Find the AK-47

[patric]

What is your point, that our soldiers are murderous thugs?

Probably more that we've become accustomed to having our war news sanitized.
...at least to the point where we view accurate accounts with incredulity:


As the helicopter approaches the men, we hear a pilot say: "See all those people standing down there?" The camera zooms in on the group and we see Saeed with a camera bag slung on his right shoulder. "That's a weapon," a pilot says. "Fu**ing prick," comes the reply.

And with that, a few unarmed, relaxed civilians hanging around a courtyard are transformed into a contingent of dangerous insurgents that must be destroyed. Within seconds the pilots have described the situation to their superiors, received approval to engage and are gunning down the crowd. After the smoke clears from the initial attack, we see a wounded Saeed attempting to crawl to safety, the pilots vocalising their desire that he pick up a weapon, even though there is clearly no weaponry anywhere near his person. A van then pulls up and some men arrive to help Saeed. The pilots request permission to re-engage, quickly becoming impatient as they wait for approval. "Come on let us shoot!" a pilot says. Permission is granted, and they fire on the van, killing Saeed along with the good samaritans. And it is soon revealed that rather than armed insurgents, there were actually two children sitting inside the mini-van, both of whom have sustained serious injuries.

[heironymouspasparagus]

There was no "moment in time".  There were over 3 minutes until they shot - that we saw.  It seemed - and admittedly it is just an impression - that they had been watching this scene for at least some small period of time before we go to see.  And then a few more minutes before they took out the wounded guy they had been taunting, jeering about and just in general having a "good ole time" over.  Then there was the contrived concoction of the "terrorist" mini-van stopping to try to help the guy crawling.  And who very obviously had no weapon. 

But you never know what those two little kids might grow up to be.  Better pop them while there is an excuse, no matter how flimsy.  Besides, they are just more of "those Muslims", so what the heck?  (Clarification;  that is a double dose of irony and sarcasm, in case anyone was wondering.)

And do you actually think for a second that ANY of that film had anywhere near the resolution of the viewing gear they have and use for watching the scene??  We saw from our 5X view that there were no weapons.  And they had an order of magnitude better than the camera.

And now we hear the Pentagon can't find the video.  Gee, I wonder where that went??

"Come on... LET US SHOOT!!"