Guard video shows harsh war scenes

[DoYouEverWonder]

Sunday, March 06, 2005

A soldier-shot video that triggered an Army investigation of a West Palm Beach-based National Guard unit captures the disturbing reality of the Iraq war, but little evidence of the sort of abuse documented at the Abu Ghraib prison.

A copy of the video, obtained Saturday by The Palm Beach Post, is a crudely edited documentary titled Ramadi Madness and The Haj Files. Its existence was made public Friday when 1,200 pages of documents were released by the Army in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The military however, declined to release the video, which runs just under 27 minutes.

An internal Army investigation cleared the 124th Infantry Regiment, Bravo Company, which has about 120 soldiers. The Army said it found the soldiers' behavior more "inappropriate" than criminal. The Post's copy contained none of the graphic sexual and physical harassment documented in photos and video made by soldiers at Abu Ghraib that led to the court-martial of eight people and shrouded the Pentagon in a scandal.

The video, often dark and grainy, was edited into vignettes with titles such as The Truck Incident and Friends Don't Let Friends Play With Explosives. The dialogue is coarse, and the joking is juvenile and often macabre. The narrator consistently refers to the Iraqis as "Hajis."

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2005/03/06//m1a_ramadi_0306.html


Links to the videos can be found on the left side of the article.

[Art_from_Ark]

1. "Hajis"

Taken from the character "Hadji" in the Jonny Quest cartoon series?

[leftchick]

7. wasn't he from India?

:eyes:

[Art_from_Ark]

12. Yes, he was supposed to be from India

But he is brown-skinned and wearing a turban. How many Americans would identify him as being from the Middle East? Quite a few, I would imagine.

[TOOLZ]

2. I'm sick of seeing this disrespectful horrific behavior by troops

and told we have to support them, they're heroes. There are good ones and bad ones like everything, none of them are above reproach.

These images are proof of how desensitized and inhumane they've become in this horrible quagmire they're in and they don't know why.

[Voltaire99]

4. So am I

I understand your disgust.

In addition to the shameful deeds of torture and the more common forms of slaughter, these forces are aggressors.

They destroyed the civil society and institutions of a defenseless land that is now being looted by their even more indecent political masters.

Support? No, this is nothing that I shall ever support.

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. I supported the troops

when this whole thing started. Heck, most of the folks that were in at that point had no clue that they would be going to war when Bush took power.

However, at this point the troops that are there, no matter what their reasoning, are there because they choose to be there.

Now that the war is over and we are the occupying force, it was our duty to resort and maintain civil order. We have failed miserably because the Pentagon never planned for this phase of the mission. Add to that the fact that the invasion of Iraq was based on a pack of lies, I now longer have any respect for anyone who supports this horror in any way.

You are either for the genocide of Iraq or you are against it. Pick one.

[Up2Late]

31. I just heard some clips from "Gunners Palace" on NPR today...

...and the Trooper they interviewed said, the "Support Our Troops" stickers on the SUV's kind of Piss them off(the Troops I mean).:smoke:

[catnhatnh]

15. Must humbly disagree....

.....seems WAY past "politically correct" to ask soldiers in harms way to refer to their opponents as "the esteemed opposition"...Hell we can't get Dem's and repubs to do that from the safety of the Capitol...from last century's krauts and nips to gooks through zips and up through todays hajjis,it is too much to ask a man to oppose to the DEATH someone he remains on polite speaking terms with....

[JNelson6563]

16. You make a good point

considering the simple soldier is brainwashed into dehumanizing the enemy, slurs must be employed. Bob forbid our noble troops, sent to "liberate" these people call 'em "Iraqis". What is this? High tea or something?

Ugh.

Julie

[daleo]

3. The audio is out in the clips, supposedly due to swearing.

But, without the context that provides the clips aren't all that easy to interpret. I imagine that had they left the audio in, viewing them would be a more disturbing experience.

If the war weren't due to a U.S. invasion, justified by a lie, one could more readily accept the "war is harsh" rationalization for such behavior. But, when an aggressive invader treats a subject population with contempt, the psychological similarities with Nazi invasions are all to obvious - brutalization of the occupation soldiers and intense hatred and resentment by the occupied population.

[leftchick]

8. very well said daleo

and a perfect analogy.

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. Here's a link that describes some of what you are seeing

in the videos. The brief explanations should help put things in context.


http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/news/epaper/2005/03/06/m16a_videoscene_0305.html


Scene 1: Titled 'The Truck Incident'

Nighttime outdoors. Soldiers shine lights into the driver-side window of a truck. The driver is dead. Soldier moves driver's hand and says, "Hold on, I'm going to make him say 'Hi.'

