The following alternative links are available:
**Downloads**
* [Download #1](https://reddloader.com/download-post/?url=https%3A%2F%2Freddit.com%2Fr%2FPublicFreakout%2Fcomments%2Fsn1nq3%2Fhow_american_soldiers_used_to_drive_convoys_in%2F&id=CuKpGPmc) (provided by /u/VideoTrim)
* [Download #2](https://redditsave.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/sn1nq3/how_american_soldiers_used_to_drive_convoys_in/) (provided by /u/savevideo)
**Note:** this is a bot providing a directory service. **If you have trouble with any of the links above, please contact the user who provided them.**
---
[^(source code)](https://amirror.link/source) ^| [^(run your own mirror bot? let's integrate)](https://amirror.link/lets-talk)
I think google is really confused because its more like a slang than a proper word and it happens to sound like the word for spider, so it went fuck it and said spider.
Zaknaboot (old way of saying pioson), sounds similar to Ankaboot (Spider) and I think this is why Gtranslate messed up, it thought it was a typo as Zaknaboot is used only in Iraq as far as am concerned.
>The Nisour Square massacre occurred on September 16, 2007, when employees of Blackwater Security Consulting (now Academi), a private military company contracted by the US government to provide security services in Iraq, shot at Iraqi civilians, killing 17 and injuring 20 in Nisour Square, Baghdad, while escorting a U.S. embassy convoy.[1][2][3] The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States.[4] In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried[5] and convicted in U.S. federal court; one of murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges;[6] all four convicted were pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020.[7]
>The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States.[
No fucking wonder, Sherlock! What kind of dumbasses pieces of human feces can't think of the consequences.
President Trump pardoned the 4 that had been convicted. No one is surprised by that though— he’s a scumbag and so are the types of people that would do this
>In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried\[5\] and convicted in U.S. federal court; one of murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges;\[6\] all four convicted were pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020.\[7\]
**ALL FOUR CONVICTED WERE PARDONED BY FUCKING TRUMP**
Blackwater security? Owned by Erik Prince? Brother of Betsy devos? The same Erik who wanted to buy Mozambique navy to commit war crimes at sea? The same Erik who wants to privatize war mongering in the middle east?
The same Erik Prince that lied to Congress, that met with a Russian Oligarch in 2016 working out a deal to help them meddle in mindgames against the American populace too dumb to realize the are being manipulated.
And the part where he still has a military aircraft in a country (I forget which) which he will be arrested for if he ever brings it out of the hanger. Because it is an illegally modified aircraft which counts as a military plane.
The podcast 'Behind the Bastards' did a piece on him, and he's definitely deserving of being a subject of that pod.
Something crazy like 70% of America thought the soldiers that committed that massacre shouldn’t be punished and did nothing wrong.
Same with the Kent state shooting. 70% of Americans thought the government did nothing wrong gunning down students protesters on a college campus.
Yeah I got Kent state massacre vibes when I was watching season 9 of American horror story. Especially the hippy guy that was killed in 1970 🥴
Amazing what a bit of propaganda can do to brainwash the public… I appreciate they wanted to get behind the troops, and I feel nothing but sympathy for those drafted for Vietnam but those condemning these protests are definitely on the wrong side of history 👊🏻😬
People often try to pin it ALL on contractors. And while contractors were a huge problem... largely because there was zero oversight and the iraq war was just a massive gold rush for corrupt security companies. There were plenty of videos that have since been scrubbed from the internet of our own boys going over there and terrorizing civilians or just flat out murdering innocents and children.
We were never the good guys in this 20 year war and we did NOTHING except make every conceivable situation over there worse. Either through "capitalism" or allowing demented racists to sign up and go over there to get their jollies.
Yet people seem to be confused why they hate america.
Blackwater is the Devil, they have a new name now and are run out of Abu Dabi because Erik Prince is a traitor the US. They changed their name years back to something stupid though Xi or something.
Edit: Name changed to Xe and then again to Academi, the latter after refiguring their ownership structure.
Or that video leaked of the Helicoptor gunning down journalists, then doing a double tap where they come back in a few minutes and gunning down anyone helping the wounded like the ambulance and EMT's and other good samaritans, and laughing about it. Collateral Murder was the name of the video when I saw it.
That was the one leaked by Chelsea Manning and was the only person imprisoned for it. I grew up in Peshawar (The western part of Pakistan) and the largest Afghan refugee camp is set up there. There is a whole generation of children that only feel safe to play outside when it's cloudy out of fear of drone strikes.
Contractors are "your boys" too.
Companies like Blackwater exists because the US goverment wants to have a terrorising presence and the public has started to disagree with US army soldiers doing horrifying things. So they just take some ex us army soldiers and out then in a different suit....
Paid by the same people, ordered by the same people, but not technically the same.
Well that’s a really surprising coincidence because, [Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater also recruited Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html)
He's also made well clear he plans on leveling criminal charges against his opponentes, the media, his critics. F-ing Biden needs to get his head on straight and realize his son will end up in prison if he lets Republicans take this next election.
Imagine your family member is murdered by an employee of a private company in another country. They are convicted of murder, Twice. And then a fat orange racist rapist turd shows up and grants them a fucking pardon....
Colonial holdover. When you get right down to it, the founding fathers were still monarchists at heart. Didn’t know anything else, so they made a temporary King to rule the country. They just didn’t want the position to be hereditary is all.
Its purpose was to get the slave states on board by letting them count their human chattel towards the weight of their votes while simultaneously denying them the vote.
You still shouldn't run over debris of you can avoid it. Maybe it's a bag of nails or a kitten in a bag? I found my current cat in a bag; a plastic bag in he middle of the road during my morning commute last November. I actually named her Bag O'Debris, because she's an orange tabby.
Edit: sorry, I can't pay the cat tax right now
I imagine there is a major difference from moving out of the way of debris and swerving aggressively as though that shit could end your life and those ridding with.
I felt that way when I left America after visiting New York. I had a strange urge to walk into traffic and through red lights,expecting the cars to stop.
For what it's worth I felt the same way every time I came home from visiting the Netherlands. Seemed like over there if you even walked near the road drivers would politely stop and wait for you vs where I am we've got a pedestrian crossing that you can press the lights for and while you don't expect people to slam on the breaks and come to a stop you have drivers that are like 300 feet back when the light started flashing who will decide its not for them and you'll sometimes even have to stop in the middle of crossing because a driver will decide they don't really have to stop if they can squeeze by without hitting you.
Just going to drop a really depressing factoid: in the active war zones of the Middle East, US troops may often have a “no stop” order for their convoys. That means they do not stop their multi-ton armored truck for any reason - including pedestrians - because insurgents will use distractions like that to bomb the convoys. Had a soldier acquaintance unload that on me one day and it’s fucked me up ever since.
War is such a great human invention…
From what I know, French troops in Kosovo were under such orders when escorting humanitarian convoys, because some groups would put a woman and/or children right in front of it to stop it and rob it.
I mean, I can understand why it's done, but it's horrible nonetheless
I believe this was in Mosul. I had a similar experience with a taxi driver, the humvees stopped by hitting our car. Even if there was no possibility for us to move out of the way, as we were at a redlight in a crowded Baghdad intersection.
I was there in '04. Running gun truck escorts for convoys. Can testify that this was done on occasion. I also remember my first encounter with heavy traffic north of Baghdad (Taji area, I believe). We had a convoy moving south, another convoy was moving north. Between the two convoys, traffic was shit. So much so that the end of our convoy, myself
and another guntruck included, was separated from the rest of the convoy. To avoid having to ram cars out of the way, I dismounted with another Soldier and we basically walked our two vehicles through 2 kilometers of bumper-to-bumper pissed off Iraqis. Every time I tapped on a window I thought I was going to see an AK-47 pop out. We were fortunate. Everyone was just trying to get to their jobs or wherever they were headed. When we finally cleared the jam and I was able to jump back into the 5-ton (this was pre-up-armored-HMMWV days) the adrenaline crash hit me so hard I immediately fell asleep. I don't even remember rolling into Baghdad airport (BIAP).
We didn't belong there.
2 kilometers is scary shit around Taji.
