J says:

I admit in this world things are sometimes not as they appear. Perhaps, if the music wasn’t so loud we could hear what was being said and make better judgment . The question, was the music added post to cover their comments or were they just listening to it that loud in the vehicle. The answer to that question could give us a clue to their state of mind.

At best their action is questionable and maybe should be evaluated. After such a review, perhaps some new guidelines should be put into place for threat assessment and the appropriate response.

BobH says:

22

The music was added to the video post production as opposed to playing in the vehicle while they traveled. The fact “Mystery Train” continues smoothly from scene to scene is sufficient to indicate it was an after thought. Moreover, “Mystery Train” has oft been interpreted as a euphemism not unlike “The Grim Reaper” wherein both depict random death. Thus, another disconcerting element in the video is the perception by the editor that the journey is best accompanied by a song befitting the ride. Finally, I would posit the selection of that specific music was not done by an 18-35 (conventional military age) year old insofar as the popularized version of the track dates from Elvis Presley in 1955.

OhForTheLoveOf says:

#25 – You are right. Its better to just sit down like a good citizen and behave as our obviously superior leaders have asked us to. Just go to the mall, buy some shoes, go see Talledega Nights, have something from Cinnabon, and just let those really important people in Washington deal with all this messy war stuff.

It isn’t just our right to be critical. It’s our responsibility.

J says:

BobH

24

Yeah Wow I totaly missed that!

27

Thank you for your service.

BobH says:

J

There’s no news flash in reporting during times of stress people are not always rational. There’s also no fresh insight in revealing when a weapon of any kind is placed in enough people’s hands, a certain percentage will use it indiscriminately. The debate is the whether America is doing itself or the world a service by being in Iraq.

The editor of that video has a perspective to share via their choice of images and audio accompaniment. If you revisit Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” scene of the gunship attack on the village, accompanied by Wagner’s “The Ride of the Valkyries” you’ll witness another director’s view of carnage.

William K. Wolfrum says:

31:
From Merriam-Webster

Hysteria
Main Entry: hys·te·ria
Pronunciation: his-’ter-E-&, -’tir-
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from English hysteric, adjective, from Latin hystericus, from Greek hysterikos, from hystera womb; from the Greek notion that hysteria was peculiar to women and caused by disturbances of the uterus
1 : a psychoneurosis marked by emotional excitability and disturbances of the psychic, sensory, vasomotor, and visceral functions
2 : behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess

doug says:

I love the “taken out of context” justification for what we all just saw in that video, rattling automatic weapons fire on the highway. For a minute there, I thought it was LA in the 80s …

yes, private security contractors are, in essence, mercs. They are also the second-largest foreign force in Iraq, or at least were a while ago.

US military personnel do not care for them one bit, since they have been known to do things like those depicted in the video, which plays hell with the “hearts and minds” part of counter-insurgency. As one American soldier who worked out with some of the mercs in a gym in the Green Zone noted, “Steroids, weapons and anger are a bad combination.”

MEEE says:

Private military contractors (PMCs) = mercenaries. Same new speak as Pre-owned cars vs used cars. PMC is just more sanitary and PC.

greg says:

Two observations:

1) The comments about this video lacking context are absolutely right. Is this Jimmy and Billy Merc shooting up Baghdad after a frustrating day at the war, or are these video excerpts of military operations against known or suspected opposition forces? We have no way of knowing. The author of the video, through music, scene and audio selection, clearly has an agenda in mind — what we don’t know is if what got cut out were conversations like — “No that’s not the target we are looking for…”; or “Yes commander, we are now in front of the white Toyota and will engage…”

2) The videos are disturbing because they illustrate the realities of war first-hand. Not Hollywood-style shoot-em-up — this is real — real people were shot, possibly killed in that video, real civilians were in harm’s way and likely injured because the operation took place in civilian setting. Americans are insulated from the realities of warfare — we read disproportionately little about the collateral damage that our efforts have had. We are fighting a war on terrorism, but what would we be saying about the way the war has been prosecuted if it were being fought on our soil as opposed to in the Middle East?

I’m not saying that we haven’t tried to reduce casualties — the US is increasingly effective at fighting with fewer and fewer casualties. But even so, the civilian casualty numbers are huge.

The point is, WE chose to make this a full-scale war, WE chose where to fight this war, WE chose the means with which to respond to the terrorist threat. There were and are other approaches, and the world holds the US accountable for the choices it makes.