists.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Leeroy, remove your videos *now*
ilex paraguariensis for all
I know that people who do this for a living know a helluva lot more about such things concerning what they deal with on a daily basis than armchair quarterbacks such as you.
...the terrorist machine.
A rather ambiguous term...if you catch my drift.
What?
So tell me, just how would you know? You have no idea whatsoever what I "do for a living" nor anything else about me. You are just blowing hot air.
If you'd like to respond intelligently to my comments, feel free.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I'll leave you be, to live in a world where uninformed people are the ones who decide what happens to you, where the people in charge of the Internet think it's a "series of tubes", and where people think that all military related intelligence is "obvious" and therefore "information wants to be free man!" Hell, let's have no secrets at all and just invite the insurgents to the daily briefings with Geraldo working the powerpoint slides.
When stuff like this comes out on Ogrish and YouTube (ogrish probably more than most; that's where the other-guys perspective videos show up), visitors, like you, and even the Pentagon, are doing the same thing: monitoring sentiment, and more importantly, monitoring for sensitive content. There's no over-arching conspiracy to control the masses. Soldiers need to be careful of what they post because of the "content" itself: i.e. dates, locations, troop strength, etc. If something like that gets posted, it could possibly be used against our Soldiers. And all Americans, be they neo-cons, liberals, or even moderates, don't want the repurcussion of that: dead American troops. They are just monitoring to help out the guys that are deployed. Ogrish gets a lot of jihadist videos. And with that, there are probably a lot of lessons learned for Soldiers from those videos...tactics that could possibly be used against them, and how they can combat them. As for the "bad rock music" videos, those are probably things that just raise the morale of troops. They spend a year in the desert, they might be sucking a bit. Who knows, until you're in their shoes.
War is not an Olympic event!
Hey, there's a good idea! It should be!
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
This isn't "the military," but a facet of human nature that we don't want to face. People are more bloodthirsty, and have less decency than we want to believe. If you take a random sampling of people and put them in a situation where extreme violence is normalized, where they are patted on the back after killing a lot of people or using "extreme" tactics to extract information, then latent tendencies tend to flower. We take our moral cues from our environment. These guys were put in a situation where brutal tactics were tacitly sanctioned, where their actions were shrouded in secrecy, where they could beat someone to death and still be considered a patriotic, decent human being, and what the living hell did you think was going to happen?
Read about Milgram's experiments, or Zimbardo's prison experiment--when given power, when given the chance to hurt someone along with the feeling that they aren't responsible, indifference to suffering, or even outright cruelty, quickly surfaces. I knew about Abu Ghraib before I knew about Abu Ghraib, because I already know that if you put people in that situation, those things will happen. Any country, any time. They were shielded from public scrutiny, pressured to "get results," violence was winked at, and they were told outright by the administration that the Geneva Convention was "quaint and outdated." If you can't predict what's going to happen in that situation, you have your head in the sand. People are nice when their environment expects them to be nice. If you put people in a situation where they can torture someone to death and still be considered a great guy, then a considerable percentage (not all, but enough) will gladly do so, and still sleep well at night. The issue here is not that I dislike Bush or hate the military, only that I acknowledge human fallibility and the darker side of human nature, and I know that people will act in these ways when put in these situations.
Still nothing more than ad hom and irrelevant analogy, so this really isn't worth my time.
Thought you might have something better to say than that.
Just FYI, I have more than a half dozen friends over there. I'm helping pull the duty that two of them left behind to go over there and serve. So why don't you just STFU.
"Armchair". Fuck You. Tell me something - if this website of yours is so important, why don't you link to it in your slashdot persona? Scared you might get slashdotted?
That's the end of this.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
It sounds like the Pentagon would "rather they didn't post it," but that's as far as it goes. They have people watching it, but they'd be fools not to watch what people are saying about their activities.
What, exactly, is the problem that you're talking about? Have I misunderstood you?
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
In theory, military members have the same rights as all U.S. citizens. In reality, they willingly limit those rights, because everything is subordinate to the military mission. You can't, for example, use your free speech to call the President an idiot, advocate overthrow of the government, advocate an illegal act, or divulge information that would be harmful to OPSEC. So OPSEC is a valid reason to monitor these videos. Also, the military is keen to protect its squeaky-clean image, and so they can't have joyous rock-videos of wanton carnage getting passed around. The generals want their organization to have a professional, dignifiied image, and many members would undermine that immediately if given free reign of self-expression. The generals know that the military's image is central to the public's support of a $.45 trillion military budget and support for war, so they consider that image to be a military asset that should be defended like any other valuable resource.
