It is on thing to be overzealous in defence of your body when you are taking an evening stroll only to be confronted by a mugger, eg due to excessive fear. It is another thing to do so when you are the mugger.
If a burglar kills a house occupant it is always murder regardless of any other circumstances. No matter how stressful or frightening an experience it was for him to break and enter and how on edge he was.
“Trigger happy” is an understatement.
So that’s it. There’s no need to apologize for the state, and to appeal to meaningless “rules of engagement.” The soldiers who fight illegitimate wars declared by politicians are also liable and should be condemned.
Does this not sound like a “wrong place, wrong time” argument?
How is this, in anyway, a straw man? I’m (a) restating what we saw on the video, and (b) asking you for clarification. Where’s the straw man?
So, if you’ve held and seen a rifle, and knowing the amount of training combat personnel of the armed forces get to distinguish between IP, armed civilians and insurgents, and then taking into consideration the high resolution those gunner sights get - not the resolution you see through the coax camera - then you must realize that there’s very little way that that camera on the shoulder could have been mistaken for an AK-47.
See the comment above, and the one I’ve been reiterating throughout this entire thread.
I wonder how effective an RPG round is without a launching tube. [/sarcasm] These are probably the same military personnel who reported that there was a firefight before this happened, which is the official story the U.S. military gave to the press.
No, many of these snipers are using home made rifles. Learning how to fire a rifle and how to tactically place yourself for shooting is not something you have to go to a two month school for; long distance shooters are made from experience, which Iraqis have plenty of. The same is true of any other type of insurgent in Iraq.
But yet, most of them are.
Actually, the way I got to know them was through articles written by army personnel on the threat that they pose to soldiers on the ground, not their videos. They are a real threat, which is a major reason why the Marines opted for a new type of body armor which added a plate on the side of the torso.
I am not talking about IEDs, I am talking about full fledge ambushes. One E-8 I got to know was put at the head of a convoy escorting two buses of IP. His convoy was ambushed by insurgents with RPGs and automatic weapons - both IP buses went up in flames. Iraqi insurgents are not professionally trained, but they are not idiots - they don’t stand in large groups, mulling around.
I would not fire on two unarmed civilians carrying a wounded man away from the side of a street. Even if I did, my actions would not be justifiable.
To start off on some personal info and bias: I am mostly “Arabic” (60%), I HATE when people wish to demonize or sympathize with something for political reasons and throw up any form of hatred, empathy or sympathy that is most likely fake, I hate “armchair” empathy more than most things, I owned and operated a bar in a semi-difficult part of town, I AM NOT trained in combat nor can I speak or empathize for combat veterens or civilians who have suffered major war casualties or have been in a major war zone.
Due to the fact of me working in a bad part of town I have some fairly “intense” (and perhaps life threatinig to me) experiences. After a couple initial schock experiences (which were probably handled incorrectly by me) it was ALWAYS in the back of my head to calculate and reason before acting too hastily, there were far too many things for me to be responsible for to be “gung ho” about a" shooting first and asking questions later" philosophy. There were many situatons in which I thought a deadly weapon may have been present, but I did not act upon instinct and immediate action, I could not afford to; and for a rule of thumb that seemed like the more rewarding way to act in the environment that I was used to
I was not, nor have I ever been in a war zone. It could be 100% different, and it may be 100% more intense than anytthing that I have experienced. However, in my business I was responsible for the violence that broke out in my establishment , and I felt it more prudent to hold back on action; it may be apples to oranges, but that is my 2 cents for the moment.
To emphasize: I do think it is possible that calling soldiers murderers reeks of political or “theoretical” motivations, as I think “mourning” the death of a civilian may be the same thing as well. To me it seems as if it could be a form of madness. I also think it is far better to have a gut reaction against war than pro war.
“Toward the end, we were so mad and tired and frustrated,” Freeman said. “You came too close, we lit you up. You didn’t stop, we ran your car over with the Bradley.”
If soldiers were hit by an IED, they would aim machine guns and grenade launchers in every direction, Marquez said, and “just light the whole area up. If anyone was around, that was their fault. We smoked ’em.”
Other soldiers said they shot random cars, killing civilians.
“It was just a free-for-all,” said Marcus Mifflin, 21, a friend of Eastridge who was medically discharged with PTSD after the tour. “You didn’t get blamed unless someone could be absolutely sure you did something wrong. And that was hard. So things happened. Taxi drivers got shot for no reason. Guys got kidnapped and taken to the bridge and interrogated and dropped off.”
http://www.gazette.com/articles/iframe-59065-eastridge-audio.html
Whoever is defending these soldiers has bad eyes or is a military apologist. The camera peeking around the corner looked like a camera to me, and certainly nothing looked like it fired out. After that, the photographer is showing his picture to the group, then right before the shots hit, you can see him sling his camera back on his shoulder. IIRC, at one point they say, “You need to take photographs.”, and the center rectangle is zoomed into. Maybe they should be doing this before they fire at people.
