US Army heroes? Think again!

Seems to me that they were very quick to positively ID the guys, they couldn't see clearly at all whether or not they had weapons.

Like the Roman Empire, the US empire will go down eventually if it continues creating wars. When an empire gets too big and arrogant, and its people become oblivious, then the collapse of US imperialism is inevitable.

Tsr members have spent way too much time trying to sympathise with soldiers. Seems they're forgetting to sympathise with real people.

Imagine those shot in the video were British. Hell, imagine it was your father shot in that video. I very, very much doubt you would sit back and think "oh didums, that's war for you. Soldiers have to get through it some way and whatnot"

****ing pricks.

I see a group of chavs in the distance, a couple appear to have weapons so I shoot them. You think this is acceptable?


Analogy fail there.

Exactly It's nice to have someone on here who doesn't think that going round murdering people on assumptions is fine.


It's said that they were a mile away.

No one denies the US has cool citizens, and they make a productive society, you don't need to regurgitate every fact they taught me at GCSE History to try and defend the act which should really be not defend-able. Your defence is quite often filled with 'If Nagasaki/Hiroshima hadn't taken place, X evil deed would have been done instead'. That's not true at all and is a cheap way to defend something.

The point is events like the two atomic bombs can have been avoided and the lesson learnt should be that it never should happen again. The events of the video show that on the smaller scale it is still occuring.

Yes, because it was completely wrong to drop an atomic weapon on a country that had attacked the US with no declaration of war, had fought bitterly during 1944-45 even when they were clearly going to lose - defending every single island and killing as many American troops in the process as possible (fighting to the death), had some of the worst torture camps (if not the worst...) the world has ever seen, treated US POWs in the most appalling ways, and refused to surrender.

The assessment was that to win the war, it would cost another 500k American lives. Why should the Americans have to sacrifice 1/2million solders for a war they a) didn't start and indeed, had avoided b) When they had the ability to save all the lives of 500k of their own citizens.

You mean the video? Believing what video named collateral murder says is like believing what Hitler says about Jews.

"thats not true at all and is a cheap way to defend something"...

How do you know its not true then. Because how else would the US have won the war? Who cares whether they would have lost 200k troops, 500k troops, or 1m troops...the fact is, why should they make that choice?

The Japanese had no intention of surrendering. Simple as.

With all respect, I'm not claiming to be an expert on the issue. But I really do think you need a bit more than GCSE History to be able to pass comment on an issue.

On your last point, yes you are right. Its sad.

MAD stopped the USSR/US going to war. Without it, there probably would have been full on war during the Korean war.

You wouldn't allow those justifications to be used by any other country, so I don't see why you would allow them to be used by America.

If Iran had nuked Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war using your justifications, then they would have been charged for War crimes.

http://www.collateralmurder.com/

I cannot believe I hadn't heard about this before, so thought I would spread the word!

This angered me so much, these ****ing sick ***** better rot in hell. Sorry for swearing but when you watch the video you'll feel exactly the same way!

Unbelievable and unforgivable!!

WMD do you mean on the last point? Yes it did I agree, but that does not justify its use. Maybe it did pan out better that existed rather than the USSR and US going to war, but had it not been nukes they probably wouldn't have fought due to the sheer military power of both sides.

Let's spin the tail a bit. Assume the Japanese had not been WMD'ed and went on to win the war, and created a much better (using very broadly) society than the US. Can I use that to justify the extra US men that would have been killed? My point is you can't simply blank out defend WMDs. Maybe they were right in using it, but tell that to the 100 and whatever thousand that died from the nukes. Must feel great dying to save some others whose lives are deemed more valuable. War eh.

EDIT: Anyway I see where you're coming from, saying that it was probably for the best. That could very well be true, it could have been worse, it certainly could have been better (the latter being my point). I don't see any real disagreement here, so to not detract from the topic feel free to private message me if you have anything in response to my post.

Although what happened is sad and regrettable.......the moral of the story is NOT TO BE IN A WAR ZONE.
Accidents happen and people are mistaken for the enemy. So the best way to avoid this is to not be there in the first place.

