Wikileaks

[nick the greek]

http://www.wikileaks.org/

What do you think of this site? Isn't it awesome to gain access to all these things?

[hunter42]

It's an interesting site.

Currently watching "Collateral Murder" but the buffering is slow and only just passed the point where a Bradley runs over a body.

Crazyhorse: "Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon."

Ground unit reports: "I've got uh eleven Iraqi KIAs. One small child wounded. Over."

Crazy Horse: "Roger. Ah damn. Oh well."

[nick the greek]

The "weapon" was a camera .

[erfd]

That was over the top attack. Way to make sure you know what you are attacking.

[nick the greek]

You must always know what you attacking but in this case he (the pilot or the gunner) saw a RPG and many AK-47's. I can only see something that in a very creative way of thinking could match the shape of an AK-47.

[jab16]

To be honest I see no problem, remember there could be under lying things in this kind of situation. How are those guys supposed to be able to tell who is doing what??? This is war guys, are you going to be the one that could have saved a young officers life, or are you going to be the one that let him die??

My two cents

[Tian318]

Well the attack orders seems to be a text book example of an attack.

The one that called a camera a gun/rpg is a bit near sighted,

although i can understand why he would call it that way.(not to justify it)

but the way they carries the camera the band looks like the band on a ak47, and the big tele-lens on the camera (while only a small bit is visible)

can look like the end of an RPG on a moving bird.

that said, there is always the fact of human error in these sorts of things.

In gulf war one, a USA frigate shot down a civil air-line plane, the crew of the ship got a medal for courage.

As the radar of the ship called the civil plane a F-14.

They fired one tomahawk cruise missile into the civil plane.

all people on board died, no charges where made against the crew due to a few things;

One the radar marked it as F-14

They called the plane over 200 times to make sure if it was a F-14 or not

So then they fired in order to protect the ship and crew.

You can look at this in the same way

one well placed RPG can knock a Apache Ah-64 clear out of the sky, killing the pilots and crippling the allied forces.

that kind of stress on a human will F* there mind and see things that aren't there.

That aside.

It is a war over there, civil deaths are a fact of live

Just as there where here 60years ago when the allied and axis forces bomb cities to weaken the enemy

Does that make it more right or justified to do?

No certainly not.

But in order to win a war, innocent people will always die.

As it has been said by a colonel after he had been trailed for killing 120 civil targets;(who later on as investigation continued had weapons)

You expect to go to war, follow the rules and nobody gets hurt?

YES, innocent people have died, As they do in every war.

But i would not stand by and let another one of my men be killed just to live up to the war rules.

So no i'm not great-full that these sort of things come on-line.

Every body in there right mind should know that civil people always die in war, most of the time by misstake.

I don't need confirmation about that, i already know that.

The soldier who carried out this attack did so they way they where trained.

Now what would you expect?

Fill some once mind with images and that it is good to kill a bad guy.

Give him a gun send him to war.

For him to stand down?

A lot is overlooked by just placing this movie.

number of flight hours, have they already been in combat, who where the pilots, what where there motives to fly a bird.

and so on.

And to be fair, these human right groups make me sick.

I know a lot of Dutch soldiers who went to Iraq and Afghanistan, who actually had to fire to save there lives, or the once of fellow soldiers.

And come back destroyed,(mentally) they are kicked out of the army and must follow 5years of therapy in order to get a normal live again.

[jab16]

I agree, people just cant post a video of a AH-64 opening fire on a group and say it is wrong, There are so many things that go on over there, no one even looks back at all the innocent lives lost, its a fact in war there is death whether good or bad. Hell id rather be killed by an american helicopter in iraq then by my former dictator. Were not there to kill civilans, but to help them. To be honest that video shouldn't even be up this has been happeing every day for hundreds of years. You cant say there is anything wrong with this, do you want to be the one being walked down the ramp of a transport plane in a coverd coffin??? It is sad that innocent people are dying because of other peoples actions (refering to terrists) but no matter how hard we try this will continue to happen. Did any of you all hear the radio traffic, there were multiple units within the area. People dont have a magic freakon crystol ball to look into and see what someone will do. Its act or not, here they acted and may have saved a life, or mabie unjustly taken some. This video makes no sense to me this has been going on and will continue to go on as long as there is fighting.

