I'm just going to take the video Collateral Murder as my stand point.
A video of an Apache helicopter circling an area of New Bagdad, where reports of a firefight had broken out. When the Apache arrived at the scene, there was no firefight, but still they saw a small group of people on the ground. They held what looked like AK-47 rifles, when it was really a camera.
The people on the ground were civilians and two journalists. You can say one of them held some sort of AK-47, but it could've been anything. A tripod for the camera, a stick, or indeed a weapon. So the helicopter requested permission to open fire, which was granted. One of the cameramen bent down with his camera. It looked like an RPG and the crew panicked.
But wait a minute. They requested permission to fire BEFORE they saw the potential RPG threat.
Yeah, think about it.
Even though some of them lacked visual proof of firearms, they still fired upon them with a hail of 30mm cannon rounds. Everyone was killed except one man who was brutally wounded.
"Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards," says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies littering the street.
They circle around him, waiting for him to pick up a "potential weapon".
They say things like "Pick it up, buddy!" "Come on, do it!", because if he picks it up, they will be able to fire due to the Rules of Engagement.
A minute or so later, a van pulls up and a bunch of civilians see what has happened. Corpses lay scattered while one man, the heavily wounded, lie on the pavement. The gunner begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: "Come on, let us shoot!"
Headquarters responds and they open fire.
There were two children in the van, both wounded, but they survive.
If you listen to the dialogue, it sounds as if they're in a video game, racking up a kill count while the adrenaline rushes through their blood.
It was unknown if they found any weapons. The public report said nothing of their "potential firearms", so they might have been COMPLETELY unarmed.
The military covered it up and the video never saw the light of day. Until a respected soldier gave it to Wikileaks.
The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.
"There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.
The people in the video aren't regarded upon as people. Just targets ready to be filled with lead.
The worst part is, the soldiers were never confronted with this. Obviously this video has been seen by the military, since they hid it away, but yet nothing was done. Not even a discharge from the army.
What the FUCK?
The fun part is, the report had the balls to claim that the two journalists were killed in a clash between the U.S military and the Coalition Militia. Even though you can clearly see them being gunned down BY the U.S.
And another extended part of the video is also interesting.
In a building not far from there, a man with a firearm is spotted. Even though you can clearly see civilians WALKING BY AND INTO THE BUILDING, they fire two Hellfire missiles at it, killing a reported 6. Neighbouring witnesses claim there were at least 9 to 12 people in the building.
In fact, check the timeline at
http://collateralmurder.com/en/timeline.html it's almost sickening.
July 16th, 2007 Reuters seeks U.S. probe into the killings of their staff. "Our preliminary investigation raises real questions about whether there was fighting at the time the two men were killed," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of Reuters. Specifically, Reuters wanted an explanation of why the two cameras were confiscated, access to any cameras onboard the Apache helicopters that were involved in the incident, access to any voice communications between the helicopter crews and U.S. ground forces and access to reports from the unit involved in the incident, in particular a log of any weapons taken from the scene.
They confiscated their cameras and the onboard helicopter video.