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Wikileaks Releases Video of Journalist Killings
linguizic writes "Today Wikileaks released a video of the US military firing large caliber weapons into a crowd that included a photojournalist and a driver for Reuters, and at a van containing two children who were involved in a rescue. Wikileaks maintains that this video was covered up by the US military when Reuters asked for an official investigation. This is the same video that has supposedly made the editors of Wikileaks a target of the State Department and/or the CIA, as was discussed a couple weeks ago."
Needless to say, this video is probably not work safe (language and violence), and not for the faint of heart.
A short version with some initial analysis: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0
Full version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is9sxRfU-ik
If you read the comments from Army and US in the video before it was now released to public, they're just really blatant lies. They also did not release the video when Reuters requested it by Freedom of Information Act. Like the earlier news note, they followed, photographed, filmed and detained a Wikileaks editor about this video, not knowing what will they uncover. There's definitely more dirty secrets they don't want anyone to know.
In the video you see the people weren't attacking anyone, weren't targeting anyone (hell, all they had was cameras!) and that they were just civilians walking on the street. The military clearly had no idea what they were doing. Now theres plans to employ remotely controlled UAC's too? Make it a video game so that you don't need to care about the people you are murdering. These are people with families, with kids, with a whole lot of their own life, dreams and childhood. Then some idiot with large caliber weapons comes and shoots them without even a blink of an eye or thinking what he is doing. In top of that the truth is held from the public and the families of those who were killed, and US Army admits no mistake. I have no respect for these people - they're scum.
Awesome, we need to have a completely anonymous leak site to even know how corrupt our government even is. What a statement!
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds"
This is really disturbing..
Shit like this is why the rest of the world hates you.
For anyone who complains that the main-stream (or alternative media) aren't doing their job, perhaps you should make a donation too. The truth needs to be known and if wikileaks is the only entity out there willing to take that risk, the least we can do is support them.
I don't really feel like watching people getting gunned down at the moment. Where was this, when was this, and why isn't this on CNN.com, NYtimes.com, msnbc.com, etc.?
I find this all sorts of appalling. As someone else who started watching it said, "That's really screwed up." But that said, I have almost no hope that this will ever go anywhere. We've seen a seemingly never ending parade of illegal and barbaric behaviour come to light in both Iraq and Afghanistan, on the part of US forces, but each time nothing ever happens because of it. We all seem to just shrug our shoulders and go on with our lives.
Wikileaks is just peeing into the wind. Nothing will probably come of this, because outrage is dead.
I'm really hoping someone proves my cynical attitude wrong.
I'd imagine the CIA and DoD get on this fairly quickly and get it taken down.
I always feel like the key trouble with video of any military operation is that the general public has absolutely no basis from which to really understand what they're seeing -- the context of civilian day-to-day just doesn't create the sort of base of experience you need to watch this sort of video and draw decent conclusions from it.
What was the situation? What were these guys trained to do in this sort of situation? What had happened the hour or day or week before in this area, what was happening in the region, what sort of tactics had the bad guys been using, what were other patrols telling these guys? These details are actually more important than what we see in the video towards understanding the events, but we have none of it.
I don't want to make apologies if these guys screwed up -- I'm not of the mindset that out men and women in uniform are all heroes who can do no wrong or anything of that nature. That said, I'm also willing to accept that I don't have the experience or understanding to understand what I'm seeing... I'd be interested to hear from someone who does.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Iraq is a historic clusterfuck of clusterfucks, but does hosting this under such a domain name really help, not withstanding the feds trying to crawl up your asses for merely making them look incompetent.
piloting an Apache in Battlefield: Bad Company 2.
Did anyone else hear about another video they may have that showed hundreds if not thousands of civilians being bombed?
Did some have weapons? YES. Kills authorized? YES. It's the people in the van helping the wounded that are the crime.
You never shoot wounded, ever, ever, ever.
In wartime there are bound to be accidents by those on the ground. That is no excuse, however, to cover things like this up. Huge mistakes like this should be used to make sure that they don't happen again. Top brass lying and changing the story around just makes the US look dishonest and 'evil' and prevents any good work that is being done from getting the credit it deserves.
That video is disturbing. I just did not have the stomach to watch it all.
The trouble too is that we "preach" democracy but when a democratic process puts those we "hate" in power, we (read the US government), then treat the democratically elected administration as parties not to be dealt with in any way. Hamas anyone?
I really feel bad for the journalists. But, you knew the risk when you started walking in a war zone with the enemy of a power. A convoy was coming through the area, the chopper's job is to remove all threats. At least one of them was armed. Sorry.
Where are the AK 47's and RPGs?
Glenn Greenwald's entry this weekend pointed out that when a source from the military states that something happens in Afghanistan, major news sites repeat it directly as reliable news without any sort of follow-up on the source. Maybe "complicit" is too harsh a word - it's just more that news sites are more interested in the headline than in the research.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Dave: open the bomb bay doors hal.
Hal: Dave, sorry I can't do that
Dave: Why not hal ?
Hal: Because the bomb bay doors are already open, we lost the cargo over somewhere unimportant like New Mexico
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3509b6e5a2de56fda41a06d793c86e3ec0cd680c&dn=CollateralMurder.mp4&tr=http%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%2Fannounce
Wow you're a real tough guy! I'm impressed! I'm so glad that brave heroes like you are protecting me while I sleep from some guys on a street corner in Iraq!
Firing a 30mm gunship cannon at people picking up wounded is murder however you try to justify it. No matter what the gunship crew thought they saw earlier there is no threat from people picking up wounded. Just because theres a "war" on doesnt mean that you get to fire indiscriminately at anything that moves.
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
It looks to me, from the video, that the military detected or gueses weapon like rpg and ak47.
Soldiers are (probably) trained to shot to other army people. This could be a false positive, but in a battlefield, is best to shot to something like a tractor, than to get shot by a tank.
The problem here is having a militar force patroling a city. Thats whas WTF about it. But maybe you can't have something less letal than this so, false positives will happend.
-Woof woof woof!
3:40-4:00 on the film. Those long dark things being carried, and towards the end you see what appears to be a very long tube being carried. Those aren't cameras
That was all I needed to hear.
To me the difference between a murderer and a soldier is that a murderer wants to kill. The vast majority of my family and myself included have been or are currently in the U.S. armed services. I am not "anti-military." This is a group of yahoos shooting fish in a barrel. Reminds me of that scene in full metal jacket -- "How can you shoot women and children?" "Easy, you just don't lead 'em as much!"
To hate millions of people because of the actions of a few is pretty ignorant, Mr. Coward.
Isn't that human nature?
This will cause a huge outcry and more hatred for us, the US of A.
I'm willing to give the soldiers a benefit of the doubt because some camera lenses do in fact look like weapons to the untrained eye and I can understand their mistake - at first glance. Could it have been avoided? Yep! That helicopter pilot flying around should have double checked - he really needs to be court martialed. BUT the fact of the matter is that this is a very political war on both sides and the military is going to have to BIHICA with a case of KY for each member of the chain of command.
That's just the way it is.
Being at work and unable to watch the video, my comments should be taken with a grain of salt. While it is horrible that innocents were taken out in what sounds like a horrific manner, i don't believe that calling the military "scum" is the right way to take this, nor is making comments about the "US Hypocrisy" valid on something like this. These soldiers are putting their lives on the line by being there every day, and are being shot at every day. Erring on the side of caution is probably all that keeps them alive in some situations. And again, while it is horrible that innocents and journalists were taken out, you can understand why being shot at on a daily basis would make you a little more paranoid at whats on the ground. Cover-ups are not the way to address this and there should be a public acknowledgment about this should be out there. But don't label the soldiers on the ground as "Scum", they are putting their lives on the line every day, not by their own choice, to try and save people. Just because the reasons for being there are not the best, doesn't take away any of the danger to the soldiers on the ground
Uh... no, there were no armed insurgents there. There was an unarmed crowd, and 2 guys with CAMERAS. Oh, and 2 children, in a car trying to take wounded to hospital. This isn't a fucking video game, and there was a clear lack of care for discrimination between civilian and military targets.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Can't wait to see what sort of lies they try and cover this up with. I also can't wait to see which journalist actually have any integrity left to and decide to show this for what it is and not be influenced by lies or any sort of threat tactics.
I understand it wasn't right for the government to lie about it.
But I don't see what's wrong in the video itself. There is a group of people with weapons- not just AK47s but a guy has a full blown RPG with him. They have RPGs and are not American forces- logic says they are the bad guys. Why is it wrong that they shot them down? Because they didn't verify the faces of each one of them and match them to some terrorist database, or what?
I might have missed something in the video, anyone care to explain?
The "AK47" and "RPG" were both misidentified CAMERAS.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
If there had been, and the gunship didn't fire, we'd be hearing about a chopper shot out of the sky by insurgents.
Tragic mistake... criminal coverup... nothing to see here... move along.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
there were armed insurgents... sorry if hanging out with them got you killed.
sad fucking face.
and some of you people really don't know how war is done...all aghast that an apache can engage personnel.
Right. Apaches engage personnel all of the time. In fact most attack choppers are for this.
4:15 - 4:19 is also interesting although a second of our vision is obscured by the crosshair. Why is that indivdual crouching at a building corner and fiddling with something and then looks like he picks is up and points it. I'm not defending any actions here or trying to justify anything, I'm just pointing out some suspicious looking activity in the film. Does anyone know why these journalists were with so many men? Obviously some of them armed?
This video clearly demonstrates why policemen do not operate from behind the gun mount on an Apache helicopter.
1) Were or were there not any guns? I didn't see any. If there were, were these guns illegal? Is it really legal to fire on a crowd of people because one or two might be armed? Remember the men with weapons outside the Obamacare townhalls? Would it be okay to turn automatic (anti-vehicle) weapons on that crowd? Did the men on the ground know this was the case before they got shot? Did they even know who was doing the shooting? None of this is clear.
2) Was opening fire on the crowd the only option? Could the choppers have moved away, evading the range of the 'RPG', until the ground forces arrived? Was anyone's life in immediate jeopardy to the point that the military had to open fire?
3) Was this a 'battlefield', as the soldiers claim it was, or was it 'Thursday'? See number 1, but what reasonable chance did the deceased have to avoid getting shot that day?
Police procedure is filled with examples of how do deal with situations such as these. Also, they tend to arrest, rather than assassinate.
My point - You cannot police Iraq with soldiers, unless you just don't care about guilt or innocence, life or death.
Meh. It happens to every army. Didn't some German Peacekeepers in Afghanistan waste a truckload of local soldiers? It isn't good, but every soldier everywhere lives in a Kill or Be Killed situation. And nearly everyone decides to err on the side of self preservation. This is human nature, and as long as we have wars, we will have senseless killing of civilians.
- doug
Guess what everyone, America kills civilians and then lies about it!
To cover up their crimes they will even go so far as digging bullets out of the pregnant women they murdered when they raided the wrong house.
The US military long ago lost whatever credibility it may of had.
Don't worry, I'm sure anti-war protesters will be all over Obama for this, not to mention his track record for higher troop deaths than under Bush and his campaign lies about pulling out all the troops and bringing them home.
Oh, wait, no, nobody will say anything even though they were very vocal when Bush was president, because Obama is a Democrat.
The gunner in the helicopter fucked up, I wonder how he lives knowing this everyday.
1. This wasn't a remote drone. And remote drone stuff is basically video games turned real - you are not in the shit so it doesn't affect you *nearly* as much.
2. As for people outrages by the video, what do you prefer? 30,000 additional American soldier casualties or 150,000 civilians killed that you will never meet? That's where the rubber meets the road. You either send in boots on the ground to investigate, and potentially get killed, or you prefer to kill 100 people "just in case". American public clearly prefers the latter.
As to the video, what do you expect? I could definitely "see" AK-47s. But then gunships can't really tell a friend from foe anyway. They rely on ground intelligence to determine the nature of the threat. Relying on intelligence from gunship cameras alone is plain *stupid* - you can justify anyone a target.
But then again, what do you prefer? American soldiers in danger and possibly killed, OR a few Iraqi casualties that you will never meet? That's why it's called collateral damage. Military don't like it - it's wasted ammo and bad PR. Sadly, this will continue.
You mean the camera stand? you're either trolling or need new glasses.
Early in the video, it really does look like a legitimate mistake. At least one of the guys is clearly carrying an AK, and at 4:15 in the video the camera looks a lot like an RPG and the cameraman as if he's about to take a shot from around the corner. However, when the helicopter flew around for a clear shot it should have raised an eyebrow that not only was no RPG apparent, but that people were not assuming any combat stance. Nonetheless, I can understand that given the earlier context of the day (apparently shots had been fired at American helicopters) that the Apache team was on edge.
The real crime here comes when they fired on the van that had come to evacuate the wounded. Note that they did not fire on Saeed when he was down, and no weapon was visible. It was against their rules of engagement to fire on the wounded (Rules of Engagement refcard, 2c). The van was clearly not engaged in any hostile action against coalition forces. The Apache crew did obtain permission to fire from their superiors, so it appears that it is those commanders that are at fault for this crime.
4:15 - 4:19 is also interesting although a second of our vision is obscured by the crosshair. Why is that indivdual crouching at a building corner and fiddling with something and then looks like he picks is up and points it.
I believe it is called a camera, with a long lens, and the user is a war photographer. If it was an RPG then the military should be able to provide it as evidence.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Yes I read the summary. The summary didn't say "this incident happened 3 years ago in Baghdad". Also, I meant why isn't the MSM covering the leak on wikilinks, not the incident itself. Or is that being covered up as well?
No, it just makes them look bad -- like the empty shells of the Fourth Estate that they are. Plus, investigative journalism that makes the military look bad is far too much effort with far too much backlash (from conservative viewers and the government both) to bother with in a modern, advertisement-driven instead of product-driven ethos. The news today is about "infotainment," not about delivering the hard facts.
They won't touch it until momentum builds up on the internet to the point where some feel that it makes them look worse not to cover it. The days when the media would stand up when the government did something wrong are long gone, to the point where they don't even stand up if one of their own is killed through negligence.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It is obvious that a military is not an occupying force, they are sent in to blow stuff up.
going to try to post transcript, prolly will get filtered as spam, guess we'll see...
00:03 Okay I got it. 00:05 Last conversation Hotel Two-Six. 00:09 Roger Hotel Two-Six [Apache helicopter 1], uh, [this is] Victor Charlie Alpha. Look, do you want your Hotel Two-Two two el- ...this location and there's more that keep walking by and one of them has a weapon. ... Okay, we're gonna come around.
00:14 I got a black vehicle under target. It's arriving right to the north of the mosque.
00:17 Yeah, I would like that. Over.
00:21 Moving south by the mosque dome. Down that road.
00:27 Okay we got a target fifteen coming at you. It's a guy with a weapon.
00:32 Roger [acknowledged].
00:39 There's a...
00:42 There's about, ah, four or five...
00:44 Bushmaster Six [ground control] copy [i hear you] One-Six.
00:48
00:52 Roger received target fifteen.
00:55 K. 00:57 See all those people standing down there. 01:06 Stay firm. And open the courtyard. 01:09 Yeah roger. I just estimate there's probably about twenty of them. 01:13 There's one, yeah.
01:15 Oh yeah.
01:18 I don't know if that's a...
01:19 Hey Bushmaster element [ground forces control], copy on the one-six.
01:21 Thats a weapon.
01:22 Yeah.
01:23 Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight [second Apache helicopter].
