[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by applesthecat

I never said she said it was common practice to do so. Now you are putting words in my mouth. I merely provided a video on a topic that was previously discussed.

You said

Frau Kaleun brought up the historical angle of shooting survivors in this thread in reply # 23. It was not me.

Which she did not do. You implied that yourself.

LOL. It wasn't a crime. As I said, it was legal to do this. Mush Morton was not tried like Eck.

No, but murdering people in the water is a crime, whether you call it one or not. It deserves a defense.

Again, you seem to think this is some sort of trial. You turned an innocent thread into some sort of courtroom drama for absolutely no reason. No one is arguing for anyone to be tried and convicted of a crime. So your insisting that this video can not "prove" anything is juvenile. If one does not wish to believe what it clearly shows, that is up to them.

Again you need to go through each of my points on the video and answer them. It shows nothing clearly.

Ah ha. Now we come to the root of your motivation for making a mountain out of molehill.

Ah ha. Now we resort to pseudo-psychoanalysis instead of answering the questions.

You resent that video because you find what is in that video to be disturbing and wish to mitigate these actions by suggesting that perhaps they were justified. "He might have been fired on first". Wow. Now let's assume that happened. What rational person would justify massacring men in a life raft because someone in that life raft would have fired a side arm at a large vessel? Why didn't he just sail away and leave them there? There is no moral defense of that. It may have been legal at the time, but it certainly is not legal today and for good reason.

I use the 'trial' reference because you claim the video is valid evidence of a certain behaviour. Evidence needs and deserves to be examined. And that particular piece is severely flawed. Yet you keep claiming that a spliced and edited piece of film that never shows a gun shooting and a person being shot in the same frame is smooth, seemless and obvious. How do you know those scenes weren't shot months apart on different boats?

First, I don't resent the video at all. I started out by simply pointing out that it is not proof of what you claim it is. You started the fight.

Second, Morton has been accused of war crimes in this same context. If that wasn't your intent in bringing it up, then I'm sorry for misunderstanding. But if it is brought out that way one hundred times (and it has been, more than that) and one person brings it up without saying why, then it's an easy mistake to make.

As for it being legal, slaughtering helpless people in the water is a crime no matter how you look at it, so you are using that context whether you admit it or not. You have accused certain people of doing something both criminal and morally reprehensible. You've used that video and you have called it 'proof'. That deserves an answer.

Again with the "proof". Where is this trial for which you seem so concerned with acting as defense attorney?

I answered that in my post immediately above. You made an accusation and you called it proof.

It is a video that shows men in the water being shot.

You had better finally answer my moment-by-moment analysis. It shows men in the water. It shows guns firing. It never once shows a person being shot. In one scene there is a splash nearby. When I mentioned you snidely asked if I thought it was a bird dropping. No, but is it possibly a warning shot to keep the people in the water from coming any closer. Or not. The point is that I don't know, and neither do you. I'm not trying to prove or disprove anything by it. You are the one who keep insisting it's obvious, when it is not obvious at all.

Then there is the 'hit'. As Sgt Raa pointed out, the splash is big enough it could be a grenade, and he was going to throw it. Did he commit suicide? Was he shot before he could throw it? Did someone shoot him with a 40mm?

Again, the point is what we don't know. It could have been any, all, or none of the above. You keep insisting that it's obvious, when there is nothing remotely obvious about it.

It is not being used in any war crime trial. It was legal to do what is described in the video. So you can forget about being a defense attorney relying on the old canard that "you can't prove it was me". lol.

You seem to think making fun of people is a valid form of argument. It's not.

It is merely an interesting piece of archival footage to which you have taken great exception. This whole trial is only in your head. Nobody cares.

I don't take exception to the footage at all. I take exception to you claiming it is an obvious example of US submariners murdering people in cold blood, when it shows nothing of the kind. "Only in my head"? Then why not answer my questions? As I said, I merely pointed out the video was flawed, and didn't show what you claimed it showed. You are the one who keeps trying to bring up personal flaws in my character and reasoning abilities. That is also the kind of argument people use when they don't have anything real to offer.

BTW, we can see in one scene both the shooter and the man in the water in the same frame. That is pretty hard to refute. And the reason why he was shot was because the Navy instructed its sailors to not allow Japanese survivors aboard.

Which scene? Which frame? As I keep saying, specifics please?