Anymore I’m beginning to actually lean toward the idea that technology in the term of augmented reality and videogames is spawning a generation of people that edge-case sociopaths in which they don’t see or feel the people whom they are engaging on the battlefield. Of course, this is bad for a general to have a soldier that could be hesistant, but the reality is that a soldier who is eager to kill is worse as you can’t pull him back if he should disregard a halt to any hostilities (or retaliation to hostilities). Thus, such a soldier is a rabid animal waiting to bite regardless of circumstance. As much as this conclusion pains me as I love videogames (particularly novel ones like Spore, The Sims, and other similar games (and MMOs)), I don’t think it can be argued anymore. Yet, I don’t think government regulation in this area is the best answer either. I can’t be sure if the soldiers who did this horrible act are videogamers themselves, but I can at least take a guess that it’s likely. I just hope that future generations don’t become totally sociopathic.
Thanks for moving it here, I didn’t see it on the forum listings. X_X
ladyattis,
This has nothing to do with videogames. The Germans and the Russians killed millions and they didn’t play any videogames. The disregard for life is something much deeper and trying to correlate it with the type of weaponry mistakes that.
The people who are allowing these killings are the millions upon millions of ordinary citizens who believe in violence as a solution and not as the problem. The killings you see in this video are a statement about the culture, NOT a statement about technology and certainly not a statement about home entertainment.
Watch the Penn & Teller on this issue. You’ll find it hard to find a single psychopath who uses games as an outlet or inspiration.
Did they declare war?
To be honest, this was one of the few times I would give the benefit of the doubt to the helicopter gunner. The angle he was looking at the zoom lens form, that could have easily been a tube-fired weapon, because he couldn’t really see any depth to it beyond corner of the building. But, he didn’t fire right away and instead waited for permission, where the helicopter rotated and I think could have more easily seen that those people were not there to set up an ambush on the inbound convoy.
Thank you.
Its going to be interesting when video games get more advanced. Right now I think there’s a large bias towards violence as a means of entertainment because it is easy to program. You shoot a dude, he dies. Non-violent interaction with NPCs requires pretty advanced AI.
Good point. Thanks.
But videogames in the same manner as books and plays of the day glorify violence, especially warfare.
I know the episode in question, it’s a good one, but I disagree that videogames don’t do anything to the subjects. It’s a fact that not only is memory and motor coordination improved by video games (especially platformers), there is some improvement in reaction times as well (possibly not due to mere training of motor nerves). It doesn’t mean that an FPS in one instance will make one a killer, but it does mean you’re more off the chain when it comes to reacting to situations than you would have otherwise been. That’s the implication that I draw from the situation. If you disagree, fine, but you have to show me a study where reactions of players is SLOWER and/or hesistant when it comes to gameplay if you want me to even consider videogames having no influence on players in this area of concern.
Edit: Here’s a link to an article summarizing a meta-analytic study done on the subject.
I’ve played so much Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare 2 the past six months, that once, while in Los Angeles, I slipped and fell to the ground. My immediate reaction was to look up and to my sides to see who was around me; this is completely a reaction I learned from playing CoD:MW2. Anyway, I would say that my cultural upbringing has more influence on my decision to not commit the initiation of violence than even being a libertarian.
I don’t understand what you’re trying to do here? That because worse things happen in the world ,Andrew Cain, is wrong for feeling any emotion? Or are you implying that he lives a sheltered life for having empathy for fellow humans who were killed in a cold-blooded fashion?
Sorry buddy, but you sound like the Tin Man with no heart. There’s nothing wrong with anyone shedding tears for senseless death- even if there are worse situations out there.
I mean geez, if I see a little girl get gunned down and someone cries over it, I’m not gonna say “Sorry buddy, but over in indonesia I saw 3 little girls and their puppy get gunned down- maybe you should go introduce yourself to the real world”.
The genocide in Iraq is not because of videogames. The genocide in Iraq is not because teenagers have a slightly raised reaction speed.
The genocides in Europe during WWII were also not because as children they played in the street and therefore had a slightly raised reaction speed in their arms and legs.
The reason people becomes psychopaths is because of years and years of abuse.
Clearly you didn’t read my other post where I pointed out that the same games also glorify violence and warfare especially. Way to go with ignoring that post. 
I would say that’s only half right. The wrong part is that you assume the culture you exist in today is libertarian or classical liberal leaning. I would say it’s not so much culture in a singe coherent whole that has helped you get informed, but rather the subcultures that are tolerated in parallel to the current Statist narrative that were influencers on your choice. Anyways, my point is that the games themselves are part of the main Statist narrative of the use of force as acceptable and ‘awesome.’ So, I can’t say that these games aren’t a sore point of desensitization nor culturalization to the acceptance of violence.
Part of my cultural upbringing, which is not to say that everyone else had the same cultural upbringing, was “don’t steal.” Libertarianism didn’t change my stance as to whether I should steal or not. It simply convinced me that it was illegal (independently of statist laws.)