Wikileaks doing good
April 7th, 2010 at 6:30 pm by David FarrarThis is the video posted by Wikileaks, and I am glad they have exposed this to the public.
Newsweek sum it up well:
The footage is horrific; the attack killed 12 people and injured two children, none of whom appear to have been engaged in combat. Two of the men killed were Iraqi civilians employed by Reuters. All the while, the voices of the U.S. military personnel can be heard radioing back and forth about the shooting, demonstrating a cavalier disdain for the lives they are ending. At one point, they chuckle about a tank rolling over a dead body.
And regardless of the legality of their actions, that is a horrific culture. Of course you get desensitised to death in combat – you have to, to survive. But there is a difference between being desensitised and gloating.
It’s stomach-churning, but is it a crime, as WikiLeaks contends? As I pointed out, the pilot was very clearly following a military protocol, which explains, for example, why he was looking for a weapon before firing upon a wounded man (he never found one, but got permission to fire after a van showed up to take the man away). Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean he was following the protocol correctly, nor that the protocol lives up to international laws of war.
Questions the US military has to answer.
Andrew Sullivan has a summary of reaction, as to whether it was legal or not.
Tags: Wikileaks
April 7th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
This video raises some far wider issues than just the death of those on the ground.
I blogged about it yesterday (always ahead of the MSM
) and wonder whether governments (such as the US one) will now lend a more open ear to calls for internet filtering.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
Tragic, very tragic indeed.
But keep the f*ck well away from area being shot up and the innocents wouldn’t have been killed, simple.
Who out there has first aid training? What’s the first rule? Danger (i.e. check for danger first before going anywhere near a person(s) who needs assistance).
According to today’s newspaper reports on the tragedy, the two Reuters staff were covering a weightlifting (or other such sporting) event and as soon as they heard the shooting they f*cked off to go and see the action. And got caught up in the fire fight. Stupid.
As for the innocents in the van, again tragic, but again keep the f*ck away (unless the driver had some part in it).
The US operates under “Rules of Engagement”. At least they seemed to be mostly following. The ROE’s have been tightened up much further since this incident, to prevent/minimise these incidents. Let’s see some balanced reporting on the news media on this too rather than hysteria that plays into people with bad intentions…
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 7:32 pm
“…caught up in the fire fight…”
The stock phrase of right-wing nutbars when confronted with the fact their heroes have casually murdered a bunch of civilians. For the record, there was no crossfire, just a group of people shot with automatic cannon-fire while they went about their business.
The US operates under “Rules of Engagement”.
Said RoE required positive ID of targets as insurgents, not summary execution on suspicion of having intent to be an insurgent.
…hysteria…
Is there something about disliking soldiers murdering civilians and lying to cover it up that counts as “hysteria?” It’s not obvious…
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 7:36 pm
I was wondering if you would talk about this David.
It may be the HOO-AH culture that contributed to this engagement without proper identification of weapons or targets. It can be argued the cameras and tripods could be easily confused from the viewing of this video, but this is only the onboard imaging from the Apache. The imaging used with the sights and targeting system on the weapons system is nowhere near as crude.
The video also highlights the rise of the internet, and the importance of net-neutrality and sites such as Wikileaks. Unfortunately the old-media in the US are playing down this video.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Well, I’ve read both sides and I have a strong suspicion that Wiki-leaks is in fact being quite evil.
There’s clearly one man there with an RPG, in an area where the streets should have been clear due to a recent fire-fight. Sorry, but carrying an RPG in a war zone where terrorists (and those hunting them) are operating is stupid, and means you become a target.
“All the while, the voices of the U.S. military personnel can be heard radioing back and forth about the shooting, demonstrating a cavalier disdain for the lives they are ending. At one point, they chuckle about a tank rolling over a dead body.”
I’m certainly not going to shed a tear over terrorists reaping what they sow. These men were identified as terrorists, so why, just because some observers disagree with that assessment, should they act as though these were civilians?
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 7:39 pm
War mongering yanks, surely you fools didnt expect any less?
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Don’t be a dickhead and misrepresent me PM, I’m no right-wing nutbar. As well:
Firefight – don’t be PC, the term I used is irrelevant. Shooting at the US/from the US occured. Call it what you want. Either way’s it is still tragic, what don’t you get?
RoE – the US were following the ROE until the van appeared. Agreed it shouldn’t have been targeted without clearly identifying the van was a threat. It was never my intention to defend that, hence my use of the term tragic.
Hysteria – your frothing is an example of the hysteria from “left wing nutbars” and AQ head chopping sympathisers…exactly what I thought would happen.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
“All the while, the voices of the U.S. military personnel can be heard radioing back and forth about the shooting, demonstrating a cavalier disdain for the lives they are ending.”
I suspect that if you see innocent bodies floating down the local river each day, and having identified men who are part of the insurgency that’s producing that, you’re not going to care that much about *their* suffering.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 7:47 pm
Meh. I imagine it’s the same as those “wedding parties,” you know, where the bride has a beard and a bomb stashed under his dress.
Not surprised by the Graduain and the usual suspects tossing on about it, though it must have been hard for them to squeeze Lord Ashcroft off the front page.
Here’s some decent analysis from something that’s not a widely-discredited left-wing newsrag.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
equation– there’s 4 or 5 guys having no problem at all about this(including laughing), there for one would have to assume that this is there normal conduct when in the company of other military comrades. The yanks have been in more than seventy different countries at a military capacity Since WWII. As with any criminal activity, when they are caught in the act there is no doubt that there is hundreds of crimes before it……
Answer = TERRORISM.
Action = Reaction.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 8:03 pm
Shooting at the US/from the US occured.
At some point, from somebody. Doesn’t entitle you to shoot anyone you find out in the open. These men are not shooting at anybody when they’re killed, they’re standing about on a street corner.
the US were following the ROE until the van appeared.
Except for the requirement for positive ID. Nothing in the RoE about summary execution on suspicion. Then, as you say, they shot up an unidentified van and the unarmed Reuters staffer it was trying to rescue. Something about this that isn’t murder in your book?
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 8:12 pm
First of all, the US military did what they had to do. Eliminate the threat even before they got shot down with RPGs. If I was the pilot of that Chopper I would do the same thing (pre-empt strike). We have seen many times of how insurgents use women and children as cover in the past only to shoot back at US marines, fully knowing that the marines couldn’t shoot at them. It is easy for us who are not in the war zone to sit in the comfort of our living room surfing the internet and condemning military strikes similar to one shown in the vid above, without us knowing the full facts.
Question: How the hell did the chopper get to that area in the first place? I suspect that there were operatives on the ground guiding the chopper there. You don’t fly out there randomly to look for potential insurgents/terrorists. They must have been tipped off or directed there by their ground intel operatives to fly to that specific town. But what did the operatives were reporting back to headquarters if in fact they weren’t there in the first place to buy “fish & chips” from a local store in the area simply because it was the best they could get there which I doubt. They (operatives) must have tracked or followed (eavesdropping/surveillance) the people appeared on the video perhaps days prior to the air strike. Anyone who believes that it was a random act by the US military (i.e., they flew past the area and just coincidentally saw some guys on the ground that look like insurgents/terrorists) must be stupid.
