Comments

1
Shouting "Treason!" is the first, last, and stupidest resort of the knee-jerk reactionary with something to hide.
2
You guys didn't mention the most interesting thing here: Google "Wikileaks insurance". They posted a 1.4 gb encrypted file, labeled simply "insurance" in response to the detainment and weekend threats.
3
If you're going to report on the video, at least give the whole story. It's embarrassing and disgusting regardless, but you don't need to give a slanted summary to make it more so.

Furthermore, not only is it not entirely germane to the matter at hand - which is another troubling display of abuse of power, but it's already been discussed to death and including it here comes off as milking it for shock value.
4
Who else but a "pro-life" Republican would scream for death ?!?
5
If you're going to complain about the way the video was reported without all of the information, at least give all of that missing information.

Idiot.
6
Information, like water, just wants to be free.
7
Also you forgot to mention that they confiscated (and did not return, as far as I am aware - I first read about this a while ago on slashdot) three cellphones he was carrying. The legality of the detainment itself is already questionable. Truly disturbing behavior on behalf of those people that are supposed to be protecting us and our freedoms.
8
@5: I would have thought people actually interested in it would have investigated and read about it themselves. Good job with the ad hominem, though.

The missing information I am referring to is the fact that the air support was called in precisely because ground troops had reported being fired on from that area. So while the air support itself was not provoked, US (coalition?) troops had been. The helicopters wouldn't even have been there if not for this fact.

Anyway, the reason I am calling this out is because I actually agree that these abuses are disturbing and alarming. This is precisely why it infuriates me when people don't seem to present the story with complete honesty. When you are arguing for a cause I believe in and doing it poorly, you just weaken the arguments for said cause. I don't like it when people give those opposed ammunition against what I believe in.

I don't think reporting the mitigating factors regarding the video make it in any way right, so why not give the full story and therefore preempt those that would refute it based on incomplete reporting?
9
@ 8

I'm not so good at Latin (or whatever), but I believe an 'ad hominem' attack (or ... whatever) is when you use an irrelevant fact about a person giving an argument to refute their argument.

I did not do that. I made fun of you, or satirized your argument ... or whatever, and in no way meant to refute your argument. I simply called you an idiot. I could have called you a hypocrite for asking for something you were unwilling or incapable of providing yourself but I did not because I do not like to get all high-faluting with my vocab.
10
@9: And declaring someone is an idiot doesn't imply that their argument is invalid? I mean, sure, you didn't actually say "You're an idiot, therefore your argument is invalid," but it seems to me like you're mincing words.

Regardless, I would argue that the onus is on the original poster to provide the details - I wasn't the one posting the video to make a point - but I can see how my first post would appear hypocritical. Sorry. That wasn't the intent, I'm just lazy.
11
On further reading, I agree that I used the term incorrectly. Mea culpa? :)
12
Actually, the FBI do play at the "computer hackers conference in Las Vegas" (aka DEFCON). There's a whole game: spot the fed. You can win prizes.

If the FBI were talking to him in any other context than at DEFCON... probably after he made some presentation there... it might matter more.
13
Also worth mentioning are the children in that van. Dead.
14
That video is horrible. But war is horrible.

I did one tour in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Do you people think that Apache killcam is the worst that war has to offer? Do you think that war is full of unicorn smiles and butterfly kisses?

General Sherman once said "War is cruelty; and you cannot refine it.", and those are the most true words I have ever read. You can argue all you want that we shouldn't be involved over there. Hell, I might even agree with you. But don't tell me that what that Apache jock did was wrong. On the battlefield, there's no such thing as wrong.
15
And here is the article that broke the story 2 days before the Independent's article:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-200122…
16
@14

Yes, war is horrible. I think that most people here have an issue with this horrible, expensive war being fought for no particular reason without an effective plan.

Also, "On the battlefield, there's no such thing as wrong" is an incorrect statement.
17
@14 right or wrong in that instance isn't up to me, I don't know enough about the situation to judge it all.
What I do have a problem with, however, is the obvious pleasure they are getting from the whole thing, its fucking sick and pathetic.
18
@14:

If that were actually true, then there'd be little need for the UCMJ or General Courts-Martial...

Please wait...

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