[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by applesthecat

So your defense is that the film is edited?

My defense of what? My claim that Americans never did that? I haven't claimed that, despite your insistence that I did. You also claimed I said a lot of other things I never said. I'm still waiting on a reply about that.

Well of course. Every film is edited.

But you didn't use "every film" to try to prove a claim. In this case the editing is critical. You say it's "obvious" what is going on, and yet the editing makes it impossible to determine exactly what's going on. I have never had a problem with your claims, even though you've accused me of being "in denial" over them. I never said that.

I'm a student of truth, and how it's presented. I don't hide from anything. But I do examine everything closely and accept nothing without absolute corroboration. My quibble was never with your claims - I can't and won't deny them, but I will discuss them. My quibble is with one video, far too tampered with to be used as evidence in any reasonable context, and you've insisted on turning it into a diatribe against myself personally, claiming I've said things I haven't, and when that didn't work becoming insulting and demeaning.

What is the logic of that argument?

The logic should be obvious. The film shows people in the water. The film shows guns being fired. There is nothing in the film that directly links the two. Editing can make anything look like anything. On the other hand at 0:30 we can clearly see a shot of AA tracers arcing over the water towards a ship. That is very obviously not edited. Can you see the difference?

And Sgt_Raa has a point as well. The scene where we definitely see an impact - the very one I was willing to concede - it does appear to be an explosion, not a bullet impact (unless the bullet was a 40mm AA round). I could be wrong here, but I doubt it was caused by the .45 the officer is holding in the next scene.

You're saying the film proves nothing because it is not one unedited scene. Well, the film of the moon landing I suppose, by that logic, proves nothing either. It too was edited.

In one sense it doesn't prove anything. Any film can be doctored. Does that mean I think we didn't really go to the moon? Not at all. You seem to be wanting to put words in my mouth again. The film of the moon landing isn't the proof - it's the combination of all the evidence, plus having no reason to not believe it.

Likewise here. I have never argued that it didn't happen (though you have steadfastly insisted otherwise), only that the video is insubstantial as proof.

This film documents a massacre.

No, this film documents people floating in the water. It documents guns being fired. It documents one person dying in the water. The scenes could have been filmed days, weeks, months or even years apart. They could even have been filmed on different submarines.

Or they could, as I said many posts ago, be one continuous scene edited simply for time. The problem isn't that you're wrong, or right. The problem is that we don't know what the situation with the film is. Until that is established claims of it as 'proof' would be laughed out of any court of law, or any school of logic.

And this thread wondered if such a thing was documented by the allied side.

No, this thread wondered if it was possible for a player to do that in the game. You added the rest yourself.

So here is a film to document that. One can either accept it at face value, or question what your eyes are showing you, and entertain the notion that maybe no sailors were shot in the water - it just sort of appeared that way.

Or one can assume, as you do, that a bunch of possibly unrelated scenes sewn together constitute documentary evidence of a massacre.

I've never claimed it didn't happen (though you base all arguments on your assumption that I think that, and you've even claimed that I said it, though you have yet to answer my request to show where I've said it). I've only said that this film has a lot of problems that keep it from being 'proof'.