We hear the news more often these days that the CIAs predators do have successful strikes against terrorists in Yemen, Afghan, Pakistan, etc,… Those predators are not guided to their targets by luck (or some psychic abilities to foresee of where terrorists may be meeting/driving/swimming, etc). They are in fact guided by ops on the ground. There have been casualties of war where women & children got killed in those predator strikes (well authorised by Obama which I approved of him for doing that).
The US had a chance to kill Bin Laden in the late 1990s when one of the predator spotted him in a camp in Afghan but it was disapproved for the reason that there were children & women in that camp. It is fucking war people and collateral damage & innocents are dying as a result is something regrettable but unavoidable?
This talk of war-crimes against those US military officers who were involved in the shooting shown above is fucking stupid because it is war. If Obama goes further to appease pacifists/leftists by ordering a formal investigation or witch hunt against those officers, and then I hope some congress person or senator in the US should start an investigation of the president himself for his role in the approval of predator pre-emptive strikes against suspected terrorists in foreign countries where children & women were regrettably got killed in those strikes.
Support the western military alliance that are doing good work in Iraq and stop this stupid witch hunts. At least the small contingent that Tonga has sent to Iraq since 2004 are appreciated by the US as the word of the late King Tupou 4th, once said when he decided to send Tongan soldiers to Iraq that Tonga owes the US big time, because they came to defend Tonga against Japs aggression during WW2. My granddad was in a small Tongan contingent that attached to the US marines and fought alongside them in the Solomon Islands during WW2 praised the US, which he talked about of his experience in that war when I was young, before he passed away (about 2 decades ago).
The small Tongan contingent perhaps ended up cleaning toilets in those camps in Iraq, but whatever they have done there or are current doing over there is irrelevant. Good gesture and standing shoulder to shoulder with friends in time of need is what counts. Fuck international law. Where was international law and its proponents when Saddam was gassing the Kurds in the late 1980s? Yep, they did the rounds of TV appearances and their big loud mouth critiques of Saddam but no one ever did anything.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
“But there is a difference between being desensitised and gloating.”
Have you watched the video? I’ve just watched the full one above, and I don’t hear much gloating. Desensitised, absolutely. Gloating? I’d call that reading more into the video than’s there. The dialog seems quite professional overall, with a few casual comments thrown in here and there.
This isn’t a bunch of guys running around, shooting at whatever, yelling “yahoo”, and “yippee we got them”.
“Doesn’t entitle you to shoot anyone you find out in the open. These men are not shooting at anybody when they’re killed, they’re standing about on a street corner.”
Um, they were walking around with an RPG, then aim a long camera at the plane while ducking behind a building. The observer (quite understandably) mistook that for the RPG and reports that they were shooting at them.
The Wikileaks claim is that this is an isolated incident, the US that it happened after a nearby firefight. Given this group are the only group around, that supports the US version.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 8:18 pm
scrubone, you got the nail on the head mate,
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
DPF: are you going to post a link to the military report for balance?
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
This wasn’t the first time journalists in Iraq carrying video gear were mistaken from the air for armed men and attacked. It won’t be the last such attack in error on MSM reps.
Air war is tough on non-combatants, but so are IEDs and mines and suicide bombers. All sides kill non-combatants, usually inadvertently, and if people who look like they are carrying AK47s and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher run about while Apache gunships hover above, they are in deep trouble.
It is crazy to rely on volunteer forces rather than national conscription then harass those volunteers by applying your own civilian law in another country and worse, then unleash your pacifist, left-wing media to hound the volunteers.
As for Menace at 7.39:
Nor should we expect anything less biased from the leftist anti-American racist the post suggests Menace to be.
This strafing was clearly a regrettable error, Menace. Suicide bombings, or bayonet-point mine clearing by marching as the Red Army imposed on penal battalions in World War II, are errors only when people aren’t killed or hurt.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Im no racist mate! I take offense your accusation!
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Oh dear !! How sad.. To bad..
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:07 pm
Um, they were walking around with an RPG, then aim a long camera at the plane while ducking behind a building. The observer (quite understandably) mistook that for the RPG and reports that they were shooting at them.
They were walking around with a camera that the plane crew mistook for an RPG. There is nothing in the video to suggest that the camera was pointed at the plane at any time. The fact that the cameraman looked around the corner of the building rather than stepping out into the street reflects the environment he was in. Fact is, the plane crew made fatal assumptions. Such mistakes are easy to make, and are one reason why the RoE require positive ID of targets before shooting. There is no positive ID by the crew in this video, just a sequence of jumping to conclusions.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
DPF: are you going to post a link to the military report for balance?
Given that we know the military report lied, how would that provide “balance?” Do we balance truth with lies now?
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
“They were walking around with a camera that the plane crew mistook for an RPG. There is nothing in the video to suggest that the camera was pointed at the plane at any time.”
There was at least 1 RPG, and they were recovered by the military, who took photographs. Sadly, they redacted the photographs in the reports, but at least one RPG is clearly visible in the video – it’s absolutely not a camera or AK47. There’s a jpg on my blog which shows the same short section over and over, it took me about 10 views, but it’s plainly an RPG and it’s in the video.
I can’t see how you can miss the guy pointing the camera at the plane. It’s at the 4:10-4:20 mark and it’s quite plain to see. The journalists were with terrorists, plain and simple.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:17 pm
Its a war zone civilians are going to get killed… if civilians are going to be walking around in the middle of a war zone… they will have a high chance of being killed.. thats the reality of war.. in every war that has ever been.. that has been the case.. its a matter of civilians being in the wrong place at the wrong time.. The trouble for the trigger happy Americans in Iraq is the civilians are often the insurgents or maybe they’re not they can’t tell… In the 2nd World war and Vietnam the Americans bombed and killed their own and their allies plus innocent civilians many times… theres no right in war its all just wrong. People get killed.. and many innocent lives are lost.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Kieran said…
The imaging used with the sights and targeting system on the weapons system is nowhere near as crude.
I am not sure if the Apache had been installed with automated weapon identification computer-vision based system yet, but it is something that the military had done in the past for ground-target identification similar to what is described in the following paper. The closest that I have come across for automated weapon detection system is described below which they use SVM.
Asynchronous data-driven classification of weapon systems
I wouldn’t be surprised if it is something that is already deployed out in the field.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:26 pm
PM @ 8.03pm
Hmm, perhaps there is a lack of context to DPF’s posting. I had read the Dominion Post’s account which reported:
“In this incident, soldiers flying attack helicopters were called in to assist ground troops who had been pinned down by small arms fire and RPG’s. According to US officials the pilots arrived at the scene to find a group of men approaching the fight with what looked to be AK-47′s slung over their shoulders and at least one RPG. A miliary investigation later concluded that what was thought to be an RPG was really a long-range photography lens; the camera looked like an AK-47″.
I am trying to take a balanced viewpoint here, which is the US followed and deviated from the RoE and the result was tragic (ie they goofed up badly). I also said innocents should keep well away from a firefight or shooting, lest they get caught up in it, which is what happened.
You alas are being very unbalanced (you don’t acknowledge the stupidity of the Reuters staff or van) and you are being extreme by now using the word “murder”. BS.
The facts are there was shooting at US troops, the Apache responded and saw two people with what looked like to be carrying RPG+AK47 towards the fight. In battle life and death are a matter of seconds and you sit here in the comfort of your armchair frothing about a (tragic) incident that in these circumstances could have easily happened, and they did.