Although what happened is sad and regrettable.......the moral of the story is NOT TO BE IN A WAR ZONE.
Accidents happen and people are mistaken for the enemy. So the best way to avoid this is to not be there in the first place.

Yup, that's right, all US Soldiers are senseless killers. What a stupid thread title, it would be like posting thread titled 'Barcelona are ****e' and showing a clip of Abidal falling over.

I actually thought they were cameras but yeah, it's dumb to assume things when lives are involved. Yeah I can see that if you were on foot and thought they had a weapon you would shoot them before they shoot you. However they were apparently about a mile away in the air, absolutely no risk to the soldiers.



I know!! I showed a few friends and they were outraged, I post on here and most people think it's acceptable! What is the world coming to?

I think its incredibly ignorant of you to tell me what I would and wouldn't allow using those justifications.

I am not sure how it is ignorant. Perhaps, it is presumptuous.

I am only using your line of reasoning, since it can be applied to virtually any conflict in the world.

We don't think it's acceptable but it's equally unacceptable for you berate the whole of the US armed forces on this unfortunate incident. Every army in the world has it's own atrocities. Soldiers in such a hostile environment become completely numb and desensitized to the horrors of war and as already explained making jokes about it is a coping mechanism.

You might think that they were cameras but you're sat at home with the ability to rewind the video and analyze it as much as possible. In the heat of the moment when your fellow soldiers are your primary concern you can't afford to mess around. You're an idiot if you think they didn't look suspicious and while not a probable threat to the soldiers in the air the potential for them to be a threat to ground troops was very real.

I know this will seem difficult for someone so obviously anti American but try get into the soldiers heads. What would the soldiers have felt if they were in fact a threat and went on to kill several US soldiers? I know this sounds harsh but in an ambiguous situation involving potential threats to fellow soldiers you will almost always take action and horrible things like this will happen. It doesn't matter what country they represent most soldiers would of done the same in the heat of the moment.

It's just a sad reality of war but what's more saddening is people thinking that the US is an imperialistic war machine willing to murder tons of civilians for fun. Do you honestly think US soldiers are the only ones that do things like this? It might appear so because the US is under the scrutiny of the world but it's most certainly not the case. Even your coveted beacon of freedom Wikileaks has shown the US to have plenty of restraint and even proved that chemical weapons (by definition WMDs) were found.

The insurgents in those areas look like civilians. They meld in with the locals after ambushes. They plant thousands of IEDs. They use civilian buildings; how can you expect little civilian deaths when the insurgents are willing to use the locals as shields? Believe it or not war is ugly. Believe it or not there are rules of engagement which further risk your own lives while minimizing civilian casualties. Every step you take in that war zone is potential death. Do you know how many times a day those horrible US soldiers decide against taking action against potential threats even though there is a very real risk of death (to yourself and your fellow soldiers)? No you don't think about that do you? Instead you propagate one unfortunate incident and make a blanket statement. Following that logic all Muslims are militant extremists willing to behead an innocent old man and record a video of it. High five.

Well, yes, I think if a country is completely unjustly attacked (for no reason other than the desire of another country to plunder it)

with no declaration of war, and they have exhausted conventional means of war for a considerable time,

then the country that was initially attacked has every right to use all means at its disposal to defeat the attacker. Be it the US, Britain, Brazil, or anyone else.

Although what happened is sad and regrettable.......the moral of the story is NOT TO BE IN A WAR ZONE.
Accidents happen and people are mistaken for the enemy. So the best way to avoid this is to not be there in the first place.

I don't think the Japanese had any intention of plundering the US.

They wanted to plunder China and the rest of South East Asia. They attacked the US because they wanted to prevent any intervention.





They hadn't exhausted conventional means. They could have just continued bombing and introduced a blockade.

The Soviets were also ready to invade from the West onto the weaker islands by the end of August.

So really there were other options.





Well, Japan was already defeated in any military sense. So your criteria doesn't even apply to them.

Neither do Countries have every right to use all means necessary.

You wouldn't apply that logic in the defense of yourself so I am not sure why you would think a State would be allowed to use unbridled violence.