01:29 Copy on the one-six, Bushmaster Six-Romeo. Roger.
01:32 Fucking prick.
01:33 Hotel Two-Six this is Crazy Horse One-Eight [communication between chopper 1 and chopper 2]. Have individuals with weapons.
01:41 Yup. He's got a weapon too.
01:43 Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight. Have five to six individuals with AK47s [automatic rifles]. Request permission to engage [shoot].
01:51 Roger that. Uh, we have no personnel east of our position. So, uh, you are free to engage. Over.
02:00 All right, we'll be engaging.
02:02 Roger, go ahead.
02:03 I'm gonna... I cant get 'em now because they're behind that building.
02:09 Um, hey Bushmaster element...
02:10 Is that an RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade]?
02:11 All right, we got a guy with an RPG.
02:13 I'm gonna fire. 02:14 Okay.
02:15 No hold on. Lets come around. Behind buildings right now from our point of view.
02:19 Hotel Two-Six; have eyes on individual with RPG. Getting ready to fire. We won't...
02:23 Yeah, we had a guy shoot---and now he's behind the building.
02:26 God damn it.
02:28 Uh, negative, he was, uh, right in front of the Brad [Bradley Fighting Vehicle; an tracked Armored Personal Carrier that looks like a tank]. Uh, 'bout, there, one o'clock. [direction/orientation]
02:34 Haven't seen anything since then.
02:36 Just fuckin', once you get on 'em just open 'em up.
02:38 All right.
02:40 I see your element, uh, got about four Humvees [Armored cars], uh, out along...
02:43 You're clear. 02:44 All right, firing.
02:47 Let me know when you've got them.
02:49 Lets shoot. 02:50 Light 'em all up.
02:52 Come on, fire!
02:57 Keep shoot, keep shoot. [keep shooting]
02:59 keep shoot. 03:02 keep shoot.
03:05 Hotel.. Bushmaster Two-Six, Bushmaster Two-Six, we need to move, time now!
03:10 All right, we just engaged all eight individuals.
03:12 Yeah, we see two birds [helicopters] and we're still fire [not firing].
03:14 Roger.
03:15 I got 'em.
03:16 Two-six, this is Two-Six, we're mobile.
03:19 Oops, I'm sorry what was going on?
03:20 God damn it, Kyle.
03:23 All right, hahaha, I hit [shot] 'em...
03:28 Uh, you're clear.
03:30 All right, I'm just trying to find targets again.
03:38 Bushmaster Six, this is Bushmaster Two-Six.
03:40 Got a bunch of bodies layin' there.
03:42 All right, we got about, uh, eight individuals.
03:46 Yeah, we got one guy crawling around down there, but, uh, you know, we go
You're right. We should be authorized to kill people we don't like, and then kill their friends. Where do you live?
It's a war, people die. If you don't want to die, don't hang out with people who carry around AK 47's and RPGs.
How do you tell that to kids, to civilians who happen to live in the area where the bad guys happen to be hanging around? And where where the AK 47's and RPGs with all the people that got shot? Please let me know where in the video do you see them. Thksbye.
It's a shame that they have to do so, but I am gladdened that there are people in the inside with enough conscience on the inside to put this material into the right hands such that there might be even a chance that some justice might be done. Given that the consequences could range from career-destruction to execution for treason or espionage, I can't fault the sources for remaining anonymous.
I see a whole lot of limitations-of-equipment oops here, and a significant amount of standard-procedure oops as well. So, the military tried to cover it up. The reason for this is fairly evident: they wish to protect the careers, reputations, and lives of good men who made a tragic mistake. So, there's a further PR oops. And of course, in the larger scheme of things, the fact that this happened at all is ultimately a failure-to-communicate oops, since the troops should've known the photographer and his crew were in that area.
And now, wikileaks has blown the cover up, and brass have reacted to it by being brass, which is always an oops.
Oops.
I am far from being someone that blindly believes troops can do no wrong. I also took to the streets opposing this war before it started. However, I believe that the soldiers did the right thing here.
To the soldiers, it matters not what the situation is, but what it appears to be. There was a gathering of people unusual enough that it prompted review. Men were seen carrying items strapped to their shoulders, one man was peering around a corner with an object which looked like an RPG. The van did not have a Red Crescent, which would have given it protected status for providing medical assistance. To the vantage point of the soldiers, the van was attempting to assist the escape of enemies, thus also enemies. This plays to me as a terrible, but justifiable mistake. A soldier used his best judgment to access a threat and was wrong. It happens.
In my opinion, the only thing wrong here was the cover-up itself.
So I've spent about two and a half years deployed to Iraq, and seen my share of combat. I've served in several different infantry positions, both as a dismount and as a gunner in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle (the "Brad" mentioned in the video). I am always skeptical of these sorts of videos, because they lack context. As a third party, one never knows the full tactical situation, the histories of individuals and groups in the area, the mission and orders of the soldiers involved. So everything I say must be understood to be the view of a third party observer, one with a fair amount of boots-on-the-ground experience, but a third party nonetheless. Based solely on what appears in the video, it doesn't look like the gunner(s) had sufficient justification to fire. Simple possession of an AK-47 is legal in Iraq, and having it on the street isn't always enough to warrant immediate termination, and certainly not when the target is standing in a crowd of unarmed personnel. The "RPG" was poorly identified, and didn't appear to be of significant threat to the Crazyhorse element. It does sound like there had been recent combat in the area, so that may be why there was a minimum standard of ID used prior to engaging the targets. One thing to remember is that Bushmaster element can't always see everything that Crazyhorse does; they rely to some degree on the helos' info to inform their commands. If nothing else, this looked like a textbook situation for dismounted troops with air cover. It sounds like they had Bradleys and dismounts nearby, and they probably should have been sent in to deal with the situation. Dismounts have an infinitely superior view of what exactly is happening on the ground, and when combined with top-down info from the birds, they can properly assess a situation. If these RPGs and AKs were really cameras as reported by the site, then that would have been obvious to dismounts. Firing on the van completely blew my mind. This looks like a series of tactical mistakes combined with an overeager air element, combined with total disregard for the normal RoE (and again, I don't know if they were operating on some kind of modified Rules of Engagement). U.S. soldiers, in my experience, go to great lengths to prevent civilian casualties. Maybe things are different in the air, but those of us working on the ground have to look at everything we do, up close and personal. Don't paint U.S. forces with a broad brush based on the actions and mistakes of a few individuals. Also, remember that it's not the line troops that are performing coverups. Talk to your government about that.
Yes, they obviously didn't think of the people down there as human beings. But hey, at least they waited for permission. Hopefully the person giving them permission to open fire was not an 18-year old thinking he was playing a video game. That's the guy that needs to be questioned.
Reminds me of that scene in full metal jacket -- "How can you shoot women and children?" "Easy, you just don't lead 'em as much!"
And that also reminds me of a quote from the first Mass Effect novel.
Alliance Soldier: "How can you be so calm about killing innocent civilians?"
Spectre (galactic special ops): "Practice. Lots of Practice."
Just go back to your button pushing and put your feeble brains absent of logic capable of anything other than whinning like the pussys you are, away and back in that little box you keep for your balls.
Rough men stand in the ready to do violence on your behalf so that YOU can sleep peacably in your fucking miserable bed- George Orwell dickwads
Lastly, to avoid death as a journalist in a war zone, stay away from the enemy dumbshit
I'm sure you feel all rough and manly and strong and awesome as the soldiers you somehow think you are praising and quoting Orwell out of context, but dude, you don't get those attributes by association or verbal quoting.
I could understand how soldiers fighting the war in Afghanistan and Al Qaida fight and die to protect our peace. That I understand, that I support.
However, I don't see how our soldiers fighting a military adventure cooked by Bush' chicken hawks, invading a country that had no ties to the *real* enemy, bombing it back to the stone age and put into a terrible situation among civilians is a fight for our peace.
Explain that one to me in a logical, non-rhetorical, non dumbshit way.
I haven't watched the video
You really need to watch the video before speaking this time.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
"Also, I meant why isn't the MSM covering the leak on wikilinks, not the incident itself."
Because haven't you heard Tiger Fucking Woods is playing the Masters this week for Christ's sake. WHAT THE FUCK WILL HE SAY TO THE REPORTERS?! WILL HE ADDRESS HIS INFIDELITY?!?!?!?!?!
OMFGWTFBBQ! It's Tiger Woods finally returning to golf after his (what, like five month?) hiatus! This is the biggest fucking news in a CENTURY!!!
YOUR HEAD ASPLODE!
So fuck all those dying brown people in other parts of the world (even if we're the ones fucking up their shit and blowing them to hell). We've got a brown guy right here ready to dance for us. Pay attention, citizen.
No one here has a clue what was going on at the time of the video (always a bigger picture). Its easy to point fingers after the video has been looked at over and over again. With that I don't like the military trying to cover it up but I don't blame the soldiers.
At the beginning of the video, I can sware I see a guy with RPG hiding behind the building. And two camera men, yes. Looks like they tried to shoot some pictures in a style "another anonymous terrorist guy with an RPG behind the wall". You can call me moron, but I'd definetly shoot them. And if I were in place of people who try to save some victims on a bus, I'd stand there with arms up. Thats war.
no wonder you are named erroneus. There is one case when a human will want to kill, to protect those they care about. The convoy was coming and needed to have all threats removed now. Therefore, the urgency. Do you really think the military is a bunch of murderous thugs? Think seriously about your answer. Then Judge.
My point - You cannot police Iraq with soldiers, unless you just don't care about guilt or innocence, life or death.
Which is exactly why the Canadian public is pushing to pull out of the combat role.
We're quite willing to put our best on the line to improve the world and have done so repeatedly and in far greater quantities per capita than anyone else and will probably continue to do so but Afghanistan may have completely undermined 50 years of effort establishing ourselves as "tough but fair" peacekeepers and made us a target.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
1).In the video an AK 47 and RPG launcher are clearly visible at 3:45 4:00 and 4:15 after the journalist hides behind the building.
2). These apaches were supporting our ground troops. They were asked by the officer to support them described what they could see and then were cleared to engage. There is more to this story than just the video. Why did the ground forces direct the apaches onto this group of people? Is it because they had been fired on? Because they had escaped a previous engagement? Because they had reversed course away from our ground troops and were hiding in a public square?
3) Does a police man stand a good chance against AK 47s and RPG launchers? Obviously this is a tradgedy. It is unfortunate that the photographers were there next to the armed enemy but it was his choice to be there. It is a tradgedy that the children were there but their parents brought them into an active engagement.
At no time did any of the individuals attempt to surrender. All they have to do is tear off a piece of their clothing and wave it at the apaches. Then sit still untill the ground troops arive. If you surrender to US forces you get US medical treatment. Since they didn't surrender they didn't get that treatment.
To be clear: My parent post is not meant to represent my personal view. Rather, it is the view of the executives and editors at CNN et.al. (and unfortunately, a sizable portion of their viewing audience).
How many camera stands do you freaking need? The "camera" is crouched round the corner in this timeframe, what are these guys doing with these "camera stands"? Why don't you count and tell me how many people are carrying cameras and/or camera stands
Have you actually watched the entire video? They also shoot a van up that pulled up to the scene. Two people carrying a wounded person to the van, with two children sitting in the front seat. None of these people were armed. The only thing those people in the van were trying to do is help some wounded people dying in the street. How can you say they did the right thing here?
I watched the entire video.
This sort of thing is sad, but should not be shocking.
It is a difficult thing for most people to kill other people. A large part of military training, from what I understand, is breaking down these inhibitions. Dehumanize "the enemy" so that you can get your troops to at least accept killing as part of their job. If you are really good, you can build an esprit d'corps, where not only do your soldiers become willing to accept doing their job, but they also take pride in it.
They not only feel fighting is necessary, but RIGHT. They are not just willing to fight, they are EAGER to fight.
It may be a disgusting perversion of the humanity of our kind to create people with this mindset, but it has been found, through ages of warfare, to be effective and necessary.
Having watched the video, I see no malice on the part of the soldiers involved. The soldiers involved seem passionate about their task, and they seem confident in their assessment of their enemies, and they are eager to kill them. The entire attack seems to have been a mistake - BUT THE SOLDIERS MAKING THE MISTAKE DON'T SEEM TO REALIZE IT.
Moreover, these soldiers must know that everything is being recorded.
Honestly when I watch this movie I am filled with a sense of wonder that soldiers can be as restrained as they are, and do not seek vengeance and/or retribution more often and engage in blatant, willful acts of violence.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
It's a war, people die. If you don't want to die, don't hang out with people who carry around AK 47's and RPGs.
Didn't seem to work for those cameramen and their attempted rescuers. Got any better advice for not getting yourself killed when under the watch of jumpy, paranoid, armed soldiers?
Situations like these are why I'm sometimes scared of dealing with cops. It doesn't matter that I expect that 99%+ of the force are solid, level-headed professionals. There's always the chance that you've got the one jumpy guy that's liable to empty their clip into you for pulling your wallet out the wrong way because he thinks you're pulling a gun.
Iraqis have to deal with an armed force of young people who suspect each Iraqi to be a potential terrorist that could jump them at any moment. (This fear isn't unjustified, mind you.) Imagine living with that every day, from either POV. It's no wonder this happened, but the military's reaction to its fatal mistake is utterly unforgivable -- as is the actions of the soldiers who continued to fire past the point where confusion was reasonable, and as is their blaming the victims.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
And the USAns wonder why they're hated around the world...
Firing on the van completely blew my mind.
Yeah. The van was recovering the wounded on the ground. They were unarmed and presented no threat. The air element was clear on this; they clearly identified the van as recovering wounded, requested permission to engage, got it, and fired. It wasn't a mistake. That's a court-martial offense.
The long thing is the camera lens, and he's trying to shoot, wait for it, photos.
16-18 year old school child, American, doesn't have a passport, hasn't left his own country, lives in his parents house, who also feed him and pay the bills.
Despite this being an illegal war, this event could save lives. Public opinion will count against this. The wife at home espousing his husband is "in the war" and "flies a helicopter" could possibly now be met with silence and a few nods, rather than wholesale overt praise at the dinner party. This sort of thing is akin to the photos from the Vietnam War of the children walking from a village, burned and with skin hanging off them after a napalm attack. That series of photos did more damage than any military attack.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Yes, it is undeniable that they asked for and were given permission to attack wounded civilians and the civilians who were rescuing the wounded from the "battlefield". Once given permission they open fire and kill everyone. The video is about as clear cut evidence of war crimes as you can get. It is completely monstrous and horrifying that the US military claims this is acceptable. They blatantly shot unarmed and wounded people, they blatantly shot civilians.
The instance under investigation seems on the face of it to speak to the idea of measured response in light of police actions versus military actions and the greyness between the two. The idea of measured response has been spoken to for some years but seems, at least by way of a precursory search, to be not well defined. Measured response in the context I've heard police and military officials speak of it seems to indicate a situation wherein intelligence and personnel permit an almost algorithmic response that carries through to an intended end an implemented plan. Measured response implies adequate intelligence and a preponderance of personnel and firepower, so much so that firepower isn't employed or employed only when necessary and obviously justified in terms of the rules of engagement. An invasion requires shock and awe in order to minimize loss or injury to the invading force. What seems to have become an expectation on our part is that once an invasion has been successfully executed our troops should throw a switch and become a police force implementing measured response like our domestic police are expected to execute. The ambiguity inherent in expecting military forces to police an invaded country is difficult to analyze. There's necessarily a "can do" attitude in any military culture but perhaps we need another paramilitary force (probably not viable and economically/politically palatable) to implement post invasion, measured response policing in situations like we face in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Further to the above, if there is a need in terms of our domestic security for our forces to be in the middle east, then the force employed should be of a magnitude that permits the sort of measured response we demand of our armed forces.
ideopath @ play
Troll or idiot, can't decide.