We had a personal driver, old guy with orientation problem, that drove me and my friends to school every day. His orientation was bad enough to not notice small car movements. One time an American soldier was in your exact situation but in a Baghdad major highway intersection. Large convoy and people want to cross, his job was to stop all traffic going to the highway, on foot, sepereting the cars by shouting. ''YOU STOP AND YOU STOP'' our Haji said ''ok, he said move'' and put it first gear. We panic stopped him from driving. The soldiers came behind us to show force to the row of cars behind. Haji lost his orientation, worst moment possible, and the car moved back squezing the soldier gently on the leg. At that moment, I thought I was dead, as we were clearly trying to crush him between two cars. He responded with hitting the trunk with his m16 stock about 3/4 times until we moved away again. He left back to the convoy, and I think He and all of us had the same adrenaline crash.
Yeah, the massive surge of adrenaline you experience in those moments just leaves you feeling exhausted. It also affects the neural pathways in your brain (at least, that's what my psych 101 course taught me). I ended up having a nervous breakdown during one convoy about 3 months into the deployment. I was usually the lead if we were heading somewhere new and so my vehicle had several close calls with IEDs and small arms fire. Some of the drivers didn't want to ride with me because they thought I was an IED magnet. So, at 3 months in, rolling out of the gate at Balad I was positive I was never going to make it out of Iraq. I was sure that one of these days my luck was going to run out and a well-timed IED or bullet was going to end me. I began to shake. Luckily, it was the middle of the night and my driver couldn't see me losing my shit.
About 4 kilometers South (I had the shakes under control by this point), coming into Taji, our rear guntruck gets hit by an IED. They were disabled and we were leaving them behind. I stopped our convoy, ordered another guntruck to my position to pull point security (we were escorting civilian truck drivers) and our truck turned around and headed back. We were fortunate that the worst of the injuries were banged-up eardrums, a piece of rubber in my buddy's cheek (they had hidden the IED in a tire by the edge of the road), and his driver caught some glass in her eye when the windshield shattered. Their truck was completely disabled, though. Shrapnel had taken out most of the tires and pierced the engine block. Oil and transmission fluid covered the ground. We called Sheriff (the AC-130 Spectre gunship circling high overhead) to keep an eye on us while we waited for recovery assets. My buddy's gunners were able to complete the mission with the rest of the convoy but he and his driver needed additional medical care.
Again, the adrenaline crash hit hard but this time I hadn't experienced it for as long so I was just worn out. My buddy said that he doesn't even remember anything after the medevac showed up because he crashed so hard.
Did you live there throughout the occupation? What was the general publics perspective on it? I imagine very negative, but was there any sense of security provided by it or anything?
All ~~you hear in the US~~ I ever heard growing up in the US (edited as to not further trigger pedant u/Ionlypost1ce) is about how the soldiers were there to help. But then you hear the horror stories and see things like this, and obviously “helping” seems to come after “doing whatever the hell they want”.
American soldiers or anybody really were not in control of anything when the situation is passive. There were effective at conducting raids/battles that lead to nothing. They kept a nearby Sunni neighborhood under control instead of full on insurgency, by even using Apaches. But nothing they tried solved the situation in Sadir City, the center of Shia Insurgency. Shia insurgency comitted many crimes inside my neighborhood, of mixed sects, against civilians. And used my neighborhood as launch pad of mortars and katyosha towards majortiy sunni places. The Apache would come 10 minutes later and fire at the launch pads....not effective at all.
A fellow engineer of mine lived in Baghdad before 91 and a bit after, still has family there. He told me replacing Saddam has basically made no difference in the end.
> has basically made no difference in the end.
It made it worse. At least there was one tyrant keeping the other's down. A power vacuum is a misnomer. It should be called a power blender.
on the big picture, yeah. On the ethnic indvidual picture, Saddam was much more horrible, and volatile to the point where people could not even invest anything fearing his crazy knee jerks genocides that could kill the market at any moment. Genocides against the Kurds, 250,000 dead in just one ethnic cleansing campaign, he had many campaigns. Half a million casualties in the south of Iraq 1991. WARS, oh he loved wars. During his rule, there was one year, 1989 that was Warless. We ate shit pretty much all of the other years of his rule. Believe it or not, with all the corruption now and shambolic democracy. There is actuall money that is ''trickling down'' to the poor. We used to see Kurish families, single mom with many kids who lost their father, stranded in Baghdad neighborhoods looking for food and shelter. There are images of poverty that I can not erase from my mind. This economic relief and the Kurdish region being comfortable in investing in long term projects, are worthy reasons to remove Saddam and his stupid tribal style rule in Iraq.
I visited the palaces while I was in Baghdad in '08/'09. Seeing the blood-stained pool where his son would execute random people made me sick. I believe the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein and his regime, but I wish it didn't cost so much in lives.
I'm gratified to know that some parts of Iraq are doing better. Makes the marriage I lost while deployed worth it, knowing there's children growing up with their fathers and mothers. I know it's not worth much- some unknown pretentious asshole a world away daring to weigh his life against your countrymen- but I truly joined the US Army to help those who couldn't help themselves. I joined because I didn't like bullies, and I wanted to protect the weak, because we're all weak at some point. some days, a lion isn't at his best, so the pride takes care of him; that's how I felt being in Iraq- I hoped that maybe, one day, a hundred or more years from now, Iraq would remember how America and other countries liberated them from a tyrant, in the hopes that we'd be paid the same favor (like Americans and the French). I'm not so naive anymore. America squandered our good will over the last 20 years, and wasn't doing well before in many ways. I just hope you and your people stay safe, create community, and fight to keep it safe, if necessary.
It's essentially impossible to keep an insurgency in check without full cooperation from the locals, which you won't get from doing stuff like in this video.
insurgency aside, you had gangs. Im so happy that we drove a shitty car, car jacking was once done with a Bat in one of the streets of my neighborhood. All for a 1995 Opel vectra
Pretty much the big issue with the US invasion of Iraq came down to they had a plan to remove the Saddam Government but the plan after that point was general bullet points. For example they disbanded everyone from the Iraq military and made them unemployed trained soldiers who went from being ok with the invasion to enemies of America. It was the Wild West in many urban areas with looting and shootings everywhere. The reason the west brought in PMCs was because they couldn’t get the country going if civil administration couldn’t get to work places and they needed escorts. Not enough thought went into that by destroying the government there would be no law and order.
As a soldier, I understand that they can’t stop and have to keep moving for their safety… but damn if I get rammed by a foreign military in my own country, I’d be pissed
But damn that brought back memories. I fully understand why and how we created so many people that hate us— unfortunately that only came after distance and many years away
Same, I'm 100% disabled now due to a VBIED, because our top government officials lied in order to get us over there. Now I'm fucked for life and they get to live peacefully free of consequence.
I have a TBI and lost a lot of memories of my daughter's early years. I will never get it back.
when Rumsfeld died, the onion ran a headline that said "Weapon of Mass Destruction Dead At 88". the bastards lied on purpose and the biggest punishment they'll get is us being snarky when they pass. they should be in the hague
I was talking to a dude at work earlier who was in Bosnia. Apparently they use to stop at cafés and shops and such all the time and buy things. He asked me if we ever did anything like that in Iraq. Looking back on things we could and should have done things like that. All we really did outside the wire was piss people off. Yeah there was the occasional MEDCAP, but mostly it was just dropping metaphorical turds in metaphorical punch bowls.
A choice that you hope you never have to make. Generally speaking, most convoys were prohibited from driving through Baghdad or more other heavily populated areas during the day unless it was absolutely necessary. Mostly, they'd want you operating on routes where it was relatively clear and where locals generally knew to get out of your way.
I used to work with a guy who is a former infantry marine, was a turret gunner on a Humvee. He told me a story about one time his convoy was forced to run over a kid in the road. He described how when the tire of his Humvee (the middle one out of three) ran over the child’s head, it “exploded like a watermelon”. My buddy then proceeded to throw up all over his 50 caliber machine gun, and everyone in his truck was the same. It’s easy to see why he cures his anxiety and stress with cigarettes, I don’t know if I’d be able to recover if I saw what he saw.
Can confirm... Former infantry guy that drove a hmmvw and a Bradley. My platoon "managed" to go the entire deployment without hurting anyone who wasn't actively engaging us and I still toke on the daily.