[hunter42]

To be honest I see no problem, remember there could be under lying things in this kind of situation. How are those guys supposed to be able to tell who is doing what??? This is war guys, are you going to be the one that could have saved a young officers life, or are you going to be the one that let him die??

*long, long, speech thing*

I have to agree with you guys, and I have nothing against this, since it's commonplace in war.

What I don't like is that the military didn't owe up to it and denied they knew how the journalists were killed. It reminds me a bit when the CIA were following a civil plane and couldn't contact it. They thought it was a drug smuggling plane and it was eventually shot down, with only the pilot surviving. A fatal mistake, yes. But it was kept secret for ages.

In gulf war one, a USA frigate shot down a civil air-line plane, the crew of the ship got a medal for courage.

As the radar of the ship called the civil plane a F-14.

They fired one tomahawk cruise missile into the civil plane.

all people on board died, no charges where made against the crew due to a few things;

One the radar marked it as F-14

They called the plane over 200 times to make sure if it was a F-14 or not

So then they fired in order to protect the ship and crew.

What? That makes little sense.

The Iraq air force was primarly equipped with soviet era aircraft, like TU-22s and MIGs. If it appeared as an f-14, then the US navy would have basically shot down an ally aircraft.

And if they contacted the plane over 200 times, then that must mean the plane was either extremly slow moving, in which case it should've been obvious that there was something very wrong with the "f-14". Or it wasn't even heading towards the frigate. (I'm guessing over 200 was an exxageration? )

Would've made more sense to try and spot the aircraft or scramble any available aircraft to spot the unkown plane.

In the end though, it could still be justified in some ways.

edit:

To be honest that video shouldn't even be up this has been happeing every day for hundreds of years. You cant say there is anything wrong with this

Exactly what I was looking for. I was about to make a point with the help of this, and completly forgot it I'll remember later

[MikeyPI]

Look at the "source" of the information... Or rather lack thereof... Who's to say what really was going on and what took place in anything provided on that site? Information is only as good as the sources that provide it... Hiding the identities of those providing it makes for very easy going to deliberately mislead people with information that is but a shade of grey. If you love national inquirer then Wikileaks is for you, if you like substanative information that can be independently verified outside of "an unamed source" I'd move on elsewhere.

Quoted from the site:

15. Mar. 2010: U.S. Intelligence planned to destroy WikiLeaks, 18 Mar 2008

The U.S. Intelligence agencies play wargames, it does not mean that they are necessarilly going to follow through with them because you find a report that shows detailed information on how they would theoretically do something if they wanted to. In my eyes this "report" they did is a prime example of why independent verification is so crucial.

[Tian318]

What? That makes little sense.

The Iraq air force was primarly equipped with soviet era aircraft, like TU-22s and MIGs. If it appeared as an f-14, then the US navy would have basically shot down an ally aircraft.

And if they contacted the plane over 200 times, then that must mean the plane was either extremly slow moving, in which case it should've been obvious that there was something very wrong with the "f-14". Or it wasn't even heading towards the frigate. (I'm guessing over 200 was an exxageration? )

Would've made more sense to try and spot the aircraft or scramble any available aircraft to spot the unkown plane.

In the end though, it could still be justified in some ways.

Okey things about the gulf war you don't know(i think)

One in the first gulf war Iran was(and still is)major tread.

Iran has the F-14 Fighter plane.

And the fear that Iran would join the war was big!

If Iran would join the war with Iraq, then F-14 could be scrambled from bases in Iraq(just as with the dutch, we place our planes in the country that is under attack, to give faster and better air support)

The Iraq air-force had ordered there planes(when attacking USA ships/convoys)to fly at the speed of civil planes.

But all planes carry a device that sends out a signal that would mark it as a war plane or as a civil plane.

Due to a com link error in the USA war ship, that com link error was not found, and the plane was marked as a F-14.

When a Military unit(in that time) would "call" a civil plane they could not contact is(gives the same effect as radio silence)

So given the fact that the war ship was in the area of Oman(and not Iraq) and jets flying at civil airline speeds there was over 30min between take of and shot down.

So i think 200 calls is even a understatement.

They called the plane telling it to identify it self.

Later to turn around.