The Iraq War has not affected the lives of the majority of Americans.
Personally, I find such a situation to be gross and atrocious. If we demand that a minority (i.e., the soldiers) of Americans sacrifice their lives for a war, then the rest of America should endure, at a minimum, the sacrifice of paying extra taxes to finance the war. How can I, as an American, support sending another American to die in a foreign land yet refuse to make any sacrifice for the war?
Since the Iraq War has not affected the lives of the majority of Americans, we Americans unconsciously view the war as a sort of remote thing that is happening "over there". The war becomes even more remote when we do not see the upfront carnage of the war. People in Iraq are bleeding and dying on the streets. Islamic thugs are blowing up the bodies of both Iraqi civilians and British soldiers. Yet, we see none of this carnage. It is out of sight and out of mind for most Americans as we stuff ourselves with hot dogs at the baseball stadium. Life is good, and we do not experience the suffering "over there".
I firmly agree with exposing the public to as much of the war as possible. I encourage American soldiers to upload as much of the videos of carnage (to YouTube and the like) as possible. We need to, at least, see the suffering to understand what war is.
I applaud the "News Hour" for broadcasting all the names and faces of the fallen American soldiers as their names are released by the Pentagon. I also applaud Ted Koppel for devoting an entire episode of "Nightline" in 2004 to reading the names of the soldiers who had died in both Iraq and Afghanistan. They must not die in obscurity.
By the way, the prime political supporters of the Iraq War have tried to generate American "support" for the war by sanitizing it -- removing any sacrifice (i.e., delaying paying the cost of the war to future generations) and trying to stop reporters, like Ted Koppel, from broadcasting the names of the fallen soldiers. "Support" generated by such manipulative means does not equate to actual support for the war. If we Americans were forced to pay the actual cost of the war (through higher taxes) and were forced to know the daily carnage in Iraq, then this "support" might evaporate. I daresay that even most neo-conservatives would oppose this Iraq if they were forced to pay for it (through higher taxes).
If the majority of Americans refuse to genuinely support a war (by paying for the cost of the war and by facing squarely the carnage caused by the war), then we should never send our soldiers to die in that war. I believe that most Americans do not genuinely support the Iraq War.
Slashdot needs a "Well, duh!" category.
If you had any respect for your friends over there, you wouldn't be making the comments you have. I deal with active and retired military people all day long. I've learned that when it comes to OPSEC and PERSEC, you ALWAYS err on the side of caution because their lives are on the line. Since you're interested, here's the email I received. He seems to like me and my site more than you. As for me not posting my site URL, that's slashdot 101.
Recently one of my soldiers put a *deleted* video on your website. Specialist *deleted* is his name. He neglected to comply with
Operational Security standards set fourth by his chain of command and the Geneva Convention laws of war. He is in severe trouble,
and our *deleted* soldiers are in grave danger if your website does not remove that video. I know this website is very
responsible and a patriotic link to the war, but I must beg you to remove the *deleted* video or lives are risked when the
wrong people learn how we do things. Please help me with this.
Thank you
SSG *deleted*
There isn't anything terribly new or sinister sounding about this. They always have, and always will, monitor media coming out of war zones. Soldiers and contractors are informed of this going in, and consent to far more intrusive things. They always have, they always will.
I believe one of the videos you are talking about is this one:n g_AC130_Gunship.html
http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/2218/US_bombi
As you can see they do NOT cheer and have fun with their job, the guy who keeps shouting loudly is the gunner, he is saying "gun ready!", he says it loud and quick so he does not take up radio time and otherwise interfere with the communication onboard the plane.
And what do you know... I guess the butterfly effect really is real.
PS: I'm the one who reported these videos to the FBI.
Yes, I'm serious.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
I can assure you that after witnessing the "aftermath" of alcohol + firecrackers, my friends son will NEVER be tempted to drink and light a firecracker in his mouth.
Maybe if more people saw what happens when you do stupid shit, there'd be a bit more common sense in this world.
Its better that we see these videos now, than 30 years from now when its too late. Heck yes there will be a backlash.
2 143/news_video/fallujah_ING512K.mov
E xcerpts.html
I don't know about you, but those napalm bombs being dropped on civilian houses in Vietnam ARE civilian houses... heck, that countryside and houses look just like rural Georgia to me...
http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr
From ThirdWorldTraveler.com
http://thirdworldtraveler.com/Book_Excerpts/Book_
The US military has no business in IRAQ. None whatsoever. None in Afganistan. The military's purpose is to defend the country, not wage wars overseas in far away places that have absolutely nothing to do with the defense of this country. I'm sorry, but most Americans DO NOT support the military. Just look at all those cars out there on the road WITHOUT ribbons on them and WITHOUT American flags.