The DomPost article then explains that the van turned up to pick up the wounded (suspected insurgents) so the Apache opened fire (granted, perhaps they shouldn’t)…this in my mind is simply tragic, but not murder.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Its pretty easy for all here to say this should be that way or another.Anyone interested should read The Forever War (recent release)its written by a correspondent from the NY times,very good reading,it gives a insite to what goes on over there and how NOTHING is black and white,and basicaly when the Americans leave the shit will fly big time and it will revert back to pre 1991 or worse.Same goes for Afganistan.Sure the yanks are killing cilvilians,but the locals are murdering way way more and dont give a shit wether man woman or child,read the book.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Psycho said..
Such mistakes are easy to make, and are one reason why the RoE require positive ID of targets before shooting. There is no positive ID by the crew in this video, just a sequence of jumping to conclusions.
It is easy to say that Milt when you’re sitting in your lounge drinking coffee and rant against the operations of US soldiers. Let’s get it straight, had it been you on that Apache, what would you do?
#1) Fly lower so that you can get closer and have a good look?
#2) Stand still in mid air so that you can zoom in your onboard camera in order to properly identify the object (camera or RPG)?
#3) Land the Apache on the roof of that building so that you can get off and run downstairs and have a peek and then radio back to your assistant in the Apache saying that you have in fact visually identified the object as a camera.
#4) Keep circling above that area many times for about 30 or more minutes till you’re really sure that the suspected object was indeed a camera and not an RPG.
Tell me, what on earth are you going to do? I bet your ass that you’re not going to do any of those 4 scenarios I have listed above? You are exposing your crew to danger if you do any of the above scenarios. Hypothetical situation, suppose that you were the captain in that Apache and I was one of the crew members in there and if you decided to do one of the scenarios I have listed above, I would shoot you right there and took over the command. I wouldn’t let you exposed us all to danger because of your naivety/stupidity/international-law-abiding and all those bullsh*ts. It is war and you have no time to make a thorough assessment of your decision. Events can happen in milliseconds and you don’t have that. The shooting down of the Blackhawk in Somalia more than 15 years ago, is still vivid in the minds of every Apache captain today in the US military.
Note that the Apache didn’t do any of the above scenarios. Asked yourself WHY? I will leave it to commenters here who had been in the military to tell us why, but I suspect that the main reason they never did any of that was because they were trained not to do those stupid manoeuvres at all since they would be greatly exposed to danger.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
“There’s clearly one man there with an RPG, in an area where the streets should have been clear due to a recent fire-fight. Sorry, but carrying an RPG in a war zone where terrorists (and those hunting them) are operating is stupid, and means you become a target.”
scrubone and Falafulu Fisi: What was identified as the RPG in the video was just the photographer’s zoom-lens sticking out from behind a corner. Like you, I thought that was quite easy to mistake that for a weapon, too.
But watch the video again. They received permission to engage *before* the RPG was mistakenly identified. RPG or no, they were cleared to, and were going to, shoot them.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Perhaps it’s more honest to be a “right-wing nutbar” Pyscho than an evil warmongering sack of crap that somehow wants to see as many americans killed as possible with no response allowed. Christ, there’s a group of men carrying weapons around including an RPG, they attempt to hide, they are shot at and some killed, and in some way this is wrong ?!? . What else, you want to share your collection of videos showing IED’s taking out Humvees or something that give you such a thrill ?
Children were injured, that makes what that group were doing a war crime for involving those children as an attempt to create cover for their activities. A vehicle ostensibly there to help the wounded was shot up, it was unmarked and as such has no special protection implied or granted. The pilots trash talk the targeted group, OMG, must be a war crime !
Reuters staff were involved and two killed. Funnily enough, one would have thought that they would realize the act of deploying with and assisting terrorists might have made them in fact eligible for being treated as enemy combatants. Would there be something specifically wrong with insurgents targeting a US vehicle which contained an embedded journalist ?
Wikileaks, used as a tool to support war crimes and terrorism, must be run by very proud people.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Whoa! Hey! Hold up! They’re KILLING folk over there?!
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
Falafulu Fisi (452) Says:
April 7th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Exactly right what you say,i have never been shot at and suspect that not many on here have,but most say what these guys should have done.Its just plain bulshit from people (inc DF)that dont know what they are talking about
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
“You alas are being very unbalanced (you don’t acknowledge the stupidity of the Reuters staff or van) and you are being extreme by now using the word “murder”. BS.”
You’re way out of line to call the guy in the van stupid. They were going there to help the wounded, because there isn’t a functioning emergency response system there. People helping the wounded have every goddamn right to expect not to be shot at. It’s in the US RoE. It’s in the fucking Geneva Convention.
You do not shoot unarmed civilians. You especially do not shoot unarmed civilians who have arrived to carry away the wounded. Not even if the wounded is an incapacitated, confirmed enemy combatant, not even if that person had actually shown hostile intent. You do not shoot at civilians, you do not shoot at ambulances, you do not shoot at civilians acting as ambulances, you do not shoot wounded people.
It’s reasonable to expect not to be shot when you’re picking up the wounded, just like it’s reasonable to expect not to be shot when you’re holding up a white flag.
Read the transcript:
07:07 Yeah Bushmaster, we have a van that’s approaching and picking up the bodies.
07:14 Where’s that van at?
07:15 Right down there by the bodies.
07:16 Okay, yeah.
07:18 Bushmaster; Crazyhorse. We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons.
07:25 Let me engage.
07:28 Can I shoot?
07:31 Roger. Break. Uh Crazyhorse One-Eight request permission to uh engage.
07:36 Picking up the wounded?
07:38 Yeah, we’re trying to get permission to engage.
07:41 Come on, let us shoot!
07:44 Bushmaster; Crazyhorse One-Eight.
07:49 They’re taking him.
07:51 Bushmaster; Crazyhorse One-Eight.
07:56 This is Bushmaster Seven, go ahead.
07:59 Roger. We have a black SUV-uh Bongo truck [van] picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage.
08:02 Fuck.
08:06 This is Bushmaster Seven, roger. This is Bushmaster Seven, roger. Engage.
The only fact he has is that they’re there to pick up casualties, and yet he authorised the crew to shoot.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Quote:
Andrew Sullivan has a summary of reaction, as to whether it was legal or not.
One has to ask the question first of whether Obama’s authorization of predator’s preemptive strikes against suspected terrorists is legal or not?
Any international law specialist lawyer here who can enlighten us all?
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
Keith, are we on the same wavelength? I too detest the killings of innocents, but we all here don’t know the full facts. All we have is a video and some brief news reporting.
Was the van innocently picking up the victims to transport them to hospital? Or was the van part of the insurgent group to take away their wounded so they don’t talk etc? Will we ever know?
All I can say is, it is STUPID for a van, innocent or not, to be heading towards a gun battle (with Apache helicopters overhead, kids in the back, picking up (ok let’s be fair, picking up alledged) insurgents whilst in one corner are pinned down US marines and overhead is there air support. If the van was innocent, stay the F away until the shooting has stopped lest they get shot up themselves. So were they innocent – possibly?
Stupid? Possibly.
There to help the insurgents? Maybe.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
keith, you’re forgetting
Vote:the warm tingly feeling we
get when we see this
April 7th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
I can’t (and won’t) watch that. Makes me feel sick.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 10:42 pm
While I can understand that people are making life and death decisions with rapidity in the heat of combat, and that as such poor judgement is likely to eventuate at some stage in a way which causes death where there should not have been death, the points a lot of you seemed to have missed are that there was an attempt to cover this up and the military report contained lies. Neither of these can be considered acceptable practice.