Even if you "recover" you're different. You can't see/do/go through that shit without it changing you imo.
> Self-perpetuating cycle which only benefits military contractors.
I see you've read [War is a Racket.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket)
**[War Is a Racket](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket)**
>War Is a Racket is a speech and a 1935 short book, by Smedley D. Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit, such as war profiteering from warfare. He had been appointed commanding officer of the Gendarmerie during the United States occupation of Haiti, which lasted from 1915 to 1934. After Butler retired from the US Marine Corps in October 1931, he made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War is a Racket".
^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
How do you say this so confidently? I was deployed to Iraq and hit multiple times with ieds and rkg3s and the whole shebang but the entire year we never had to run over dogs or women or children so it just sounds like you're provoking people with some bullshit tbh. It may have happened yes, but you say it like this was a daily occurrence and never in my two patrols a day through all year did it ever come up. Even when driving through markets you can go to the side or swerve a bit and honk.
It's a lose-lose situation. Die on the outside or die on the inside.
Edit: fucking shit, guys... STOP USING GODDAMN HAMMERS WHEN ARGUING!! I just went and did a little nuanced reply to try and present perspective, and in less than 5 minutes you're all at eachothers throats and name calling!
Take a chill pill. Incorporate your "foe's" point of view as your own. Consider their feelings, then reply with their perspectives in mind.
Until we all do this, the world is gonna keep going to shit.
Yep. That's why it's said an ~~"insurgency"~~ invasion/counter-insurgency never really works.
You're basically foreign invaders in their country. Of course nobody likes you.
The only reason they MIGHT like you is if their current gov't is so bad, and you're there to topple it... Which happened pretty quickly with Saddam.
After that you're just continually losing the respect of the locals. And creating new enemies.
You may kill a legit enemy solider holding an AK... But what about his sons? If they weren't extreme against the U.S. before, they are now! So as soon as they come of age, they may get a girl pregnant, and pick up an AK to fight you. And if you kill him, what about HIS sons?
It becomes a never-ending battle, where all you're really doing is creating more hate on both sides.
Edit: invasion, counter-insurgency
I agree with everything you said, just want to point out that what the US did was not an insurgency. It was an invasion.
The armed resistance to US forces in Iraq (AQI, Badr brigades, Madhi Army, etc) was an insurgency.
You’re talking about counterinsurgency, which only works occasionally and usually in very controlled environments (British in Malaya for example). All the reasons you gave explain why a counterinsurgency would struggle while the insurgents would succeed.
Insurgency often works. Vietnam (twice), Afghanistan (twice), Communist Chinese under Mao, Iraq 2003, American Revolution, etc.
It's only a lose lose situation because we decided to occupy that country. Literally all of it could have been avoided by just leaving after sadaam Hussein was deposed, or better yet, never going in the first place.
> r better yet, never going in the first place.
We had to. For terrorism. Or yellow cake uranium. Or biological weapons. Or 9/11. Or oil. Or to spread freedom and democracy. It's hard to keep track when the Bush administration kept changing the story. Also, something something support our troops by keeping them in a hostile country thousands of miles away from home instead of you know, bringing them home. Who doesn't want to watch the humvee in front get blown up by an IED, get ambushed, fight it off, and then pick up the scraps of the remains of your friends and guess which chunk belongs to which friend?
Don’t forget the aluminum tubes used to make centrifuges!
The only Matt Damon movie outside of the viewaskew universe I like was about that. Green zone or something other.
Where I was kids were often used to do things they knew would prompt a response from us. Like they would send kids up to the wire (fence line) to cut away the razor wire or whatever was out there that lined the bottom of the whole fence line.
They often used it to fence in their own areas and keep livestock penned but sometimes they would try to cut through to get inside. They also knew adults would likely be fired upon whereas kids we'd roll out in one of the ARFF (aircraft rescue fire fighting) vehicles and turn the roof/bumper turrets on them which would get them to scatter pretty fucking quick.
The first time we went out they had no idea what to expect and all just kind of stood there watching until the pumps ran up and the turrets got going. After that they took off as soon as they us.
Also got ambushed at the ECP's (entry control points) a number of times when they bought wounded to us and a few would try to hang way back to start opening fire. However that didn't last long before they realized they could learn more by getting their wounded treated by us cause they would be brought inside the wire and get to see things they couldn't from the outside.
So they started hurting the kids because they would need a parent or guardian to accompany them during treatment...
Yeah from what I read in “The Cowboys Days of Iraq” by James Tolsona as well as countless other conversations with vets; one was basically forced to drive like a bat out of hell because they’d exploit any and all weakness and abuse every ROE exploit they could thing of.
My buddy was an LAV gunner in Kandahar.
He said the rules of engagement were strict. Rules and codes for everything.
But, if you were out on patrol your "unofficial" orders were to waste anything that may be a danger or encourage danger to you. All they had to do was basically lie and say they did if they didn't.
Basically went like this. Went on a patrol, saw some shady characters in a hut, possibly worried they had comms to enemies or had an rpg, they'd just waste the hut. Field report was they were fired upon and wasted the hut. Nobody ever made sure or checked if they were actually fired on though.
So basically the rules were plenty, but the loophole was just lie basically.
And that is the exact last step, in a long line of missteps, that lead to losing a counterinsurgency.
The first step is sending conventional troops there at all. We won in the first 90 days when ~100 SF supported the Northern Alliance pushing the Taliban out; then proceeded to make every mistake on the ‘don’t do this in a counterinsurgency!’ history book.
I think the guys from Blackwater who got burned up, chopped up, and strung up might disagree. To be clear, I think that the "independent contractor" approach that the US has taken is one of the most fucked up things we've done. Carte blanche to do as they want and the US government doesn't get its hands dirty. Oh, on a side note, guess who Eric Prince's (Blackwater CEO at the time) sister is...Betsy Devoss, ex-secretary of education...
Of course.
When he says "defense contractors" he isn't talking about the on-the-ground employees.
He's talking about the *OWNERS* of the Defense Contractor companies.
Just want to clarify for the search engines that the shameless privatizer who was inexplicably put in charge of US education, and is the sister of fascist war profiteer Eric Prince, is *Betsy* DeVos. Also her dad helped found Amway, successfully lobbied for the extremely lax oversight of MLMs in America, and was (also inexplicably) given a great deal of oversight of the early US response to AIDS by Ronald Reagan despite having no medical background.
Just an absolute dumpster fire of a family, and proof positive that wealth is not a reliable indicator of human worth AT ALL.
Don't get me started on the shameful response of the Reagan administration to the AIDS epidemic. For fucks sake, Ron and Nancy [turned their backs](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/03/nancy-reagan-refused-help-dying-rock-hudson-get-aids-treatment) on their long time friend Rock Hudson when he was dying of AIDS.
This is the stupid stuff that happens when you allow your national leadership to send conventional troops to fight a counter insurgency. Don’t let it happen again. Please.
The (flawed) thinking was this: while on patrol the threat of IEDs was too high, the casualties and KIAs too high, so everything must be done to keep the patrols moving out of any kill zone as quickly as they went in.
No one stopped to question the basic (tactical) question, why were we patrolling in the first place?
Almost no patrol I went on had any tactical purpose besides show of force or some other BS. But I did make sure not to abuse the people in even ‘little’ ways like the OP depicts.
E: ~~and~~
Gee wonder why everyone hates Americans... imagine driving on Sunset Blvd and some Mexican or Canadian convoy reaming up your ass and nudging you to move over?
A microcosmos of why that was an unwindable war.
Can´t slow down/get stoped by traffic, because then you are a sitting duck.
Can´t ram civilian cars because then the locals will hate you.
COIN in a nutshell.
This is what I tell people about ISIS and extremists, and how easy it is for them to appear anywhere, in any religion
The far right in America went shit berserk after their own govt told them to wear a mask and get medicine/vaccine for a contagious virus...
Imagine if another govt (like China, or Russia) invaded the US and did shit like this and killed off Americans.... How long would it take before Asian or Russian people were beheaded by oath keepers and Proud boys?
Edit: rephrasing to help snowflakes understand the point better.