No, I don't need you to protect me. I don't need the government to protect me and I did not ask the government to protect me. I can protect myself. In fact, when you get down to it, the only person that is going to protect you is you yourself (and its going to be from your own government, not a foreign power, that you need protection. Who do you turn to then?)
We killed all our gods a long, long time ago, and all our heroes labor in obscurity.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
There's a badass four-hands four-feet organ duet version of that... :-)
My name is ad hominem, and I'd like to welcome you to the club. Here's your freakin' membership card.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
look, "warrior", YOU invaded THEIR nation based on LIES. They are not "insurgents". You are the invader, they fight back against much higher tech and bad odds. YOU are the "bad guys" in this situation.
And if you can't understand this, you are also a moron. Want a badguy to go depose? How about Mugabe, 1,000 times worse than saddam, not only an evil dude, but can't even keep an economy going? Oh, he doesn't have any oil for the neocons? Or no central location in the middle of all the other oil? You really think oil doesn't have anything to do with this? You dig on mass theft along with murder?
Get real. Very few people "support" you now. The numbers drop daily. Pretty soon you'll be down below single digit support-it's already lower than during the waning days of the nam war. this is a clue, get it? Because the facts are fact, it's a stupid war based on lies told by professional liars out for mega profits and support for some weird ass armageddon end times prophecy crp. these people who are giving you orders are LOONS and liars.. You got in, took out saddam,swell, now go home, if yuou can. Let them folks sort their own crap out, they don't need your high speed screaming death "help". If they choose to destroy their own nation, so be it, it's THEIR nation, not yours. If they need to split up into three distinct countries, again, so be it. None of your damn business, none whatsoever, and never was. Not a single iraqi was involved in 9-11, even though most of you brainwashed tards seem to think so..
How would you feel if some coalition decided to move into the US and start wasting people that they called "insurgents" because they dared to resist the invasion? What would you do?
So you'd rather the soldiers miss the people they're actually shooting at, and hit random shit (like, say, other people) nearby? I, for one, am glad you're not working there anymore.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Also, what we have here is the Pentagon faced with the uncontrollable media such as blogs and the Internet. Traditionally someone always controls the media (it could be just the media bosses themselves or the government) at no time in the past could a regular Joe broadcast his videos, ideas or other work to anyone in the world. That has changed and the government doesn't know how to deal with it (kidnapping everyone and putting them on an air-CIA flight to Romania might not work as well).
Yeah, I think about the fact that these videos are probably being monitored when I see videos of idiot soldiers playing gags that cost the military money, or potentially lives. For example, the leg brake video that is up there on video.google.com. If I were the pentagon, I would be trying to determine who those people are and punish them for thier crime against the military. (AWOL / Abandonment). Or the video with soldiers fishing in Afghanistan using bazookas to hit the water at point blank range. Not smart, and if I were their commander and knew about that, I would have them doing KP duty for a while. They could get killed. Then what kind of a PR nightmare would the military have? Yeah, monitor the videos and take the ones which are stupid and find out who makes them. Then reprimand them before they become darwin award canidates.
It's quite clear that it is a machine that creates terror. Compare a sadness machine, which is a robot that nurses a broken egg telling it that one day it will be a chicken and they will play in the field together. I don't want to know what the terrorist machine does!
would like to table the motion to change our national anthem to "America : Fuck Yeah!".
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
They aren't just passing out grenades to any glassy-eyed wacko who walks through the door. DAMN IT!!! i wanted my grenade T.T
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Here is the AC-130 gun camera:= 2
http://www.militaryvideos.net/videos.php?videonum
(the people screwing are in video #7)
If anything, the crew was being too careful around
the suspected mosque. Well, given what people like
to hide inside "mosques", the resulting explosion
might take out the whole area.
The site says "Viewer discretion is advised." and
you ignored it. Your stomach is very weak.
People kill each other all the time, usually with
far less justification. Get over it.
Besides, these assholes wanted to go directly to
heaven so that Allah would give them 50 virgins.
(sadly, I'm not joking about the virgins)
As for the screwing... you can possibly be as
innocent as you pretend to be. I'd sure tape them,
and it'd be funny as Hell if somebody taped me.
It's not as if the people are identifiable.
Basically, you wanted an excuse to hate the
soldiers. You were looking to confirm your
hate for them.
N/T.
Yep, I've seen a video with some self righteous fucker who wants to shoot kids throwing rocks at his vehicle. Videos with some corn-fed rednecks hooting and hollering as they crush an Iraqi's car because he was "looting". Videos with snipers playing war like a video game and yucking it up as they kill people.