@Jack5: “As for Menace at 7.39:
War mongering yanks, surely you fools didnt expect any less?
Nor should we expect anything less biased from the leftist anti-American racist the post suggests Menace to be.”
Before you start slinging shit, understand what the terms you use mean. American (“Yanks”) is not a race. What you’ve cited doesn’t suggest racism. The only things you should be able to infer from what you’ve cited are anti-Americanism – through the suggestion that Americans are war mongerers – and that Menace has a lack of respect for the intelligence and/or judgement of the other commenters here (“you fools”).
You can infer from Menace’s other comments that Menace is left-wing (lack of denial implying acceptance of your other claims): “Im no racist mate! I take offense your accusation!.” but you shouldn’t infer it from the comment you’ve cited.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
If there was a military cover up (and lies as part of it) well of course that’s not good.
But at the same time one can’t expect the military to release reports saying “shit we did bad and killed all these innocents”, time and time again, because, for one reason this is asymetric warfare, the insurgents aren’t playing by the rule book and the Geneva convention etc. These dress up as civilians and melt into the crowd after engaging, they have used civilian vehicles (ambulances) to transport their fellow comrades into/from battle etc, they use civilans as shields and so on.
Everytime the US admit some bad thing (or it is leaked) the insurgents simply ramp up their atrocities against the locals helping the US or chop the heads off western (and Iraqi) civilians as revenge. Sometimes the truth causes more problems and deaths as a result.
It’s a moral dilema isn’t it? How does one engage with insurgents without causing the deaths of nearby innocents.
How would you (or anyone here for that matter), if placed into these positions, deal with it? It’s harder than it is made out to be.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
Here is the US military report into the matter for further context.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-military-releases-official-investigation-results-relating-wikileaks-iraq-massacre-video
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 11:06 pm
This is an excellent thread. Not because of what happened which was tragic, but because everyone’s responses to the issue are so revealing of their political perspectives.
Me, I’m a military hawk. Always have been, always will be. World needs lots more of my attitude, IMO. Fuck em and blow em to hell with extreme prejudice, IMO. HOWEVER, RoE for the US in particular have clearly needed revision for quite some time. Overwhelming firepower and reliance on surveillance-at-a-distance doctrines just doesn’t suit urban warfare. D’uh. Yet somehow, the US military hasn’t yet figured this out.
After all the “oh the humanity” outrage dies down, that’s possibly the best thing that will come out of this.
On a more realistic note, we all know this is a global story only because Reuters reporters happened to be involved in this minor incident which has played out a thousand times all round Iraq and for some reason in this particular case Reuters refused to give up. How many others have happened and do we really expect the US military to actually change its tactical doctrines, as opposed to just saying “really really really sorry” and we promise to do better next time?
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 11:32 pm
Aha, when the ground troops arrived at the scene, they actually discovered RPGs there (from the report pointed out by V above). The actions took by the crew members of the Apache were justified. Move on people, there is nothing here to moan about.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 11:35 pm
Bravo Company 2-16 Infantry had been under sporadic small arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire since OPERATIONAL ILAAJ began at dawn on the morning of 12th of July. The company had the mission of clearing their sector and looking for weapons caches. Two Apache Helicopters from the 1st Cavalry Divisions Aviation Brigade (call signs “Crazyhorse 18″ and “Crazyhorse 19″) were in direct support to the ground maneuver force and were monitoring the bravo company radio frequency.
Thats all i needed to know, good on the Apache crew i’d want them looking after me.
Vote:April 7th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Reid, I agree that the US RoE at times can suck and need revision (remember when they used to even bomb other coalition forces in the early days of Iraq and Afghanistan).
Most other (coalition) type forces can be a little bit weary of the heavy handed US response (but we know, those that bother to find out, know that the RoE’s are being tightened up as a result of these incidents) so for example that’s why these other nations deploy their OWN air cover whenever possible, to ensure their troops have their own aircover, which may have more rigorous RoE’s and practice, practice, practice (train) with their soldiers to ensure no mistaken deaths occur – allied or civilian.
That’s why it is absolutely NUTS of the previous Govt to disband NZ’s very own strike squadrons. It now means NZ troops next time they are deployed, will most likely be under control of the US’s aircover…..Good idea Helen, not!
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 12:07 am
The crew of the Apache were in no danger during the whole operation. I wish I had written the numbers down, but I read a comment thread where somebody used the time delay between the gun firing + rounds hitting the target to determine the range…which ended up being something like 2 – 2.5 times the effective range of an RPG.
If the people on the ground were carrying weapons, their presumed target was a Bradley patrol/convoy nearby.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 1:56 am
Oh no, they killed Saeed.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 2:17 am
@Banana Llama
I do believe you had an erection as you wrote that last comment.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 6:44 am
Journalists in Iraq are supposed to wear blue helmets and blue Kevlar so they can be identified by whoever’s doing the firing. These guys weren’t wearing them. Maybe they both forgot, maybe they were ‘embedded’ with the insurgents and weren’t allowed, maybe they just didn’t think it applied to them. Who knows?
If those pilots had seen a man with a long RPG looking something wearing a blue helmet and Kevlar then they would know he was a journalist or at least hold till they had positive ID on the weapons.
The other thing is that it’s easy to sit back here as arm chair warriors and play the video, rewind it, slo mo it, freeze it and then declare these guys war criminals. On the spot, with your comrades lives in your hands, many people may have seen things differently.
The real crime here is the cover up by authorities.
Anyway – 2 days ago was 6th April, anniversary of the beginning of the Rwandan genocide – 800,000 dead in less than a 100 days – anything?, anybody? Na lets hassle evil Amerikkka instead.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 6:47 am
You alas are being very unbalanced (you don’t acknowledge the stupidity of the Reuters staff or van) and you are being extreme by now using the word “murder”. BS.
I acknowledge the bravery of the Reuters journalists and the people who tried to rescue the wounded, not “stupidity.” And I’m using the word “murder” because the Army’s own RoE, the Geneva conventions, the Nuremberg war crimes trials and who knows what the fuck else are all pretty clear about not having the right to summarily execute civilians on suspicion that they may be irregular forces.
It is easy to say that Milt when you’re sitting in your lounge drinking coffee and rant against the operations of US soldiers. Let’s get it straight, had it been you on that Apache, what would you do?
Most likely, make the same mistakes and request permission to shoot them. That’s why it’s a really crap idea to mount these kind of attacks and why the US Army should stop doing it.
Perhaps it’s more honest to be a “right-wing nutbar” Pyscho than an evil warmongering sack of crap that somehow wants to see as many americans killed as possible with no response allowed.
Well, if you find such an evil warmongering sack of crap, let me know if he is less honest than right-wing nutbars. You might want to lay off the false dichotomies though – it’s not a choice of “either we’re happy that civilians are killed on suspicion, or we hate the US Army and want them all dead.”
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 7:02 am
Ephemera not really but your comment just gave me one
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 7:03 am
“scrubone and Falafulu Fisi: What was identified as the RPG in the video was just the photographer’s zoom-lens sticking out from behind a corner. Like you, I thought that was quite easy to mistake that for a weapon, too.”
But there *was* an RPG, fact. It appears that they thought it was an AK47. I’m not surprised they couldn’t identify it at the time, and I’m not surprised they mistook the zoom lense for one.