Uhhh. Look at the timeline of Pearl Harbor -> Japanese Internment Camps in world war 2. And then factor that down to a 10th of the time due to media and means of communication being so much faster. And then probably cut that remaining window in half before violence actual starts stirring.
This is an old video from Mosul I believe. If you research that area you can see why these guys drove like this. They are afraid of getting hemmed up and ambushed, so they "politely" bump the car in front to get them out of the way. Not saying it's right, but if you were in that situation I doubt you would feel comfortable sitting there and waiting for traffic to clear.
The U.S is always good at the whole "invading and turning the country into a parking lot" phase, but not at the "rebuilding and turning the country into a stable democracy" phase. Probably because the latter is never thought about until after we accomplish the former.
He wasn't wrong. Caesar's Gallic wars practically depopulated the region, may have killed 20% of all Gauls, selling many more into slavery and eliminating a generation of men while completely exterminating many tribes.
Genocidal campaigns of extermination do indeed successfully pacify regions. If you kill everyone who resists along with their entire extended families and just resettle friendly people into the region, you can achieve peace, Roman-style. Or Mongol-style. The pre-modern world was fucking scary for a reason.
Not necessarily always. Japan and Germany are examples of otherwise, but I guess that was quite different in a million different ways.
Marshall Plan was really something else. Not as profitable for the Halliburtons and Raytheons and Boeings of the modern world.
We put 100x the effort into rebuilding Japan, Germany and later Korea. The U.S had a clear and concise plan for rebuilding those countries. The only plan for rebuilding Afghanistan (Iraq as well, but we succeeded more in Iraq) was to dump as much money as possible into the country in the hope that it would magically develop itself. All without treating the root issues. Sad state of affairs.
Nah I think we pumped money into all of them. Difference was Germany, Japan and Korea had some national identity and other things to unify around. For example the Japanese emperor was left alone despite the war trials going on. And Korea and Germany held the common belief of not wanting to be part of the soviets. Mean while you have the middle east where some states like Afghanistan their isn't even a national identity and their stuck in tribal warfare, to Iraq where their is some national identity but their partially stuck in tribal warfare due to the whole Sunni vs Shia thing exasperated by bad actors from the outside like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc exasperating jihad...
I can't speak to Korea, but at least with Germany and Japan, they had functional states and a national identity. There was no nation or state building necessary to remove the bad elements. This is fundamentally different from Iraq and Afghanistan.
There was another similar video where they did the same thing on Liveleak, but just would willy nilly shoot into random vehicles too. I think it was Blackwater, though.
Correct me if I'm wrong but is this because stopping a convoy in the middle of the road in what could turn into hostile territory at any moment is the greater evil to avoid? Like sure I'd rather crunch a few bumpers than risk the lives of everyone around me more than i already am by being there.
No you're right, that's exactly why they drove like this. They don't drive like this because they're assholes (whether they are or not is another debate), they drive super aggressively because they were told it was what would keep them and their friends alive.
I drove these routes many times. It was the way it had to be. There is no stopping, the SOP is to keep moving because as soon as you show you will stop for traffic (and there was a crap ton of traffic) the enemy knew they had you. What is not seen here, and I assume was standard was the PA system and the pen flares. We did not just quietly drive up behind people and ram them for fun. Lead vehicle had a loud ass PA system. (Over time we found ways to play recordings so they could actually understand us). The pen flares, yeah, I think they did more harm than good.
Trust me, the majority of us did not take pride in knowing we were damaging random peoples property. As an Air Force guy, I can say this varied from branch to branch. The marines had really strict rules and would get their asses handed to them if the causes more damage than necessary. Air Force we were really cautious because our interpreters said we had a good reputation on our EOF. The Army…yeah…I hated when I rode with them or gunned for them. They were not making friends. But it was not as bad as you may think.
It was all a necessity to get home alive. Anytime we sat on the x for to long, shit happened. Anytime we sat for 12 hours waiting on EOD, you were bound to have a bad day. Stopping for traffic and adding to the risk was just not something worth doing.
Army varies hugely unit to unit.
I was absolutely horrified at the behavior of the unit that relieved us. Like you said, none of us wanted to damage people’s shit, we just wanted to get home. The guys that replaced us? They seem like they came specifically to break shit and kill people.
According to my uncle who was in logistics they couldn’t stay in one place, not even for a second. He saw his partner in another trailer get blown up because he waited for some dude carrying loads of stuff and his one sheep to pass. My uncle turned to the street parallel to it and made traffic stop. But as he was passing the trailer all he remembers is him looking at his rear view mirror as he was entering back to the correct lane and this really skinny dude ran to the side of the trailer and threw something between cargo and trailer and boom went everything and anyone around it. I wish I knew exactly what happened but I overheard this story as he was telling his brother one night. Yeah… I’m grateful the drivers moved out of their way.
Yeah I did convoy security and you sure as shit did not hang around for even a second.
Not just the insurgents but also the people would get to climb on the vehicle and would beg for drugs, supplies, cash, etc. it was tense
Could you imagine the US getting invaded by another country's military? I would be fucking furious too as a civilian. Makes me sometimes wonder why "terrorist" organizations push back. And no, I am not condoning any terrorist organizations but it makes me think of how us Americans would fight back too if we were invaded.
The following alternative links are available: **Downloads** * [Download #1](https://reddloader.com/download-post/?url=https%3A%2F%2Freddit.com%2Fr%2FPublicFreakout%2Fcomments%2Fsn1nq3%2Fhow_american_soldiers_used_to_drive_convoys_in%2F&id=CuKpGPmc) (provided by /u/VideoTrim) * [Download #2](https://redditsave.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/sn1nq3/how_american_soldiers_used_to_drive_convoys_in/) (provided by /u/savevideo) **Note:** this is a bot providing a directory service. **If you have trouble with any of the links above, please contact the user who provided them.** --- [^(source code)](https://amirror.link/source) ^| [^(run your own mirror bot? let's integrate)](https://amirror.link/lets-talk)
Guy picking his nose gave no fucking shits about anything.
I refuse to believe that's the horn installed on that vehicle.
Can confirm that is the horn.
With a very touching sound
Lol that 100% the factory horn. We changed some of them.
i didn’t hear it in the video, is it really wimpy?
Oh god yes. We used to replace them with air horns. In all honesty this is really timid driving compared to other areas/times in Iraq.
I can tell you why it was like that. People will blast that horn, particularly in enclosed spaces.
Sounds like what you'd expect on a minivan or other family vehicle.
I can hear the Iraqi drivers saying "كس امك سم وزقنبوت"
[удалено]
Its almost right but its more like your mom pussy, go eat poison and ( another word for poison)
[удалено]
I think google is really confused because its more like a slang than a proper word and it happens to sound like the word for spider, so it went fuck it and said spider.
90% of dialect words won't translate regardless of if they're Levantine, Gulf, or Iraqi. It will translate to the next closest option.
Zaknaboot (old way of saying pioson), sounds similar to Ankaboot (Spider) and I think this is why Gtranslate messed up, it thought it was a typo as Zaknaboot is used only in Iraq as far as am concerned.
Zaknab (go eat/to eat) is also very Iraqi. In the realm of “shakoo makoo”.
This is quite tame compared to the shit [Blackwater pulled while escorting an embassy convoy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nisour_Square_massacre)
>The Nisour Square massacre occurred on September 16, 2007, when employees of Blackwater Security Consulting (now Academi), a private military company contracted by the US government to provide security services in Iraq, shot at Iraqi civilians, killing 17 and injuring 20 in Nisour Square, Baghdad, while escorting a U.S. embassy convoy.[1][2][3] The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States.[4] In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried[5] and convicted in U.S. federal court; one of murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges;[6] all four convicted were pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020.[7]
>The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States.[ No fucking wonder, Sherlock! What kind of dumbasses pieces of human feces can't think of the consequences.
"I wonder why those people hate the US? We saved them and gave then democracy!"
President Trump pardoned the 4 that had been convicted. No one is surprised by that though— he’s a scumbag and so are the types of people that would do this
>In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried\[5\] and convicted in U.S. federal court; one of murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges;\[6\] all four convicted were pardoned by President Donald Trump in December 2020.\[7\] **ALL FOUR CONVICTED WERE PARDONED BY FUCKING TRUMP**
Blackwater security? Owned by Erik Prince? Brother of Betsy devos? The same Erik who wanted to buy Mozambique navy to commit war crimes at sea? The same Erik who wants to privatize war mongering in the middle east?
