WAR: Video shows private security contractors shooting up Iraqi drivers

Im not saying it couldn't be a PMC theres just not enough evidence for me to make a judgement.

Some things in that video stand out as fishy IMHO

-The blatantly American music Elvis
- You never hear or see any of the perps
- They use a obvious American style weapon

If real (which I kind of doubt), I don't see how you could really rationalize it. It looks pretty bad.

At the same time, I think people are far too quick to assume that it is real, because it would simply justify the beliefs they already had before hand.

And, the simple fact is, contractors/mercenaries are a necessary part of war. They have been for thousands of years. If people don't want big companies and mercenaries representing their nation in times of war, they have to prepare for it in times of peace. The sad thing is, few of the people complaining about these mercenaries are ever willing to give the military the budget it needs to prepare itself for war.

It has been America's policy throughout its history to simply destroy its military during peace times. We've gotten a bit better, but it's still pretty bad, as we've done huge amounts of damage since the end of the Cold War, and most of it was done far too hastily by short-sighted politicians.

Trust Your Feelings

Originally posted by Ram
But please describe what they feel...Or if your capeable...What YOU feel.

I can't tell you what someone I don't know and can't identify feels, only what I feel.

I feel sorry for those who allow their thoughts and emotions to be cynically manipulated by others and thereby forfeit their intellectual liberty and control over their own minds.

I feel a strong sense of deception in this case, and that this is part of a larger effort on the part of someone to influence the outcome of the worldwide information war which is now underway.

I feel glad that I'm a skeptic and thereby free to decide for myself what I will believe (which is very little) or not believe (which is everything else).

All in all, I feel great, and I challenge anyone who may have a problem with that to honestly investigate why that is so.

The answer turns out to be very important.

Originally posted by Disturbed Deliverer
And, the simple fact is, contractors/mercenaries are a necessary part of war.

But is war a necessary part of life?

They have been for thousands of years. If people don't want big companies and mercenaries representing their nation in times of war, they have to prepare for it in times of peace. The sad thing is, few of the people complaining about these mercenaries are ever willing to give the military the budget it needs to prepare itself for war.

The military gets more money than anything else in the entire budget. If we didn't have to spend money on the military we'd have enough money for everyone in the U.S. to have healthcare, or for everyone to have 4 years of college paid for them.

"The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living. Ever since the end of the nineteenth century, the problem of what to do with the surplus of consumption goods has been latent in industrial society. At present, when few human beings even have enough to eat, this problem is obviously not urgent, and it might not have become so, even if no artificial processes of destruction had been at work. The world of today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place compared with the world that existed before 1914, and still more so if compared with the imaginary future to which the people of that period looked forward. In the early twentieth century, the vision of a future society unbelievably rich, leisured, orderly, and efficient -- a glittering antiseptic world of glass and steel and snow-white concrete -- was part of the consciousness of nearly every literate person."
-from: "The Theory And Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism"

It has been America's policy throughout its history to simply destroy its military during peace times. We've gotten a bit better, but it's still pretty bad, as we've done huge amounts of damage since the end of the Cold War, and most of it was done far too hastily by short-sighted politicians.

I think part of the reason that the budget for the military was cut back after the cold war is that we are no longer at war with Eurasia, er...I mean the Soviet Union. There wasn't anything to scare us into spending a ton of money on the military until 9/11. Now we are fighting a "war on terror" which is as ill defined as the "war on drugs". The "war on terror" will never be won, it's being fought against an enemy that operates outside of international boundaries and is always lurking in the shadows ready to come out and scare us when we become disapproving of our government. We are lead to beleive that it is unpatriotic to express dissent in times of war, and that if you don't support the current administration's agenda you are siding with the terrorists. The government now has a carte blanc to spend money on the military (to the point of bankruptcy), abridge our constitutional freedoms and circumvent international law all in the name of "security".

All this because of 9/11, and the sad part is that 9/11 was planned and carried out by our government; and Osama had as just much to do with it as president Bush...

If real (which I kind of doubt), I don't see how you could really rationalize it.

You think somebody staged it? Wouldn't that be kind of an expensive project just to make some contractor look bad? Building an exact replica of the airport highway, smashing a couple cars, etc... If you were staging something like this to make the US look bad, you could fake something with US soldiers killing civilians at random, not Irish mercenaries.