<snip>

Scene 8: Untitled

Daytime outdoors. A line of detainees in plastic handcuffs behind their backs. Off-screen voice says, "Bad guy, bad guy, bad guy" as the camera pans across seized explosives.

Scene 9: Titled 'See Haji Run, See Haji Shot'

Daytime outdoors. Video shot from a building top. Below, an injured Iraqi man is pulled by Iraqi men from the sidewalk into a building.

Scene 10: Untitled

Daytime outdoors. A prisoner is sitting on the ground with his hands bound behind him. Off-screen voice says, "I don't know what the (expletive) this guy did, but he is a bad guy." Another detainee is being treated for a head wound. Off-screen voice tells him to "smile for the camera." A small group of soldiers interrogates a detainee. One orders the man to stand. A soldier takes something out of the man's pocket. The unknown item is wrapped in a plastic bag.

more...

[Briar]

5. Why are people surprised by such things?

War isn't noble. It's a crime. Killing people doesn't come naturally to normal human beings; recruits have to be brutalised to make them killers. Only the endless propaganda that glamorises war and demands we regard men and women in uniform as heroes, not killers, blinds us to this truth. These young men and women are victims of a terrible lie told over the ages, and retold now by Bush in order to justify his illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq. They're twice betrayed - by the violence-loving myths of their culture and by their political leaders.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Who said we were surprised?

Just disgusted.

Once the invasion was successfully completed we became occupiers. There is no good reason why we could not have handle this phase better and no excuse for the bad behavior of our troops.

The problems we are seeing now resulted from a break down of discipline and a major failure of leadership at the highest ranks in the DOD.

[leftchick]

9. it can all be said in one sickening word...

rummy... :puke:

[Disturbed]

11. People become brutal.

Having spent 90 days in a military stockade I testifty that people become brutal to their own, as well. It's a set up. Most people can be shaped into becoming brutal in a short period of time. It's a set up of one set of one group against the other. It is strange that it becomes ok to be brutal to others that are deemed to be the "bad" ones.

[leftchick]

13. I had a very rude awakening last year when my nephew ...

fresh out of Marine basic training could not carry on a conversation that did not include weapons and killing "ragheads". This was at a family reunion and I hustled my two little boys away from him as fast as I could. It is scary how he has changed and he hasn't even been sent to Iraq yet!

:(

[shadowknows69]

14. Let me ask combat veterans

Seriously and flame away if y'all need to but....Is this kind of behavior something we just need to accept as a byproduct of war itself? Granted a rare occurrence it seems to be an inevitable one. Can you really train people to be polite killers? I've known my share of people in the military so I've heard all the stories from training camp to combat. I realize that you have to somewhat trun men and women into(an no offense intended) "obedient animals" to ask them to run headlong into a meat grinder time and time again and keep their sanity. It can't be expected that all are going to be able to put away that animalistic side at the end of the day. By no means making excuses but trying to understand. DO you think it's something that could be fixed by a change in the training and the mindset of the military or are we going to have to suffer the occasional Abu Grahib and deal with it......


edit: <wow did that make any sense? It'searly and I've quit smoking today lol)

[NNN0LHI]

18. Actually killing people does come naturally to normal human beings

Think about what is considered normal and what is considered abnormal for a moment. Was it abnormal for our earliest ancestors to kill one another? No it was not. Killing is something we have "learned" is not unacceptable in a civilized society. That is why so much time is spent training police officers to act abnormally in extreme circumstances.

An example would be if you or I were to walk up on someone who had just killed a child our normal reaction to such a thing would be to kill the SOB on the spot. Police are taught to fight these normal emotions and to arrest the perp rather than kill him. That is the abnormal response to the situation.

Don

[DoYouEverWonder]

19. That is why disipline and training

are so important in the US Military. Or at least they used to be important. Since Bush and Rummie took over, anything goes it seems.

[NNN0LHI]

20. I am in full agreement with you n/t

[Tracer]

21. "A Soldier's Heart"

I haven't seen this film mentioned in any DU post.

It was on PBS last week and was the story of Iraq veterans suffering from PTSD.

The wierd thing about the documentary was that, although the reason for the soldier's distress came from either killing civilians in Iraq or viewing killings (a perfectly NATURAL reaction, in my mind), there was never a mention about the ethics or brutality of war.

