joe_dracos said:
DreamingMerc said:
Your post.
If I may begin my good chum a spirited discussion, I'll give you an ambush is not technically a combat zone. An ambush also known as a Kill Zone or Kill Box, is the area where an enemy element hopes to direct, channel and trap you OR where you hope to do the same to him. As appose to a direct combat zone in which one element actively directs fire on an enemy element with hostile intent... so I guess I do have to give you that one.
Another thing is, the scenes are not to be directly translated over to District 9 or for any film directly for that matter. But merely the type of combat depicted is one of the truer depiction of modern military conflict. To speak specifically as a fire fight opens up and rounds start going down range a professional capable (i.e a private military contractor for example) knows to fall back to their operating procedures and not flip a ***** as such action can and will cause casualties to stack. No one is just spraying full auto into targets, instead they take time to punch two and three round taps (squeezing the trigger and fallowing through with your shot as to ensure accuracy of the round). Executing military tactic of falling back when confronted with a strong enemy and calling in addition support as to apply overwhelming force on the target with AIR or ASS(Armor). And when you ignore these things and depict a military element as such incompetent amateur fuckheads as District 9 did your digging a DEEP hole to climb out of as far as story telling is concerned.
The idea of separating combatants into the categories of terrorists, freedom fighter, standing army are in all intents of purpose both pointless and moronic. There are simple people, some you can trust to get your back (sometimes not all the time) and others you have to watch out for as you may in fact have to kill them.
Now here's a funny bit, I shall explain why these events depicted in the videos of my previous post were as such, they are the depiction of the actual events of 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, Bravo Company, 2nd platoon during the initial invasion of Mesopotamia. Meaning that the deaths stacked on the Iraqi side both para-military and civilian (which the series DOES portray in gruesome detail) and lack of casualties on the Marines side can't be changed or flipped being as when the film was made all members of 2nd platoon were alive and well, some in fact coming back from their second and third tours in Iraq.
Let us start out with the day time ambush, a city by the name of Al Gharraf in which Bath party loyalists succeeded in stopping a Marine Regimental Combat (RCT-1) team hours prior. The Battalion commander of 1st Recon felt so em emboldened as to push his men through the town were RCT-1 had been stopped. As 1st Recon pushed threw the town they caught the para-military forces off guard and got lucky by a Mk.19 gunner whom had managed to drop the roof on the building in which a majority of the fire was coming from and pushed the entire battalion through the town before linking up with a light armor division of LAV's.
The night ambush takes place in a little town by the name of Al Muwaffaqiyah in which 1st Recon was tasked with pushing through the town, with 2nd platoon Bravo on point, to engage para-military forces along the way to Al Kut (where two Iraqi mechanized divisions were stationed). And as you saw they got fucking lit up pretty good, now here's why they pulled that little luck of the draw off. First of Iraqi nights are dark and I mean really fucking dark, you can't see a damn thing without enhanced optics. And being the lack of thermals and NVG's on the opposing side the limits of Iraqi forces are pushed beyond during night operations. Secondly and this is the best part of this story, a solid majority of the para-military forces engaged were NOT actual military personnel in any sense of the words. They were actually college students from Syria, from what I've been told (meaning there is some reason to doubt this but not completely disregard this) Saddam had promised land and wealth to any whom would come to the aid of Iraq, which doesn't make them freedom fighters. When you think about it they were actually capitalists, pursuing financial gain through uncertain and risky endeavors. Most had come to Iraq I think just a few weeks before American forces hit Kuwait. One individual when he came through Iraqi customs wrote "gehad"(sp?) as their reason for entering Iraq with "Love" tattooed on his hand.
If you take the time to watch the series through, you will come to understand this DOES NOT glorify Marines in this hero cast and villainous the Muslim world. It merely does it's best to depict what happened for this ONE platoon in the invasion of Iraq. It doesn't waste it's time to establish such petty idealism as arguing for or against a "just war". Quite frankly there is no such thing, the idea of any war being possible virtues is simple for the simple minded and faint of heart.