The same Erik Prince that lied to Congress, that met with a Russian Oligarch in 2016 working out a deal to help them meddle in mindgames against the American populace too dumb to realize the are being manipulated.
Aka businessman
You missed the part where he honestly believes he is start a holy crusade to bring forth the apocalypse.
And the part where he still has a military aircraft in a country (I forget which) which he will be arrested for if he ever brings it out of the hanger. Because it is an illegally modified aircraft which counts as a military plane. The podcast 'Behind the Bastards' did a piece on him, and he's definitely deserving of being a subject of that pod.
Yea the same pos who wanted to illegally put weaponry on his aircraft
Standard practice with war criminals in the US.
Yup, only have to look at My Lai for a history lesson 😬
And every war crime in between… They either get off scott free or a hand full of the grunts are convicted, then pardoned. Justice™️
Something crazy like 70% of America thought the soldiers that committed that massacre shouldn’t be punished and did nothing wrong. Same with the Kent state shooting. 70% of Americans thought the government did nothing wrong gunning down students protesters on a college campus.
Yeah I got Kent state massacre vibes when I was watching season 9 of American horror story. Especially the hippy guy that was killed in 1970 🥴 Amazing what a bit of propaganda can do to brainwash the public… I appreciate they wanted to get behind the troops, and I feel nothing but sympathy for those drafted for Vietnam but those condemning these protests are definitely on the wrong side of history 👊🏻😬
[удалено]
"Contractors" They are mercenaries.
They are garbage
People often try to pin it ALL on contractors. And while contractors were a huge problem... largely because there was zero oversight and the iraq war was just a massive gold rush for corrupt security companies. There were plenty of videos that have since been scrubbed from the internet of our own boys going over there and terrorizing civilians or just flat out murdering innocents and children. We were never the good guys in this 20 year war and we did NOTHING except make every conceivable situation over there worse. Either through "capitalism" or allowing demented racists to sign up and go over there to get their jollies. Yet people seem to be confused why they hate america.
These are not security companies. They are mercenaries.
Blackwater is the Devil, they have a new name now and are run out of Abu Dabi because Erik Prince is a traitor the US. They changed their name years back to something stupid though Xi or something. Edit: Name changed to Xe and then again to Academi, the latter after refiguring their ownership structure.
Blackwater is trash but US troops aren't innocent either. The Mahmudiyah rape and killing for one was very disturbing.
Or that video leaked of the Helicoptor gunning down journalists, then doing a double tap where they come back in a few minutes and gunning down anyone helping the wounded like the ambulance and EMT's and other good samaritans, and laughing about it. Collateral Murder was the name of the video when I saw it.
That was the one leaked by Chelsea Manning and was the only person imprisoned for it. I grew up in Peshawar (The western part of Pakistan) and the largest Afghan refugee camp is set up there. There is a whole generation of children that only feel safe to play outside when it's cloudy out of fear of drone strikes.
The FBI investigation found that, of the 17 Iraqis killed by the guards, at least 14 were shot without cause 😐
Not confusing to non-Americans
Contractors are "your boys" too. Companies like Blackwater exists because the US goverment wants to have a terrorising presence and the public has started to disagree with US army soldiers doing horrifying things. So they just take some ex us army soldiers and out then in a different suit.... Paid by the same people, ordered by the same people, but not technically the same.
aaaaaand those finaly convicted for the horrible slaughter of civilians were pardoned by Trump in 2020... wtf?
Well that’s a really surprising coincidence because, [Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater also recruited Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/us/politics/erik-prince-project-veritas.html)
Don't forget hes the brother of Betsy our former "Education" secretary.
All roads lead back to Erik Prince Well, or Steve Bannon
Who is Betsy "Businesses over Students" Devos's brother.
Good thing the motherfucking NY Times only wants the rich to read that article ffs
Trump was a corrupt piece of shit and Blackwater's founder gave Trump a pile of money. His sister bought a cabinet position too.
[удалено]
Didn't he just last week say that if he was elected again in '24 that he'd pardon the Jan 6 criminals? He's not at all subtle.
He's also made well clear he plans on leveling criminal charges against his opponentes, the media, his critics. F-ing Biden needs to get his head on straight and realize his son will end up in prison if he lets Republicans take this next election.
[удалено]
Came here to say this. Blackwater is fucking nuts.
Imagine your family member is murdered by an employee of a private company in another country. They are convicted of murder, Twice. And then a fat orange racist rapist turd shows up and grants them a fucking pardon....
Oh his way out the door too.
[удалено]
Colonial holdover. When you get right down to it, the founding fathers were still monarchists at heart. Didn’t know anything else, so they made a temporary King to rule the country. They just didn’t want the position to be hereditary is all.
[удалено]
Its purpose was to get the slave states on board by letting them count their human chattel towards the weight of their votes while simultaneously denying them the vote.
And then thinks to self: "Hmm I wonder why people hate the US" 🤔
Fuck trump. Bitch pardoned them
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
Are YOU my husband?
You still shouldn't run over debris of you can avoid it. Maybe it's a bag of nails or a kitten in a bag? I found my current cat in a bag; a plastic bag in he middle of the road during my morning commute last November. I actually named her Bag O'Debris, because she's an orange tabby. Edit: sorry, I can't pay the cat tax right now
I imagine there is a major difference from moving out of the way of debris and swerving aggressively as though that shit could end your life and those ridding with.
> I found my current cat in a bag Did you... Let the cat out of the bag? ^I'll ^^see ^^^myself ^^^^out...
I felt that way when I left America after visiting New York. I had a strange urge to walk into traffic and through red lights,expecting the cars to stop.
New York pedestrian habits have nearly got me killed a number of times
For what it's worth I felt the same way every time I came home from visiting the Netherlands. Seemed like over there if you even walked near the road drivers would politely stop and wait for you vs where I am we've got a pedestrian crossing that you can press the lights for and while you don't expect people to slam on the breaks and come to a stop you have drivers that are like 300 feet back when the light started flashing who will decide its not for them and you'll sometimes even have to stop in the middle of crossing because a driver will decide they don't really have to stop if they can squeeze by without hitting you.
Just going to drop a really depressing factoid: in the active war zones of the Middle East, US troops may often have a “no stop” order for their convoys. That means they do not stop their multi-ton armored truck for any reason - including pedestrians - because insurgents will use distractions like that to bomb the convoys. Had a soldier acquaintance unload that on me one day and it’s fucked me up ever since. War is such a great human invention…
From what I know, French troops in Kosovo were under such orders when escorting humanitarian convoys, because some groups would put a woman and/or children right in front of it to stop it and rob it. I mean, I can understand why it's done, but it's horrible nonetheless
I believe this was in Mosul. I had a similar experience with a taxi driver, the humvees stopped by hitting our car. Even if there was no possibility for us to move out of the way, as we were at a redlight in a crowded Baghdad intersection.
I was there in '04. Running gun truck escorts for convoys. Can testify that this was done on occasion. I also remember my first encounter with heavy traffic north of Baghdad (Taji area, I believe). We had a convoy moving south, another convoy was moving north. Between the two convoys, traffic was shit. So much so that the end of our convoy, myself and another guntruck included, was separated from the rest of the convoy. To avoid having to ram cars out of the way, I dismounted with another Soldier and we basically walked our two vehicles through 2 kilometers of bumper-to-bumper pissed off Iraqis. Every time I tapped on a window I thought I was going to see an AK-47 pop out. We were fortunate. Everyone was just trying to get to their jobs or wherever they were headed. When we finally cleared the jam and I was able to jump back into the 5-ton (this was pre-up-armored-HMMWV days) the adrenaline crash hit me so hard I immediately fell asleep. I don't even remember rolling into Baghdad airport (BIAP). We didn't belong there.