Take a look at 3:40. There are two guys on the left in a group of three. This is after the two journalists have passed under the video screen (with cameras that HAVE been misidentified as ak-47s). One guy has something swinging from his hand/shoulder. Looks like an AK-47 possibly. The other has a very long tube that he even sets on the ground and rests his hands on. It comes up to his chest. I could see how that might be an RPG.
I see one person carrying a camera, I see one person carrying a camera stand and a number of people are holding their jackets in their right hand.
I see exactly 0 potential rifles.
ok, because of Bush I boycotted ALL US originating products & US companies 2003-2009, but ONLY until Obama was elected.
Just my humble way of responding to the environmental and war crimes shit I see on TV.
Wonder if Baidu is usable as a search engine? At least it's not supporting US war crimes.
How strange I used to be so much pro-american.
You sound like a guy who's never been in a war. The pilot wants to shoot because he thinks his guys on the ground were in mortal danger. First off, members of the group were armed with RPGs and AKs. Look at 3:46 in the long clip. But the photographer aimed his camera from a crouching position behind a corner, just like insurgents do when firing an RPG. At that moment, the pilot became very nervous, agitated, and couldn't wait to circle his chopper around to get the shot. He reasonably believed that the photographers were carrying RPGs. You do not expect journalists with cameras to be walking around. (It's not unforeseeable if you sit and think, but during combat, it would never occur to anyone that these were really large cameras.) I assume that bad guys want to kill the enemy. If you can somehow argue that the chopper pilots knew they were shooting at civilians or photographers, then you'd have a better argument. However, the pilots believed they were engaging hostiles.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
Fuck USA.
Thanks for that. Mod up please.
I'm really surprised no one is mentioning this. Right before opening fire, someone on the helicopter says that a guy has an RPG pointed at them around a corner, but it is very clearly a man with a long zoom lens, and you can see the way he holds it up to his face just before he goes out of sight behind the building. Then, when the helicopter clears the building, this is confirmed when you again see the man holding the camera more clearly, and the group of people are gathered around looking at it (very likely looking at the photos he just shot). This is really important because at the end of the whole ordeal, someone on the ground radio's in asking about who called for the attack. The helicopter says that it was them that cleared to engage, and he repeatedly makes the point that they had an RPG pointed at them, which is wrong.
Also, the helicopter opens fire on the van because they claim the people in the van are "gathering bodies and weapons", when in fact they are ONLY helping the journalist who is crawling wounded on the ground.
Yes, they obviously didn't think of the people down there as human beings.
You can't. At least, most people can't without massive psychological trauma. Look at the Air Force or Navy. They don't kill people, they sink ships or shoot down planes. You have to think of it as a target, as an object. This is why many people can't be snipers. You see the guy's face, he becomes human, he is no longer an object. It's terrible, yes. But hey, so is war.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
He'd get a better shot if he didn't hide around the corner of a building...
In isolation, it makes the Apache crew look pretty retarded but we also don't know what else was going on at the time or anything about this location.
What makes apache crew quite a bit retarded are their comments. Those s**heads were begging for permission to shoot and enjoying it. "Come on... pick up a weapon" and begging for that wounded reporter to pick up his camera. That makes me sick. And there was no remorse at all: "it's their fault for bringing their children to the battle". What a mess. Have those idiots played too much Quake ?
The sad thing about that is that no matter what equipment is in use, you actually need people willing to use it. And it seems that they achieved this by having some half brained chicken sh*ts enjoying shooting people even being comfortably out of range of their perceived enemies and not seeing any indications of those people attacking anyone (or anything). With such attitude they can carpet bomb any country in the world for any reason and still be proud of it.
Even the Nazis got this right! With only a few glaring exceptions (most of which involved the SS) the Wehrmacht conducted themselves in a civil manner throughout the conflict and treated civilians and our POWs as well as could be expected. The Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were similarly well behaved.
If even the Nazis are capable of conducting war in a mostly civil manner, we should be capable of the same.
A vehicle comes to the aid of an enemy force, that vehicle is not afforded protections by the laws of land warfare, the vehicle is now part of the enemy force and should be engaged.
The pilots probably didn't see the kids in the van, and it's really sad they were hit. But who takes their kids into such position?
And you don't have to be armed to be a combatant. You just have to exhibit hostile intent or hostile action. Troop transports are legit, just like a mini-van.
You know once in Ramadi, I was about to fire my 7th 5.56MM round at a group of men (825 meters away) digging on the side of a road when the road became flooded with children. I had never before nor since witnessed any mass of children on this particular road....but there they were, blocking my shots. The diggers left (with their casualty)...and the kids were gone. Weird coincidence. But we can't NOT shoot because there might be kids there....just stop shooting if you see them.
THL phish sticks
When the next empire happens to want the resources near your grandchildren, I hope you are there to watch them die.
Mod parent up. You can clearly see an RPG in the video. Also that guy hiding behind the corner of the building sure as hell looks like he was firing on the helicopters.
If he wasn't, then why the hell do you crouch peeking around the corner of a building pointing something at a gunship? Death wish?
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
brrrrr 98 degrees http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KQTZ/2007/7/12/DailyHistory.html?req_city=NA&req_state=NA&req_statename=NA
I in no way think that gunning down civilians or covering up such incidents is right. However, I'm extremely skeptical of your claims regarding the use of 30mm on non-armored human targets. While I don't have time to peruse the entire Geneva Convention, the Wikipedia article states: "The Geneva Conventions do not address the use of weapons of war, as this is covered by the Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907) and the Geneva Protocol." Further, this isn't just a case of you naming the wrong treaty as the Hague Conventions and Geneva Protocol appear to only deal with chemical and biological weapons. Presumably WP is banned as a chemical weapon under these treaties.
The problem here was that they were unarmed civilians, not the use of the 30mm. If they were armed combatants, I think that firing on them with 30mm is authorized however unpleasant the results might be. This makes sense to me as the use of mortars, artillery, and high explosive bombs on non-armored human target is clearly not banned, so it would make no sense to ban 30mm.
Also, I assuming that the "we" in your last sentence refers to the USA. FYI, the USA has signed all of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols. Shamefully, we haven't ratified the 1st and 2nd protocol, but they were signed. The major agreements have all been signed and ratified.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8603938.stm
1) There's nothing at all 'clear' about the video. Nobody was hiding behind the building. None of these were brandished towards anyone. This is probably due to the fact that the Apaches were well out of range of the alleged weapons. Again, what were the laws of the land on the day that this had happened?
Did you see the full length video? The missile fire claims at least four innocent lives. The first poor soul has the bad sense enough to not be psychic. He is clearly in the line of fire, walking along without even looking around or up, when the sound of the missile firing is heard. Then the crowd gathers around the building, as would happen during a fire in any urban area, and the other bird fires on them with more missiles.
They just don't care about the civilians. That is CLEAR. The question is, why? Was this a DMZ?
2) They seem agitated, or even afraid of the weapons, but a quick Google search shows the readout on that camera putting them at well over double the weapon's effective range.
No one was in any immediate danger, from the information available here. Those kids and journalists could be alive, and those insurgents could have been arrested.
3) The tragedy appears to me to be a wanton disrespect for human life. Any evidence that this was a warzone, had been evacuated, was under martial law, etc, would be greatly appreciated.
Why would those little kids need to surrender?
Who was even given a chance to do so? Did the helicopter shout 'freeze' at any point? No. The bullets were ripping them open before they even heard the first shots.
Unless you can demonstrate there was a clear expectation that walking on those streets should lead to a sentence of death, please butt out. Be apologetic in a thread of your own making. In this one, we're trying to figure out what happened. Not cover it up.
You can't compare apples to oranges. The Townhallers were true American patriots. The ones that were shot were Iraqi terrorist scumbags wielding "cameras".
</sarcasm>
Most people have no idea what it is like to be in a situation like this (me included). But if you really think about it, it's easy to understand why this kind of thing happens. Most of us would do the same things in the same situations.
The main problem, for everyone involved is thoughtlessness. Soldiers are not in a position where they can consider their actions, because waiting to take action is often fatal. And regardless of their best efforts it is impossible to wage a war without killing innocent people.
The problem is not the soldiers, nor even the military establishment. The problem is, in fact, the thoughtless public who gladly pays soldiers to go out and kill our "enemy" so that they may continue to enjoy the conveniences an active military provides. Don't bother telling me that you "voted" against it and so it is not your fault. That kind of rationalization simply proves how thoughtless you really are. Our participation in a system that causes these things is what truly needs to be judged. Reflecting on the effects of your own actions, and using judgment to decide what actions to take is the only kind of judgment that matters.
I can't really see how shooting from an Apache at a distant, casually behaving group of people...some of which only appear to you like they might be armed...calssifies under "kill or be killed"
Especially you speak things like "Come on buddy all you gotta do is pick up a weapon" or "Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle"
One that hath name thou can not otter
So journalists are only supposed to interview "the good guys" and never, ever, ever talk to the other side so that we get a clear understanding of both sides of the war?
Embedded journalism IS PROPAGANDA. When you're filtered to only hearing one side of the story, IT IS PROPAGANDA.
By the way, please watch the video again. If you can't tell the difference between Cameras / Tripods and RPGs / AK 47's, then you need to turn in your geek card.
Best "String" Ever!
There's a reason they don't call it summer camp. I haven't seen the vid because I'm at work, and can't watch it here. However, from what I've read the guys firing thought the people in the crowd had weapons. This isn't about some high level decision passed from on high for the advancement of imperialistic intent. This is soldiers on the front lines that deal with danger everyday, and felt threatened enough to act on what they perceived as a dangerous situation. Did they make a mistake? Yes. Does it mean that the US did it intentionally to kill a few journalists? I don't think that's the case. War is not a pleasant experience. How did the soldiers know that the people in the van were helping the wounded, and not perpetuating the attack? These guys are only human, and while they're trained to control their emotions, and human inclinations self preservatoin takes over at some point. When you've got a wife and kids at home, and you're thinking it's them or you by gosh it better be them then. Like it or not that's just reality of the situation.
The cover up however, is unquestionably bs and should be investigated, and the responsible parties should absolutely be brought to justice.
I don't believe in karma, I just call it like I see it.
First let me say that I have great respect for the men and women who have been sent into very difficult circumstances in Iraq and Afghanistan by our governments; I realise that it is easy for us to make judgements sitting at home in safety; if we were out there with our lives on the lines we would see things differently. Nevertheless, it sees to me that the helicopter crews involved in this incident have not followed the rules of engagement shown here: http://file.wikileaks.org/file/rules_of_engagement_appendix1.pdf - which as far as I can see were the rules in force when this happened. Violations would appear to be: * "Positive identification is required prior to engagement" - the chopper crew were clearly too fast to ID cameras as AK-47s * "Always minimize incidental injury, loss of life and collateral damage" - the chopper crew execute the entire group of men, even though most do not appear to be carrying anything * "Use graduated measures of force" - the chopper crew simply execute everyone in the group on the basis of their faulty identification * "Do not target or strike anyone who is... out of combat...due to wounds" - the chopper crew execute the wounded man as he is being evacuated * Again, "Always minimize incidental injury, loss of life and collateral damage" - the chopper crew execute the people in the van who appear to merely be trying to save the wounded man As I say, I'm sitting here safe and warm - but still, military rules of engagement are not optional, they are rules. And it's hard to avoid the conclusion that they have been seriously broken here.
I only watched the first couple mins of the video but I didn't see anyone saying there were kids or journalists in the crowd. It's too bad, but you gotta remember, these people are conditioned to kill on command. Don't blame them when they do. If you're in a war zone, it would seem to me you've already come-to-terms with the risks. *ESPECIALLY* if you have a choice about whether you could be there or not. The soldiers probably didn't.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
You are one sick motherfucker, you barf bag scum mercenary, you and your other scum mercenaries with your video game atrocities. Fucking pig. I just watched that vid, fucking cameras, easy to see. Cheap ass mercenaries, that's all you are. War as a game, kill people for a paycheck, because you are too big of a loser to get an honest civilian job. Even after all the evidence that came out that was proven to be a lie, the so called evidence of Iraq being somehow involved in 9-11, or that they had WMD "ready to launch in 45 minutes", all that horsehit lying drivel, you are still over there killing people. Fucking invaders. YOU are the "badguys", a disgrace. You have no honor, you defile the flag, you violate your oath.
Mistakes are part of war, and this is reflected in the law of war.
One of the surest differences between incompetence and talent is how you deal with your mistakes - not whether or not you never make mistakes, but whether or not you own up to them, learn from them, and adapt to fix the situation or clean up the mess you made as a result.
It is not simply enough to say, oh, it's war, and in war, mistakes are made. If mistakes are covered up, ignored, and lied about, that is not a good sign to any operation.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
I'm not an expert at Iraqi fashion, but people do wear jackets in warm weather
http://images.google.se/images?q=summer%20jacket&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi
For example, a force that does not wear uniforms and hides among civilians is both not entitled to the protections of the conventions, but also is the responsible party in any attack that kills those civilians. You wear uniforms and try to avoid the civilians so that your enemy won't attack your civilians.
No. This is simply poorly-researched revisionist nonsense. I guess you have never heard of the French Resistance or any of the various other national resistance movements supported by the Allied during WWII.
GCIV Article 33. "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."
Civilians are "protected persons" and the restriction is against the occupying power.
The fact that the parent was modded to a 4 proves how little slashdotters know about law. Maybe we should stick to praising Linux and dissing Windows.
I briefly checked out all four parts of it, and nothing there references anything about anti-vehicular weapons vs people.
If you car to provide a link, I'd be happy to be proved wrong.
To be honest, I don't see how they would be prohibited, when bombs can be used.
..........FULL STOP.
The cameras were not identified as an RPG. They were identified as AK-47s, mistakenly. There IS an RPG in the video, along with 2 REAL AK-47s. Look at 3:40. There is a group of 4 guys. 3 in a row, 1 in front of the guy on the right. Guy on the left has an AK-47 in his right hand, swinging around. Watch closely. Guy on the right has an AK-47 in his left hand or on his left shoulder, but hanging at his waist level. Watch it swing around at 3:52. Guy in the middle. CLEARLY has an RPG. You can see it swing around when he turns to look behind him. He even rests is on the ground and leans on it. Pretty obvious to me.
Somebody MOD PARENT UP. And while I am at it, how are you gonna bitch about somebody getting killed when he is hanging around with people that are killing soldiers? I mean when you wander around with guys that are running around shooting at folks that ARE gonna shoot back what do you expect??? The reason that the military protects the scene is that there were MANY incidents where people would run in and remove weapons. Since no-one is in uniform then you have an instant civilians. That means you have what appears to be an atrocity, when actually the soldiers did nothing wrong.
3:43 - the two guys in the crosshairs have an AK47 and what looks to me like an RPG.
US forces had taken small arms fire from this area earlier.
I understand the journalists were trying to cover a story, but in my world it's dangerous to hang out with armed dudes in a warzone.
And no, they weren't bodyguards (with an RPG?).
Then they squat at a corner, peering around as if in ambush.
Finally, you hear shattering gunfire, and the screams of injured men - you throw your kids into the van to go investigate?
I recommend against:
- having wedding parties in the shadow of AAA guns.
