Why HRW is untrustworthy

[Loren Pechtel]

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/27/gaza-apparent-war-crimes-during-may-fighting

From their own report:

When I first saw it, it was high in the air. Then it gradually descended as it came in our direction. It exploded about one meter from the ground. Something hit me in the eye, the abdomen, and legs. I flew into the air and landed on the ground. I didn’t lose consciousness.

This couldn't have happened. If HRW had competent people they would know it's a fabrication. It's inclusion in their report clearly demonstrates either they don't care if it's true or they aren't competent to recognize it can't be true.

 

[barbos]

What exactly couldn't have happened?

 

[laughing dog]

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/27/gaza-apparent-war-crimes-during-may-fighting

From their own report:

When I first saw it, it was high in the air. Then it gradually descended as it came in our direction. It exploded about one meter from the ground. Something hit me in the eye, the abdomen, and legs. I flew into the air and landed on the ground. I didn’t lose consciousness.

This couldn't have happened. If HRW had competent people they would know it's a fabrication. It's inclusion in their report clearly demonstrates either they don't care if it's true or they aren't competent to recognize it can't be true.

HRW reported what this person said.

As barbos asked, what exactly are you claiming is impossible?

 

[KeepTalking]

What exactly couldn't have happened?

Because Hollywood movies teach us that only good guys survive explosions, and Palestinians can't be good guys?

 

[LoAmmo]

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/27/gaza-apparent-war-crimes-during-may-fighting

From their own report:

When I first saw it, it was high in the air. Then it gradually descended as it came in our direction. It exploded about one meter from the ground. Something hit me in the eye, the abdomen, and legs. I flew into the air and landed on the ground. I didn’t lose consciousness.

This couldn't have happened. If HRW had competent people they would know it's a fabrication. It's inclusion in their report clearly demonstrates either they don't care if it's true or they aren't competent to recognize it can't be true.

I don't have a dog in this fight. Both sides have blood on their hands; both sides have also sought reasonable, peaceful solutions. I'm similarly ambivalent about HRW--I can easily imagine the organization is well-intentioned and could provide an indispensable outlet for offenses that might otherwise go unreported. I can just as easily imagine that bias could potentially color their viewpoint and hamper their objectivity, since they have such a sharply defined purpose or agenda.

However, neither of those two contexts represent my quibble with your post.

What I would ask you to do is to explain, to this former military munitions officer, precisely and exactly WHAT in the quoted Mohammed Mohammed account "couldn't have happened."

Do know this, though: two of the units I served in had, as a primary weapons system, low subsonic cruise missiles. In other words, you aren't going to bullshit me.

Another avenue open to you (and, honestly, the one I'd recommend taking) would be to clarify, soften, or otherwise "walk back" the language and reasoning with which you impugned the integrity of HRW--which, again, I must stress, is not my interest. I make no declaration on that issue either way.

But I do look forward to being schooled on how aerial munitions work, if you choose to go THAT route.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What exactly couldn't have happened?

Because Hollywood movies teach us that only good guys survive explosions, and Palestinians can't be good guys?

Actually anyone can these days. If The Professional was made today, Stansfield would have just walked out of the building, wiping the soot off his face.

The obsession with Palestine with some is a bit much. Palestinians live in squalor. Hamas and Hezbollah are less interested in changing that than creating problems. Israel is run by radicals. To be combing articles for inaccuracies is just obsessive and pointless.

 

[untermensche]

The Israeli military said in part that it “strikes military targets exclusively, following an assessment that the potential collateral damage resulting from the attack is not excessive in relation to the expected military advantage

If this violent invasion is politically important we allow for more civilian casualties in other words.

 

[KeepTalking]

What I would ask you to do is to explain, to this former military munitions officer, precisely and exactly WHAT in the quoted Mohammed Mohammed account "couldn't have happened."

Do know this, though: two of the units I served in had, as a primary weapons system, low subsonic cruise missiles. In other words, you aren't going to bullshit me.

Another avenue open to you (and, honestly, the one I'd recommend taking) would be to clarify, soften, or otherwise "walk back" the language and reasoning with which you impugned the integrity of HRW--which, again, I must stress, is not my interest. I make no declaration on that issue either way.

But I do look forward to being schooled on how aerial munitions work, if you choose to go THAT route.

I had a similar quibble. As a former USAF Aircraft Armament System specialist with only a few years of experience loading bombs and missiles on F-111's there was nothing that seemed implausible about the account to me.