I'd say the real problem here is a PR problem. The basic rule of the neo-con faith is that America is morally right in it's use of power, these videos show American soldiers and power in an unfavorable light.
I wonder what Jack Thompson would say about that?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Yes there is and it covers exactly this. I was an officer in Iraq last year and I recall reading a memo to all of my soldiers regarding posting/emailing/blogging anything of this nature. It was theatre-wide and I believe it was Pentagon directed (could be wrong on that). I don't remember it exactly, but it covered pictures/videos of US or enemy casualties, US vehicles, bases or anything to reveal techniques and procedures. I'll try and dig it up.
Troops may behave illegally and immorally sometimes, maybe a lot, maybe a little, I don't know. It is important, but a distraction from the main point: We shouldn't even be in Iraq.
Bottom line on the troops is: If you're in the volunteer US military you deserve enormous credit for being willing to put your ass on the line to defend your country. Incidents of misconduct need to be handled case by case.
But don't forget that all of the ruined lives, the deaths and brutal maimings, and families destroyed, both American and Iraqi civilian, SHOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED.
To this day Bush still claims that we're fighting in Iraq so we don't have to fight the war at home. I hope you understand Bush's claim is complete bullshit. Think about just how disgusting and evil that line of thinking is. According to Bush, we went into Iraq with insufficient troop strength for securing peace ON PURPOSE. He wanted a destabilized country in the middle east explicity so terrorists could stream in so we can engage them there. They weren't there before: just Zarqawi seeking medical treatment in Baghdad, and Bush claims Saddam was going to slip (nonexistent) WMD in his pockets while he was there.
So Bush purposely put American troops at a disadvanage, where they get continually picked off month after month, and accidently kill enormous numbers of civilians along with the terrorists who intentionally kill civilians. Bush and Cheney created this hell for reasons that are unbelievably immoral and ILLEGAL.
The other angles on this are that Cheney went from CEO of a private company to VP where he actively pushed this illegal war in order to massively enrich his company. It is conflict of interest, blatantly illegal.
But as commander-in-chief, Bush has exhibited criminally negligent and reckless behavior that has resulted in thousands of deaths. He needs to be arrested, probably by the citizens of the United States, and tried. In my opinion, justice would be served if Bush and Cheney spent the rest of their lives in prison.
Really? Do you happen to know where to obtain a recording of such?
I sing the doggie electric!
People came running out? It sounds like you got a second-rate bomb. Dud?
It was a pretty big one, actually. We couldn't believe it--I thought it would be leveled.
Their construction methods are surprisingly sturdy, considering the materials they have to work with. There is very little wood here, for example--the compound walls are some type of mud which seems to hold up really well against shrapnel and concussion.
The file is called OH-58D-JRTC-Fun.avi, with "OH-58D" meaning a Kiowa Warrior. It has a spherical (not disk-like) thing up top with "a gyro-stabilized platform containing a TeleVision System (TVS), a Thermal Imaging System (TIS), and a Laser Range Finder/Designator (LFRD)" according to Wikipedia. There is no gun, but a pair of missles can be carried.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OH-58D
Are you fucking kidding me ?
The Marines own recruitment commercial plays God Smack for cryin out loud !
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
I think you're incredibly naive. The militant groups are putting those violent videos out on the Internet as recruiting tools. They're saying "Hey, this is what we do every day! Wanna come murder some people with us?" And judging by the response, quite a few people want to do just that.
/ etc., they might not even be regarded as fully human. The idea that 'killing is always wrong,' and 'all life is sacred' is not a universal premise; or it's a universal premise only when you factor in various definitions of 'life' or 'killing,' which wouldn't be universal.
The fact that such a video has been produced in the first place, and circulated, ought to be a wake-up call to people like you, because there are a whole lot of people who see something like that -- see videos of someone beheading someone else, or blowing someone else's brains out -- and don't say "Dear God, that's horrible!" but instead "Wow, I wish I could do that!"
Not everyone looks at violence and killing and reacts with distaste; quite frankly, I think that reaction is one that's only become accepted as the norm rather recently, in some major (mostly Western) cultures. In fact, in quite a lot of places in the world, they probably wouldn't even understand the 'moral high ground' you're standing on -- because to them, it's not murder if the person getting killed is a Sunni/Shiite/Jew/Muslim/Nigger/Pashto/untermensch
Human life, particularly human life if it belongs to somebody who's not in your ethnic/cultural/religious/tribal group, is very, very cheap, in many parts of the world. People aren't going to stop killing just because you show it to them on TV, and in some cases they might be more attracted than repulsed. I think human nature may be a little uglier in reality than you're imagining it is.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
I think you're probably right, and as other posters have pointed out soldiers in the front line often also use black humour to keep themselves sane... but a thought came to my mind - how would you feel if a DVD/ video clip came to light made by Iraqi insurgents which had some sort of funky triumphal music played to shots of US soldiers getting blown up and gunned down, and images of US bodies?