- taking kids toward gunfire & fighting.
-Styopa
did you actually do military service ? i did. if we used 30 mm rounds on unarmed civilians, we would be in for a looooong series of inquiries and potential repercussions, even only if it was due to needlessly wasting precious ammunition.
and you do not carry a gunship with you. you call it via radio. there is no target necessitating calling of a gunship with anti armor 30 mm ammunition.
this was a great fuck up, and each of the idiots who were involved in that should pay dearly.
Read radical news here
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/149674
I wonder why they didn't send anyone on the ground and detain them for investigation instead of shooting like knuckle heads. They obviously had ground forces that went to see the bodies. I guess their excuse could be that they were low on gas....
As someone in the Army who was in Baghdad from Nov 2007 to early 2009, I have to say this is pretty appaling. Just for the record, the Iraqis are ALLOWED TO HAVE GUNS. If you're not being fired upon or in immediate danger then you don't open fire. I know nothing will happen to the guys who did or the chain of command who allowed them to open fire but they completely deserve to have done to them what they did to those civilians. THIS is where terrorists come from, and I dont blame them in the least.
Remember this, the next time you hear someone push the "they hate us for our freedoms" meme.
Just because this stuff is covered up in the US, doesn't mean it's covered up elsewhere.
The people of the United States are often the most ignorant of the atrocities being carried out in their name.
Yeah! Man you're even more of tough bad ass than I initially thought! I hope you were pounding your chest like a gorilla when you were done!
But you are just a coward.
Watch the damned video, all the way through. THAT IS THE REAL WORLD.
This was an old vid. What you are saying would apply if this happened recently.
From the site
"Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings."
I'm guessing based on this, that it happened in 2007.
approx. quote: "War brings out the best in men and the worst in men." War is a nasty endeavor. If you want one side to win and have public support, you can't put the daily nasty bits up for public scrutiny. If you don't want people killed in a "war," accidental or otherwise, don't start a war! The "War on Terrorism" is a war that has committed the US to a perpetual, global battle field. We're in too deep now to just pull out of places such as Afghanistan and Iraq. The solution is neither easy nor clear. We would have been better off finishing the situation in Afghanistan and then dealing with Saddam Hussein. Sadly, Saddam had Iraq pretty well under control. Instead we created two power vacuums. War should never be a decision made out of anger or revenge.
Kill or be killed? That logic may apply to some situations but the circumstances in this case show that logic isn't applicable. The engagement was started with the belief there were AK47s on the ground (ignore the fact that gun ownership does not make you a threat, which the right wing would agree with at least here in the states) the RPG identification (assume they really think they saw one) did not occur until after the initial engagement. At that range an individual with an AK47 is going to have a hard time taking down two helo's. The nearest US dismounts were out of rifle range as evidenced by the tape and response time so the AK47s were not of immediate threat to US troops.
You are awfully dismissive of human life.
For all the indignation coming from Europeans and Canadians about this, I want to ask: where were you guys in 1999, when Americans were openly bombing civilian targets with great loss of life? Oh, sorry, you were flying combat missions alongside, and providing air bases for U.S. forces.
And, of course, once that war was over, and the incidents came out, it was all quickly white-washed - no NATO military personnel or officials were ever indicted for any war crimes.
What goes around comes around.
Meh. It happens to every army. Didn't some German Peacekeepers in Afghanistan waste a truckload of local soldiers?
I don't see how an hypothetical screw-up justifies every screw-up, particularly one so gruesome and so blatantly unjustified as this one.
It isn't good, but every soldier everywhere lives in a Kill or Be Killed situation.
How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by an unarmed group of men including journalists carrying cameras walking calmly in a street? And let's supposed that those imaginary RPGs and AK47s that aren't seen but are mentioned were indeed there. How exactly is a AH-64 threatened by an man wielding one of those, calmly walking around in a street without the faintest hint that he is even aware that a helicopter is in that general area? In the radio chat it is explicitly mentioned that no US ground force is present in that area and it took at least over 10 minutes for a ground crew to intentionally get there while rushing. Who exactly was threatened by those imaginary weapons?
And what about the "bongo van"? How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by a "bongo truck"? The AH-64 crew clearly noticed that the people leaving the truck were intentionally aiding those poor souls who got shot by the AH-64's 30mm autocannon. The AH-64 crew explicitly stated that the people from the truck were aiding the injured men and "picking up bodies". How exactly does that threaten a AH-64 calmly flying around? And the AH-64 crew repeatedly state that they wish that the injured reported "picked up a weapon" for them to kill him. How exactly is a AH-64 crew threatened by a man who was just shot by a 30mm autocannon, is squirming on the ground and wasn't carrying any weapon to begin with?
The truth is they aren't threatened. The truth is that this was by far no "Kill or Be Killed situation". Is this a screw-up? Clearly it is. Nonetheless, no one in their right mind can seriously claim that what happened in this case was remotely a "Kill or Be Killed situation". This was a trigger-happy crew who was never threatened and desperately wanted to shoot at people. They didn't even flinched when they were told that they shot at children. "They shouldn't have brought them into a battle". What battle?
Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
OK, I can only think of two times that I have previously posted on /. but I can't stand not opening my mouth on this one. Here's the thing; Did the military fuck up? Absolutely, in a number of different ways. Do I think there should be some feet held to the fire for that? Absolutely. But if you think you would behaved any differently than those soldiers, given the same information, in the same situation, then I humbly submit to you that you have absolutely no idea what the fuck you're talking about OR you do know and you should be training them to perform their jobs better, not sitting around and bitching like some armchair quarterback who's team lost the superbowl.
Are you offended that the radio chatter was relaxed, callous and the men seemed detached from what they were doing? Get the fuck over it. Vote in such a fashion that your government pulls them out, write letters, start user groups, do SOMEthing to fix it but don't you dare sit there and bitch about how evil and heartless these guys are and use this as a basis to milk even more tragedy out of an already tragedy out of already tragic situation. These men have mothers, wives and families as well and when they go home they don't want to be sane enough to hold down jobs, raise their kids, and generally enjoy the rest of their lives. If that requires that they have coping mechanisms you don't understand, tough for you.
It sounds like they had Bradleys and dismounts nearby, and they probably should have been sent in to deal with the situation.
Although there may be some context missing, there doesn't seem to be a "situation" to deal with, at least until the Americans in the helicopter gunship start firing on the Iraqis, some of whom are apparently exercising their natural right to keep and bear arms. The Americans seem to be acting fundamentally on an emotional desire to kill.
From the point of view of economics, this is not entirely surprising. War itself, and therefore all military decision making, is a fundamentally emotionally-driven enterprise. As any economist will tell you, war is irrational: it is amongst the least effective, least efficient means of solving human problems, and anyone who choses a less effective, less efficient solution out of the range of available alternatives is pretty much a text-book definition of "irrational" in an economist's view.
The very existence of military action is fundamentally based on thinking like, "I'll buy this one! It costs more and doesn't work as well! But it has pretty colours and makes me feel good!"
To understand the military mind you really just have to understand the mind of an impulsive girl shopping for shoes she doesn't need, can't afford, and that are so uncomfortable she can't actually wear them for more than a few minutes at a time. Economically, that is indistinguishable from the political choice to use the military when any other solution is available.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
To me the difference between a murderer and a soldier is a matter of semantics, but I've never volunteered to be part of an organization dedicated to efficient killing, so I don't need to make bullshit justifications for my behavior so that I feel better about the shitty things I did.
Go ahead and respond with something about defending my freedom or some such bullshit. You and the vast majority of your family have been the tools of profiteering military industrialists who tickled your patriotism bones in just the right way.
Is always 2020. Just because we think we now know they were not dangerous does not mean they were not a perceived threat at that time in that situation.
Furthermore, until you have proven that you are perfect under a stressful situation like being in the middle of a war, shut your face. Yes, its sad innocents got killed, but it does happen and it wasnt intentional.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'd hazard a guess that expensive photographic equipment sells for a lot on the black market, and in a country as blatantly lawless as Iraq, if you're going to haul it around and operate it in public, you might want some hired guards?
I'm not in the military, however I have numerous friends who are.
One is an Army gunship helicopter pilot (not an Apache pilot; though he has been in Iraq twice and Afghanistan once.) He fully agrees with the initial shooting. Given the circumstances, that was an honest, but unfortunate, mistake. (And even the 'mistake' part is unclear, as even watching the lead-up multiple times, there are a couple people who could possibly have been carrying weapons.)
The shooting of the van, however, he said makes him sick. That was an obvious 'evacuation of a wounded person', with no clear and present threat. Even without the kids (which the gunship pilots had no way of knowing,) it was wrong. The van arrived a significant length of time after the shooting stopped, doing an apparent humanitarian mission of picking up a wounded person. They very clearly had NO weapons.
"To me the difference between a murderer and a soldier is that a murderer wants to kill."
Well said.
In my former church-attending days, I met a fellow who was a retired colonel in the artillery who was a deacon of the church I attended. His job was to blow up Russians by the thousands if he had to. He once said that nobody hates and fears war more than a real soldier... and when Iraq started, he was on the street corners with the crowd every Saturday protesting.
Please give generous support to these brave men and women in uniform who are sacrificing so much to keep us safe from our sworn enemies. You can help in so many ways. Donate cash, send them care packages or offer substantial discounts on the goods and services you provide. Have them give inspirational talks to school children. Invite them to throw pitches at college baseball games or give them free front-row seating at NFL and NBA games. Celebrate them by having them line up on stage at the begining of any award or entertainment show. Call your congressman or senator to increase military budgets because our brave servicemen remain shockingly under-equipped when facing our powerful enemies whose only goal is the utter and complete destruction of our homeland and our way of life.
Meh...every soldier everywhere lives in a Kill or Be Killed situation. And nearly everyone decides to err on the side of self preservation.
Err -- yes. Self preservation -- no.
Clearly it was kill or be killed for those in a gunship facing down individuals on foot with cameras and tripods. Same goes for those children in the van -- certainly it was a case of "them or us" from the point of view of those in a gunship. Self preservation in a kill or be killed situation -- give me a fucking break.
Thought thinks itself.
I think that the millitary like all groups of people have good people and bad people, in this case it would appear that the Apache gunner was one of the less good ones.
As of 21:26 BST, both collateralmurder.com and wikileaks.org seem to be unavailable.
Having watched the whole thing it seems to me that the guys in the chopper WANTED to shoot at something. I tried giving them the benefit of the doubt and looking at it from their perspective, but I don't see it. Maybe there was some history. Maybe one of their buddies took fire from that area previously, I don't know. But it seems to me that they were itching to fire and were manipulating the ROE to justify it.
1. They claimed they were taking fire. Yet at no point in that video did anyone have anything pointed at them. No muzzle flashes, nothing.
2. They made it sound like the "insurgents" in the van were picking up weapons and cleaning the scene. No one picked anything even remotely weapon-like off the ground. They were clearly trying to help an injured man into the van.
3. They (and this seals the deal for me) diverted the children to inferior medical care and even said "that's what you get for taking your kids to a battle". Who takes their kids to battle? WTF?!!
4. In all those minutes it seems to have escaped their notice that through ALL of that, no one pointed anything at them.
They "played" Bushmaster to get permission to do what they wanted. I'm truly disturbed that they WANTED to do that to another human being.
Pretty much everyone involved here screwed up and it's a horrible tragedy. However, Wikileaks could certainly have handled this better and parent is IMO right about the things he points out that Wikileaks did wrong. The video speaks for itself, we didn't need all the other stuff and we didn't need to be told in advance those objects were cameras and not weapons. They could have told us afterwards instead and perhaps we'd go: "Oh, wow, I too was certain that guy peeking around the corner was pointing an RPG at the chopper!" Also, what was the deal with the son of one of the men who were killed? I mean, this is about the actions of the soldiers. If two soldiers each shoot an unarmed and innocent man, should we then go: "Oh, it's no big deal about this one over here, because he had no kids." How is the soldier supposed to know who has children and who don't?
(Oh, and why is this on every European news site, but not on the major American ones?)
So what was the hostile threat that led them to shooting up the people assisting a wounded person?
Funny how no major new agency is reporting this.
Listen to the comments by the pilots, they beg to fire on clearly unarmed people in civilian clothing. Then when they learn they fire on kids, they say "well that should teach them not to take kids into battle".
America is in Vietnam 2. And it will loose this war again because its soldiers and leaders are unable to see non-americans as human beings.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I would like to hear the Dick Cheney commenting on the action at the video, anyone?
I find it ironic you use the name "gandhi". Scumbag.
If they're not sure of what's an RPG and what's a camera, they shouldn't fire. It's that simple. ... How could they be mistaken for insurgents? Because they were in a street? ...
I haven't seen the video yet, but your comment sounds ludicrous. Who is going to be in the streets in a war zone? Almost entirely combatants and civilians scrambling for safety. Who's going to stop to aim a shoulder mounted device? Almost entirely enemy combatants. How long does it take to fire an RPG? A lot less time than it takes to carefully examine someone from a distance. War is kill or be killed. It is "shoot first, ask questions later". It is an ugly, ugly thing. That is the very nature of it.
I'm not excusing these particular soldiers. I'm just speaking generally like you seem to be. I don't think you understand war.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
because this is exactly what they do. The US gunship pilot BEGS to be allowed to fire on men who arrive in a minivan with kids in the passenger seat and who clearly are not armed and NOT taking any hostile action. You would think that even Iraqi insurgents would NOT stop a mini-van near a battle to pick a wounded reporter with a gunships hovering nearby.
These butchers begged to fire on a target that was no threath. For that alone they should be lined up against a wall. But they won't and the US will loose this war because of it. When you become worse then the enemy, the enemy has won. Obama must, but won't, make a stand against this. Else it will just be another Vietnam (and Iran and Iraq and every other place where the US propped a puppet regime, treated the locals as sub-human and had its soldiers get out of control). We seen it before.
And all the while Americans like you will doubt clear evidence they could easily check. In war mistakes happen, but it is how you deal with those mistakes that you will be judged. And america doesn't deal with its mistakes, ever.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Your random diatribe notwithstanding, if the helos had reports of small arms fire, and saw something they thought may be a group of men with possible weapons, there was a "situation" to be investigating. It should have been investigated by the dismounts.
To me the difference between a murderer and a soldier is that a murderer wants to kill.
The differences between a murderer and a soldier are:
1. A soldier has deliberately joined an organization in which s/he will be trained how to be a murderer. Murderers, by contrast, are (usually) self-taught.
2. A soldier believes that murder is totally ethical when it's done at the direction of someone else. Murderers, by contrast, are (usually) aware that what they are doing is ethically wrong.
A cat is no trade for integrity!
You know what tells me the most that the lives of the helicopter pilots were never in any danger? They spend all that time circling the area, in a predicatable circle, focussing only on a small bit of the "action". If you were really afraid of someone targetting you with an RPG, wouldn't you be looking all over the place? Fly unpredicatble? Call for backup?
It is like the "accidental" shooting down by the US of an Iran airliner. The captain claims he thought he was being attacked by a wing of aircraft. Anyone who knows anything about modern air-naval engagements knows that a wing of aircraft can do serious damage to a modern ship. When you are under attack, it is time to throw everything in the air including the kitchensink because just one missle getting through can sink you.
So what does this captain do against this wing of attacking aircraft, that could easily signal the start of a war? Fire a SINGLE missle. And then not be surprised at any point that the target thought to be a number of aircraft turns out to be just one. Flying slow, not evading at all, not hitting them with radar, not trying to evade the missle and then when the SINGLE missle hit, the captain and crew show no worry about the other aircraft, or other angles of attack.
