I’m confused. Shouldn’t we be celebrating the personal growth that
allows Angry Old Man Who Shouts at Clouds to recognize himself for what he is?

He is sorta mavericky but not really a maverick. But he is a lyin’ in the senate.

According to Congressional Quarterly’s party unity scores, which track how often members of Congress side with their party on key votes, over the course of his career McCain has voted with his party 84 percent of the time—not the highest score in the Senate but hardly evidence of a great deal of independence.

I’m all in favor of recognizing personal growth: when it actually happens.

Good morning all.

Some amazing footage of U.S. military attack on Iraqi civilians on democracynow. Wikileaks guy & Glenzilla are the guests to discuss it.

Mornin’, BT, pups

CNN.com actually has the vid up on their site. Not even gonna think my email forced their hand. Don’t know if I want to follow the mealy mouth commentary that comes with it, though.

eCAHN, the whole vid is almost 18 minutes. Tough to watch.

Fuck McSFB.

I thought he was a mavericky maverick. Is there any opinion, any position, any piece of documented history that McLame hasn’t yet denied, refuted or otherwise run away from? I hope there will be a strong Democrat in this race because the people of Arizona deserve a better choice than between a teabagger and an old man, yelling at clouds.

Emptywheel had something on the wikileaks video up yesterday. Greenwald was also on MSNBC yesterday afternoon along with wikileaks editor.

good morning, eCHAN. sat late nite, #97 huskerzuli gave a link to a book you might fund interesting. i gave a ref to that for you and demi yest swim, but already in EPUland.

karen

Hey what ever label suits the day !

McCain put the “icky” back in “mavericky.”

Bummer. I should really read through the comments before I make one. Now mine looks like plagiarism.

I’ve started my good weather outdoor activity, which makes me too tired at the end of the day to catch up with serious stuff. So this is my first exposure to it. Thanks for the other links and the info as to where it has already been covered. Glad to see that it’s not being ignored at the behest of the Pentagon.

SD: truly difficult to see the bloodlust.

Thanks. I’ll look it up.

I have just seen the video and it was tough to distinguish the cameras from a weapon of some sort from high above. It was also impossible to see any kids that were in that van. The US soldiers may seem callous but in war if your not callous then you are already dead. Sometimes the wrong people get killed in war. I find no real fault with the soldiers, but i do find enormous fault with the President who sent them there.

Wikileaks has a couple other “bombshells”. More secret Psyops to keep to keep taxpayers paying for unpopular oil wars. War profiteering is a growth industry, but how are they shoring up support in the US?

CIA report into shoring up Afghan war support in Western Europe

This can only be called cogntive cyberwar, the war against Wikileaks also financed by taxpayers. But shouldn’t they employ K-Street influence peddlers to help them. There has to be an “Enemy’s List” of cognitively confused websites that threaten the Corporatist Party. Maybe K-Street donates their time and money to fighting “defeatist” websites that expose corporate criminals.

U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks, 18 Mar 2008

Is it being covered on CBS, NBC, ABC? Are Katie Couric, Dianne Sawyer, or Pretty Boy Williams ignoring this?

McCain is about as good a senator as he was a pilot.

Morning Joke actually covered it this morning as well. Have not watched the vid yet. Don’t think I can.

As SoDrag so eloquently stated; fuck McSFB.

Thanks for the post BT and good morning all.

Assange, the wikileaks guy, pointed out that the visuals in real time were a lot clearer than what you see on the video on a small screen, that has been processed several times over. Not to mention that the dialogue indicates that this was a common occurrence, approved at every part of the chain of command.

You are not allowed to plagiarize unless you work for the MSM!

Also, the official report apparently claims they saw an RPG, which is a meter long. Now that should be easily distinguishable from a camera.

Ah the Nuremberg defense…just following orders sorry ’bout that. Nope, you pull the damn trigger you are guilty and as this is an all volunteer force there are no excuses….you volunteer to kill you take the damn consequences.

The Apache uses a 30mm M230 Chain Gun. (two links here) I’d compare it to using cannister during the Civil War. One round will easily cut a human in half.

And the war department knew about the murders by these “soldiers” and were content to cover it up as they have covered up many other heinous crimes carried out in the name of “democracy”.

I saw part of Maddow’s show. What I didn’t see was this; in fact, I don’t see this anywhere. Which suggest to me the corporate media doesn’t really want US to know about it:

The Most Tyrannical Legislation in Modern U.S. History?

…not always.

It’s like watching a chameleon desperately swapping through its color range trying to find something that fits the new context. Not limited to McCain of course–everyone is doing it–but McCain’s struggle is so much more visible, on account of his being so principled, and honorable, and stuff.

Heh. Yes, I actually thought about those news videocameras as well. But they people who were being attacked were civilians, by accounts so far, so presumably their equipment was a tad smaller.