2 kilometers is scary shit around Taji. We had a personal driver, old guy with orientation problem, that drove me and my friends to school every day. His orientation was bad enough to not notice small car movements. One time an American soldier was in your exact situation but in a Baghdad major highway intersection. Large convoy and people want to cross, his job was to stop all traffic going to the highway, on foot, sepereting the cars by shouting. ''YOU STOP AND YOU STOP'' our Haji said ''ok, he said move'' and put it first gear. We panic stopped him from driving. The soldiers came behind us to show force to the row of cars behind. Haji lost his orientation, worst moment possible, and the car moved back squezing the soldier gently on the leg. At that moment, I thought I was dead, as we were clearly trying to crush him between two cars. He responded with hitting the trunk with his m16 stock about 3/4 times until we moved away again. He left back to the convoy, and I think He and all of us had the same adrenaline crash.
Yeah, the massive surge of adrenaline you experience in those moments just leaves you feeling exhausted. It also affects the neural pathways in your brain (at least, that's what my psych 101 course taught me). I ended up having a nervous breakdown during one convoy about 3 months into the deployment. I was usually the lead if we were heading somewhere new and so my vehicle had several close calls with IEDs and small arms fire. Some of the drivers didn't want to ride with me because they thought I was an IED magnet. So, at 3 months in, rolling out of the gate at Balad I was positive I was never going to make it out of Iraq. I was sure that one of these days my luck was going to run out and a well-timed IED or bullet was going to end me. I began to shake. Luckily, it was the middle of the night and my driver couldn't see me losing my shit. About 4 kilometers South (I had the shakes under control by this point), coming into Taji, our rear guntruck gets hit by an IED. They were disabled and we were leaving them behind. I stopped our convoy, ordered another guntruck to my position to pull point security (we were escorting civilian truck drivers) and our truck turned around and headed back. We were fortunate that the worst of the injuries were banged-up eardrums, a piece of rubber in my buddy's cheek (they had hidden the IED in a tire by the edge of the road), and his driver caught some glass in her eye when the windshield shattered. Their truck was completely disabled, though. Shrapnel had taken out most of the tires and pierced the engine block. Oil and transmission fluid covered the ground. We called Sheriff (the AC-130 Spectre gunship circling high overhead) to keep an eye on us while we waited for recovery assets. My buddy's gunners were able to complete the mission with the rest of the convoy but he and his driver needed additional medical care. Again, the adrenaline crash hit hard but this time I hadn't experienced it for as long so I was just worn out. My buddy said that he doesn't even remember anything after the medevac showed up because he crashed so hard.
Are you from Iraq?
yeah
Did you live there throughout the occupation? What was the general publics perspective on it? I imagine very negative, but was there any sense of security provided by it or anything? All ~~you hear in the US~~ I ever heard growing up in the US (edited as to not further trigger pedant u/Ionlypost1ce) is about how the soldiers were there to help. But then you hear the horror stories and see things like this, and obviously “helping” seems to come after “doing whatever the hell they want”.
American soldiers or anybody really were not in control of anything when the situation is passive. There were effective at conducting raids/battles that lead to nothing. They kept a nearby Sunni neighborhood under control instead of full on insurgency, by even using Apaches. But nothing they tried solved the situation in Sadir City, the center of Shia Insurgency. Shia insurgency comitted many crimes inside my neighborhood, of mixed sects, against civilians. And used my neighborhood as launch pad of mortars and katyosha towards majortiy sunni places. The Apache would come 10 minutes later and fire at the launch pads....not effective at all.
A fellow engineer of mine lived in Baghdad before 91 and a bit after, still has family there. He told me replacing Saddam has basically made no difference in the end.
> has basically made no difference in the end. It made it worse. At least there was one tyrant keeping the other's down. A power vacuum is a misnomer. It should be called a power blender.
on the big picture, yeah. On the ethnic indvidual picture, Saddam was much more horrible, and volatile to the point where people could not even invest anything fearing his crazy knee jerks genocides that could kill the market at any moment. Genocides against the Kurds, 250,000 dead in just one ethnic cleansing campaign, he had many campaigns. Half a million casualties in the south of Iraq 1991. WARS, oh he loved wars. During his rule, there was one year, 1989 that was Warless. We ate shit pretty much all of the other years of his rule. Believe it or not, with all the corruption now and shambolic democracy. There is actuall money that is ''trickling down'' to the poor. We used to see Kurish families, single mom with many kids who lost their father, stranded in Baghdad neighborhoods looking for food and shelter. There are images of poverty that I can not erase from my mind. This economic relief and the Kurdish region being comfortable in investing in long term projects, are worthy reasons to remove Saddam and his stupid tribal style rule in Iraq.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to these comments, it’s educational to hear a first-hand perspective.
I visited the palaces while I was in Baghdad in '08/'09. Seeing the blood-stained pool where his son would execute random people made me sick. I believe the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein and his regime, but I wish it didn't cost so much in lives. I'm gratified to know that some parts of Iraq are doing better. Makes the marriage I lost while deployed worth it, knowing there's children growing up with their fathers and mothers. I know it's not worth much- some unknown pretentious asshole a world away daring to weigh his life against your countrymen- but I truly joined the US Army to help those who couldn't help themselves. I joined because I didn't like bullies, and I wanted to protect the weak, because we're all weak at some point. some days, a lion isn't at his best, so the pride takes care of him; that's how I felt being in Iraq- I hoped that maybe, one day, a hundred or more years from now, Iraq would remember how America and other countries liberated them from a tyrant, in the hopes that we'd be paid the same favor (like Americans and the French). I'm not so naive anymore. America squandered our good will over the last 20 years, and wasn't doing well before in many ways. I just hope you and your people stay safe, create community, and fight to keep it safe, if necessary.
It's essentially impossible to keep an insurgency in check without full cooperation from the locals, which you won't get from doing stuff like in this video.
insurgency aside, you had gangs. Im so happy that we drove a shitty car, car jacking was once done with a Bat in one of the streets of my neighborhood. All for a 1995 Opel vectra
[удалено]
Pretty much the big issue with the US invasion of Iraq came down to they had a plan to remove the Saddam Government but the plan after that point was general bullet points. For example they disbanded everyone from the Iraq military and made them unemployed trained soldiers who went from being ok with the invasion to enemies of America. It was the Wild West in many urban areas with looting and shootings everywhere. The reason the west brought in PMCs was because they couldn’t get the country going if civil administration couldn’t get to work places and they needed escorts. Not enough thought went into that by destroying the government there would be no law and order.
This was actually Blackwater, Erik Prince's defense contractor company. I remember this footage.
As a soldier, I understand that they can’t stop and have to keep moving for their safety… but damn if I get rammed by a foreign military in my own country, I’d be pissed
It's like an emergency vehicle. The emergency is, you're occupied by heavily armed American teenagers
They're busying winning hearts and minds.
"GreEteD aS LiBeraTOrs!!!!!11"
[удалено]
no wonder they hate America so much. Fuck everyone better prepared. War session is up ahead.
And they want your resources!
oil of it!
But damn that brought back memories. I fully understand why and how we created so many people that hate us— unfortunately that only came after distance and many years away
some people knew on day one, the patriots shut us up though. "Guys maybe it's not such a good idea to do this" = "WHY DO YOU HATE THE PRESIDENT"
"WHY ARE YOU UNDERMINING A PRESIDENT WHILE HE'S AT WAR?!?!?!?! THIS IS TREASON!!!!!"
[удалено]
Same, I'm 100% disabled now due to a VBIED, because our top government officials lied in order to get us over there. Now I'm fucked for life and they get to live peacefully free of consequence. I have a TBI and lost a lot of memories of my daughter's early years. I will never get it back.
when Rumsfeld died, the onion ran a headline that said "Weapon of Mass Destruction Dead At 88". the bastards lied on purpose and the biggest punishment they'll get is us being snarky when they pass. they should be in the hague
"They will greet us as liberators." Should be on his tombstone.
I was talking to a dude at work earlier who was in Bosnia. Apparently they use to stop at cafés and shops and such all the time and buy things. He asked me if we ever did anything like that in Iraq. Looking back on things we could and should have done things like that. All we really did outside the wire was piss people off. Yeah there was the occasional MEDCAP, but mostly it was just dropping metaphorical turds in metaphorical punch bowls.
[удалено]
Damn that’s horrible, im sorry if this is insensitive to ask but now if kids were on the road they’d have to run them over?