“But watch the video again. They received permission to engage *before* the RPG was mistakenly identified. RPG or no, they were cleared to, and were going to, shoot them.”
True. They had simply identified weapons. So they concluded simply from the fact the men (and they were men) were on the streets with weapons that they were hostile, and the fact they had an RPG was confirmed afterwords. But what they thought was an RPG wasn’t.
So we have two stories. Either you believe the video is all there is, in which case it’s a questionable call from the comfort of our armchairs, or you believe the US military and these guys were connected to an earlier firefight.
But with that RPG there, this isn’t what wikileaks is cracking it up to be. At worst the initial firing is “killing terrorists and only proving it afterwords”. Murder, this aint.
The van… that’s another story.
“People helping the wounded have every goddamn right to expect not to be shot at. It’s in the US RoE. It’s in the *** Geneva Convention.”
Terrorists aren’t covered by the Geneva Convention, that’s explicit. These guys were aiding the escape of terrorists, that’s why they were shot. I’m not saying that’s a good justification, but it wasn’t just a case of “yahoo, let’s shoot the van too”.
If you want to convince me, show me where the Wikileaks video shows something denied by the military report. From my reading, it shows it to be *correct*. The only spin I’m seeing is from Wikileaks, who are pretending that this video shows a bunch of guys out for a stroll, and the absurd implication that the children in the van could be identified as such.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 7:09 am
Some Al-Reuters photographers got wasted. So what? Their last assignment was probably filming some poor saps getting their heads cut off with a kitchen knife. They were ‘embedded’ with the terrorists and got shot. Boo fucking hoo.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 7:21 am
“The other thing is that it’s easy to sit back here as arm chair warriors and play the video, rewind it, slo mo it, freeze it and then declare these guys war criminals. ”
Thing is, if you do rewind it you see the weapons, so it cuts both ways.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 7:28 am
David, I’m surprised you were suckered by this piece of blatant propaganda. You need to be more careful otherwise you will become identified as just another bleeding heart lefty bullshit artist.
Others have shown the trickery involved here i.e. that these people actually were combatants fleeing a firefight with Iraqi and American ground troops who called in air support.
The video selectively showed the last part of a routine ‘mopping up’ exercise carried out on a battlefield in what was then an enemy stronghold. (BTW, I note in passing the enemy were wearing their uniform, which was long light coloured flowing night gowns.)
Like you, Newsweek swallowed the intended lie as well. Hook line and sinker.
“…none of whom appeared to be engaged in combat…)
Trouble is they HAD been engaged in combat just a few minutes earlier.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 7:37 am
I think the equivalent would be this.
A trail of murders is discovered. Bodies are fresh. A nearby policeman spots someone he considers suspicious. The man runs, and is shot and dies.
He’s afterwords confirmed as the murderer.
Witnesses report that the police shot an unarmed man. Wikileaks posts video of the chase and shooting, claiming that the police are going around shooting at will.
1) The snap decision *looks* wrong in isolation
2) The snap decision was *right* in hindsight, and may have saved lives
3) Posting the video is deceptive, as it doesn’t show the whole story
4) What is posted doesn’t contradict the facts established by official reports, it just emphasises *part* of the story
5) In both situations, the role of those protecting the innocent is undermined by the inflammatory video.
That’s the way I see it.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 7:48 am
Terrorists aren’t covered by the Geneva Convention, that’s explicit.
Civilians, however, are covered by the Geneva Convention. Authorising the killing of apparent civilians on suspicion of being irregular forces is murder – that’s why there are RoE applying to the conflict and why they should be interpreted cautiously. A confident assertion that the people killed were irregular forces and not civilians doesn’t really cut it.
The video selectively showed the last part of a routine ‘mopping up’ exercise carried out on a battlefield in what was then an enemy stronghold. (BTW, I note in passing the enemy were wearing their uniform, which was long light coloured flowing night gowns.)
They look to be wearing shirts and trousers to me, and their “battlefield” was singularly devoid of gunfire or any American soldiers, who had to be directed to the scene from several blocks away. Can you point us to the relevant bits of the Geneva Convention and the US Army’s RoE that declare summary execution of civilians on suspicion of being irregular forces to be “mopping up,” Adolf?
Trouble is they HAD been engaged in combat just a few minutes earlier.
In your confident assertion, which may or may not bear some relationship to reality.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:16 am
“Of course you get desensitised to death in combat – you have to, to survive. ”
David exactely what do you know about combat?
[DPF: Outside Paintball?]
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:21 am
Who leaked this video?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:25 am
when the wounded guy is extremely slowly crawling away with probably a leg blown of is not combat, when they finish him, that is out right execution.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:28 am
Murray, he’s had as much as me: watching Apocalypse Now and saving Private Ryan from the comfort of an armchair – although in my case I also remember The Bridge over The River Kwai. Now they were real men!
I’m sure my view of this atrocity doesn’t need stating, but isn’t just so cute that the US Army uses all these call signs and monikers adopted from the people they virtually wiped out in the process of forming their own nation
I wonder if, in the spirit of capitalism, they pay royalties to the survivors.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:31 am
I say again -
Journalists in Iraq are supposed to wear blue helmets and blue Kevlar so they can be identified by whoever’s doing the firing. These guys weren’t wearing them. Maybe they both forgot, maybe they were ‘embedded’ with the insurgents and weren’t allowed, maybe they just didn’t think it applied to them. Who knows?
Why weren’t they wearing their vests and helmets?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Why weren’t they wearing their vests and helmets?
Probably because this thing about blue helmets isn’t actually true, just something you’ve pulled out of your ass. The UN wears blue helmets, maybe you’re confused with them?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:47 am
Baghdad is a city of an estimated 7 to 7.5 million(wikipedia). These guys could have been anybody? Just in case though, “fuck em up”
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:47 am
A few “UN” people.
Vote:http://tacomasds.org/node/836
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4400708/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/09/stephen-farrell-rescue-journalist-afghanistan
http://www.smoothradionortheast.co.uk/station/photos-at5m/smooth-news-photos-b5x6/inside-iraq-the-pictures/jn88nctp/photo-20896/
http://iamatvjunkie.typepad.com/i_am_a_tv_junkie_a_blog_f/2007/02/nbc_news_richar.html
April 8th, 2010 at 8:49 am
“They look to be wearing shirts and trousers to me, and their “battlefield” was singularly devoid of gunfire or any American soldiers, who had to be directed to the scene from several blocks away.”
It was devoid of anyone at all, except a few youngish men holding various weaponry and a couple of cameras. If nothing was going on where was the civilian populace?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 8:51 am
I see plenty of blue vests in scrubone’s links
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 9:11 am
The US armed forces seem to have struggled with a conflict of approaches.
To win a battle, combatants need to be desensitised and kept remote from the feelings involved in killing “the enemy”.
But they found out (again) that to win a war you need to engage with the population and have empathy. They really need two separate forces, a strike force and an occupation force, each with different psychological preparation.
NZ forces are light on the strike side of things, but are much better in the building trust and rebuilding communities.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 9:20 am
Might I suggest that anybody who thinks that the pilots did a poor job identifying the cameramen, try watching that video on a ten inch monitor while driving down the motorway at 100km/h with somebody pointing a pistol at you playing russian roulette and see how clearly you can spot the camera and lens.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 9:22 am
It was devoid of anyone at all, except a few youngish men holding various weaponry and a couple of cameras. If nothing was going on where was the civilian populace?
