I'm so proud of our guys.

Winning over the hearts and minds of Iraqis as detailed in the Helen Keller Driving School manual

/farking twits
//knows someone will defend the video

Well...I'd drive like that too, if it was a common occurance to get your ass blown up and shot at while driving around.

Of course that's one of the big disadvantages of using a miltary force as a police force, and why we will never win the hearts and minds using our current "strategy"...

SoiledDude: //knows someone will defend the video


I'll bite ... anyone ever shoot at you on your morning commute?

lol... that's great.

I like the very end...

"Look at this guy...pickin' his nose, not a care in the world..."

farkncorey: I'll bite ... anyone ever shoot at you on your morning commute?

all the time... ;)

I would think that there would be a better way of moving throughout a city, but that would take much more planning and personnel, which has been missing from this conflict since its inception.

Can't blame the soldiers for the need to keep moving. The people there know the drill too. They get out of the way as soon as they see them coming. Just like we get out of the way for police, fire, and medics.

Are we insured? Who's going to pay for all of that damage?!

What's with the 1973 Beetle horn we got on the Humvee?

SoiledDude: I would think that there would be a better way of moving throughout a city, but that would take much more planning and personnel, which has been missing from this conflict since its inception.


I agree 100%. The problem for the soldiers is that they generally have to follow a pre-defined route. Personally, I think we should be pulling our troops out of Bahgdad altogether and let the Iraqi troops/police handle the urban fighting.

farkncorey: The problem for the soldiers is that they generally have to follow a pre-defined route.

Seems like would encourage IED placement, unless the routes were always being cleaned...

Randomness, I would think, would reduce casualties...

/agreed, removing troops would reduce that rate to 0%

SoiledDude: /farking twits
//knows someone will defend the video

You have to be joking. Are you saying you wouldn't drive like that if people were waiting to blow you up if you stopped?

SoiledDude,

Winning over the hearts and minds of Iraqis as detailed in the Helen Keller Driving School manual

/farking twits
//knows someone will defend the video

When you're in a combat zone, you keep moving. Stopping the vehicle is a good way to get your ass lit up.

We're not going to win their hearts and minds, and we're not going to bring freedom and democracy to them. It doesn't matter if we're curteous on the road or if we drive like Houstonians over there.

So, with that said, I'm all for the drivers keeping their status as a moving target rather than as a stationary target.

It surprises me that there are still people out there who believe that this war can be 'won.' Can you imagine if that was a foreign military in your country doing that to your civilian population. Now before you fire up the flame machine, I completely understand why they have to do it. The problem is I think that once you get to the point where that is the tactics that you must use, you have lost the war of 'public opinion.'

If a foreign military did that to me and a carload of my friends, in my own country, I would start to seriously consider taking a potshot or two at them when I thought I could get away with it.

/and I'm supposed to be a polite, unarmed, Canadian

Simple? Yes. Piss me off like you wouldn't believe? Absolutely. In fact I think I might even get mad if an vehicle driven by any employee of my own government hit me just to let me know he was there, such as the police.

I have yet to be pushed off the road by an ambulance or firetruck, maybe we do things differently up here.

Now add this to the fact that it is being done by a foreign government, that by now I am beginning to suspect is there for less than altruistic reasons (regardless of actual intentions) and I think you have a recipe for breeding trouble.

/and I don't even have the added incentive of virgins
//in this life or the next

Robo73: What's with the 1973 Beetle horn we got on the Humvee?

Hahaha... sweet.

The wrong way on a roundabout was a nice touch.

So if they slow down to 49 they blow up?

SoiledDude: Seems like would encourage IED placement, unless the routes were always being cleaned...

That's precisely why IED's have been such a big problem and, hence, the desire to keep things MOVING.


Randomness, I would think, would reduce casualties...

Depending on the mission, I think they get to wing it to some degree ... but this the army we're talking about; rules/regulations, sop's, chain-of-command, etc. And, on the one had, randomness avoids predictability. On the other hand, if you play it by ear and end up driving into an impromptu ambush ... if you haven't followed a pre-defined route, when you call for back-up, they won't know where you are. Hell, YOU might not know where you are or get confused ... especially when lead starts flying at you.


Let's just get them the hell out of there!

"Well, soldiers are not like people, Mrs. Simpson. Some of them act badly because they've had a hard life, or have been mistreated... but, like people, some of them are just jerks. Stop that Mr. Simpson."

Seems like any other SUV driver

Errk
Can't blame the soldiers for the need to keep moving. The people there know the drill too. They get out of the way as soon as they see them coming. Just like we get out of the way for police, fire, and medics.

right it's such a goddamn safety hazard, but we're too cheap to affix a siren or a farkin car horn on the humvee.

it's all a buncha hogwash. Not you Errk, just the whole situation.

come to think of it a flashing siren would be a bulls eye too. Nonetheless you'd think a car horn would suffice. Or perhaps it just wasn't audible to me.

U S A. U S A. Woohoo... SMASH!

Fark the whole "You'd drive like that to avoid fire and bombs too" argument... You'd drive like that BECAUSE YOU COULD.
/Admit it.

They need a hornblaster.

Driving in the middle east is not like driving in kansas you farktards. Pretty normal to drive on the wrong side of the road even in a city that isn't a war zone.

this is what happens when you put poor, uneducated, and normally insensitive people in situations where they are outside of their training. The volunteer army is horribly enabled/prepared to perform what is truly required in Iraq now that we have broken it. Seeing shiat like this shouldn't surprise anyone. They have been there too long (one day is too long) and have been deluded into seeing Iraqis (and Muslims in general) as something less than human, and thus don't see actions like this as being unreasonable or wrong. The problem of the Middle East will continue to fester until we begin to understand the gravity and scope of the region, and not approach international relations like a drunken frat boy. This "president" and his cabal are so unbelievably incompetent; I can't imagine the planning and excecution of any grand scheme to redesign the region going any worse. You can blame the soldiers, and I do, but their actions shouldn't be a shock. The ultimate blame rests on the rest of the country which was deluded and fell in step with the pep-rally mentality that the hawks used in their favor in the run up to war with those who look and act differently than us. We did not question the very serious question of should we go to war. We should all be ashamed.