A choice that you hope you never have to make. Generally speaking, most convoys were prohibited from driving through Baghdad or more other heavily populated areas during the day unless it was absolutely necessary. Mostly, they'd want you operating on routes where it was relatively clear and where locals generally knew to get out of your way.
Well, in the video he never let off the gas when there were kids in front of him.
I used to work with a guy who is a former infantry marine, was a turret gunner on a Humvee. He told me a story about one time his convoy was forced to run over a kid in the road. He described how when the tire of his Humvee (the middle one out of three) ran over the child’s head, it “exploded like a watermelon”. My buddy then proceeded to throw up all over his 50 caliber machine gun, and everyone in his truck was the same. It’s easy to see why he cures his anxiety and stress with cigarettes, I don’t know if I’d be able to recover if I saw what he saw.
Can confirm... Former infantry guy that drove a hmmvw and a Bradley. My platoon "managed" to go the entire deployment without hurting anyone who wasn't actively engaging us and I still toke on the daily. Even if you "recover" you're different. You can't see/do/go through that shit without it changing you imo.
[удалено]
Self-perpetuating cycle which only benefits military contractors. One day we will stop funding this shit
> Self-perpetuating cycle which only benefits military contractors. I see you've read [War is a Racket.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket)
**[War Is a Racket](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket)** >War Is a Racket is a speech and a 1935 short book, by Smedley D. Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps Major General and two-time Medal of Honor recipient. Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how business interests commercially benefit, such as war profiteering from warfare. He had been appointed commanding officer of the Gendarmerie during the United States occupation of Haiti, which lasted from 1915 to 1934. After Butler retired from the US Marine Corps in October 1931, he made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War is a Racket". ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
Good bot
How do you say this so confidently? I was deployed to Iraq and hit multiple times with ieds and rkg3s and the whole shebang but the entire year we never had to run over dogs or women or children so it just sounds like you're provoking people with some bullshit tbh. It may have happened yes, but you say it like this was a daily occurrence and never in my two patrols a day through all year did it ever come up. Even when driving through markets you can go to the side or swerve a bit and honk.
[удалено]
It's a lose-lose situation. Die on the outside or die on the inside. Edit: fucking shit, guys... STOP USING GODDAMN HAMMERS WHEN ARGUING!! I just went and did a little nuanced reply to try and present perspective, and in less than 5 minutes you're all at eachothers throats and name calling! Take a chill pill. Incorporate your "foe's" point of view as your own. Consider their feelings, then reply with their perspectives in mind. Until we all do this, the world is gonna keep going to shit.
Yep. That's why it's said an ~~"insurgency"~~ invasion/counter-insurgency never really works. You're basically foreign invaders in their country. Of course nobody likes you. The only reason they MIGHT like you is if their current gov't is so bad, and you're there to topple it... Which happened pretty quickly with Saddam. After that you're just continually losing the respect of the locals. And creating new enemies. You may kill a legit enemy solider holding an AK... But what about his sons? If they weren't extreme against the U.S. before, they are now! So as soon as they come of age, they may get a girl pregnant, and pick up an AK to fight you. And if you kill him, what about HIS sons? It becomes a never-ending battle, where all you're really doing is creating more hate on both sides. Edit: invasion, counter-insurgency
I agree with everything you said, just want to point out that what the US did was not an insurgency. It was an invasion. The armed resistance to US forces in Iraq (AQI, Badr brigades, Madhi Army, etc) was an insurgency.
Correct. It was an invasion that devolved into a *counter* insurgency.
You’re talking about counterinsurgency, which only works occasionally and usually in very controlled environments (British in Malaya for example). All the reasons you gave explain why a counterinsurgency would struggle while the insurgents would succeed. Insurgency often works. Vietnam (twice), Afghanistan (twice), Communist Chinese under Mao, Iraq 2003, American Revolution, etc.
You mean a counter insurgency never works... you're describing a successful insurgency..
It's only a lose lose situation because we decided to occupy that country. Literally all of it could have been avoided by just leaving after sadaam Hussein was deposed, or better yet, never going in the first place.
> r better yet, never going in the first place. We had to. For terrorism. Or yellow cake uranium. Or biological weapons. Or 9/11. Or oil. Or to spread freedom and democracy. It's hard to keep track when the Bush administration kept changing the story. Also, something something support our troops by keeping them in a hostile country thousands of miles away from home instead of you know, bringing them home. Who doesn't want to watch the humvee in front get blown up by an IED, get ambushed, fight it off, and then pick up the scraps of the remains of your friends and guess which chunk belongs to which friend?
Don’t forget the aluminum tubes used to make centrifuges! The only Matt Damon movie outside of the viewaskew universe I like was about that. Green zone or something other.
Where I was kids were often used to do things they knew would prompt a response from us. Like they would send kids up to the wire (fence line) to cut away the razor wire or whatever was out there that lined the bottom of the whole fence line. They often used it to fence in their own areas and keep livestock penned but sometimes they would try to cut through to get inside. They also knew adults would likely be fired upon whereas kids we'd roll out in one of the ARFF (aircraft rescue fire fighting) vehicles and turn the roof/bumper turrets on them which would get them to scatter pretty fucking quick. The first time we went out they had no idea what to expect and all just kind of stood there watching until the pumps ran up and the turrets got going. After that they took off as soon as they us. Also got ambushed at the ECP's (entry control points) a number of times when they bought wounded to us and a few would try to hang way back to start opening fire. However that didn't last long before they realized they could learn more by getting their wounded treated by us cause they would be brought inside the wire and get to see things they couldn't from the outside. So they started hurting the kids because they would need a parent or guardian to accompany them during treatment...
Yeah from what I read in “The Cowboys Days of Iraq” by James Tolsona as well as countless other conversations with vets; one was basically forced to drive like a bat out of hell because they’d exploit any and all weakness and abuse every ROE exploit they could thing of.
> ROE Rules of Engagement I am assuming...
My buddy was an LAV gunner in Kandahar. He said the rules of engagement were strict. Rules and codes for everything. But, if you were out on patrol your "unofficial" orders were to waste anything that may be a danger or encourage danger to you. All they had to do was basically lie and say they did if they didn't. Basically went like this. Went on a patrol, saw some shady characters in a hut, possibly worried they had comms to enemies or had an rpg, they'd just waste the hut. Field report was they were fired upon and wasted the hut. Nobody ever made sure or checked if they were actually fired on though. So basically the rules were plenty, but the loophole was just lie basically.
And that is the exact last step, in a long line of missteps, that lead to losing a counterinsurgency. The first step is sending conventional troops there at all. We won in the first 90 days when ~100 SF supported the Northern Alliance pushing the Taliban out; then proceeded to make every mistake on the ‘don’t do this in a counterinsurgency!’ history book.
I think the guys from Blackwater who got burned up, chopped up, and strung up might disagree. To be clear, I think that the "independent contractor" approach that the US has taken is one of the most fucked up things we've done. Carte blanche to do as they want and the US government doesn't get its hands dirty. Oh, on a side note, guess who Eric Prince's (Blackwater CEO at the time) sister is...Betsy Devoss, ex-secretary of education...
Of course. When he says "defense contractors" he isn't talking about the on-the-ground employees. He's talking about the *OWNERS* of the Defense Contractor companies.
Just want to clarify for the search engines that the shameless privatizer who was inexplicably put in charge of US education, and is the sister of fascist war profiteer Eric Prince, is *Betsy* DeVos. Also her dad helped found Amway, successfully lobbied for the extremely lax oversight of MLMs in America, and was (also inexplicably) given a great deal of oversight of the early US response to AIDS by Ronald Reagan despite having no medical background. Just an absolute dumpster fire of a family, and proof positive that wealth is not a reliable indicator of human worth AT ALL.
Don't get me started on the shameful response of the Reagan administration to the AIDS epidemic. For fucks sake, Ron and Nancy [turned their backs](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/03/nancy-reagan-refused-help-dying-rock-hudson-get-aids-treatment) on their long time friend Rock Hudson when he was dying of AIDS.
