US tank troops kill journalist

[ordos45]

I dunno, the building was basically destroyed...and the UN didn't have Peacekeepers in Iraq so it was basically defenseless?

[Acriku]

Well I wouldn't say that, but I saw footage from inside the building from the explosion to the aftermath and it shook it up pretty good.

[Egeides]

Egeides, the journalist this thread is referring to was white and western. And did it occur to you that there are probably more Arab journalists in Iraq than western journalists? Iraq is an Arab country after all...

Common sense is a virtue (but not all that common).

"Israeli soldiers on several occasions, mostly with rubber bullets, and being beaten up"

Beaten up. You make the difference in these cases for sure.

"On my last shoot with him, he was by that time only shooting from within buildings because it was too dangerous on the street to film."

Here, we see the Western guy is not talking about how it is dangerous to HIM, but only for the Palestinian cameramen.

The sentence you may point out about how he looked Western, well... here's what follows, bringing some doubts, enough doubts for me to DOUBT:

"Other than maybe there was somebody there who wanted to ... I don't know, it's hard to know."

So by my reading, the distinction looks blury and nothing looks really sure. So I believe it is blury enough to permit myself to ask the question.

Thanks for your advice about common sense, but I believe it was meant as a try to insult to frankly just say nothing instead. I do not insult you, I just argue. Please do same ACE >:(

[Gobalopper]

Egeides you make it sound so simple. Guess what. Iraq is a war zone, people fire RPG's and other deadly weapons at US troops every day. Soldiers only have a few seconds to respond to what could very well be a threat that could kill them. I don't know about you but if I was a soldier patrolling a place where just a few day before there had been a mortar attack I would be on edge too. Read this and this.

[zamboe]

Egeides you make it sound so simple. Guess what. Iraq is a war zone, people fire RPG's and other deadly weapons at US troops every day. Soldiers only have a few seconds to respond to what could very well be a threat that could kill them. I don't know about you but if I was a soldier patrolling a place where just a few day before there had been a mortar attack I would be on edge too. Read this and this.

I understand your approach trying to justify the killing of inocent civilians, however I don't agree with that.

At this point more iraqi civilians have been killed than iraq soldiers since the war begun, and you know who's flag under where those people who killed inocent civilians.

[Navaros]

zamboe,

stop spamming this site and trying to glorify yourself by breaking the rules and making standalone threads that you know belong in the "Iraq Issues" thread instead just to have your name slapped up on the board ::) as if your constant spam in the Iraq Issues thread wasn't bad enough

[Dude_Doc]

Iraq are sounding more and more like Vietnam to me, the only difference is that there is no North Vietnam, and that it is inside a town instead of a jungle.

[SurlyPIG]

Egeides, your assertion is absolutely absurd. How the hell could they have known he was Palestinian? Look at him. Look at his pictures. He's whiter than the guy in your avatar. You and that Salon idiot claim he was killed because he's Palestinian, but how the hell are soldiers supposed to know that when they look through the completely GREEN computer scope of their tank barrel. Do you think they got out of their tank, walked up to him, checked his passport, and upon discovering that his origin, only THEN decide to fire at him?? Give me a break.

Of course I should have expected this kind of jink in an an anti-American thread like this. Still can't believe the bombing of the UN building is passed over for this...

[zamboe]

I don't see why this is topic-worthy. I feel badly for his family and co-workers of course but I'm surprised this was given it's own topic, ...shouldn't it be in the Iraq Issues thread?

Same remark that the number one ducker just made.

However coming from acelethal I should provide an answer.

Ace,

Why you critize something that you have made in the past weeks, have you forgotten the thread "Saddam's toll-160 ppp" that you started ?, that should have been in the Iraq issues as well....your remark look more like intolerance to me.

btw, you can always make a thread about any other issue that involves Iraq or UN, I don't see anything wrong with that.

[SurlyPIG]

You're comparing the accidental death of one person in one day to the intentional slaughter of 160 people every day for 25 years?

And just what "intolerance" are you referring to?

