this post wasn't just directed at the US military. it was directed more towards the suffering brought by wars and unnecessary conflicts. I don't care if its an Islamic fundamentalist, a terrorist, or a soldier; if they are taking innocent lives, then thats just pathetic and sad...absolute monsters..even though they are the "I" as well, and can't be blamed for what they do in ignorance.



yes, in this case the US troops flying the plane. terrorists aren't much different either..perhaps slightly worse. they both kill because they believe "they are serving a cause." Blindness

Ice house, you know I have a lot of respect for you and know you're definitely no blind person, and I neither want to deny the value of whatever experiences you had in the army, but I must say I also feel that the whole weapons arms and conflicts issues should be abhorred in our society. I find it incredible how 1300 billions are spent yearly on military costs while only little above 2 billions on education. Wars have so many dirty reasons behind it. Why are the western armies in those countries in the first place? All sorts of human suffering are justified on reasons which shouldnt be accepted. USA fights the taliban but financed its growth. Western countries have all sorts of interest in financing this or that kind of regime in places and obviously all the arm deals.

You may say Im a dreamer but I say stop all wars and military spenditure right now and invest in education and sustainable development, whatever 'risk' any country has when doing this will be paid back a billion times over in the long run, I guarantee

I'm not going to comment on the videos because I didn't watch them... but I wanted to say just for the future, please please caption your video posts, I'm not hating on anyone because everyone seems to do it, and I wouldn't call it inconsiderate but there are some people (like myself) who find people getting killed on camera really disturbing and if I have the chance I opt out of watching those videos... luckily I was able to guess what the content would be in this case, but I think its just a sensible thing to do with respect to others, remember "this footage may contain content disturbing to viewers", etc... side note, I've seen enough of these kind of videos, all war is bullshit and we should be doing everything we can do to stop it. In today's day and age I think the whole concept of armies and killing each other over politics/tribalism is crude and old fashioned. Arguing about the past is pointless too, we've all got to move forward.

endlessness, I agree with you except, when it comes to 'risk'. The greatest risk to all the countries involved in war and countries ruled by dictators and tyrany is an educated populace. Afganistan doesnt want an educated populace, niether does Iran and Iraq. All three of those countries deny women the right to an education. They see education as a threat. Afganistan destroys schools faster than we can build them.

As for America? IMHO the very worse offender of them all. You hit the nail on the head endlessness hundreds of billions on defence and next to nothing on education. Many of the women and men in our armed forces are the victims of this policy. Many went into the military to get an education because it was the only way they can afford it, only to find themselves on the front lines fighting for a cause they dont believe in.

Sad....

I'm done with this topic

I agree with, Ice House.

Let go of the tragedies of war for just a minute. Put yourself into the boots of a soldier in the helicopter; he isn't there because he was drafted, he is there because he knows that currently, what you all have forgotten about in this discussion, in the now, there is war. There are gruesome deaths and massacres occurring all over the world. Forget that the United States is leading this appalling war of greed, and remember that there has been a war occurring in the middle east for hundreds, and hundreds of years. We are no different in our humanity because invisible walls separate our societies. Greed is the same throughout the world.

Humanity isn't ready for peace. For there to be world peace, we must first learn from our mistakes of hatred, violence, and suffering. This is the era of those mistakes.

Right now, there literally needs to be armies. We need things to get as bad as possible, for them to become better then ever.

It's a very, very slow learning process.

Costa Rica is a good example of life without an army.

Can only Americans have guns and weapons?

Actually governments often engineer hatred and violence, read Chomsky (Hegemony or survival for instance) you will learn that the western world is responsible for
most of the atrocities of this century. Let's take a few examples :

- The 1981 Israeli bombing of the Osirak nuclear reactor in the only non-religious state in the arab world (Irak) prompted Saddam's regime to take "solid decisions to go full speed with weaponization" (with the support of the usa, the uk and france by the way). Later investigations proved this reactor couldn't possibly be used for the production of nuclear weapons.

- The United States began recruiting, financing and arming Mujahideen fighters after a socialist government took power in Afghanistan (with crazy ideas like an atheist-state, women's
rights, land reform...), prompting the Soviets to go to war.

- When Vietnam invaded Cambodia to put an end to Khmer Rouge atrocities the US and the UK offered direct support to ousted Khmer Rouge, backed a Chinese invasion of Vietnam and
subjected the country to even harsher sanctions than before.

- The Nixon administration backed Pakistan when India invaded it to put an end to mass slaughter.

- When Indonesia invaded east timor and commited genocide (killing around half the population of east timor), the US went against UN resolution,
backed Indonesia and sold them weapons.

And, by the way "I didn't want to do it, I was only following orders" was the main defense of nazis during the nuremberg trial. Funny thing is, this line worked for the american soldiers who
massacred 500 civilians in My Lai, I guess war crime can only be pinned on the losers.

That is a valid point, justine. I can see how this is all quite possible, and I do agree with you that forms of government do support, if not directly and purposefully influence violence. Even as a business proposition.

This merely proves my point though. The governments we refer to are run by people whom are no less human then the rest of us; they just aren't the ones pulling the glass from children's eyes. But to think that even the highest in command, who are the furthest from battle have gone completely emotionally unaffected by what is happening is foolish.

On an assumption, I believe most people, if not the majority, join the military because it pays for their future education. Especially in a country which has an increasingly large record amount of debt, it's a job that is always hiring, and I imagine that most people view it as just a job. Though a dangerous, and obviously life threatening one.

I would love to see an up to date statistic on the percentage of soldiers in Iraq who actually shoot to kill. According to, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a former psychology professor and Army Ranger, in his book, "On Killing - The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society", in WWII only 15-20% of soldiers fired their weapons at enemies in view, even if their own lives were endangered.