How odd.
The US thinks everyone is to stupid to see an execution when it happens. Just because your own people are so easily fooled (read the number of americans commenting "Are you sure that is what happened, I doubt it, I didn't watch the video but doubt it shows what you claim because FOX tells me we are the good guys"), doesn't mean the rest of the world is.
As I said in another reaction. mistakes happen, it is how you deal with them that you will be judged by. There is only 1 answer to this. These gunship pilots go against the wall. Show the world that law and order does not just mean "do as we say, don't do as we do". Or Iraq and Afghanistan will go on for ever and ever.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Add the modern caveat that Corporations == People, and I'm right there with you.
PR firm Murray Hill runs for office.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I just see a bunch of unappreciative douche bags on here. Speaking from someone who has been in the situation. (Which I bet 99% of the people on here talking badly about our soldiers have not served in combat) No one here knows the entire story and making judgement to the otherwise is sad. Innocent until proven guilty? Show me a 30 second video of a man walking in a store and getting off'd and sure he looks murdered... Now show me the previous 30 seconds when the same person walked in and put a gun to the store clerks head and I might have a different opinion.
I spotted weapons.
Sneaking peaks around a corner (with an approaching American convoy), while some of your buddies are toting RPGs and AKs, you can expect to be fired upon.
The loss of innocent life is always tragic, but there are things you can do to avoid being shot at.
Some questions we're not asking...
What has ALREADY been done as discipline against the troops? Has there already been court martials? In many situations like this, it may just be a media blackout with the troops discharged and not allowed back to active duty. It wouldn't surprise me if the pilot was grounded and lost his wings the minute he landed.
I have been trained as a soldier myself. Granted ordinary grunt, but I can assure you, there were NO instructions telling you to shoot on civilians, in a civilian vehicle carrying away wounded people while not carrying any weapons when you are in a position of safety.
This video, especially the end is just to many mistakes to be mistakes anymore. These guys went on a powertrip were they were just going to shoot up any sub-human (notice how America seems to have trouble in wars against non-whites, they threat the nazi's with kindness but napalm their former allies the Vietnamese) that dared to move. You can hear them discussing a man clearly not armed trying to crawl away severely injured. "Come on buddy all you need to do is pick up a weapon", meaning "pick up a weapon and we will put you out of your misery". Dirty Harry in a gunship.
WATCH the video. Or are you to scared to face the truth? I notice a lot of your type in this thread. They don't watch the video claiming it can't be true. Talk about a serious case of denial.
WATCH the video. Stop sticking your head in the sand. This is the truth of your nation, of the war Bush started and Obama ain't finishing. And the world is watching. Why do you think Holland wants out of Afghanistan? Why do you think the Labour party is getting a kicking in Britain? Because people in the rest of the world no longer can look away.
And after you watched the video, then watch who in the US watches this video and shows it on TV and demands for the justice. None is my bet. And that will hurt the US. Every silent american is food for islamic fundementalists. Who needs to argue about a Zionist conspiracy when you can show this video about american blowing away your own people.
1 american gunship pilot unpunished. 1000 new recruits for suicide bomber duty.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Just watched it...
They enjoyed it, they were looking for a chance to slaughter. The people on the ground were just waddling around without any sign of hostility.
There was nothing that looked like a weapon. I know it's a shitty black and white image, but even the cameras barely showed up as anything that could be distinguishable from a piece of cloth or anything.
Regardless, just having weapons didn't make these people acceptable targets.
The mistake here was putting these idiots in charge of these machines.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
This is an extremely biased video, I hope you have all come to realize that before you posted against the US military's actions.
If you feel outraged by the US military's actions here, it only shows how ignorant you are of what happens when there is war.
they eliminate targets. I'm a civilian but have read enough about the psychology of war to know that since human beings are usually unable to kill other human beings, the very first thing soldiers need to do is to reprogram their brains: They're not killing human beings, they're eliminating targets.
Can you blame a soldier, if he's eager to eliminate a target? No.
Can you blame him, if he rushed to judgment when deciding whether what he saw was a target? Maybe. Despite the video, we don't know exactly what they were thinking. There might have been other factors than just what is seen on the video. Besides, don't expect your judgment to be what it usually is when you haven't slept well for weeks, have had friends die around you and are constantly in much greater danger than you're used to at home.
Can you blame him for being in what obviously is an extremely difficult combat environment with combatants mixed with civilians? No. The ones that should get the blame for that are the idiots that failed to realize what the invasion would result in.
i'm not arguing with You, but i do take a difference to the idea of this as "war". this was never a war. it was a farce of an invasion that has since just been an occupation. on top of that, it's been nothing but one fuck up after another. this is truly ugly, but "war" has nothing to do with this.
"To stop the terrorists."
Check the effectiveness assessments of the Soviet-made RPG's, and look at the range read-out on the footage. Then come back and tell me how they weren't aware that they were outside double the effective range of the (tripod) they were preempting.
They should have called in the foot soldiers for verification.
If you watch the full length video, you get a glimpse of what went wrong. That heli crew was seeking to discharge their full load of ammo into the enemy - any enemy. Once they get down to 50 rounds or so, they start asking for permission to use their missiles.
It was about scoring points, not about rescuing Iraq from insurgents.
Get used to it because it's very profitable and the perpetrators are generally never accountable for their murderous ways.
My point - You cannot police Iraq with soldiers, unless you just don't care about guilt or innocence, life or death.
You might want to take some time to get better acquainted with US foreign policy.
"Tragic mistake"? possibly at first, It may be possible that the chopper pilot was stupid enough to misidentify those cameras as weapons.
However, there was absolutely no question to any reasonable person that they fabricated a story in order to open fire on the people from the van that were trying to recover a wounded man. They were not retrieving weapons and dead bodies, they only attempted to pick up the wounded man. This severely limits the possibility that the earlier event was merely a mistake.
"criminal coverup"? yes.
"nothing to see here"? WTF. A soldier fabricating a story in order to receive permission to fire apon unarmed civilians and the following criminal cover-up is most definitely something to see. The pilot and everyone involved in the cover up need to be tried for war crimes.
"move along"? No. I am a patriotic American, and sometimes that means taking a stand and speaking out against murder and cover-ups like this even if, and especially if, they are perpetrated by the government.
Meh. It happens to every army. Didn't some German Peacekeepers in Afghanistan waste a truckload of local soldiers? It isn't good, but every soldier everywhere lives in a Kill or Be Killed situation. And nearly everyone decides to err on the side of self preservation. This is human nature, and as long as we have wars, we will have senseless killing of civilians.
- doug
And how many years was that covered up for?
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
I love the fact that this story has over 800 comments but the video itself has only 365 views. Meaning a tonne of people are talking out of their arse's.
The point is they fired first, killed civilians, then tried to cover it up. I hear stories like this all the time, but the difference is now we have video proof. Wikileaks is very bold for exposing the truth.
Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. - Nikola Tes
Yes, it's horrible. Yes, it could have been possibly avoided. Or possibly not.
The REAL story however is that the Bush administration and the Pentagon under their control covered this up, presumably to shore up general political support in Iraq. THAT is the real story.
Dude, where's my packet?
Definitely. That's not how we've done things in any of my units, and honestly I don't understand how those actions could ever have passed muster. You know how when you are given an award, they always say "...reflects great credit upon yourself, your unit, and the United States Army"? This kind of thing does the exact opposite.
3) The tragedy appears to me to be a wanton disrespect for human life.
Were it my choice our armed forces would only employ individuals who showed a respect for human life and didn't assume the people they just destroyed were "bastards".
Fortunately, it's not my choice. Yay democracy.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
I hope they will be put to a life time sentence without a parole, in a cell.
Americans don't do time for their war crimes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court
As of March 2010[update], 111 states are members of the Court,[7][8][9] and a further 38 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute.[7]
However, a number of states, including China, India, Russia and the United States, are critical of the court and have not joined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_Parties_to_the_Rome_Statute_of_the_International_Criminal_Court#United_States
In 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA), which contained a number of provisions, including prohibitions on the U.S. providing military aid to countries which had ratified the treaty establishing the court (exceptions granted), and permitting the President to authorize military force to free any U.S. military personnel held by the court, leading opponents to dub it the "Hague Invasion Act."
The act was later modified to permit U.S. cooperation with the ICC when dealing with U.S. enemies.
The U.S. has also made a number of Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIAs, also known as "Article 98 Agreements") with a number of countries, prohibiting the surrender to the ICC of a broad scope of persons including current or former government officials, military personnel, and U.S. employees (including non-national contractors) and nationals.
None of these agreements preclude the prosecution of Americans by any nation where they are believed to have committed any crime.
As of 2 August 2006, the US Department of State reported that it had signed 101 of these agreements.[30]
The United States has cut aid to many countries which have refused to sign BIAs.[30]
In 2002, the United States threatened to veto the renewal of all United Nations peacekeeping missions unless its troops were granted immunity from prosecution by the Court.[31]
In a compromise move, the Security Council passed Resolution 1422 on 12 July 2002, granting immunity to personnel from ICC non-States Parties involved in United Nations established or authorized missions for a renewable twelve-month period.[31]
This was renewed for twelve months in 2003 but the Security Council refused to renew the exemption again in 2004, after pictures emerged of US troops abusing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and the US withdrew its demand.[32]
And then people ask why would any nation want or need a nuclear program.
Good thing you let us know you were being sarcastic. Some folks around here might have gotten offended.
</sarcasm>
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
The Geneva convention isn't exactly the document you think it is, it is far more subtle than you might suspect.
To answer one of the original questions, the reason nations typically follow the GC is because is describes the "smart" way to run a war.
You treat prisoners well because you want people to surrender to you. If it gets out that you torture prisoners, people fight to the death. However if you treat them very well and publicly show this, your average guy might think "that sure beats dying". Indeed typically you tell your own troops the enemy will torture them, that is certainly what the Japanese did in WWII.
You don't dress up like civilians because if you do, the enemy starts killing your civilians also! If fighting a local insurgency, then you build bad will and give your opponents new recruits. After all if I am going to be killed on "accident", maybe I am better off with a gun myself.
The other prohibitions against needless cruelty are about the same, why make your enemy even more enraged against you? Remember, your ultimate goal in war is to convince the enemy to stop fighting, not total annihilation.
The French resistance thing is kind of an exception. Basically that is why countries can’t define terrorism, they all agree certain tactics are wrong but want to make exceptions for people they consider the “good guys” to break the rules. In a case like WWII, since the Germans so clearly did not belong in France it is probably safe to give the French the benefit of the doubt. Harder to codify however.
Except it is.
You seem to think driving over someone's goat is the same as shooting up civilians trying to help a wounded man with no weapon in sight.
Or indeed that all Iraqies have goats.
Watch "Apocalypse now" to see why America is in this situation.
No, I know that ain't a real story. Let me finish.
Watch "Apocalypse now" and now imagine this movie set in Europe with the American soldiers replaced by germans. Would such a movie have been tolerated to have been made by the germans? No.
But the Americans have no problem making this action flick in a war where they killed 8 million civilians.
When you claim to be good guy, people expect you to have certain standards. These gunship pilots failed them. Deal with them.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You sound like a guy who's never been in a war. The pilot wants to shoot because he thinks his guys on the ground were in mortal danger.
No, they were not. It took the nearest ground crew about 10 minutes to rush there and it is clearly overheard in the radio chat that no ground crew is in that area. And the helicopter crew keeps on insisting on an authorization to shoot the dying journalist and pushed for an authorization to shoot at people who had the audacity of aiding dying men and "picking up bodies". No one was threatened and there was no mortal danger. Well, that is... Besides the Reuter's journalists, their crew and the people who had the audacity of aiding injured civilians.
First off, members of the group were armed with RPGs and AKs. Look at 3:46 in the long clip.
You should check your eye sight. The only mention of an RPG is when the pilot keeps referring to the journalist and his telescopic lens camera. The only mention of an AK is whe the pilot keeps referring to the crew member carrying a camera tripod. And I don't see how anyone in their right mind can mistake the journalist's camera as a weapon. Other than those two instances no other weapons are mentioned, not even when the squirming journalist, shot with the 30mm autocannon, is being targeted for a kill while being helped by the "bongo van" people.
But the photographer aimed his camera from a crouching position behind a corner, just like insurgents do when firing an RPG.
Are you aware of any RPG which can be safely fired with a dozen men immediately behind it? There is a journalist taking photos and there are a dozen guys calmly standing behind that person. If the guy was really firing a RPG then everyone standing behind it would be injured by the rocket and yet no one seemed to mind standing there, without a hint of worry. Even if it was possible to confuse a photographic camera with a RPG launcher, which even in that video isn't possible, and even while ignoring that no one, particularly US crews, was in danger of being shot at by that imaginary RPG, the way people are acting around the imaginary RPG makes it at least doubtful that what that guy is holding a RPG launcher. And as there is quite a lot of doubt hanging around, what forces that AH-64 crew to just fire without taking a second look?
At that moment, the pilot became very nervous, agitated, and couldn't wait to circle his chopper around to get the shot.
That's called "trigger-happy".
He reasonably believed that the photographers were carrying RPGs.
There is nothing reasonable in that. And even if there was any doubt, he only had to finish circling around to be able to get a positive ID. Yet, that trigger-happy idiot, who even wanted to gun down a wounded, unarmed journalist and later gunned down a group of people aiding dead and dying civilians, just wanted to kill'em all, no questions asked.
You do not expect journalists with cameras to be walking around.
No? In the most media-covered war in the history of mankind? You don't expect any journalists in Iraq? How naive. How cold-blooded, brutal, barbarically naive.
Sorry gotta ask: Is there any other sources of this video or are we witch hunting off just one video source?
I played Far Cry 2 for a couple of hours last night. When I watched the video, those guys clearly looked like they had assault rifles and maybe an RPG. Even the cameras looked like weapons to me. That's probably because I spent several hours yesterday training my eye to pick out hostile targets carrying weapons, and demolishing them with mounted machine guns. I had trained myself to expect enemies with guns, so I saw enemies with guns. This really surprised me, because I generally consider myself to be a peaceful and level-headed person.
But this video was not of a video game, and it illustrates why one's instinct to demolish scores of people with mounted machine guns should be obeyed only with the greatest caution. Rules of Engagement exist precisely because civilians often appear threatening but are not in fact threatening. I could understand why these people may have had an impulse to fire on the group, but impulse and actuality must be mediated.
That said, I could not understand, and simply could not watch, them firing on the van. I stopped the video immediately after they said "Engage" because I felt physically ill. This is after a night of killing unsuspecting men with sniper-shots to the head, blowing up civilian Jeep Liberties with grenade launchers, emptying entire machine-gun clips through car windshields, hacking people to death at close range with my machete, burning people alive with my flamethrower, and shooting wounded combatants in the back of the head with my pistol.
It's inaccurate to say that no weapons were seen in this film. At 3:40 you can see a guy with an AK-47 (he's swinging it by his side from his right hand) and at 3:45 you can see an RPG (the guy turns around to look behind him). The guys in question were walking behind the two photographers, who may not have known they were behind them.
"war" is easily replaced with "combat". Combat can easily apply to a range of things, even to what cops sometimes have to do. You are just arguing semantics for political reasons.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
There are OTHER ways to get people to clear the area. Say, for example, "warning shots" or perhaps loud speaker announcements. I can't say that I saw any weapons in the video... except for that rocket launcher/zoom lens.
