WTF? (war thread)

[Push 0]

Please tell me this is another one of those misreportings or something.

http://thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035780303918&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

-- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo
Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

[Gawain 0]

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Please tell me this is another one of those misreportings or something.

I didn't know Apache helocopters could drop cluster munitions (?) As for the article, there's something in the context I can't quite put my finger on.... there is more to the story that is being told here.

...edit for formatting...

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[mnischalke 0]

Believe this if you like. Color me a skeptic, but I am not buying what he is selling, nor do I know the background of this "news" source.

The report is not a news story, by the way. It is a blatant editorial rather than an objective slice of news. The whole thing is obviously slanted.

The author makes reference to the "fact" that other journalists were at this hospital, but I have yet to find a piece that supports his claim other than on this propaganda site. He also mentions Sky Television, but on their news site, there is no reference to anything of the sort.

A Reuters Story does make mention that something may have happened, but there is still no confirmation from their newsroom, as the first link suggests.

I don't know about you, but I wonder how many Iraqis have access to grapefruit so they can compare the size of these "bomblets." In actuality, the bomblets within the US cluster bombs are the size of coke cans not "grapefruit." It also makes me wonder what these people are doing walking around in a country full of mines and other dangerous shit, picking up unexploded ordnance. You'd think they'd know by now.

Maybe it's just me, but I got the feeling this whole thing was grown in a lab at Amnesty International UK

mike

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills--You know, like nunchuk skills, bow-hunting skills, computer-hacking skills.

[mnischalke 0]

In his story, he wrote that Apache helicopters would disgorge special forces on the road. Ummmmm, that's impossible, unless the troops are hanging on the skids. The longbow holds two people. B52s deliver the 1,000 lb cluster bombs.

mike

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills--You know, like nunchuk skills, bow-hunting skills, computer-hacking skills.

[nathaniel 0]

One of the easiest ways to pass off false statements is to intermingle them with true statements and observations.

Fortunately in this case the author makes some specious claims that are easy to catch:

1. helicopters in general dont usually drop bombs, they're too slow and dont fly high enough to safely overfly targets. they shoot rockets and guns laterally instead.

2. apache helicopters don't disgorge troops, they're 2-seaters

3. you don't have to be very resourceful to come across US-made bomb fragments in baghdad these days, or to transport them from where they were used to other locations

4. when US operations go "spectacularly wrong" the iraqi military has been desperate to put them on TV, witness POWs and that downed helicopter from last week

5. the us military has cited cases of short flights of iraqi aircraft. even had they not, it is a positivist fallacy to assert absence of evidence implies evidence of absence ( edit: like point #4 )

nathaniel

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[nacmacfeegle 0]

We are using cluster bombs though, even us Brits have admitted to it. Albeit only on "military" targets though....http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2912105.stm
One of the nasty side effects of this type of munition is that they continue to kill and main long after the hostilities have ceased.

Did anyone really believe this action would be clean and decent and honest?

--------------------

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Guest]

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Please tell me this is another one of those misreportings or something.

http://thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035780303918&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

Robert Fisk is a known propagandist from the "Peter Arnett School of Journalism".

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."

[Push 0]

Thanks for clearing that up for me folks. The story sounded very wrong, I just couldn't put my finger on why. After seeing the technical inaccuracies, I think we can safely dismiss this as crap. I don't think I'll be reading the Toronto Star much from now on.

-- Toggle Whippin' Yahoo
Skydiving is easy. All you have to do is relax while plummetting at 120 mph from 10,000' with nothing but some nylon and webbing to save you.

[Genie 0]

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One of the easiest ways to pass off false statements is to intermingle them with true statements and observations.

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Fortunately in this case the author makes some specious claims that are easy to catch:

1. helicopters in general dont usually drop bombs, they're too slow and dont fly high enough to safely overfly targets. they shoot rockets and guns laterally instead.

To be fair he never said the helicopter dropped the bombs - heres the relevant section of info
"The deputy administrator of the Hilla hospital and one of his doctors told a confused tale of military action around the city in recent days, on the road to Karbala.

One of their operations — if the hospital personnel are to be believed — went spectacularly wrong one night when militiamen forced them to retreat. Shortly afterwards, the cluster bomb raids began, although the villages that were targeted appear to have been on the other side of Hilla to the abortive American attack.

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2. apache helicopters don't disgorge troops, they're 2-seaters

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from above the guy who claimed that they were apaches was the deputy administrator of the hospital. It could be possible that he doesnt know one helicopter from another and just used a name he heard. I certainly couldnt tell one helicopter from another.

3. you don't have to be very resourceful to come across US-made bomb fragments in baghdad these days, or to transport them from where they were used to other locations***
Including the little parachutes he is talking about? This is a question, i know d*mn all about munitions. Do other types of bombs have little parachutes?


BTW - im not saying in anyway that what this man wrote was gospel or anything like it - i genuinely have no clue but am going on the basis of disbelieve everything right now because i presume that both sides are using the propaganda weapon as much as they can. But the points you were making were perhaps not taking everything into consideration..

nathaniel

Noelle

[nathaniel 0]

Yes, I concede point #1 was the Straw Man tactic. Good on you for catching me

About bombs / parachutes the best reference I've found so far is http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/dumb/index.html . It's not complete but it has lots of information there. It shows submunitions that have something that I'm not sure I would call a parachute on the back, could reasonably be described as such. I don't dispute that the US has used cluster bombs in Iraq--it surely has--I dispute that the display of a used cluster bomblet implies it was used against civilians, and I dispute that it adds credibility to this guy's account.

In the section about apache helicopters, the author is using his own words to describe the scene. Either the words were not his and he should have used a quote, or they were his and he is wrong. Journalism aside, my point is that the story is dubious whether they are the author's words or the deputy's.

When you say you couldn't tell one helicopter from another, does that mean you would therefore feel comfortable describing one as an Apache? Of course not, and that's part of the problem imo.

I think we agree that pro- or anti- much of what has been written so far about this conflict should be read with a generous serving of skepticism.

nathaniel

My advice is to do what your parents did; get a job, sir. The bums will always lose. Do you hear me, Lebowski?

[Genie 0]

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Yes, I concede point #1 was the Straw Man tactic. Good on you for catching me

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Yay me!!! Only messing - just trying to keep it all focused!
*** I don't dispute that the US has used cluster bombs in Iraq--it surely has--I dispute that the display of a used cluster bomblet implies it was used against civilians, and I dispute that it adds credibility to this guy's account.

Whoa there! I wasnt even getting into that! I have no idea what they have used and wasnt saying that because theres a factual error in the quoting that its means its Right! Far from it!

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In the section about apache helicopters, the author is using his own words to describe the scene. Either the words were not his and he should have used a quote, or they were his and he is wrong. Journalism aside, my point is that the story is dubious whether they are the author's words or the deputy's.

Accepted.

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When you say you couldn't tell one helicopter from another, does that mean you would therefore feel comfortable describing one as an Apache? Of course not, and that's part of the problem imo.

Probably not - but if english was a non native language for me and i kept hearing apache helicoper - i might think they were all called that - or i might not - i agree he should have used quotes..

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I think we agree that pro- or anti- much of what has been written so far about this conflict should be read with a generous serving of skepticism.

And a side order of cycnicism! I agree completely. Hey, theres a war on. people are using propaganda as a weapon - how naive are we to think they will use a MOAB but not lie in the papers??

Genie

nathaniel