All the Army and its psychiatrists had in mind for these poor soliders was to give them some sort of quickie "mental health treatment" and ship them right back to Iraq.

Pretty disgusting.

[Moderator]

22. kick to combine

[Up2Late]

23. Video Shows U.S. Soldiers in 'Ramadi Madness' Abuse (Reuters)

Mon Mar 7, 2005 08:12 PM ET

By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army soldiers in Iraq filmed themselves kicking a gravely wounded prisoner in the face and making the arm of a corpse appear to wave, then titled the effort "Ramadi Madness" after the city where it was made.

The video, made public on Monday, was shot by Florida National Guard soldiers. They edited and compiled it into a DVD in January 2004, with various sections bearing titles such as "Those Crafty Little Bastards" and "Another Day, Another Mission, Another Scumbag."

The soldiers' unit served in the restive Sunni Muslim city Ramadi, about 70 miles west of Baghdad, before returning home a year ago.

The video's existence had been revealed in Army documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under court order through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Pentagon did not release the video, saying it believed it had been destroyed. But a Florida newspaper, The Palm Beach Post, obtained it and posted some of it on its Web site on Monday.

(more at link)
<http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7832369§ion=news>

[rockedthevoteinMA]

24. OMG

:cry: :cry:

[LynnTheDem]

25. It's not the ABUSE and TORTURE...it's the PHOTOS AND VIDEO!

God help us. PLEASE!

[LynnTheDem]

26. Soldiers depicted in the new video would not face criminal charges,

the Pentagon said.


WHY NOT???????

"Documents showed that the Army deemed the actions shown on the video "inappropriate" rather than criminal."

Hear that, world? Next time you capture any US soldiers that are GRAVELY WOUNDED, feel free to KICK THEM IN THE FACE. That's "not criminal", it's just "INAPPROPRIATE".

And remember, rape and beatings etc are just FRAT-HOUSE GAMES, so feel free to do that, too.

THANKS BUSH FOR MAKING OUR TROOPS FOREVER LESS SAFE BECAUSE OF YOU.

[Disturbed]

27. SOP

This sort of behavior is encouraged from the top.

[LynnTheDem]

28. Yep. Yet watch em scream and shriek when exactly the same shit happens

to US troops.

And it will happen.

But hey, why should I worry my beautiful mind over the safety of our uniformed men, women & teens! After all, being kicked in the face when dying on the ground isn't criminal. It's just INAPPROPRIATE.

SHOVELLING DOWN YOUR MEAL at a fancy restaurant is "INAPPROPRIATE".

[stevedeshazer]

29. "Those Crafty Little Bastards"

"Another Day, Another Mission, Another Scumbag."

Support Our Troops, freepers. :grr:

[Zerex71]

56. Oh, but our boys and girls are just having a little fun!

You know, harmless fraternity pranks, blowing off a little steam!!!

[Judi Lynn]

30. Duped an earlier post. Sorry. n/t

[Zerex71]

32. Oh, but don't forget to Support Those Troops with a gay yellow ribbon!

They're our heroes, remember????

[Moderator]

33. kick to combine

[chlamor]

34. Video Shows More U.S. Iraq Abuse

Video shows more US Iraq abuse



Tuesday 08 March 2005, 5:59 Makka Time, 2:59 GMT  


US Army soldiers in Iraq have filmed themselves kicking a gravely wounded prisoner in the face and making the arm of a corpse appear to wave.

The video, made public on Monday, was shot by Florida National Guard soldiers.

They edited and compiled it into a DVD in January 2004, with various sections bearing titles such as Those Crafty Little Bastards, and Another Day, Another Mission, Another Scumbag.

<snip>

One section of the video shows a bound and wounded prisoner sprawled on the ground, and displays his bullet entry and exit wounds.

At one point, a US soldier kicks the prisoner in the face.

Army documents quoted a soldier at the scene as saying he "thought the dude eventually died. We weren't in any hurry to call the medics".
 
<snip>

In another part of the video, a soldier grabs the arm of a truck driver who has just been shot dead and makes the corpse wave to the camera.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C602E04F-7CF1-4566-830D-FD361DA2CA25.htm

[GetTheRightVote]

35. This is not good, abuse continues even today after so much reporting of it

What is really wrong with this country that this goes on yet ??

:kick:

[dflprincess]

36. I am so disgusted by this kind of crap

I can't come up with the words to describe my feelings.

On the other hand, as long as there as yahoos who are crude enough to behave this way, I'm glad they're also dumb enough to film it so the world finds out about it.