McC just seems to be continuing to be a confused angry man. Don’t see anything new about that.

There will always be apologists for the killers, won’t there?

You saw how a burst can lift up a full sized van and hurl it down the street. (I haven’t watched the whole piece but that was in the Dylan Ratigan coverage of it) People are defending these soldiers and being an ex servicemember, I’m usually inclined to as well but I also know through experience that at 50 to 100 feet off the deck from a helicopter, you can see the color of someone’s eyes and I saw zero evidence that any of them were armed and no way can someone mistake a camera for an RPG. None. These people are now probably working for Blackwater.

Of course they were following orders. Thats not the problem. At the end of the day one person had a gun and the others were unarmed. But unlike nuremberg, they were not systematically killing unarmed citizens. They were trying to get some armed combatants. Some armed men get killed some civilians get killed. But at no point were they herding unarmed people into jails for mass killings. This Sunday is Holocaust Remembrance Day try to remember the Holocaust nomolos.

Pilot and gunner views are better than a gun-sight camera’s. If ya can’t distinguish a loaded RPG launcher from a camera bag ya got no business operating a sophisticated weapons system.

There will always be apologists for the killers, won’t there?

Apparently

not systematically killing unarmed citizens.

Horseshit.

The attack on the van was nothing less.

At the end of the day one person had a gun and the others were unarmed

None of them were armed. They broke all of the rules of engagement and you don’t have enough knowledge to reasonably discuss the event. That’s not a dig, that’s just the way it is. Sign up to do a hitch and your opinion will change. It will change for the good or the bad but change it will.

It would be systematic if the word van was pluralized. Some times war gets messy. Im not saying a tragedy didnt happen, it did, but you cant throw the whole army under the bus, or the tank as it were.

And they kept begging for ‘permission to engage’ despite the lack of any firing from the van or anywhere nearby. “Oh, comeon, permission to engage” about 3-4 times before they got it. They wanted to kill. Then chuckling over a tank running over something, I forget. A child? A vehicle?

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4,387

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,037

Iraki and Afghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M, including those murdered by US forces.

US MBS 2010: 11,780 and counting

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

Angry Old Man Who Shouts at Clouds

Arizona has 21 federally recognized tribes. Which one gave him that name?

new post up top…

I can and I will. This is systemic. It’s an institutional mindset. It existed in Nam and it exists now. I reject your rationalizations. xin loi

Then chuckling over a tank running over something, I forget. A child? A vehicle?

A body. They sounded like the crew of “Jackass” after the tank ran over one of the people they just murdered or at least I hope he or she was dead at the time.

Nice! After a tank in the video ran over one of the victims. How classy. /s

in other words, another shiny object.

LOL

The Nuremberg defense was that the idiots were just “following orders” Didn’t work then and shouldn’t work now. And yes it was murdr, plain and simple, murder by America.

Apparently the whole fuckin’ country’s a free fire zone. If it moves, light it up.

In this case they were most definitely NOT following orders, at least not lawful ones. The rules of engagement were broken and ignored.

I wonder what our apologist would say if the roles in the vid were reversed and it was his family members, friends, associates on the ground.

These punks were lookin’ to kill somebody.

Aw shit. Mine@ 48 was in reply to the RWNF, murder apologist, @33. You SD@34 made absolute sense as usual. I need some more medical ganja.

Maybe not “direct” orders but the powers that be certainly set the tone and indiscriminate killing is part and parcel of bringing democracy to the middle east satans.

You do have to wonder……..

Gotta go to work. Hate goin’ to work in bad mood. Motherfucker pissed me off.

Namaste

Yes, which is why I specified “lawful orders”

These punks were lookin’ to kill somebody.

Yep. :-(

It is hard to give “lawful orders” in an unlawful “war”. I am not being picky just wondering. If America considers orders “lawful” but the rest of the world, other than Israel of course, considers the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan illegal how the heck are “illegal lawful orders” considered in a world court where war crimes will be brought?

Here, take this…

It is hard to give “lawful orders” in an unlawful “war”

You’re preaching to the choir nom, I agree with you. Unfortunately the criminals who started these wars will never face justice, only the underlings that had the bad judgment to follow those orders.

At work. You know me too well. *g*

I still have hope that the world court will go after bush/obama for their complicity in the murder of hundreds of thousands of innocents. A faint hope but a hope none the less.

I’m not gonna watch the vid again but if you watch the men on the ground you’ll notice that at no time do they show any concern with the Apache. You can hear that sucker from a mile away and to the best of my knowledge they’re not equipped with cloaking devices. Yet exposed, out in the open, they showed no fear of the aircraft. How long are these men wandering around before the shooting starts?

last night the video was at the top of the front page of the online version of the new york times and i watched it from a link at their site. it’s lower down on the page now.

fuck

Watched it yesterday (The Guardian) and saw just what you saw.