They could also re-route the convoy.
If the people were in a place they shouldn't have been, that's one thing. But it would seem the people that were there were pretty much cleared to be there given that they were press and all. And the fact that they were supposedly clearing a way for a convoy raises more questions than it answers. One serious question is whether or not this is standard practice for operating a convoy. If it is, things SERIOUSLY need to be changed. Who knows how many innocent civilians are slaughtered in this way just so a truck full of supplies and ammo can get through.
At 3:44 the guy with the RPG (in his right hand) turns around to look behind him.
Is there anything in that video, which reveals anything about tactics or strategy and thus makes releasing it harmful?
I want to know how bad a move it was not to release it when it happened and admit that mistakes were made. The thing is that, unless there are such considerations, it might not be such a bad idea for the military to in the future have a process in place to be more open about mistakes and apologize for them (preferably sincerely). That way there will be more factual information for all interested parties to assess instead of speculation based on accusations and less controversy in general. Human beings make mistakes and then people might accept such mistakes a little better even if they don't accept the US invasion of Iraq.
I saw three guys with AK47s in that video at time frame 3:40-3:48 with the helicopters cross hairs on them.
The cameras looked more like side weapons than cameras the way they carried them.
Too bad the journalists were there, but they know the dangers of reporting in a war zone, that is why they are paid so well to do it.
Too bad the guys in the van brought kids in, that was just wrong...they outta have gotten shot for bringing their kids into a obviously dangerous situation. I hope the kids make it, but in those areas kids often are taught to fight as if they are adults (not their fault really, but it happens ... so I cannot say whether they were civilian children or not, they could have been enemies).
This is probably one of the worst things I have ever seen. What terrible terrible judgment. These poor people presented NO present danger. Completely slaughtered. Terribly terribly sad. Shit like this is why I've come to hate wars. Mod me down for saying nothing new, but this is so fucking sad.
This article is making every left wing nut on this site calling for the death of America.
Don't worry it will be soon over and the Chinese will be the 'new object of hate' once the US cannot stand under the crushing weight of its decadence (created by the left wing nuts that I talked about).
Probably will be ranked down to oblivions but still I have to say it.
Just remember that the only way the brothers, sisters, fathers and mothers of these innocent people you just killed here have to get back at you, is to do stuff like it happened in 9/11.
You are both the victims and the guilty ones for all the terrorist attacks you receive.
1) the soldiers on the ground were taking fire from the direction that the camera crew was coming. There were guns, I could clearly see one of their members carrying an AK-47, which is not uncommon for journalists to be accompanied by security guards. One of the camera men peeked around the corner with a camera that had a telephoto lens, which looks a lot like a weapon being aimed. If the police at the obamacare townhall were being fired upon and police saw a guy with an AR-15 slung over his shoulder, they wouldn't just leave him be.
2) the soldiers on the ground were under attack. you don't walk up to the location armed enemies are engaging you from and kindly ask to see their insurgent ID card before you engage. the point is that american lives *were* in immediate jeopardy, which is why the apaches showed up in the first place.
3) the reasonable chance the victims had to avoid getting shot that day was to stay in the hotel. being a combat journalist means putting yourself as a target on the field of battle. it is a risk that is a part of the job. it doesn't mean journalists should be targeted, but it doesn't mean that they won't be at significant risk of being shot. by either side.
My point is that you can't hold soldiers to american police standards when the situation they are dealing with is a guerrilla insurgency.
To be honest, as difficult as this video is, and as terribly wrong as the situation turned out to be, this kind of thing happens all the time in a war zone. It is the nature of the beast. That it is so shocking to us is less a verdict on the soldiers, who are in an environment where there are no easy or good solutions (every time you use deadly force, nothing good will come out of it). What is shocking is that we have been so sheltered as a populace to be so ignorant about what this war is really like.
Fox News is covering this. CNN is not. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/05/video-appears-forces-firing-unarmed-suspects-baghdad/
Could be interesting to change the link to use coral cache to prevent /.ing
1) The men in the video are clearly unphased by any gunfire. They are neither taking nor receiving fire. They're out in the open, not even looking over their shoulders. One of them is on his cell phone, strolling down the middle of the road. If those men are in combat, they are unaware of it.
2) Whether or not another attack was happening is neither clear nor relevant. The men killed in the video were not any part of it, as was clear in the video itself. "There is a war nearby" is not a justification for what happened.
3) Forget the journalists for a moment. What about the father of those kids. Assuming he loved them at all, do you feel he was planning for their death when they decided to set out in the minivan? It seems nearly certain that though they knew there was action in the area, no one slain in this video expected to die that day. Look at their posture. There's no sign of fear.
My point is that you can't hold soldiers to american police standards when the situation they are dealing with is a guerrilla insurgency.
Of course I can. If they are conducting a policeman's role, they can use his standards as well. If they cannot operate under those standards, we can send someone who can. Or we can pack up and go home. "Kill everything that moves" is never a choice, even when we think the ends justify the means.
What is shocking is that we have been so sheltered as a populace to be so ignorant about what this war is really like.
What amazes me is how going to war on a concept can adulterate the traditional American values to the point where we assassinate (mostly unarmed) civilians from the relative safety of our helicopters, and then try and cover it up.
Did you see the part with the missile attacks? Just disgusting.
America can do better.
as long as we have wars, we will have senseless killing of civilians.
Which is why you should give peace a chance.
Say, someone tells you Saddam Hussein has an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction deployable in 45 minutes and capable of reaching major European cities? Give peace a chance. Maybe he just wishes he had those things.
Iranians are weaseling their way to nuclear power? Give peace a chance.
Why? Because the other choice is murders at an industrial scale.
You can't take the sky from me...
What combat? There was no combat until the gunships opened fire. They came across an open square with a congregation of people. Not people who started to look up and look for defensive positions to target the Apache. Not people who looked nervous, excited or otherwise indicated they'd be about to launch an attack.
Now, I will admit that the journalist framing the picture, presumably to get a long narrow street with the Apache hovering over it, looks suspicious, but there was no combat.
Let's see how you would react if you were in a combat situation..
there's a thing called situational blindness. try this test & see if you'd pass: ..then u can judge.
http://www.geekarmy.com/science/1089/crazy-vision-test/
for supporting this shit and trying to rationalize it. I'm sorry, I'm not mincing words here - you're scum, the vast majority of you. You're a bunch of social climbing sandal-wearing freaks that would have no difficulty at all administering the Nazi concentration camps if the IBM Hollerith machines had a 'Made in USA' sticker on it and the Nazis were on the side of the Allies.
And it sickens me what utter hypocrites you are. When Bush does it, wars of attrition are bad. When Obama is at the helm, it's all good, because you're a bunch of partisan sacks of shit that subscribe to this intellectually bankrupt 'greenie' bullshit that has no merit to it - at all. At the end of the day, it all comes down to denial - America is different, oh we're an open society (what a fucking joke), and oh, we're fighting Al-Qaeda (what a fucking joke - the whole premise is a fucking joke).
I'm sick of the bullshit, I'm sick of all the spin, I'm sick of the moral relativism - just wake the fuck up and realize that you are totally brainwashed, sickening scum. That's all I'm asking here. Repent before God and go find out what lies your government has formented for 20+ years.
Very well written post, but I do have a question. Would you mind elaborating on a few terms?
The Crazyhorse element? I'm guessing it's not SS Crazy Horse (NCC-50446) from Star Trek, though that'd be awesome in combat. Is it simply a different way to indicate a chopper? Crazy Horse?
The Bushmaster element? It could be a Bushmaster IMV, but that doesn't make much sense to me, as the Wiki article indicates it's not used by US forces.
God damned video keeps vanishing around the net.
Here is googles cache of it:
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:http://collateralmurder.com/
You are such a delicious faggot.
If you attribute the next post then I'll attribute my response.
At the end of the unedited video it shows the Apache's engaging a building with three hellfire missiles. Their justification was that they seen one person with a machine gun enter inside it. While they are setting up their aim for the missile you can see civilians in and around the building. They had no idea how many people were inside. Even knowing that the building was surrounded by civilians and not having any intel on how many civilians were inside, they still were given and executed orders to engage. This video was simply disgusting MURDER by the U.S. The soldiers show no remorse or hesitation to kill civilians. There was absolutely zero concern for the safety of bystanders. They actually enjoyed it and cheered on the higher the bodycount went up, irregardless if they had killed combatants, children, or civilians. These soldiers are endangering my safety as a United States citizen. They were killing in my country's name and breeding hatred for my country with these evil acts. We can no longer call the Iraqi's terrorists since we are obviously exterminating their people freely. DISGUSTING VIDEO. We have ZERO moral highground. Shame on the US Military! I thought we were better then this. With the technology we have this is UNEXCUSABLE. And the SICK SICK SICK SICK part is the US Military will probably stand for this as excusable. Thats scary, sick, twisted shit. The end of days deserve to be upon us.
I know there's a lot of Glenn Beck-fellating assholes here, but seriously, how can you defend this? Shooting innocent people, killing those who try to help the injured, and then begging people in the crowd to pick up a weapon so they can shoot some more? The world would be a much better place without all of you right-wing, Fox News-watching cocksuckers, with nothing better to do than sit around all day, jacking off to your precious violence porn.
What a reprehensible, morally bankrupt society are we that we allow our military to suppress such information?
The only reason that the armed forces of the United States, which exists to serve the people, desires to suppress this video recording is so that the people of the United States won't become outraged at the slaughter and horror that is being committed in our name and make them stop.
We're disgusting because we allow the armed forces to get away it. These people are not ethical, they are killers, and they will continue to kill until we stop them.
The ghosts of our moral failures in Iraq, including the hiring of mercenaries and slaughter of an entire generation of Iraqis, will haunt us for as long as we are an empire.
We could have been the society to lead the world into a future of peace and justice. But instead we've led it toward lies, murder, and corruption. And we wonder why we're losing the war of ideas.
I'm non-military, but just a guess: US Army choppers are named after native American Indian tribes: Apache, Kiowa, Chinook, Iroquois, etc. There are some exceptions, but that is the tradition.
My guess is the call sign for the helicopters were based on Indians, and the guys on the ground had other names. I wouldn't read too much into call signs, I'm sure they change often to keep the enemy confused, yet distinct enough that the guys calling the choppers know that "Crazyhorse = famous Indian chief = apache gunship overhead" and likewise the pilots know that "bushmaster = our guys on the ground"
I've spent over 2 1/2 years in the middle east. When I joined I started out as your typical southern, baptist, patriotic gungho motherfucker. Oh how wrong I was. I am non of those things now. Seeing reality, both on the ground and politically changed me in a way I have yet to recover from. This should be a case study about why we should not be in Iraq, and why we can never win this "war". The only way for us to win OIF or OEF, is to withdraw as fast as is possible without endangering lives. But we won't.. But I digress, as for the video, it clearly shows a 1) Eagerness to engage regardless of situation, and 2) Lack of good identification. I watched the unedited video first, and my very first thought was, "Those people are not walking like normal weapon bearing insurgents" First you must understand that in Iraq at least, you have what I call the 4 insurgents. These are, the local guerrillas, the local martyrs, the foreign guerrillas, and the foreign martyrs. Of the four types, 2 of them consider combat a military operation, and move with the same prudence as our military guys (ok often they are not nearly as good at finding cover, but especially and Militia groups or AQ guys know how to move from cover to cover, and are also aware of our air superiority. So it might be feasible that the first group were of the other 2, and did not know what they were doing. Even if that were the case, if they had been the ones firing on the foot patrol, (especially if the didn't know what they were doing and they were martyrs wanting to die) their adrenaline would have been through the roof, and no way they would be walking like that. So, there you have it, 4 minutes into the video I was pretty sure these were civilians. The firing on the van was blatant disregard for whatever should be considered ROE (they change the damn ROE's all the time, especially for army, Marines not as much). The guy was claiming the van was picking up bodies before it was even at the damn scene! It all goes downhill from there, but what this shows is that the removal of personal contact with your victim really makes for huge mistakes. I wrote a long post about it not to long ago regarding UAV's. With my own experience, this is the sad truth. Once a unit comes under fire, they get such itchy trigger fingers that in most areas that have seen combat, almost all the civilians run and hide because they know how much collateral damage we cause. This clearly shows how once you demonize another group of human beings, you make them sub-human in your mind, its not murder anymore. This also shows the lack of professionalism of the army, which despite the joking ribs we used to throw the armies way, are even worse than you might imagine.(And no the USMC or any other branch is not immune, but I have seen it exemplified in the army) (Some of their comm speak was horrible, stepping on people, not using correct terminology, saying unnecessary things and tying up the comm) The guys who laugh have no regard or respect for human lives. Even the times when I took out someone who was beyond a doubt my enemy, I never laughed. It is a burden these men will do two things with, they will either A) Experience cognitive dissonance of a magnitude far greater than you can imagine to justify these things to themselves, or B)They end up fucked in the head because they realize that they have blood on their hands. The one question that only makes all this worse? Why? It is the most destructive question a combat vet can ask, because it opens up a wormhole of unending darkness once you come to realize the truth. Remember that song, "We wont get fooled again"? Well, we did. and for anyone person who things we should be in Iraq or Afghanistan, I think you should have to kill a person and haul their lifeless bloody body into a Humvee. (To the people who I all to often hear say "Well I have a friend/family member over "there" and you're just an armchair general. Well I can safely say I HAVE FUCKING BEEN THERE AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT. And to other military guys, if you really believ
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
Often it's pronounced PUH-toon so may sound like a bad transmission of battalion. A platoon is maybe 30 or so. A battalion wouldn't fit at maybe 1000.
Anyway, it looked like a bad guy to me poking his head around the corner, with what looked like an RPG launcher. Knowing beforehand ... It's a mistake (Men Down Under, only not so bad?) didn't help, but I probably would have done the same. The gunner was obviously fresh out of Ft. Rucker. The three damn missles though, that was ... Heat of the moment (Asia, only not so nice) shoot first don't ask questions later. I'd not have done that no matter how screwed up things were. Man oh man. Wikileaks doesn't need to put in that stupid dedication at the end. You go there and you deal with that day in day out, in any capacity. Hell, stay the night in downtown Detroit and then multiply it by 100. You can bet you stay there long enough, you deal with, and get used to, it. It's not like it's fun shooting kids. Why do you think it is?
Besides, a half-dozen in the 20s going into an abandoned building... it's provocative. And they only had 50 30mm rounds left; a good excuse for wasting a million taxpayer dollars?
We saw enough to know that what we saw was murder. Appreciative? Of wholesale slaughter being conducted with my tax dollars? Fuck no.
We're arrogant enough to wonder why we're losing the war of ideas. It's because we laugh while fucking killing people, that's why.
And you're disgusting enough to call what we saw "combat". That wasn't combat, that was a massacre. And massacres are only staged by cowards.
Thank you to everyone who cooperated to get this story out and thanks to American government for giving enough freedom and protection to it's citizens that they felt empowered to bring this to light.
Newsflash, it's 2010 and Bush is no longer in office. I know you've fought long and hard to keep his reputation tarnished and his office impotent, but it's OK. It's over now. We can focus on politicians who are actually in office and capable of creating further chaos and suffering. Please be sure to select some Republicans and Democrats for consideration. There are plenty to choose from.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
This is what war is like. It's not at all pretty, or clean. And when your tools are high-powered weapons, the consequences of mistakes are high and that sucks for all involved.