Still later they marked a 5 mile area around the ship as USA property(meaning, if you fly in that we can use lethal force)

But since the civil plane could not hear any of this, they flown on.

When the airplane was about 1mile away from the ship they had no other option(to them)to fire that fatal missile.

Again, just as with the video on wikki leaks there is so much behind it.

There also was the fact of:

According to Iraq Ground control(civil) the plane was climbing.

According to Iraq Ground control(civil) the plane did send out it's proper code(marking it as civil jet)

According to another war ship(Iran) in the area, it was marked as civil and climbing.

But according to the war ship radar operator the plane was flying in attack formation and descending for attack.

But according to the war ship device operator it was marked as an F-14 and there for lethal.

But no message was send to the USA war ship.

So where do you draw the line in war?

So many human errors.

(later in a investigation)

The device operator and radar operator where diagnosed as overstressed due to the fear of a real F-14 attack

(since they already been in the war area for over 6months)

the radar marked the the plane as an F-14(due to Iran's fighter planes who where conduction intel missions in the area).

But when those planes landed(15min before the ship fired) the codes where changed to a civil jet.

(this in the time that there was radio contact) so the device operator suspected a code change made by the F-14 pilot.

Due to that stress the radar operator kept the plane marked as a F-14 going at strike course.

The captain waited as long as he could,..only when the plane got in a 1mile radius he had to fire(or they could no longer intercept a missile(if fired upon)

All this what is stated above took 10years of research and data collecting.

There was no way that in war, to have this data or information and prevent the attack on civil targets.

(this is also due to the F*ing back stabbing tactics of the Iraq air force in that war.)

[hunter42]

Few errors I want to point out:

It's the Iraq-Iran war, not the first Gulf war. Iran was neutral in the first Gulf war, which is why I was confused as to how an F-14 could have been a threat (but obviously it could have been because it's a different war)

The Airbus A300 took off at 10:17 and was shot down at 10:24 - Seven minutes into flight. 200 calls in the space of 7 minutes is impossible.

The USS Vincennes fired two Tomahawk missiles, not one.

The Airbus was 20Km away from the warship when shot down, which is about 12 miles. So they didn't wait until it was 1 mile away.

The radar operater, petty officer Andrew Anderson, was the first to pick up Flight 655 on radar and thought that it might be a commercial aircraft. He may have been overstressed, but he still figured it out.

And the reason why the crew were rather stressed was because the captain had been become rather aggressive. Commanding officer David Carlson of USS Sides noted out some aggresive action, such as breaking rules of engagement.

I won't particulary pursue this discussion because I'm not very knowledgable on the Middle East and I don't feel like researching everything.

[Tian318]

Few errors I want to point out:

It's the Iraq-Iran war, not the first Gulf war. Iran was neutral in the first Gulf war, which is why I was confused as to how an F-14 could have been a threat (but obviously it could have been because it's a different war)

The Airbus A300 took off at 10:17 and was shot down at 10:24 - Seven minutes into flight. 200 calls in the space of 7 minutes is impossible.

The USS Vincennes fired two Tomahawk missiles, not one.

The Airbus was 20Km away from the warship when shot down, which is about 12 miles. So they didn't wait until it was 1 mile away.

The radar operater, petty officer Andrew Anderson, was the first to pick up Flight 655 on radar and thought that it might be a commercial aircraft. He may have been overstressed, but he still figured it out.

And the reason why the crew were rather stressed was because the captain had been become rather aggressive. Commanding officer David Carlson of USS Sides noted out some aggresive action, such as breaking rules of engagement.

I won't particulary pursue this discussion because I'm not very knowledgable on the Middle East and I don't feel like researching everything.

that is not the war i'm talking about

not even the same plane.

the plane was a gulfstream IV

don't you guys ever watch nat geo or something?

damn....

[hunter42]

that is not the war i'm talking about

not even the same plane.

the plane was a gulfstream IV

don't you guys ever watch nat geo or something?

damn....

well what war could it be then? You said the first gulf war, but that doesn't make sense since Iran was never in that war, so the only people who have F-14s was the US...

Find an Internet source then, cause I have no idea what incident you're referring to then. Entering " gulfstream IV shot down" doesn't even produce a result.

Everything I read about the Airbus A300 incident is related to everything you've said...