Cause for suspicion? Yes. Positive ID of irregular forces engaging US regular forces? No. Section of the RoE that says suspicion alone justifies killing unidentified civilians? Doesn’t exist.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 9:23 am
…ry watching that video on a ten inch monitor while driving down the motorway at 100km/h with somebody pointing a pistol at you playing russian roulette and see how clearly you can spot the camera and lens.
Which would be a good reason to take a very cautious approach to hosing people down with cannon fire, you’d think.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 9:27 am
I see plenty of blue vests in scrubone’s links
I see a couple blue vests and a black vest. I don’t see a single blue helmet. I see one black helmet and one beige helmet. A second on google images turns up dozens of journalists in Iraq wearing beige, grey and black flak jackets. I see lots of stupid people on a comments thread who think journalists in Iraq wear blue helmets, even though they have no evidence and it’s simply not true.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 9:39 am
@Psycho – I don’t disagree, however how much caution would you have by the time the person behind you had pulled the trigger twice? If it was me my level of caution would be rapidly dropping while my sense of self preservation would be rapidly increasing.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 9:49 am
I’ve seen no suggestion the helicopters were under fire at the time. They certainly weren’t under fire from the people they killed.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Milt, the chopper wasn’t there in the first place to do nothing and only react when they were under fire. How daft is that comment? If you can identify the enemy (clearly in this case, men were seen with weapons) then you eliminate them, before they regroup/reorganize and shoot you down (remember there were RPGs found at the scene) before you even react.
Considering that you seem to be superior in your way of thinking of how the US military officers should have conducted that engagement, how about you volunteer to be an Apache pilot in Iraq, where you can apply your fantasy RoE over there, huh? Fly your Apache low over there so every time you observe from the air about suspicious activities on the ground, you can clearly identify if those who are involved are a threat to you and your crew or not? Try doing that you will be wetting you pants and I am not joking here, you will be. The reality is that in the theatre of war as we have seen on many occasions on TV news and in that vid above, they don’t fly low and every 5 year old kid knows WHY?
Its easy for cowards like you to criticize the actions of those US military officers from afar, but if you pilot one of those Apache in war-zone, your commonsense flies out the window and your naivety of being doing nothing but just watch them from the air until they shoot at you then you can fire will get you killed & your crew, that is a guarantee.
Go on, volunteer to be an Apache pilot so you could be deployed in war zone in Iraq. See if you can apply your so called superior RoR logic over there. The US military needs people who have superior knowledge on how to conduct RoE over there because it may avoid them being accused of murder in the first place from pacifists/leftists such as yourself, since that incident would have never happened to start with.
PS : You’re being quiet on making comments about predator strikes on suspected terrorists which I have mentioned above, where children, women have been killed. WHY? Perhaps you’re fully aware that if you make a comment about it, which to me is no difference to the incident shown in the wikileaks vid above, then you realized that you’re arguing from a position of ignorant. C’mon, tell us what is the difference?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 10:36 am
FF, you’re making no sense. Why not calm down a bit then try it again.
Re your PS: I haven’t made any comment on predator strikes on suspected terrorists because it’s not what this thread is about. However, since you ask: there is little difference. Both methods involve summary execution of people suspected of terrorist activity. Both inevitably result in the murder of civilians as well as the assassination of terrorists – due to failures of identification, wrong intelligence, lack of concern for civilians in proximity to the target or whatever. Both are against the Geneva convention.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 10:53 am
Reuters sent two its employees out with the Jaish al Mahdi to get video of US soldiers being killed, because that corresponded with their editorial policy of emphasising US casualties in Iraq.
At about 7:40 and through about 8:50 we see how careful the pilots are to meet the rules of engagement. The real scandal here is that Reuters callously sent two of its employees into combat against US troops and now whines that they were killed.
There is a good summary on PJTV http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/shame-on-wikileaks-framing-lawful-engagement-as-anti-american-propaganda-part-one/
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 10:56 am
@Psycho – I’m not saying that they were being fired at either, i simply don’t know however believe from the reports that the Ground Troops had just come underfire. But the sense of pressure that the belief (rightly or wrongly) that there is a person down there with a weapon capable of killing you makes you react differently from calmly reviewing a video if the comfort of your home/work etc.
We’ve also not even started to put other factors into play like how long the crew have been deployed, what other previous contacts have they been involved in, how long had he been in the air for, how much rest he had he received prior to this event. If you want to get some idea what these crews are dealing with have a look at Hellfire by Ed Macey (ISBN-10: 0007288190).
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Also a very good summary at firedoglake http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/39215.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 11:02 am
People have commented on the two Reuters staff and whether they were imbedded with insurgents and the like. Here’s the answer according to yesterday’s Dominion Post (which I based my initial responses on before realising that others I was debating with may not have known these same “facts”. As an aside it doesn’t appear the DomPost or Stuff put world news on their website? If so this is why I can’t link to it. Interesting though that the NZ Herald online, the Australian and SMH online, all carry similar versions of the DomPost article in where the jist of the articles is critising the US – it appears only the DomPost added additional perspectives/clarified some issues in the interests of balanced reporting. Hat’s off to the DomPost editors etc).
DomPost: “David Schlesinger, editor-in-cheif of Reuters news, said the video was “graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result”. Reuters said it could not verify that the video was of its employees dying, although it looks as if one of the men killed had a camera slung over his shoulder. However, the organisation said at the time of the attack that the two men had been working on a report about weightlifting when they heard about a military raid in the neighbourhood, and decided to drive there to check it out”.
Interesting, even Reuters themselves couldn’t verify the video was of their employees dying, and they probably would have had a better copy than the web version that has just appeared? So if Reuters staff couldn’t positively identify their own employees when watching the video, one wouldn’t expect the Apache crew either to have known they were reporters carrying camera/long range lenses at the time, yes?
Also yes, it is normal for reporters to wear dark blue Kelvar helmets and dark blue flack jackets, usually with the word reporter or news etc emblazzed on it. I can’t vouch for them wearing other colours – maybe they do or maybe they borrow allied military beige coloured helmets when in sticky situations?
One can conclude the two Reuters staff that were killed may not have been wearing such gear when they decided to “check out” the military raid. Stupid. And again they are stupid to think they could simply wander off to a battle and get in and film it, certainly not brave and certainly not there to help the wounded. Foolish comes to mind.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Mr Nobody NZ – the Apaches were firing from at least twice the effective range of an RPG. They were in no danger whatsoever. And the gunners don’t use that shitty onboard imaging video to find their targets and shoot.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Do we know how high the Apache was and where it was exactly? If not up high, but even far away from the fight, it would be easy for another insurgent or person to take a potshot at it with an AK47 or even a RPG – they are dime a dozen over there i.e. someone else could fire at them hence whether or not the insurgents involved with that particular fight could have shot at the Apache is immaterial, the Apache crews are opertaing in unfriendly airspace and need to beware of and looking for, other threats. I’d say being on an Apache at the time of this incident would be extremely stressful, always needing to be checking around you for other dangers. Not an easy job to do whilst also preparing to fire upon the “insurgents”.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Jivekitty posted at 10.42 yesterday:
But Americans are! Note this definition of “race” from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:
The common features in this case being they are American citizens, speak English, and are from the world’s dominant popular culture.