I have no doubt it's real.

It has been America's policy throughout its history to simply destroy its military during peace times.

What are you talking about??

The US spends more on its military than any other country in the world, more than the next ten countries' military budgets combined. The idea that the US doesn't spend enough on it's military is completely absurd.

Secondly, this war (speaking about Iraq, not Afghanistan here) was one we chose to start, not one we were dragged into.

[edit on 11/28/05 by xmotex]

Originally posted by xmotex
What are you talking about??

The US spends more on its military than any other country in the world, more than the next ten countries military budgets combined. The idea that the US doesn't spend enough on it's military is completely absurd.

He is talking about the past where the Americans distrust the military, and after wars, Congress and the American people usually demobolize and the U.S. military becomes ineffective fighting force with obsolete equipment or too small to fight until the nation is fully mobilized. As of right now WW2 changed all that and the Cold War kept the U.S. military in fighting shape.

So he's arguing a point that hasn't been relevant in 60 years?

Thanks for clearing that up.

Let's blame it all on the IRA and the French Foreign Legion. They're the mercs, right? Haven't any of you played Jagged Alliance?

It's gotta be someone else's fault, cause it couldn't be mine... Everyone keep fooling yourself and pointing fingers. It's every one of us who's to blame. Especially us U.S. citizens. We give up more rights each year to legislation that's meant to "protect" us than most people on this planet have their whole lives. E Pluribus Unum. Our focus is joined, and there is no hedidthisshedidthat crap that can justify.

Call a duck a duck and quit calling these Soldiers of Fortune "Security Contractors".

They are Mercenaries or as I like to call them Scum of the Earth.

This is par for the course for these assholes.

At least S. America will be spared a bit if some of these "people" don't make it out of Iraq.

[edit on 28-11-2005 by sardion2000]

Originally posted by sardion2000
Call a duck a duck and quit calling these Soldiers of Fortune "Security Contractors".

They are Mercenaries or as I like to call them Scum of the Earth.

Are they mercenaries? The the U.S. armed forces must be mercenaries as well, right sardion? Since they are armed guards for a party which is the U.S.

Originally posted by deltaboy

Originally posted by sardion2000
Call a duck a duck and quit calling these Soldiers of Fortune "Security Contractors".

They are Mercenaries or as I like to call them Scum of the Earth.

Are they mercenaries? The the U.S. armed forces must be mercenaries as well, right sardion? Since they are armed guards for a party which is the U.S.

mercenaries are people paid to fight in conflicts which they have no interest in, they are not just armed guards.

Originally posted by HiddenReality

mercenaries are people paid to fight in conflicts which they have no interest in, they are not just armed guards.

Then that be like the U.S. soldiers who are paid to fight which they have no interest, true? The U.S. has hired the contractors as guards for VIPs. Even Donald Rumsfeld is protected by members of PMCs. So the question is that are they mercenaries or not? Since the U.S. sanctioned this as members who fight in America's interest like Iraq then they cannot be mercenaries.

The only proof i have that these were UK contractors is the voice I heard under the Elvis music. it was disticntly UK. I can;t tell if it was British, irish or Scottish. But these guys were definately UK in my view.

As for them using an American gun. So what? Australian SAS use the M4 in Iraq and so would the Brit SAS. I've also seen Australian contractors in Iraq using M4 and AK100 rifles. Mercs get access to whatever weapon they want. I don't believe they are issued anything and might even be required to purchase their equipment themselves. It might even be subsidised by the company.

Why are you people so good at assuming silly things?

Well,
Would it make sense to assume that all muslims grew up in the middle east?
Are there any muslims with Western accents?

That just made me so sick. I can't believe people live like that. I can't believe whoever this is has such little value for human life and for their own soul. What kind of person would get kicks out of randomly shooting at innocent people? It just hurts my heart to think about it!

We need to leave that place. That's not a war, that's pure insanity.

Originally posted by Benevolent Heretic
That just made me so sick. I can't believe people live like that. I can't believe whoever this is has such little value for human life and for their own soul. What kind of person would get kicks out of randomly shooting at innocent people? It just hurts my heart to think about it!

We need to leave that place. That's not a war, that's pure insanity.