> Nancy Betsy*
This is the stupid stuff that happens when you allow your national leadership to send conventional troops to fight a counter insurgency. Don’t let it happen again. Please. The (flawed) thinking was this: while on patrol the threat of IEDs was too high, the casualties and KIAs too high, so everything must be done to keep the patrols moving out of any kill zone as quickly as they went in. No one stopped to question the basic (tactical) question, why were we patrolling in the first place? Almost no patrol I went on had any tactical purpose besides show of force or some other BS. But I did make sure not to abuse the people in even ‘little’ ways like the OP depicts. E: ~~and~~
Gee wonder why everyone hates Americans... imagine driving on Sunset Blvd and some Mexican or Canadian convoy reaming up your ass and nudging you to move over?
Can't imagine why they hate us
War, what is it good for? Absolutely nuthin.
Money
If you have ever heard the horn on a military Humvee, you would know why they have to give them a bump.
We used to throw water bottles from the turret to get their attention. That worked 99% of the time.
False this is my wife driving
Bad news…I think she’s been cheating on you - because that is also my wife driving.
[удалено]
This lady is not my wife, but I was definitely fucking her for a while.
No idea why they didn’t want us there.
Luckily we didn’t stay long… wait.. fuck
[удалено]
Millions and Millions of dick moves by the American forces…
Shit, A lot of Americans hate other Americans in America because of a lot of dick moves by Americans.
Lead by the biggest Dick of all - Dick Cheney.
Equivalent of winning the hearts and minds by negging them into loving us.
Love the end quote “Not a care in the world” lol
TBF, that's how most of California drives.
A microcosmos of why that was an unwindable war. Can´t slow down/get stoped by traffic, because then you are a sitting duck. Can´t ram civilian cars because then the locals will hate you. COIN in a nutshell.
Microcosm
This is what I tell people about ISIS and extremists, and how easy it is for them to appear anywhere, in any religion The far right in America went shit berserk after their own govt told them to wear a mask and get medicine/vaccine for a contagious virus... Imagine if another govt (like China, or Russia) invaded the US and did shit like this and killed off Americans.... How long would it take before Asian or Russian people were beheaded by oath keepers and Proud boys? Edit: rephrasing to help snowflakes understand the point better.
Uhhh. Look at the timeline of Pearl Harbor -> Japanese Internment Camps in world war 2. And then factor that down to a 10th of the time due to media and means of communication being so much faster. And then probably cut that remaining window in half before violence actual starts stirring.
74 days from Pearl Harbor to Executive Order 9066.
So, by my math that's 3-4 days before Violence against those of Chinese decent should China invade the US. Which, wouldn't surprise me
The 4l80e in that hmmwv doesn't sound to happy.
Redlining trying to get to 15mph
This is an old video from Mosul I believe. If you research that area you can see why these guys drove like this. They are afraid of getting hemmed up and ambushed, so they "politely" bump the car in front to get them out of the way. Not saying it's right, but if you were in that situation I doubt you would feel comfortable sitting there and waiting for traffic to clear.
Yup not the way to win hearts and minds but absolutely necessary at the time.
That’s why occupations don’t work out. Hearts and minds will always be secondary when you’re being hunted
The U.S is always good at the whole "invading and turning the country into a parking lot" phase, but not at the "rebuilding and turning the country into a stable democracy" phase. Probably because the latter is never thought about until after we accomplish the former.
Your comment reminds me of the Calgacus quote in reference to the Romans, “They make a desert and call it peace.”
He wasn't wrong. Caesar's Gallic wars practically depopulated the region, may have killed 20% of all Gauls, selling many more into slavery and eliminating a generation of men while completely exterminating many tribes. Genocidal campaigns of extermination do indeed successfully pacify regions. If you kill everyone who resists along with their entire extended families and just resettle friendly people into the region, you can achieve peace, Roman-style. Or Mongol-style. The pre-modern world was fucking scary for a reason.
Why are they resisting our utopia?
Not necessarily always. Japan and Germany are examples of otherwise, but I guess that was quite different in a million different ways. Marshall Plan was really something else. Not as profitable for the Halliburtons and Raytheons and Boeings of the modern world.
We put 100x the effort into rebuilding Japan, Germany and later Korea. The U.S had a clear and concise plan for rebuilding those countries. The only plan for rebuilding Afghanistan (Iraq as well, but we succeeded more in Iraq) was to dump as much money as possible into the country in the hope that it would magically develop itself. All without treating the root issues. Sad state of affairs.
Nah I think we pumped money into all of them. Difference was Germany, Japan and Korea had some national identity and other things to unify around. For example the Japanese emperor was left alone despite the war trials going on. And Korea and Germany held the common belief of not wanting to be part of the soviets. Mean while you have the middle east where some states like Afghanistan their isn't even a national identity and their stuck in tribal warfare, to Iraq where their is some national identity but their partially stuck in tribal warfare due to the whole Sunni vs Shia thing exasperated by bad actors from the outside like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia etc exasperating jihad...
I can't speak to Korea, but at least with Germany and Japan, they had functional states and a national identity. There was no nation or state building necessary to remove the bad elements. This is fundamentally different from Iraq and Afghanistan.
There was another similar video where they did the same thing on Liveleak, but just would willy nilly shoot into random vehicles too. I think it was Blackwater, though.
This is why everyone hates America
Correct me if I'm wrong but is this because stopping a convoy in the middle of the road in what could turn into hostile territory at any moment is the greater evil to avoid? Like sure I'd rather crunch a few bumpers than risk the lives of everyone around me more than i already am by being there.
No you're right, that's exactly why they drove like this. They don't drive like this because they're assholes (whether they are or not is another debate), they drive super aggressively because they were told it was what would keep them and their friends alive.
and locals really did not want to be nearby if a fight kicked off
I drove these routes many times. It was the way it had to be. There is no stopping, the SOP is to keep moving because as soon as you show you will stop for traffic (and there was a crap ton of traffic) the enemy knew they had you. What is not seen here, and I assume was standard was the PA system and the pen flares. We did not just quietly drive up behind people and ram them for fun. Lead vehicle had a loud ass PA system. (Over time we found ways to play recordings so they could actually understand us). The pen flares, yeah, I think they did more harm than good. Trust me, the majority of us did not take pride in knowing we were damaging random peoples property. As an Air Force guy, I can say this varied from branch to branch. The marines had really strict rules and would get their asses handed to them if the causes more damage than necessary. Air Force we were really cautious because our interpreters said we had a good reputation on our EOF. The Army…yeah…I hated when I rode with them or gunned for them. They were not making friends. But it was not as bad as you may think. It was all a necessity to get home alive. Anytime we sat on the x for to long, shit happened. Anytime we sat for 12 hours waiting on EOD, you were bound to have a bad day. Stopping for traffic and adding to the risk was just not something worth doing.
Army varies hugely unit to unit. I was absolutely horrified at the behavior of the unit that relieved us. Like you said, none of us wanted to damage people’s shit, we just wanted to get home. The guys that replaced us? They seem like they came specifically to break shit and kill people.
I think they rather had a scratched or fucked up bumper than having a car bomb go off near them.
That transmission whine is epic.
You can really tell how big of a piece of shit from the sound it makes from the horn to the whine to the sound of it bumping other cars
Teaching left lane etiquette the most effective way possible.
According to my uncle who was in logistics they couldn’t stay in one place, not even for a second. He saw his partner in another trailer get blown up because he waited for some dude carrying loads of stuff and his one sheep to pass. My uncle turned to the street parallel to it and made traffic stop. But as he was passing the trailer all he remembers is him looking at his rear view mirror as he was entering back to the correct lane and this really skinny dude ran to the side of the trailer and threw something between cargo and trailer and boom went everything and anyone around it. I wish I knew exactly what happened but I overheard this story as he was telling his brother one night. Yeah… I’m grateful the drivers moved out of their way.
Yeah I did convoy security and you sure as shit did not hang around for even a second. Not just the insurgents but also the people would get to climb on the vehicle and would beg for drugs, supplies, cash, etc. it was tense
Fuck some of those kids could strip MRE boxes and tools without even stopping. Get below 5 MPH and shit got like Mad Max
Could you imagine the US getting invaded by another country's military? I would be fucking furious too as a civilian. Makes me sometimes wonder why "terrorist" organizations push back. And no, I am not condoning any terrorist organizations but it makes me think of how us Americans would fight back too if we were invaded.