But oh yeah, I forgot. Sorry. I remember now. Only right wing whites and part-whites can be racists.
Not Arab horsemen hunting down black children in Sudan and raping them, not Chinese persecuting Tibetans and Uighurs, not Japanese discriminating against Japanese of third-generation (at least) Korean descent, not black Africans hunting down albino Africans to use their body parts for witch doctor magic. Certainly not terrorists killing anyone because of their nationality, eg because their victims are American (or British, or Sunni Arabs or Arab Christians or Nigerian Christians, or Iranian Zoroastrians or Baha’i.).
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Thanks for that information Kieran, fortunately apart from playing some AH-64 simulators as a kid I’ve never been in that situation so honestly have no idea how much “real” danger they were in or what the precise capabilities of their optic systems are.
I am sure however that I would probably crapping myself and doing everything possible to keep me and “my guys” on the ground alive however seeing you’re so confident with your statements I can only presume that you must have some first hand experience of flying the AH64 in combat conditions that you could share with us?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
Shows the quiet evil that everyday people can do. My conclusion is that the photographers etc. were killed in the line of duty — they knew what they were getting into and faced the risk (just like media on the US side) — there was a battle going on after all. The most noticable things that I got from this movie (linked to by sonic yesterday in general debate) were the following:
- how easily it was assumed that the people were enemies who were armed (the difficulty in isolating actual from innocent targets under battle conditions)
Vote:- how much the soldiers involved really wanted to kill everyone there (adrenaline/blood lust)
- how the guy that gave the ultimate go ahead seemed to be off-site and was just a rubber stamp
- how angry the locals would be after learning that a photographer was shot in the line of duty
- the personal consequences of war (some of these soldiers will go home with nightmares they can’t get rid of)
April 8th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
whoops, got mixed up with whats todays and whats yesterdays
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
Jesus.
You can see how the “no-one’s to blame” thing starts.
It’s not really the pilot’s fault he killed civilians, he thought the shoulder strap of the camera was the shoulder strap of an AK47, [MISTAKE#1 - not all shoulder straps have AK47s] then later he thought the lens of the camera was an RPG launcher [MISTAKE#2 - not all long thin objects are RPG launchers] and that’s what he reported to his boss.
And it’s not really his bosses’ fault for giving the order to shoot either – the information was wrong. How would he know? [MISTAKE#3 - being in charge does not equal all care and no responsibility]
So it must be no-one’s fault. Nice moral justification for the soldiers.
And it’s not the US Government’s/people’s fault for turning their pilots loose in near-perfect killing machines with inadequate supervision, that “sort of thing just happens in war”… everyone involved was following “the rules of engagement” so it was all perfectly reasonable.
Tough shit for the people with bullets in them – in fact it’s their own fault really for bringing their children to a battle. Never mind that it wasn’t a battle until US Apache pilots started shooting people – and even then it was more of a firing squad than anything else.
(ASIDE – And then they wonder why the Taliban were beheading anyone they could get their hands on, who was anything to do with Apache helicopters.)
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
RRM posted at 1.19:
RRM, are you saying the Taleban in Afghanistan/Pakistan are beheading people because helicopter gunships in a firefight in Iraq mistook journalists from a Western news agency for insurgents? That’s a surprising view, considering how the Taleban’s scumbag mates beheaded a Western journalist on video. They never mentioned the helicopter shoot-out during their propaganda.
Get over your West-is-always-wrong, Leftist prejudices!
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
The Apaches were flying overwatch for the ground troops. It doesn’t matter if they were under fire. The US and IA forces in the area had been taking fire. The jihadi-lovers here would have gone made if they used the same lack of logic at practically any WWII action their grandfathers fought in.
When my mother’s village in Italy was liberated by the Canadians in 1944, the Germans in it were shelled by Canadian Divisional Artillery and the village was smoked. My mother’s brother was injured and several cousins killed when their house collapsed. She didn’t blame the Canadians, but the Germans who made a stand there. What is the difference between that and the video in this thread? Canadians murdering Italian civilians to get a few German soldiers?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
There have been other controversial Apache Gunship shootings besides that one in Iraq.
And there have been other Al-Qaeda beheadings besides that Journalist you mentioned.
Sorry if these subtleties were too fine to have been left unmentioned jack5.
If you have any objections to the actual substance of my post, I look forward to them.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 1:53 pm
Fair point Brian, but I have two issues with that comparison:
[1] No-one was making a stand in the video, there are the two Journos (carrying their cameras) and a bunch of miscellaneous dudes not carrying anything at all. The Pilot mistook the cameras for guns, [=mistook these people for armed combatants], lined them up, and shot them.
[2] the Apache pilots have the benefit of all the high-tech footage we saw, plus some. They did a highly efficient job of killing innocent people. This isn’t the same as lobbing shells in the general direction of some troops, and missing and hitting civilians by mistake IMHO.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 2:17 pm
RRM – please read my 11.02 comment.
“Reuters said it could not verify that the video was of its employees dying, although it looks as if one of the men killed had a camera slung over his shoulder.”
Like I said at 11.02, if Reuters can’t even tell from the video that it were their news reporters, presumably because they were wearing normal clothing (ie no protective helmets etc), then how on earth could Apache airmen in the stress of battle tell they weren’t reporters?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
niggly: and more to the point, how could the gentle people from Wikicreeps tell they were the two Reuters fellows?
And even if they were, who cares?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 3:23 pm
Niggly at 2.17 is right.
However, RRM at 1.53 said of the Apache pilots:
And?
Even if all the casualties were unarmed combatants that doesn’t prove the Apache crews morally culpable. RRM hasn’t shown they were even negligent by his blathering about imagery of what may been shoulder-carried video gear. Should the airmen have carried Jane’s Book of Fighting Video Cameras with them to analyse the pictures in the seconds before a rocket launcher, if genuine, could fire at them?
That there have been other incidents of military aircraft and helicopters strafing TV crews is evidence that news crews are easily mistaken as combatants. They travel in teams, often wear military-like gear and boots, often wear military-style helmets, and they carry equipment that from the air is easily taken for military weapons.
War correspondents have always been vulnerable. Think of Ernie Pyle being killed in World War 2 at le Shima island, off Okinawa, by Japanese machinegun fire, after nearly being killed by American bombing in Normandy. In World War 2, the lefties weren’t using each correspondent’s death as a chance for West bashing.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
Jack5 – you seem to be saying it is perfectly reasonable that the US airmen simply fire at anything that moves, and that it is unreasonable to expect them to positively identify whether or not a person on the ground is an enemy or a civilian, before killing them.
I wonder if you would be as cavalier about the lives of civilians on the streets, if it happened to be Auckland or Wellington rather than Baghdad?
I seem to recall a famous quote from a soldier of the Maori Battalion, on his time in Italy: “When the British bomb, the Italians run; when the Germans bomb, the British run; and when the Americans bomb, everybody runs.”
And GTFO with this “West bashing” BS. No-one is generalizing about “the west = bad” or whatever.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Adolf @ 3.16.
And of course the Reuters editors had the “luxury” of watching and re-watching that video from the comfort and safety of their workplace offices….and still couldn’t work it out.
Unlike the men in the Apache’s who didn’t have that luxury…
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Niggly and Adolf: so you’re saying it doesn’t matter if it’s impossible to tell who the people are and what they’re doing? Maybe not in your personal opinion, but the RoE say different, as does the Geneva Convention.