 

[ZiprHead]

Here is footage of a bomb drop in Syria. You can clearly observe the bomb dropping all the way to the ground.

[YOUTUBE]https://youtu.be/afbnjlYzQSg[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

There is what the person said and then there is what LP heard.
[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE63y7ctAwA[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

This is a weird thread. Somehow, I can't imagine Loren reading through HRW day after day, looking for a couple of sentences he can use to say, "Look, they're lying!" So, then, where on Earth did this come from? Also, why is it a big deal? Some guy clearly got injured. Then, he gives an account which might not be 100% accurate, but probably is mostly accurate just like all first-hand accounts of events. No explanation of what is wrong...makes me think there was another Internet discussion between other persons who criticized the account and Loren has lifted the quote here expecting the same kind of criticisms. Maybe?

 

[bilby]

I disagree. I mean, all politicians lie occasionally, but in comparison with her opponent, HRC was a shining beacon of honesty.

Also, there's a typo in the thread title.

 

[funinspace]

"When there are recognizable words but no one else can make sense of them, they call it 'word salad.' No one ever thinks to call it music." -- Susan Neville

Which is incredibly unfair to salad, never mind pigs...

 

[Elixir]

This couldn't have happened. If HRW had competent people they would know it's a fabrication. It's inclusion in their report clearly demonstrates either they don't care if it's true or they aren't competent to recognize it can't be true.

HRW reported what this person said.

As barbos asked, what exactly are you claiming is impossible?

Loren's failure to respond clearly demonstrates ... I'm not quite sure what. Maybe he hasn't noticed that others are curious about his conclusion.
I hope that's it. Because I'd like to know as well.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

What exactly couldn't have happened?

Because Hollywood movies teach us that only good guys survive explosions, and Palestinians can't be good guys?

No, but it is a Hollywood scene.

The blast force to kill is less than the blast force to throw you through the air.

 

[bilby]

What exactly couldn't have happened?

Because Hollywood movies teach us that only good guys survive explosions, and Palestinians can't be good guys?

No, but it is a Hollywood scene.

The blast force to kill is less than the blast force to throw you through the air.

These are not fixed quantities. A blast can easily kill only some of a group of people. People frequently survive overpressures that are fatal to others. Blast overpressure injuries are some of the least predictable events out there, and depend on a vast number of variables including (but not limited to) the orientation of victims relative to the explosion; reflected blast wave interference; whether victims have their mouths open or closed; and the victim's body type and muscle to fat ratio. And all of that is before considering impact injuries.

The probability of surviving a blast that knocks you over is low, but certainly not zero.

 

[barbos]

What exactly couldn't have happened?

Because Hollywood movies teach us that only good guys survive explosions, and Palestinians can't be good guys?

No, but it is a Hollywood scene.

The blast force to kill is less than the blast force to throw you through the air.

I did not think about that . But I think it's was just a figure of speech. It probably knocked him over instead of literally throwing over the air.

 

[Derec]

Palestinians live in squalor.

Some. But many live middle class lives or better.
Gaza for example is not just the phony "refugee" camps you see on the news.

 

[KeepTalking]

What exactly couldn't have happened?

Because Hollywood movies teach us that only good guys survive explosions, and Palestinians can't be good guys?

No, but it is a Hollywood scene.

The blast force to kill is less than the blast force to throw you through the air.

As Bilby already noted, this is not necessarily true. There is also the possibility that you misunderstood what the boy was saying when he said "Something hit me in the eye, the abdomen, and legs. I flew into the air and landed on the ground." I initially interpreted this as him describing being hit by the shock wave with enough force to propel him through the air, but there is also the possibility that he meant that he was struck by physical objects from the blast that knocked him off his feet. There is also the very real possibility that he was not speaking English, or at the very least English is not his first language, and therefor some meaning may have been lost in translation.

Of course, that is all speculation, but you won't have to look far to find accounts from military personnel providing verifiable accounts of having survived shockwave blasts from explosions like this one:

https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/why-do-some-missiles-explode-before-actually-hitting-the-target.html

A World War 2 veteran who took part in the D-Day assault on Omaha beach in 1944 survived after a grenade exploded a few feet away from him. He later said in an interview that while he was not hit by the shrapnel of the grenade, he was flung into the air by an ‘invisible wave’, which felt as though he had been “hit in the head with a baseball bat”.

 

[Arctish]

Weren't there a lot of explosion shockwave survivors in WWI?