Spaces man spaces, you had some good points inside that ginormous block of text.

cutlip98
I agree with you on more than half of your points, but the one I'd like to pick on is:
They have been there too long (one day is too long) and have been deluded into seeing Iraqis (and Muslims in general) as something less than human, and thus don't see actions like this as being unreasonable or wrong.
Does this imply that you DO find these actions unreasonable and/or wrong?
Please explain in what way this was unreasonable.
These men are in a glorified jeep in the crowded center of a city where every living person is a potential assailant and more than half actually are. They have no choice but to drive these streets and it is LAW (both ours and the new iraqi governments) that you get out of the way and let the military through. So if someone doesn't get out of the way, how can you tell if it's because they don't see you, don't care, or are trying to slow you down enough for their friends to hit you with an RPG?

Seems entirely reasonable to me.

You're right about the whole idiot president going into this war and sustaining it and idiot US populous for not doing anything about it.

they were holding down the horn. obviously they consider their lives more important than the traffic problem they create. bumping the cars won't hurt them, there are bumpers for a reason.

if you think that is reasonable behavior then I don't know what to say to you. We are viewed as an occupying force. We look and act completely different than any Iraqi. Having a gun and preserving the peace brings some responsibility if that is indeed what we are using 20 year olds who are only trained for killing. You don't expect or want the cop watching over a crowd to smash his gun over the head of the first guy who gets in her or her way. That only insights the crowd and causes innumerable more problems. We are creating so many more people with a hatred of America. Everytime someone dies in Iraq, the son or daughter that survives will remember this and hold the grudge. We have broken the hornets nest, and they will come for us.

(is this better?)

In the case of Iraq, we are viewed (rightly or wrongly) as the reason and cause for everything going wrong. We are the invaders who don't belong there. We are in the middle of a civil war between two factions of Muslims that have been fighting for thousands of years. No amount of boots on the ground or guns in their faces can pacify the region. Asking 20 year old kids to approach the situation in which they are in is absurd. Almost like asking a moron to be president and understand the meaning of nuance and delicate measures.

Well i believe thats about a dozen hearts and minds won over right there.

That seems so weird!

Fox news and Michelle Malkin tell me everything there is going just swimmingly and that our soldiers are met everyday with flowers and gupchi.

That is just one bad driver and I hope his commander gives him a good talking to!

cutlip98: this is what happens when you put poor, uneducated, and normally insensitive people in situations where they are outside of their training.

That statement is what happens when you give a moran access to the internet ... die in a godammed fire, you stupid jackass.

Anyone think they hit that tractor at the end when the video stopped?

/Would love to drive like that

thank you Chester Fields, though i dont think anyone else noticed your comments.

Arabs dont know how to drive (in the middle east that is). cars were just recently introduced to them after world war two. not until the 80s did the car to family ratio hit 1:1 (in america i think its like 2.5:1, or maybe thats kids)

point being, all arabs drive on the wrong side of the road. they stop thier car underneat the stop light so that they cant see it when it turns green. they tripple park and block 2 sets of people in. a 2 laned road will have 3 rows of cars next to each other so close, that if you roll down your window, you can hit the other driver in the face.

the soldiers last comment makes me think he hasnt been there for too long. they very often cross the streets (there were at least 3 or 4 in this video alone) at any interval they want. we call it jay walking, they call it... walking i guess. they just dont look at the cars on the road, and if you didnt see it, it isnt your fault.

its mass chaos. they need order in their lives, and the only way to do it is get rid of every single one of them

/including myself

Did you see all the flowers they were throwing at them and the hardy waves and good cheer?

Welcome Liberators!

I used to think that Digg submissions were swiped from Fark, but this was posted hours ago on Digg. Things that make you go Hmmmm.

/BTW, Digg sux a$$
//goes there for the video links

It's these arrogant displays that tell the tale. Tell you what, if I was subjected to that demeaning treatment day after day, I'd be thinking about who the hell my friends really were.

All the soldiers that i know tell me that this is standard procedure, well it's either that or light them up with whatever weapon is mounted on the roof. Even the bigger trucks do the same thing, keep moving, anything gets in your way honk and keep going, let nothing stop you. And yes the horn on the humvee is a piece of crap, I've heard bicycle bells that are louder.

There is a reason for them to constantly move by procedure.

It's never good to be a sitting duck.

Caught between saying 'VERY cool' and 'What the FARK is their problem?'.

Better to drive that way than get lit up but some chickensnot iranian terrorists.

The problem with the video isn't that the HumV was pulling a dream sequence for anyone stuck in traffic...it's that the traffic was actually in Tijuana.

/yeah, like we landed on the moon, too.

I wonder how I would drive in a war zone if I am American or Iraqi.

An American does not want to get shot so he has to keep on moving.

The Iraqis here either are so out of it that they do not know a large military humvee is behind then or they just do not care.

I thought Boston roads/drivers were bad.

America! fark Yeah!@

Continually speeding up to knock someone out of your way = Hero. Becuae you can-- America Fark Yea!!

Dude, people drive like that in America with Hummers.

Motherfarkers...no wonder they don't want us there.

If the Bush administration would work on bringing our troops home like an overwhelming majority of Americans want them to, soldiers wouldn't have to run into civilian cars to dodge potential attacks.