[Tian318]

well what war could it be then? You said the first gulf war, but that doesn't make sense since Iran was never in that war, so the only people who have F-14s was the US...

Find an Internet source then, cause I have no idea what incident you're referring to then. Entering " gulfstream IV shot down" doesn't even produce a result.

Everything I read about the Airbus A300 incident is related to everything you've said...

it was in the gulf war.

and if you would read my previous post correct.

you would see that Iran did have the F-14 fighter jet.

And the fear of them ENTERING the war was great, great enough to strike fear into the hards of the soldiers.

But i will try to find a to confirm it, and update when i got it.

[Newfoundking]

Lets see.. Tomahawks CANNOT, I repeat CANNOT take down aircraft. They are surface to surface only weapons. Using them to take down a plane will result in you getting laughed at. The only way a plane is going down if you fire those at it is if it was already on it's way down. They have 0 ability to target planes.

I gather this information from a highly trained military specialist I'm going to call Mr. K because I doubt he wants his name put out there.

Mike knows this man better though, so if he wishes, he can back up all of what I just said.

[billyfromhill]

it was in the gulf war.

and if you would read my previous post correct.

you would see that Iran did have the F-14 fighter jet.

And the fear of them ENTERING the war was great, great enough to strike fear into the hards of the soldiers.

But i will try to find a to confirm it, and update when i got it.

Excuse me, but if you did a shread of research you would find that the shootdown of Iran Air flight 655 took place in 1988, during the Iran-Iraq War. The USS Vincennes thought it was an Iranian F-14. Now the only two operators of the F-14 at the time was the U.S. and, you guessed it, Iran.

[Newfoundking]

*Moderator standing by with a firehose for the second this turns into a flamewar.*

Debates are fine, but if it becomes a fight, I will take action..

[Tian318]

*Moderator standing by with a firehose for the second this turns into a flamewar.*

Debates are fine, but if it becomes a fight, I will take action..

Not need for that,

i'll give my replay when i have found the source behind that story.

Edit:

And to the critics about this story.

If i forget to post here, or can't find a decent source on it, you can call it a win.

But then again does that change the story behind it all?

Should accidents in war be posted on the web and the crew be made as criminals?

(just my 2 cents)

[hunter42]

Lets see.. Tomahawks CANNOT, I repeat CANNOT take down aircraft. They are surface to surface only weapons. Using them to take down a plane will result in you getting laughed at. The only way a plane is going down if you fire those at it is if it was already on it's way down. They have 0 ability to target planes.

I gather this information from a highly trained military specialist I'm going to call Mr. K because I doubt he wants his name put out there.

Mike knows this man better though, so if he wishes, he can back up all of what I just said.

I feel like an even bigger idiot. Mike PM'd me and one thing he said was that a mistake many won't notice was thrthing about firing a Tomahawk. I just thought "Yea, it was two they fired" lol woops

[jab16]

What the f*ck??? This is on the front page of cnn now??? I don't like this at all not one bit. This is going to cause trouble I assure you

[Newfoundking]

You're lucky the censor caught you

And this will cause a little uproar, then people will explain the truth, then there will be a little more mistrust from the ones that already don't trust the gov, and those who were looking for reasons not to, then they'll be back to something new.. Or something big will happen and we'll all forget about this

[Tian318]

Lets see.. Tomahawks CANNOT, I repeat CANNOT take down aircraft. They are surface to surface only weapons. Using them to take down a plane will result in you getting laughed at. The only way a plane is going down if you fire those at it is if it was already on it's way down. They have 0 ability to target planes.

I gather this information from a highly trained military specialist I'm going to call Mr. K because I doubt he wants his name put out there.

Mike knows this man better though, so if he wishes, he can back up all of what I just said.

Mayday mayday....

YES it can.

There are multiple types of that missile

Wikki source

(will find a better source and update here)

[jab16]

ha ha, yeah. I just dont like all the attention right now, we already have enough debate about the military as is, we dont need more stuff like this here. I think sites like this make things worse rather then better.

[MikeyPI]

Mayday mayday....

YES it can.

There are multiple types of that missile

Wikki source

(will find a better source and update here)

Check your own "source" there bud, it states nothing of any Surface to Air or Air to Air varients... The tomahawk is only for surface based targets.