[zamboe]

You're comparing the accidental death of one person in one day to the intentional slaughter of 160 people every day for 25 years?

And just what "intolerance" are you referring to?

"accidental death" that's an interest way to put it, a killing of an innocent civiling by a soldier in a war zone cannot be accidental,imho. I find curious that yor consider as a base that "all" coalition soldiers are unable to kill in a non accidental way, as it is in the real situation.

So in your view what number of deaths should be enought to start a separate topic ?

[Acriku]

It was accidental to kill an innocent journalist, as it was meant as a shot on the enemy.

[SurlyPIG]

Perhaps accidental was not the right word. Obviously, "my finger slipped" does not apply. If you're one of those people who believes there are no accidents, at least recognize that the cameraman's death was not intentional.

And no, the sheer volume of a trajedy is not the most important consideration. The political murder of even one person is very different from the unintentional, though no less trajic unintended/unmotivated death of one. And it was actually the political murder of about 1.4 MILLION, but whatever.

Also, the Iraq Issues thread started when there was a possibility of war, pertained almost exclusively to the war and related matters, whereas the topic I made dealth with things unrelated to the war on any official level, and pertained to things which had been occurring for a quarter of a century.

[zamboe]

Perhaps accidental was not the right word. Obviously, "my finger slipped" does not apply. If you're one of those people who believes there are no accidents, at least recognize that the cameraman's death was not intentional.

Do you "really" believe that it was not intentional ?

How come you have blind confidence and trust on a regular GDI ?, I find that really difficult to understand.

[Acriku]

zamboe, why would they intentionally kill a civilian? It was not intentional to kill a civilian, but it was intentional to kill a seemingly threatening target.

[SurlyPIG]

Zamboe why would a GI risk a court marshal and intentionally kill a civilian? There's no sense in that. The GI's explanation, though not agreeably justified, is understandable. A shoulder-mounted camera could just as easily be a shoulder-mounted RPG.

[Sardauker-Kirov]

Gee, so much for the US army 'great' reputation.

Even a Chinese soldier could keep friendly fire under control. ::)

But that is what America is a famous for, stop denying it, "shoot first, ask questions later"

Even if the civilians are holding a spoon, they get shot down by them.

Besides, they are entering a country which hates the Americans.

And by shooting down people without taking a good look is not the awnser in this unstable country.

[Acriku]

Why do your parents let you even on a computer?

[Sardauker-Kirov]

To show Capitalists and America propaganda worshippers like you, to their place. :P

[Dude_Doc]

Even a Chinese soldier could keep friendly fire under control.

LoL, how do you know that?

[Sardauker-Kirov]

It is not ment literally. ;)

It means that a American soldier plain sucks, with keeping their OWN casualties and civilian casualties to a minimum. ;D

[Big D]

typical :(

[Sneakgab]

Lol, you guys are looking at scale here. two US soldiers a day or some such number die in Iraq every day and it's turning into Vietnam? Civ casualties have been kept to a minimum, but their will always be ad-hominem attacks... During the war their were also such attacks, even though almost every single American bomb dropped did not hit any civilian targets (except for 1 or 2 that ended up in marketplaces...)

When some pregnant female terrorist in a car kills an American or two, we get posts about how stupid the Americans are,(Remember that post about some Americans being killed when they went in for a surrended from the Iraqis who basically just started firing again once the Americans were not in a good position?) but when an American kills a journalist who seemed to have an RPG, we hear about how trigger-happy they are and how they fire upon somebody as the slightest suspicion

Now, I haven' been keeping up to date with the news lately, but I'm sure their have been far more catastrophic events than the death of one journalist from American freindly fire. Yet, this is around the 2nd or third time I've seen a post about this.

I'm not American or Iraqi, and I'm not a capitalistic dog as Kirov might make me out to be, but to me it seems that people are nit-picking on certain events due to bias. If you're making a post about a certain event, attack the decisions leading to the event, not the country...

just IMO of course....

[SurlyPIG]

Word!

Totally agree with Sneak.

[Sneakgab]

Thanks