[physioex]

38. They are sabotaging their own mission....

What a bunch of idiots......

[Adrian Luca]

39. Sabotaging their mission?

Their mission seems to change depending on what month it is.

This is yet more proof that most of the apples in the barrel are bad.

[physioex]

40. True........

OK what "mission" that they supposedly have.....

[zeemike]

37. I am not surprised

It seems that the all volunteer military has attracted most of the sociopaths. But that makes sense when you think about it.Where else could a sociopath or " natural born killer" get paid to have his fun.

It is time to consider returning to a conscripted military where the majority of the solderers are moral people and would not tolerate such disgraceful behavior. .

[AndyTiedye]

46. No Draft! No WAY!

That gives ** all the cannon fodder he needs to invade Iran, Syria,
and who knows where next. The draft also would consign all the Jason
Tharps of America to an early grave. The military is not for everyone.


We don't need to bring back the draft, we need to bring back the free press we used to have.

[CoffeeCat]

41. Why do these soldiers behave this way?

I am really not getting this.

We are there to LIBERATE these people.

They act as if the Iraqis are hated enemies, as if Iraq is Germany during WW2.

I really don't get this sick shit.

I don't want these deranged psychopaths back on US shores. Sick freaks.

There are plenty of soldiers, behaving with respect and courage over there. The freaks who are acting this way, are no longer American soldiers--they are mentally deranged sociopaths who have no humanity left in them.

I don't want them to return to this country.

[truthisfreedom]

42. because their fearless leader has a god-complex and has set an example

of reckless, self-righeous, murderous cruelty.

[IndianaGreen]

43. Many of them are racists and fundies

They view brown people with contempt, in the same way they held black people with contempt in Somalia (we killed tens of thousands!).

And when these bozos return home, they won't hesitate to shoot Americans because they are pinko commie liberals.

[ninkasi]

47. Actually, the idea that we are there to "liberate"

these people is something that only came to light when no WMD were found, and Saddam had been captured, and we were going to bring them democracy, or the elections were going to change everything...

Liberating Iraqis was pretty far down on the list of the many reasons we were given. Never, though, did the Bush Gang give oil, or enriching Halliburton as among the reasons.

I don't want the psychopaths back in this country either; we have enough of them running loose in the White House, causing other kinds of damage.

[shanti]

48. this is what we've produced

do we claim them?

[Ms. Clio]

44. Why do you hate America?

/sarcasm off

[clem_c_rock]

45. Let's establish something here - Democracy is not part of the plan

They only say that so we keep quite while we send our children over to die for the PNAC agenda which is 100% about colonization.

Has any colonizing power ever told their public anything but "we're here to bring a better life for these people"? I challenge anyone to find an example where their public was actually told the truth.

It's amazing. The PNAC posts their agenda in plain view, follows that agenda to the #, and everyone is still debating the idea that this is about "democracy".

Let's wake the f*** up here.

[Moderator]

49. kick to combine

[chlamor]

54. Sorry to duplicate

Don't know what the hell happened w/computer. Thanks for your efforts and patience.

[chlamor]

50. Video Shows More U.S. Iraq Abuse

Video shows more US Iraq abuse



Tuesday 08 March 2005, 5:59 Makka Time, 2:59 GMT  


US Army soldiers in Iraq have filmed themselves kicking a gravely wounded prisoner in the face and making the arm of a corpse appear to wave.

The video, made public on Monday, was shot by Florida National Guard soldiers.

They edited and compiled it into a DVD in January 2004, with various sections bearing titles such as Those Crafty Little Bastards, and Another Day, Another Mission, Another Scumbag.

<snip>

One section of the video shows a bound and wounded prisoner sprawled on the ground, and displays his bullet entry and exit wounds.

At one point, a US soldier kicks the prisoner in the face.

Army documents quoted a soldier at the scene as saying he "thought the dude eventually died. We weren't in any hurry to call the medics".
 
<snip>

In another part of the video, a soldier grabs the arm of a truck driver who has just been shot dead and makes the corpse wave to the camera.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C602E04F-7CF1-45...
 

[sniffa]

51. wiLL it see the Light of day in america?

and wiLL anybody care?

[RagingInMiami]

52. A heavily censored portion of that video has been airing on the local

TV stations down here.

[DoYouEverWonder]

55. This story was broke by the Palm Beach Post

See my original post.

[lumpy]

53. The Palm Beach Postwebsite

is supposed to have the video (for those who have no faith in aljareeza)