I can only second that Benevolent Heretic. I watched it last night before bed and it made me so so sad. This is horrific, no matter the cirumstances. I don't care who they are or who they work for, we don't need people like this in the world.

Originally posted by ImJaded

I can only second that Benevolent Heretic. I watched it last night before bed and it made me so so sad. This is horrific, no matter the cirumstances. I don't care who they are or who they work for, we don't need people like this in the world.

So enlighten me here - if it did turn out to be self defence ( I'm sayin' if ) it still wouldn't be acceptable ?
If we didn't have people like that in this world, then there wouldn't be an insurgency and global terrorism. I hope your opinion extends to these people as well

But is war a necessary part of life?

That's an pointless question, but yes, it sure as hell is. That's why we have, and will continue to fight them.

America started a war with the majority support of the nation. If the American people are going to continue to send their soldiers off to nations to fight, they owe it to them to give them the proper tools to get the job done.

The military gets more money than anything else in the entire budget. If we didn't have to spend money on the military we'd have enough money for everyone in the U.S. to have healthcare, or for everyone to have 4 years of college paid for them.

And we also spend more per person on healthcare than anyone else in the world. It's also a larger percentage of the GDP than the military:
www.nationmaster.com...

In terms of education, while spending far less per capita than healthcare, we still spend more as a percentage of our GDP than we do on the military:
www.nationmaster.com...

We can also find that, on a per capita basis, America is only 36th:
cia.gov...

Besides that, money in China and Russia goes a lot further than it does here in America.

The current military budget is also misleading, as huge amounts of it are merely being spent on two wars we are fighting. You can't look at the military budget during war and compare it to peace time programs fairly. There was a sharp decline in our military spending in the 90's, and beyond that, much of the money for future programs (like the F-22) were drastically cut, and continue to be cut because politicians won't cough up the cash.

For all of the talk on military budgets skyrocketting, it's just that - talk. Key programs continue to be cut in the long term. The budget spike is the result of the war. You can't make any judgement on American military spending unless it's peace time.

I would also then question your socialistic viewpoints, but that's an economic argument meant for other topics.

The US spends more on its military than any other country in the world, more than the next ten countries' military budgets combined. The idea that the US doesn't spend enough on it's military is completely absurd.

As I pointed above, we don't spend that large of an amount compared to our actual size, and that money gets significantly less done.

Secondly, this war (speaking about Iraq, not Afghanistan here) was one we chose to start, not one we were dragged into.

It's irrelevent. The American people chose to send the military to war, and will continue to do so. If that's the case, you can't keep taking shots at it in peace time and then be surprised when "mercenaries" are needed during times of war. You can't just rebuild a military overnight.

The American military does not have the budget during peace time to get the tools needed to take care of jobs like Iraq on their own. We have a military stretched thin on manpower, after ridiculous cuts made during the 90's. We have let the training of our men slip. We have cut back on future programs that are key to our militaries dominance.

Originally posted by Astronomer68
.......
I should qualify that last paragraph to some extent, since it is not clear that the shooter(s) were contractors, or indeed were not insurgents posing as contractors. The few spoken words sure sounded like western speech, but they could have been recorded and dubbed in. I'll wait until some corroboration is provided before totally making my mind up, but damn, those people (whoevere they are) anyway.

Why would Iraqi Partisans[you would call them insurgents] be posting trophy videos on a British Security Contractors web site???

Why would Private Security Contractors in Iraq be randomly shooting Iraqis?

]Section 2
Iraqi Legal Process
1) Unless provided otherwise herein, the MNF, the CPA, Foreign Liaison Missions, their Personnel, property, funds and assets, and all International Consultants shall be immune from Iraqi legal process.

COALITION PROVISIONAL AUTHORITY ORDER NUMBER 17 (REVISED)

Because they can.

What other reason would these guys need?

[edit on 29-11-2005 by ArchAngel]

you people are so quick to assume the worst on things you cant understand, this is obsurd, the level of ignorance and belief in things by "opinion" even with common sense showing otherwise, i am getting tired of reading crap everyday, can any of you use consideration or non-biased thinking without making emotional assumptions?
the site its from is about special contractors for high risk situations, its video documenting how they keep car bombs away, not a "trophy", it shows car bomb attacks too and traning video BUT not this one,

also, the site is really poor looking with unfinished stuff....

[edit on 29-11-2005 by namehere]