Iraq War Vet: "We Were Told to Just Shoot People, and the Officers Would Take Care of Us"

[kas125]

Iraq War Vet: "We Were Told to Just Shoot People, and the Officers Would Take Care of Us"

On Monday, April 5, Wikileaks.org posted video footage from Iraq, taken from a US military Apache helicopter in July 2007 as soldiers aboard it killed 12 people and wounded two children. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency: photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh.

The US military confirmed the authenticity of the video.

<snip>

Hart Viges, a member of the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army who served one year in Iraq, told of taking orders over the radio.

"One time they said to fire on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation.... One of the snipers replied back, 'Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?' The lieutenant colonel responded, 'You heard me, trooper, fire on all taxicabs.' After that, the town lit up, with all the units firing on cars. This was my first experience with war, and that kind of set the tone for the rest of the deployment."

-- the rest is at http://www.truthout.org/iraq-war-vet-we-were-told-just-shoot-people-and-officers-would-take-care-us58378

One of the guys mentioned in this article is a personal friend and I've met most of the others. Their stories are heartbreaking. What happened in that video was not an aberration or an isolated incident, it's what happens every day and why so many of our soldiers just cannot live with themelves when they get home. We really need to bring them all home and stop the insanity of these occupations.

[peacetalksforall]

1. I thought the torture stories were more than I could take. This is war? As brought to

the world by the United States of American and their Brit and French and other friends? How do we live with this?

[Fumesucker]

2. Just pretend it doesn't exist, like pretty much everyone I know..

Pay attention to celebrity gossip, sports and American Idol and you'll be fine..

Why should we trouble our beautiful minds over this stuff?

:cry:

[aquart]

3. And we wonder why the army suicides are out of control?

How can we expect anyone to live with this on his soul?

[kas125]

4. It's not easy. I know one of these guys pretty well and have

a son only a year younger than he is. This guy seems a lifetime older than my college kid, not just a year.

[8 track mind]

5. I often wonder

What my Dad was ordered to do in Vietnam. I have a feeling he will go to his grave with out telling anyone what happened as he doesn't talk to us about it at all. My heart goes out to him and to all combat veterans. My hope for this world is that someday we will be able to resolve problems without bloodshed.

[kas125]

6. The quotes in this article came from -

the Winter Soldier testimony from two years ago -

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan featured testimony from U.S. veterans who served in those occupations, giving an accurate account of what is really happening day in and day out, on the ground.

This four-day event brought together veterans from across the country to testify about their experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan - and present video and photographic evidence. In addition, panels of scholars, veterans, journalists, and other specialists gave context to the testimony. These panels covered everything from the history of the GI resistance movement to the fight for veterans' health benefits and support.

Videos of all the testimony can be viewed at:

http://ivaw.org/wintersoldier

[whatchamacallit]

7. This post will be totally ignored by the armchair generals and authoritarians

Unfortunately.

[mudplanet]

8. Not an isolated incident? It just happens to be the one that was video taped and

that the investigators were able to uncover. It was probably SOP.

I watched a video in 2005 of some Blackwater assholes in a car that they shot themselves (so they could "share the moment"?), as they raced through busy Iraqi city streets continually shooting at anyone behind them with an automatic rifle. It just went on and on for minutes. No indication that anyone was following or getting close. Just keep shooting at any car or truck behind the car. The fun never ends.

It reminds me a lot of a film "Night and Fog." One of the really strange things about the Nazis was that they documented, often with film, so many of the horrible things they did. Stacks of severed human heads, piles of bodies in a gas chamber, detailed photos of people mutilated in "medical" experiments. Apparently the Japanese did the same type of thing, just not on the same scale.

Did I say "was?" Apparently they are still doing it. The American military learns well.

[ManiacJoe]

9. One of the sad parts here is that

the sniper realized that this was an illegal order and yet chose to follow it.

"One time they said to fire on all taxicabs because the enemy was using them for transportation.... One of the snipers replied back, 'Excuse me? Did I hear that right? Fire on all taxicabs?' The lieutenant colonel responded, 'You heard me, trooper, fire on all taxicabs.' After that, the town lit up, with all the units firing on cars.

[Judi Lynn]

10. 'As I watch the footage, anger calcifies in my heart'

'As I watch the footage, anger calcifies in my heart'
A novelist and former prisoner of Saddam Hussein's regime gives her reaction to the Wikileaks Iraq video
Haifa Zangana
The Guardian, Saturday 10 April 2010

I know the area where this massacre was committed. It is a crowded working-class area, a place where it is safe for children to play outdoors. It is near where my two aunts and their extended families lived, where I played as a child with my cousins Ali, Khalid, Ferial and Mohammed. Their offspring still live there.

The Reuters photographer we see being killed so casually in the film, Namir Noor-Eldeen, did not live there, but went to cover a story, risking his life at a time when most western journalists were imbedded with the military. Noor-Eldeen was 22 (he must have felt extremely proud to be working for Reuters) and single. His driver Saeed Chmagh, who is also seen being killed, was 40 and married. He left behind a widow and four children, adding to the millions of Iraqi widows and orphans.

Witnesses to the slaughter reported the harrowing details in 2007, but they had to wait for a western whistleblower to hand over a video before anyone listened. Watching the video, my first impression was, I have no impression. But the total numbness gradually grows into a now familiar anger. I listen to the excited voices of death coming from the sky, enjoying the chase and killing. I whisper: do they think they are God?

"Light 'em all up!" one shooter says.

"Ah, yeah, look at those dead bastards. Nice," says another.

"Well, it's their fault bringing their kids into the battle," one says when ground troops discover two children among the wounded.

In their Apache helicopter, with their sophisticated killing machinery, US soldiers seem superhuman. The Iraqis, on the ground, appear only as nameless bastards, Hajjis, sandniggers. They seem subhuman – and stripping them of their humanity makes killing them easy.

More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/apr/10/wikileaks-collateral-murder-iraq-video