- for ALL involved? For ALL involved? Can you explain that please, how was having these powerful weapons so bad for the helicopter crew?
Also can you tell us what business does the US have shooting people in Iraq?
What business does US have shooting people, any people in Iraq?
Let me put it this way: this was is already bad, I don't need extra videos like this to know that the US is in the wrong, it is the aggressor that is in Iraq to kill and to make money on war contracts. Killing US citizens is justified in the minds of many by this video whether they are civilians or not.
You can't handle the truth.
Why, as some have suggested, would the Apache crew have any reason to be so "on edge" that it was a mistake of nerves? I couldn't handle watching much past the first round of firing, but from what I saw the bullets took a hell of a lot of time to reach the people, meaning the helicopter was a hell of a distance away. The two guys are sitting in a titanium armored death machine that fires giant bullets, and they're twitchy? The gunner and his pal are definitely bad material to be Apache pilots. The more dangerous the weapon in your hand, the cooler and calmer the person needs to be to avoid horrifying things like this (see: Nuclear missile silo personnel).
this patrol wasn't just walking down the street one day, saw a group of people and thought to themselves, "Hey, let's blast away at these motherfuckers! I haven't gotten to shoot anyone all day, and I just can't get an erection anymore if I don't do so. Also, maybe we can punch a baby or two when we're done."
Looking at how the gunner practically moans "Coooome on, let us shoot" while referring to unarmed civilians picking up a heavily wounded man and carrying him to the van - that is EXACTLY what they were thinking.
The Dutch Pirate Party provided a mirror for the overloaded wikileaks page. Http://collateralmurder.piratenpartij.nl/
I'm not a soldier, but I have good friends and relatives who were deployed in Afghanistan, and I have to say that the thing about this isn't the actions of the soldiers involved, but the cover-up afterward.
I understand the whole fog-of-war issue, and that people who are stressed and trying to stay alive, especially in a guerrilla warfare environment, often tend to shoot and ask questions afterward.
The problem I have is that the government appeared to cover this up rather than say "there was a mistake." I'm not saying the mistake wasn't a problem, and that it shouldn't have been intensely investigated, but that I understand that mistakes happen in warfare.
It's not the soldiers doing their duty, its the whitewashing of it.
You sound like a guy who's never been in a war. The pilot wants to shoot because he thinks his guys on the ground were in mortal danger.
There were NO "his guys" on the ground. There were no troops in the area at all. "Command" even mentions that once or twice.
pilot became very nervous, agitated, and couldn't wait to circle his chopper around to get the shot.
Yeah. Agitated and nervous cause he was missing a chance to notch up another "kill".
However, the pilots believed they were engaging hostiles.
I seem to remember a group of pilots who believed EXACTLY the same thing involved in a incident with some airplanes about a decade ago.
Since they "believed" they were fighting the enemy - it is all cool then, right? 9/11 is water under the bridge?
Also, every dead American soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan - perfectly OK.
Even commendable of the Taliban/Jihadies/Insurgents/Generic_Brown_People to kill so many.
After all, they BELIEVE that they are killing their enemies.
You're at +5 Insightful and still deserve to be modded up, you make the point so well.
Yes mistakes are made. Lying about them is another mistake, and in this case very likely a deliberate one, made when not under fire. One which only serves to undermine the credibility of everyone involved.
Admitting that a mistake had been made would be much better.
Watch the whole video ya cunt.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Tell me, oh wise gigsvt, do you imagine that a single guy out of a group would target a helicopter with a weapon and then the entire group would be wondering around like a herd of goats when the helicopter makes a circle around the building and they wouldn't even attempt at scattering until there are shots fired from the helicopter?
Do you know what I saw in this video? A small gathering of people for no reason that I am aware of, but none of these people were engaging a helicopter in a fight. None of these people THOUGHT they were engaging anyone in any fight.
If one or more of them would have been engaging a flying tank in a fight, wouldn't it just make sense for them to hide and not walk around like nothing had happened by the time the helicopter makes it around the building and comes out on the other side?
Nobody was engaging these American murderers, animals, in a fight.
Iraq was engaging USA into a fight. Iraq did not attack USA, USA attacked and occupied Iraq. USA is the clear aggressor and its soldiers are clearly murderers.
You can't handle the truth.
Thanks for taking the time to write this.
You are so obviously full of shit. This is an Apache circling almost a mile away! You honestly believe the insurgents have an RPG that can hit it? This isn't fucking Hollywood dipshit.
Yes, I am an imagery analyst. This is a good EO image that can be exploited like any other one. To everyone saying that the apache crew had an 'infinitely superior' view in full color. That just isn't true. There is a color DTV sometimes, but this was the boresight view the gunner relied on. Look at this group of individuals closely. Pause the video and analyze the tonal patterns, the shapes, and the shadows.
Look at the point in time where they identify the camera slung over the individuals shoulder. During this timeframe in this shot, the second group of MAMs to the left of him can be seen clearly. The furthest left and the second from the furthest left can clearly be seen holding an AK-model or similar weapon single-handed in the right hand. These peoples' arms are not 5' long. If this is a PSD for a news crew, they should have communicated their whereabouts to the press annex like anyone else (including iraqi army/police). Armed personnel in groups is 'hostile intent' in Baghdad and other such areas and this fact is commonly known. If you are out in the open, armed, and we don't know about you, you are a bad person. I would assess with a 90% confidence level that this was an armed group and probably called to shadow them for a longer period of time before engaging. This is PID on an armed group, and here's a news flash: if you are willing to accompany armed personnel in Baghdad (read: insurgents), you are probably not friendly, and in my opinion, you deserve what's coming to you.
Things that were bogus:
-The call for RPG. This is a possible confidence level at best and certainly not PID for engagement.
-Firing on the casevac. This is not good. However, insurgents regularly casevac and return to fight another day. Still, this is against ROE.
-The 'clearly visible' children. Keep in mind, this was the gunsight view. I saw at best one head in the passenger side and it was indistinguishable whether it was a MAM or a child. I have been squinting at FMV, EO, IR, SAR, and MSI for 6 years.
I would have made an engagement call on these people. It's very easy to say that its a 'clearly visible' camera once you know 100% after the fact that we killed 2 cameramen. You're an Apache pilot/gunner and you see 2-3 individuals with AKM variants and 2 more individuals with dark-toned, shoulder-slung weapons. It could have just as easily been a suicide belt, another long-gun, or god knows what else. It does not mean that this is not a tragic loss of life, like every incident is, but this was not a bad engagement call. I'm sorry everyone.
Could you give us an idea how far away or how high that helicopter would have been from the men in the street? Would the people on the street have seen the helicopter circling? Wouldn't they have reacted to it if they were truly insurgents?
ok, great plan! who wants to go walking up to an RPG carrying insurgent? Anyone? Bueller?
The cover-up is heinous. The actions are not fully understood. Before you rap the judgement hammer, let ALL the facts come forward. Until the WTF is just that. "WTF." Until you fly a mile in their shoes, don't judge how a camera and tripod can be mistaken in a crowd for weapons. So, your assertions, like mine, aren't worth bunk. At least I admit that... you seem to get on the self-righteous horse really easily.
War crimes? Are you fucking mad? Glad to hear your patriotism doesn't get in the way of due process. Give me a break.
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
How is a trial not part of due process?
So what was the hostile threat that led them to shooting up the people assisting a wounded person?
The two children at the front of the van, concealing fully-loaded RPGs, of course! Remember "the pilots believed they were engaging hostiles.", so this excuse could justify anything, right?
But, then there's the cover-up of the incident and the harrassing to Wikileaks, which shouldn't be necessary, given that they had such a wonderful excuse, right?
People were not the only things shot by those 30mm cannons. Credibility, ethics, and the illusion of democracy were, too.
Somehow, I started to believe it's wrong to call all anonymous "cowards"...
You mean this http://collateralmurder.com/en/resources.html rocket launcher marked "Canon"?
That was level-headed and informative. I was as disgusted as many here after watching the video, but I also get antsy when people leap to conclusions. Most of what's being said lacks perspective (not to mention cohesion, eloquence, rationality, etc.). Thank you for yours.
This video proves one point to me, and I say this as a person who sometimes deals with governmental entities in the realm of video...
Most people would be very surprised about how darn poor many of the video cameras used in active operations by the military are. If this video had been released with the caption "apache gunship killing armed insurgents with an RPG" we'd probably take it at face value.
The military needs to embrace HD technology in active operations FULLY, and events like this will at least be reduced. Very very few militarynplatforms right now shoot and transmit HD video. They ought to be.
what's your point? war isn't political? call it combat, call it war. this fracas was started for political reasons and is being maintained for political reasons. there is no defense for what has transpired in Iraq.
the U.S. attempt to suppress this atrocity is political.
this was wrong. if the gunner thought he was in the right to begin with, why didn't he finish off the "terrorist" that was still crawling around? one second the guy's fair game, next he isn't? he already shot him, with intent to kill. maybe he realize he fucked up? speculation, but this is /., the land of knee-jerks and conclusion jumpers.
"To stop the terrorists."
if the gunner thought he was in the right to begin with, why didn't he finish off the "terrorist" that was still crawling around? one second the guy's fair game, next he isn't? he already shot him, with intent to kill.
Because that is illegal under Geneva rules. You see, we follow them. Insurgents and terrorists don't. What that gunner did has been SOP for the US for some time. Once the target no longer presents any potential for a threat, you stop engaging them. Had he picked up an object that looked like a gun, he would have become fair game for a second round of firing. But, this is /., the land of people who have no fucking clue about the rules of war, or the standard types of ROE. Oh, but they will still judge people based upon 20/20 vision of a situation they have not, nor ever will be in.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I just put together a quick analysis that makes it clear that the two journalists who were killed in the Apache attack video were unfortunately caught up in an attack on a legitimate target.
- Apache Attack Analysis
I also highlight the frames where weapons are visible.
I have a nagging fear that sites like Wikileaks will be put on this blacklist we appear to be getting here. For the children, of course.
In what world is it OK to start firing 30mm armor piercing rounds at a group of unarmed people who 2 of them MAY have a weapon and none of them are doing anything aggressive?
When did it become ok to fire on people being taken to hospital? When did it become OK to fire on a guy who is clearly neutralised ("come on buddy, all you gotta do is pick up a weapon", no less).
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
So say you were driving home from work in a civilian hummer, it would be OK for an invading enemy force to fire on you with a helicopter gunship because it looks a bit like a military vehicle?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Shocked at the difference between them...
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/04/05/iraq.photographers.killed/index.html?hpt=T2
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/05/video-appears-forces-firing-unarmed-suspects-baghdad/om/
I guess you don't know what "collective punishment" means. It's not accidental collateral damage, or even mistaken attacks. It's when a known civilian group is deliberately punished. I.e., a village gets its water supply turned off.
The fact that you got modded to a 5 proves how little slashdotters know about common war concepts.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
I agree 100%, the Irony is Fox news covered this better than CNN. Go figure.
Youtube/google appears to be complying with some government request to control this information. They've locked the view count of the video at around 300 views.
Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0&feature=player_embedded
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
To whatever troops are in that area, the hostile intent is what they perceive. If they see armed personnel, and the theater EOF SOPs (escalation of force) and ROEs (rules of engagement) count this as PID (positive ID), then the soldier attacks and kills. It's much easier for us, in enlarged video players, not in vibrating helicopters, not worrying about getting shot down, to second guess them.
Those weren't AP round, they were HEDP (high explosive, dual purpose). They are the prescribed armament for troop targets. Shooting innocent people is bad, you crying about the caliber and type is just hyperbolic rhetoric on your part.
PID when I was in Ramadi included military-aged males (MAM's) carying weapons. If 2 MAM's are carrying weapons, they are hostile. If 13 people choose to accompany them, as spotters, cheerleaders, human-shields, they are hostile too. You do realize that a firearm is not necessary to qualify as hostile, right? A MAM with a shovel on the side of a road is PID in some theaters. Observing a FOB with binos, a commo device, OR a camera is PID in some theaters.
A van, coming to transport hostiles, is a hostile. If the hostile or transport wanted to proclaim himself "hors de combat", (white flag, red crescent, etc.) then they should have. Being injured does NOT render a combatant "hors de combat".
THL phish sticks
michael jackson dies? two weeks non-stop coverage, for someone who's greatest contribution was a six minute video. Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh die? who cares, they only risked their lives so we can know whats going on as a result of our foreign policy, and as a result of this numerous civilians died as well. because of misidentified cameras and a tripod.
One day I hope that a number of people in the USA milatary command are brought up on war trials.
America's war mongering actions are to be deplored.
Also known as Al-Reuters (a reference to Al-Jazeera of course) during the Israeli-Lebanese war a few years back... Made characters like "Green Helmet Guy" (a guy in a green helmet showing up at every incident reportedly all over Lebanon), "the dead child" (killed at least a dozen times, also photographed between 'jobs' drinking a soda in the shade) and "Worlds Unluckiest Mom" (she lost her family, house, children at least at three different locations) famous, as well as the worst photoshop job ever to hit the newspaper front pages (the graphic hack added dozens of bad copies of a single plume of smoke all over a single picture). Probably made the worst job of impartial objective reporting ever in the history of the world, nazi-propaganda from the Third Reich included!
Maybe these guys were different. I don't know. I do know that Reuters has made a mockery of honest reporting recently, especially in the middle east.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
If these werent americans but were germans and they didnt do this in 2007 but in 1943 these pilots would still be hunted by the Jewish state. Murder is murder, when committed in war or otherwise.
These arguments about the difficulty of seeing whether a potential victim is an insurgent or a cameraman have zero validity, because the US troops shouldn't be there in the first place. If the Iraqi army was on patrol in LA, I bet the pro-war posters on here wouldn't be saying 'It's OK for them to shoot civilians because they can't be sure they aren't insurgents.' All the more so if they'd already killed tens of thousands of US civilians, and engaged in torture and imprisonment without trial.
And remote drone stuff is basically video games turned real - you are not in the shit so it doesn't affect you *nearly* as much.
On the other hand, UAVs also have their benefits. You know you won't die if your drone gets shot down, so you can take a risk and identify your targets instead of engaging everything that looks hostile just to make sure they won't engage you first.
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
When I watched this video, it really got my heart racing, because I knew what I was seeing wasn't a movie, it was actual footage. And, in the heat of the moment, it definitely aggrivated me that gunships were firing on civilians. However, on the drive home, something that struck me about all of this: That gunship was standing off so they couldn't be a target of small arms fire. The problem with that was that they were standing off so far, their video wasn't very detailed. They obviously couldn't tell the difference between a camera slung over a shoulder and an AK-47. They were looking for AK's and Rocket Propelled Grenades. They weren't looking for cameras. They thought they saw someone with a rocket propelled grenade launcher. The idea of someone having a camera wasn't even in their thought process.
They responded to a preceived threat of a rocket propelled grenade launcher. A real threat to a gunship. Like other humans, they were simply wrong, and someone(s) paid with their lives.
What kept going through my thoughts was that it wasn't their order, their rules of engagement that failed, but rather the level of technology they were employing. Their equipment didn't give them a clear enough picture to tell the difference between an AK and a camera in the seconds they had to make a decision. They were looking for AK's and Grenade launchers, so in the shadows of the black and white video they were looking at, they saw AK's and grenade launchers. This feels like it was more of a failure in technology, or failure in the reliance on technology.
Had the gunships been UAVs, pilots may have been more likely to get closer, risk a machine opposed to their lives and a machine.
I wasn't there, I don't know. We can armchair things like this for years to come. But, covering it up was definitely the wrong answer.