Would you be happy with that and accept it as a fair outlet for the insurgents need to help explain to people what they saw?
I think posting videos on the public internet, particularly when the author has spent some time editing on a sound track, is a different kind of phenomenon than taking a few snaps and keeping them in your pocket (mind you, what would the media response be if the army captured insurgents with images of charred US soldiers' bodies in their pockets?)
I completely agree that showing America the realities of its war is legitimate, and perhaps even an obligation.
Personally, I find such a situation to be gross and atrocious. If we demand that a minority (i.e., the soldiers) of Americans sacrifice their lives for a war, ...
I agree that it is gross and atrocious, but the "we" you speak of (which is making demands of the minority) is rather nebulous. I certainly do not support at least the method of our war, and even the basic premise is repeatly questioned across our country.
Another reply to your message points out that our soldiers volunteered to join the minority in question... and given that this war has been looming off and on for over a decade, I don't think you can say none of them knew what they were getting into.
Our country isn't supporting this war specifically because our leadership knows that if it asked us for that support we would refuse it. So, as you said, they are covertly burdening future generations instead. I know it would go against the concept of democracy, but it sure would make me feel better if there were some way for that 51% to pay for the war while the other 49% don't. Maybe the bill could be divided along the red/blue state lines? :)
(And no I'm not some "bleeding heart"... I actually voted for Bush the first time, but then I saw him in action and voted against him the second time.)
Punished for speaking the facts.
Slashdot every day proves the saying that the only great Americans are Israelis.
Here's a link showing how Israel is "destroying the enemy", as a response to the kidnapping of a couple of Israeli soldiers.
I have friends in Lebanon, and I hope you die a slow, virulent death.
You are seeing the truth, but you're still in the CNN-type mode of thought that puts Israel (and it's well-groomed politicians in expensive suits) on "moral highground", making their actions mere responses to those terrible terrorists. This is pure nonsense.
The ratio of civilians killed intentionally by Israel to those by Hizbulla is not even funny (even though I'm not a hizbulla fan). And Israel's history as a continuous violator of Human rights is so well-known it has made anti-Israel rhetoric obsolete. Also, the zionist notion that the "life of one Jew is worth that of a thousand Arabs" was official government stance all through the days of Golda Maeir, and is acted upon today very strictly.
I came upon this today, almost by accident. The sexual harassment part is particularly interesting, and the woman doesn't sound like she's making it up.
No, don't be careful. Upload whatever you want. Show us what you think and feel, and show us what you are doing. It's probably the only way we'll find out, because the Pentagon sure as hell isn't helping.
As of mid 2005 there is a specific policy as to what troops can post, and the policy goes as far as specifically stating that troops cannot even be in possession of photographs of any dead or wounded allies, civilians, or enemies, and cannot recount after action events in which troops were hurt. OPSEC is one thing, but that policy wasn't for security, but media control. Sorry no link for this, I did Iraq 2003 & 2005 (OIF I & III) and am just personally familiar.
YouStockIt - Education through Unorthodox Methods
While I don't doubt that my government has sinister motives when they monitor sites like Youtube, they'd be stupid if they didn't try to find out about the next Abu Ghraib pictures as soon as possible so they can try to deal with it before the feces hits the rotary oscillator.
-Rich
It's a common coping mechanism for people who deal with things in their lives that most people don't even consider for the most part. It's not just the military that has it - so do police officers, firefighters, EMTs...
And without it you'd see a lot more people going nuts. This is one of the little things that keeps people sane.
You won't get a chance, you dingaling, he's in his second term and will retire in two and a half years.
but part of me fears there will be a day when he will just decide not to leave office, and turn the military on those who oppose and then force us to finance him.
Spare me the drama. This isn't a banana republic. I'm still quite pleased with George Bush, even though he's too liberal for my taste, but if he were so foolish as to try to stay in office after January 2009 I'd be right beside you on the barricades. And I'd bring enough guns to go around, too.
-ccm
Too much Law; not enough Order.
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
urg. I think it was some cheesy title like "Best Ever Organ Classics." I'll try to dig it up. Otherwise, come halloween, you can hear a live performance of it at almost any AGO Halloween concert. email me if you're actually interested, and I'll look and see if there's one in your area. Several colleges have them.