Soldiers see the carnage first hand, politicians hear about it. But to think this gap between them prevents any current and all future political figures, or business men and women from learning that violence and greed isn't the answer is close minded.

Considering the fact that the people giving the orders are as human as the soldiers carrying them out, I can safely say that the former will go his or her entire life questioning themselves and their own humanity if the order turns into a complete massacre.

These things need to happen. We all need to learn from our mistakes, and we have to make those mistakes in the first place. Claiming a government is solely responsible for having influenced a majority of wars in the past century isn't out of the question, but it certainly sounds like a large amount of mistakes being made that future politicians will obviously learn from.

Government people are people too. Greed is an overwhelming and powerful emotion, but humans have a natural compassion for others as much as we do for cute furry animals with big eyes. Even soldiers fall in love.

I love Noam Chomsky. In fact, Chomsky and McKenna have been the 2 most influential people to me in the last decade.

I agree entirely. Taking lives from a video screen just makes war seem even sicker

I think they should regard the lives of the enemy with respect. I also think it's time to quit brushing everything soldiers do under the umbrella of war. What these soldiers did in that video was murder. They BEGGED command to let them engage.

I say soldiers fighting in Irag are in violation of the original US constitution which claims that the armed forces are for the defense of America. The soldiers in Irag are NOT defending America and I thing they should refuse to fight. It's their humanity they are sacrifising by choosing to kill others because of orders.

I don't cut soldiers the same slack that some do. They signed up for it, but that does not change the result of their actions one bit. Even though you get in serious trouble for not following an order it does NOT make it right to kill in all situations. I think it's wrong to kill unless your life is in direct danger. I think it's wrong for our armed forces to be on foreign soil killing others. Their are no America lives at danger in Irag

Furthermore I thing the chain of command is BS in war. If you pull the trigger you are responsible not the person that told you to. You don't go jumping off bridges because you are told too. I respect soldiers that are DEFENDING their nation. I do not respect soldiers fighting illegitimate wars on foreign soil. They have a choice. Yes there are consequences if they chose to not fight, but I'd rather live with those consequences then the consequences of aimless killing.

BTW I realize that sometimes war is necessary. I know humans are far from perfect and I really do respect soldiers, but not when they are doing what I saw in this video. The men in that video need to be tried in civilian court...In Iraq.


I do agree with you on one account. War is nasty. We need to quit fighting them, and we need to quit funding terrorist organizations...today's ruler is tomorrow's terrorist. Basically America needs to focus on fixing itself and get the hell out of the rest of the world. We need to bring our troops home and start figuring out how to survive post oil.

Sorry for the long rant.

This is why they prey on 18 year old kids to join the military they are more easily manipulated and older adults who have some wisdom under their belt. I joined the army when I was 18 as I was foolish enough to believe all the hype and glory. I wised up quickly and they came to learn that I was not a right fit for the army. I am glad for the experience but no son or daughter of mine will ever become the bloody pawn in some politicians quest for wealth and power.

I agree absolutely. America has a presence in approximately 130 countries, and it has no business in any of them. Our constitution does not give the "Commander in Chief" the power to be the policeman of the world and declare war whenever he sees fit. We have been so busy squandering our money on offensive military operations in the guise of 'defense' that I want to vomit.

I am proud of many of my fellow Americans but I have become completely disgusted by the pretense of American politicians to claim that they will 'defend the constitution of the United States' when sworn into their offices. Once they get there they are too busy trampling the constitution of the United States on a regular basis to notice that they are doing it.

Because the people pulling the strings of our marionette politicians have reduced education in this country to be a complete joke (diversity and other fluffy BS instead of basic math, history, reading, writing, and introductions to various sciences), much of the US citizenry is very easily manipulated into thinking that this is what America should be doing even though much of it is unconstitutional.

America needs to bring it military home for the most part and invest the money it spends on our unconstitutional engagements (wars undeclared by the congress) within the United States and quit pissing away its very ability to survive through this huge squandering of resources and talent.

Dag nabbit, here we have a multi-million drone equipped with a camera that has the picture quality worse than my 20 dollar camera-cellphone. You'd think that after spending all that moolah you'd get a bit better cameras on them, so you could tell a reporter from a insurgent.

And what's this talk about war? to my knowledge war means that two or more armies fight eachother, this is nothing more than a unjustified military act.

makes me sick to my stomach. and UN is a joke.

propogandist bullshit grow the fuck up people! dont you realize they want you to feel like this? if this is the most

fucked up thing youve seen then you need to live more buddy. go live in a third world country, sign up for the uso at

least. this is definitely not real, edited a shit ton. listen to the call signs they change at some point and dont

even talk to the chopper. perception is your reality and thats fine if you wanna watch this drab, but know whats

going on around you. Go to war and then say something... Point. This is ridiculous. even if this is real he was

following the rules of engagement. and i didnt see any kids in the back of that van. if seeing is enough to convince

you then where are the kids. Our governement does far worse things to people. This is not one of those things.

^^how do u explain this:


edit*
this is very nicely put:

I've met people in and from third world countries (really good friends too) who have more respect for human life then American's sitting behind their TV going "roohaa" everytime they watch Fox news. Fuck that shit. A large portion of America is extremely hypocritical.

How is showing video footage propaganda? I think your being a dick with your criticism of people who don't like excessive violence. Especially when that violence is perpetrated in their nations name.

This sounds like a youtube comment, and a poor one at that.

Endlessness

We have to dream of the possibilities otherwise they could never materialise, Beautifully said...


Much Peace and Sunshine

^^