Awk! Pieces of eight. Pieces of eight. Pieces of seven... ERROR: General Protection Fault. [Paroty Error.]
2020 is 10 years in the future
and you say "hindsight is always 2020"
pffft. what an idiot
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Please disable advertisements when viewing this article. You'll thank me later.
All media have agendas. If you can see past that, there isn't much of a problem. If you cant, you won't see the problem.
Hivemind harvest in progress..
It's not like the Iraqis are policing themselves.
Frag count. His buddy got 27 kills the day before. And you can't count bodies that aren't there when the ground troops arrive.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Could the choppers have moved away..
Judging from the delay of firing to impact I would say they where already well out of range. Also Apaches are not known for there quiet loiter, and yet no one really appears to be aware that there are gunships around (like the van rescuing the wounded, otherwise they may have thought twice about it).
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Well it got to wikileaks because others inside the armed forces clearly feel the same.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
You're confusing ROE - Rules of Engagement with LOAC - Law of Armed Conflict.
Rules of Engagement are the rules by which we fight. They dictate things like when we engage, how we engage, where we go and all that. It tends to be theater specific. They're supposed to be within LOAC - IE more restrictive.
LOAC is the Geneva Conventions, Hague, etc... They're the actual laws.
It's a matter of something can be both 'not right' and 'legal'.
I don't read AC A human right
I need to remember to seperate out the various treaties.
The Hague Convention is the one that prohibits: 'To employ arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury;'
When it comes to hollowpoints, in order to meet this standard all they have to do is prove that hollowpoints are more effective at stopping an enemy than standard FMJ. For handguns, there is plenty of evidence to show this is true. Heck, there's even some evidence that people tend to survive being shot with HP more often, because you're more likely to be shot fewer times. The increased lethality of hollowpoints is outweighed by it's increased stopping power; such that you'll end up with fewer holes, thus are more likely to survive.
I don't read AC A human right
I've read through a lot of the comments here on slashdot, and (somewhat surprisingly) most of them are fairly interesting. Seems this story has somehow brought out the best in us.
Anyway, I thought I'd clear up a few misconceptions that people seem to have about the video:
1. The helicopter pilots were not concerned about being fired upon (by the "RPG" or otherwise) themselves, they were trying to protect the nearby Humvee(s). When the guy's camera was mistaken for an RPG, he was looking around the corner at the Humvee(s) some unknown distance away (but probably within range of a real RPG had he been carrying one).
2. They helicopters were actually very far away from the scene. The video we were watching was taken using very zoomed-in surveillance cameras. There is a significant delay between the helicopter starting to fire and the time that the bullets take to reach the men. One could approximate the distance by multiplying the time by the expected speed of those particular bullets (anybody want to take a stab at this?). I would hazard a guess that the men didn't even know the helicopters were circling them, blending into the background of the constant helicopter flight over the city.
3. When the mini-van came to rescue the wounded, it is clear in the video that they are only picking up the injured person, not collecting weapons or similar.
The van driver looks directly at the helicopter several times.
He may have known the wounded man was a journalist and thought the firing was over. He was heroic to take such a risk knowingly.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You cannot add 'WikiLeaks' as your friend on facebook.
It says the user has too many friends.
http://www.facebook.com/sunshinepress?v=wall
My God! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?
At the risk of sounding as a * cynic might, I have to say what they "saw" was an hallucination, and I actually understand it.
"It" being the hallucination, mind you - the problem is, - they don't understand.
They don't understand what it is - because beer don't do that to you.
And, yes, I saw the camera, probably because of the forewarning, yes, I saw him stealthily peek around the corner with his camera - *it's a war zone*, he's a *War Photojournalist*.
Watch from a distance as a Soldier works, a Cop, even some Mothers, same thing.
Forgive me, but this is beyond a mere perception problem, it's a condition called "attribute substitution".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribute_substitution
I suffer from something similar, myself [that's another day].
We are the sum of our experiences, and some experiences are worth more than others.
John Wayne would have smacked those two boys, "Hotel" and "Crazyhorse".
Bringing hot death to someone's neighborhood is not for the cavalier.
You've seen those moments in Movies ... where the Leader, the one with his head screwed on straight doles out righteousness to the corner cutters? ... boy-'eyooouu!, you watch too many Movies, I'd ask you what kind of impact that film,
This is ripe for for one of those real life moments, from someone of stature, like a Colin Powell type figure
- oh, yeah, that's right, there are none - and we burned him as well.
If you're thinking, Jim
the one you just saw, had on you and mention to you to check your pulse [at the door].
This, what you sent me, "Collateral Murder" is the most powerful piece of *NEWS I've ever witnessed, a feat in it self.
It's HORRIFYING in it's pedestrian-ness, and so utterly shallow in it's regard.
Every human being should be required to view this - then on to a lecture about "making visual calls" [even with telescopic enhancements].
Ask any Referee, they know about hallucinations, it happens all the time. It's happening to
to you right now.
*NEWS: North, East, West, South
My Sister, Brothers and I, as well as our Mother had a Journalist for a Father and a Husband.
They actually are a worthwhile lot.
cynic |sinik|
noun
1 a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons : some cynics thought that the controversy was all a publicity stunt.
a person who questions whether something will happen or whether it is worthwhile : the cynics were silenced when the factory opened.
Aoccdrnig To Cmabrigde Uinervtisy
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.
The Man's Too Strong - Dire Straits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQmKPAcd6ZI
~hylas
White Phosphorous isn't to be used as a weapon; it's still allowed to be used for smoke screens and markers though.
You're not supposed to shoot it at people.
I don't read AC A human right
I don't necessarily agree that "c'mon let me shoot" turns him from a soldier into a murderer (though other factors likely do), and I'm an anti-war bicycle-riding Canuck.
What I see is a soldier who believes, based on what he sees (or chooses to see), is the enemy, whom it's his job to kill. He's frustrated because he needs to call in what he sees and he needs to wait for authorization to shoot (which he knows he will get based on the description of the scene he relays--I presume that's all the information available to the ones giving authorization). While waiting for that authorization, he's potentially exposed to return fire and the bad guys might get away.
We know it's wrong because we know that that is a photographer and he's carrying a camera and not a gun. He either didn't see that or chose not to see it (consciously or unconsciously) because he wanted to match his observations to what he wanted to see.
But as for the "C'mon! Let me shoot!", that's not the factor that makes him a murderer, it's just frustration with red tape.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
They don't 'specifically exclude', but you'd better hope you have access to a good lawyer if you're going around not following the rules laid out, including such things as wearing a uniform and open carrying of weapons.
Also, if you're in a medically/religiously marked building or vehicle you'd better not have heavy weapons and you aren't to engage uniformed enemy forces. You're allowed to have some small arms for self defense against looters and such.
Basically, you have to read into the conventions to find the protections for 'other than lawful' combatants. Failing that, well, you're basically not covered, and bad things happen.
When you're in a legally grey area when it comes to usage of arms, generally those with the most guns win.
Look at Gitmo. Did illegal things happen there, committed by US Government employees? Yes. Did the fact that it was illegal really help the prisoners that experienced the violations? No, because there's no country with a big enough stick to make the USA pay attention at this point. At least, no country willing to swing the stick for those captured.
In such a case you're falling back on the ethics of the country holding you, and that's iffy even with the USA. There are a number of countries that would have been better, a number worse, on average.
I don't read AC A human right
Believe it or not, their deaths were actually reported when they happened, back in 2007. Here is just one example I found from a Reuters blog, but it was in all the mainstream media here in the UK as well. Those of us that pay attention to the news have known about this since it happened.
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
I can only hope wiki leaks gets what they deserve over this. For disclosure reasons, yes, I am a vet.
again, stupid fucking americans
Those soldiers did not have it.
You obviously do.
Now you know the difference.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Perhaps you hide behind a corner pointing something at a gunship because you are a wartime photographer, with what appears to be a Canon camera with a 70-200 f2.8L IS USM zoom telephoto lens, working in an area near a conflict. RPGs have a pretty nasty backblast ... the kind of thing that you would be mindful of if you had a group with you. They would be put at serious risk if you shot with them in the blast area, which would have been the case if the camera was actually an RPG.
... they should have properly identified it, as may things were not adding up. You will hear discussion about how the initial reports of incoming shots were due to a group of people on a rooftop, at which point the crew in the air indicates that they did not engage anyone on a roof.
... what I find most angering is the fact that the military and the government made several claims that appear to be entirely fabricated ... trying to dig up the sources that I had last night (news articles and the like), which basically had the government saying (after their review of the footage) that it was the result of cooperative efforts between Iraqi national police forces, the US military, and coalition forces responding to and engaging hostiles. The photographers were caught in the crossfire. The series of lies angers me. The truth of a messy war is easier to swallow than realizing, now more than ever, that we cannot trust the PR spin on how so many of the accidents have happened.
If you watch the video or read the transcript, you hear them claim several things about the supposed RPG - shot was fired, he was about to fire, he was targeting another position before he fired, etc. Perhaps we are all missing something, but there was no telltale sign of an RPG coming from the camera lens. But I will grant that the giant lens does bear a resemblance to a weapon
After the photographers, crowd, and van full of people are dead:
14:53 Bushmaster or element. Which Element called in Crazyhorse to engage the eight-elem- eight-men team on top of a roof.
...
16:19 Hey, whoever was talking about rooftops, know that all the personnel we engaged were ground level. I say again ground level.
ROE state that you are to positively identify (PID) the target before engaging. The gunship was called in to handle hostiles on a rooftop. They found a crew of people on the ground in the area and opened fire. The supposed RPG-carrying militant had not fired a shot, nor had he cleared the area behind him in preparation to shoot an RPG. There was no protruding launch tube behind the supposed militant, which would have been the case had he been carrying an RPG. Given that all of these things didn't add up, they should have taken more time to make sure they had the right target.
All of that said, war is messy. That isn't my big beef. I don't agree with a lot of things about the war, but that is not my main issue
The cryptanalytic techniques used to decrypt this video might be another useful thing to "leak", however that might lead to less vulnerable military cryptography in future. I am surprised that it would be so easy to break (presumably) military-grade crypto. This suggests that the normal crypto we use would last less than 5 minutes under expert attack. As for the content of the video, I have not watched it, but is it really a surprise that the US military slaughtered civillians wholesale in these wars? do you remember the phrase "shock and awe"? as in, "let's slaughter X thousands of civillians in a surprise attack".
You'd think the ground crew would have some chatter or something to say about the presence or absence of weapons. Even in the grainy video the guy leaning around the corner was obviously wielding a camera and not an RPG. The most deplorable thing about this scenario is the coverup of these blood lusting gun jocks. Errors of this magnitude should be intolerable, not defended.
More over, you can damn well bet your sweet behind that this isn't the only time U.S. Troops and their allies have killed innocent civilians because they failed to properly identify a threat either out of anxiety, fear, blood lust or complete incompetence.
I'm very much aware of how hollow points work, as compared to FMJ.
the point I'm trying to make is that the aim in war is to incapacitate the enemy and *NOT* kill them. the reason for this is to bind resources. all a dead soldier needs is a box and someone to slump him in it. A wounded soldier needs his buddies to carry him off the battlefield, a medevac, a doctor, treatment, rehab, his pay etc etc, all of which cost time, money, manpower and other valuable resources.
Goals vary. A dead soldier is also normally a demotivater, can't return to the battlefield once recovered, can't replace somebody still whole in body back in war industries.
In the case of those we're fighting today, even the wounded will often try to fight, they don't generally have a lot of medical care available, and the most effective way to be sure somebody stops attacking you is to kill them. The 5.56 round is still perfectly capable of killing, it is a rifle round, after all. Early versions tended to shatter, increasing the number of wound channels and energy deposit.
Oh, and from the studies I've seen, HP is not normally all that worse against body armor than FMJ.
having said that, seeing that the war in iraq and afghanistan are actually insurgencies and any resources bound by incapping insurgents come out of the west's pockets, it might make more sense to kill rather than incap.
also, seeing as incapping is actually a form of weakening the enemy state and bringing about an end to the war, it might miss it's effectiveness against radical fundamentalist muslim insurgents, as it's an ideological war and not a conventional one.
Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a sort of empirical study basically saying 'We have too many enemy soldiers still shooting at us after being shot once. Switching to HP ammunition decreased this by over 50%.'
Back during WWII we were still using far more powerful guns. FMJ/HP didn't matter as much.
I don't read AC A human right
The problem here is that Wikileaks' edited version of the video doesn't let the facts stand for themselves. Instead they applied their own political agenda in order to influence the viewer's opinion.
Here are some of the *facts* that Wikileaks excludes in order to (IMO) purposely distort the viewer's impression to make this appear to be a clear-cut case of wrongdoing:
Fact #1) There were firefights ongoing in the immediate area where this took place. U.S. troops on the ground there had called the helicopters in for assistance. The ground troops identified this group of men as being armed and as being a threat (apparently believing they had been participants in earlier firefights).
Fact #2) Some of the men in the group *were* armed. They were carrying *at least* one AK-47 rifle and one RPG. They are clearly visible in the unedited video (They may also be visible in the edited version. I don't remember seeing them, but the video's editing may have simply drawn my attention away from them). They were recovered by the infantry who arrived on the scene after the attack. The RPG rounds were apparently later destroyed by explosives ordinance disposal personnel (i.e. "The Hurt Locker" guys).
Fact #3) The photographer peeked around the corner, pointed his camera at U.S. troops and vehicles down the street, and snapped at least three photographs of them. It's not clear in the video that this is what's happening; it became evident after the fact (when the camera was recovered). The helicopter crew saw this and mistook it as an attempt to target the U.S. troops and/or vehicles down the street. This is understandable from watching the video. It's not at all apparent that this person is a photographer. What the crew *did* see was a man definitely carrying an RPG disappear behind that building. Later they see someone carefully peeking around the corner aiming something at the position where the ground troops are.
Fact #4) The U.S. Army didn't cover this up. Reports were written up and investigations were done. They even apparently screened the gun camera video to some members of the press (I believe they can't publicly release unredacted video like this because it would violate the Geneva Convention regarding broadcasting images/video of wounded/killed enemies).
The other thing to keep in mind is that for most of us civilians, the men who were attacked look just like a bunch of regular guys. They don't look like enemy combatants to us. But to a soldier who has been in dozens of engagements with insurgents, these guys would look *exactly* like enemy combatants. They don't wear uniforms. They don't drive armored vehicles. They wear regular clothes and drive around in sedans, and pickup trucks. Perhaps the only ways insurgents can be distinguished from innocent civilians is that insurgents hang around an active combat zone while innocent civilians will generally try to make themselves scarce (notice in the video that the streets are empty, with the exception of this group of men), and insurgents can sometimes be spotted carrying weapons (as was the case here).
Wikileaks would have us believe that it was wrong for the helicopter to engage these men under these circumstances. I think any reasonable person who has even the slightest understanding of war would see that there was a (reaonable) perceived threat and that they took the appropriate action (i.e. they eliminated the perceived threat). Also, they used the most proportionate force they had at their disposal (the 30-mm gun). Wikileaks decries the usage of such an anti-vehicle weapon against personnel, but it's the smallest caliber weapon the helicopter has (the other option would have been a hellfire missile).
As for the van the picture is a little less clear. The helicopter crew did previously observe what looked like it could have been the same van prior to the attack. It's at the very beginning of the unedited video. There's not enough context to know exactly why they seemed suspicious of the van, but the impression it leaves is tha
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