And even if they were, who cares?
Hilarious! That’s exactly what a lot of Arabs say when Al Qaeda blows us up.
RM hasn’t shown they were even negligent by his blathering about imagery of what may been shoulder-carried video gear.
Well, somebody was very fucking negligent. The RoE and the Geneva Convention are both pretty clear about identifying whether you’re shooting at hostile forces or civilians before you start shooting. The helicopter crews show themselves to be careless in both positive ID (reasonable certainty that the targeted individuals are hostile forces) and distinction (distinguishing between hostile forces and civilians). They mislead the controllers with their suggestion that the van has arrived to pick up bodies and weapons (the only thing its occupants are seen doing is attempting to rescue a wounded man). The controllers can’t be arsed taking their job seriously and just clear whatever lethal strikes the crew requests. Excellent recipe for the murder of civilians, and excellent reasons why these kind of prowling gunships are a bad idea in suburban neighbourhoods.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
“Keith, are we on the same wavelength? I too detest the killings of innocents, but we all here don’t know the full facts. All we have is a video and some brief news reporting.
Was the van innocently picking up the victims to transport them to hospital? Or was the van part of the insurgent group to take away their wounded so they don’t talk etc? Will we ever know?”
The people they shot weren’t targets of value they were trying to detain. And if they really wanted to stop that van from carrying away the wounded, they should have fired a warning shot, as it states in the RoE. But these questions do not matter in the slightest. The RoE works on positive identification. If you can’t identify someone as an enemy combatant and they are not posing a threat to you, you don’t shoot them.
As evidence, we have a transcript of the the crew telling the commander that there is a vehicle to pick up bodies. The commander asks if they are “Picking up the wounded?”. The crew confirms that they are there to pick up the wounded. You see and hear every second from the van’s arrival to when they fire on the van. Are there any conceivable facts that would make this a justifiable engagement?
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 4:45 pm
PM @ 4.07
“Niggly and Adolf: so you’re saying it doesn’t matter if it’s impossible to tell who the people are and what they’re doing? ”
No, I’m not saying that.
I’m saying it appears (assuming the Apache crew were being honest at the debrief) that they thought the reporters were insurgents, because they appeared to be carrying weapons (which turned out to be camera+lens later). (And at least the US didn’t appear to plant weapons on the Journos to justify their deaths, although this is probably irrelevant to our discussion).
I do agree with you that, ideally, the Apache crew should have clearly identified that they were insurgents eg perhaps by observing them a little longer although that’s easy for me & you to say in the comfort of our chairs – the reality in the air would be different.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
^^^”Ideally” the US Army should have observed the Geneva Convention, but in reality… nah, fuck it!
Have been reading some reviews by ex-military personnel who seem to think the 1st attack on the posse of dudes was marginal, but the 2nd attack on the van was really REALLY not on:
[quote]
I spent 20 years in the USAF (1986-2006) working in reconnaissance and air-to-air / air-to-ground engagements and spend thousands of hours in the air listening to radio broadcasts and directing or assisting in engagements. I’m not stupid enough to think that combat isn’t messy, gruesome, and often chaotic. But the circumstances of that video are very clear in my mind (and harken back to the shooting down of U.N. helicopters over Northern Iraq).
It was horrible to watch for two reasons: first, the opening salvo, and second, the follow-on shooting of the van. The initial engagement probably fit very narrowly under the rules of engagement (ROE) during that time period in Iraq. But not the second.
During my 20 years of certification, review, and application of ROE across Desert Storm and it’s follow-ons, all the Balkans conflicts, and Iraqi Freedom, there have been precious few that allowed for engagement of air or ground targets without requiring positive identification regardless of time or situation (an exception includes a fixed-wing aircraft present in a no-fly zone). In fact, most ROE have required either that positive ID or a hostile act to be in progress.
The first question that came to mind as the pilots were ID’ing the targets was: What are they doing right now that requires killing them? How many people in Iraq have guns? Does having a gun meet the requirement to engage and destroy? I can’t necessarily answer those questions from the video but that is where I believe the narrow definition of ROE criteria might not have been met. Regardless of those questions, when one looks at time and place and what may have been the ROE for that time, I don’t have serious issue with the first barrage.
The follow-on is what turned my stomach. After a journalist – or any target – has been mowed down by .30 caliber fire (his legs blasted away) there is no need to then wait and hope that you can just blast him to kingdom come – for fun. Make no mistake about the radio comms throughout this event, but particularly prior to the van destruction: there is no urgency in the voices, at all. This isn’t a by-product of the profession military man (since I know that will be the first defense), because my thousands of hours of experience can tell when urgency, death, and necessity are foremost in the engager – there’s none here.
Once a downed enemy is being assisted, Red Cross or not, in a non-military vehicle that poses no threat, then engagement is a pretty strong violation of whatever ROE is in place, and a moral code of soldiers. There was no evidence in the video – or from the Army in response to this event – that indicates these were combatants who had been tailed from a firefight and targeted. This appears to be a group of men ID’d as insurgents from quite a distance – purely visual. We know mistakes were made in ID’ing guns vs. cameras, but I don’t condemn the initial attack, under the fog of war ideal. However, the follow-on slaughter that involved the van – and the kids being there doesn’t make it better or worse, objectively – is exactly the type of engagement we must avoid.
When separated, as they clearly are along this timeline, my support of the first salvo in now way excuses the second, or vice versa. As military men, we don’t do what they did to that van – ever. They know it, the chain of command knows it, we know it.
[/quote]
Vote:at http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/04/the-lies-of-the-pentagon-ctd-4.html
April 8th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Since this is the internet and we’re not supposed to be bogged down by the narrative of TV3 news it might pay to have a look at this little piece of close-up, looped video extract that someone has done.
That sure looks like an RPG hanging from that guy’s shoulder, does not look like a telephoto lens being carried upside down, and as far as I’m aware the US military report was not lying when it reported the following
The NYT noted those parts of the report, but in their typically moronic ignorance of things military, converted RPG rounds into “grenades”, which (knowingly or unknowingly ?) puts a different spin on things, i.e. grenades are bad enough but RPG’s are in a whole different category.
There is a rather longer 39 minute video as well, and that now infamous black van appears at the start of it, so clearly it was crusing in the area well beforehand.
The report also has photos from the journalists cameras – and it shows a humvee moving just down the street, but out of the aircraft video. It also turns out that the report has photos of the aftermath – though as this blogger says:
But you can see one of the AK47s even in those few photos. Maybe they were planted or photoshopped by Halliburton.
Finally, all this has led someone to make the following analysis at the notorious neo-con, warmongering site FireDogLake
Just to establish his bonafides I’ll first quote from the end of his piece:
But further back in the analysis he makes the following points:
Innocent civilians and innocent journalists – that’s the narrative – and I don’t remember too many howls when TV3 and co decided to show video of Iraqi “insurgent” snipers taking out US soldiers in Iraqi cities. That was legtimate resistance I guess.
I don’t agree that it is necessarily “incomprehensively stupid” when one considers that a person could be supplying iconic photos and video to both Reuters and Jihadi websites. It is less than innocent though.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 7:16 pm
So, your point is that suspicion is good enough justification for hosing people down with a cannon? Not according to the RoE or the Geneva Convention.
As others have pointed out, there’s no way even the broadest interpretation of the RoE permits the attack on the van, its occupants and the wounded man they were trying to rescue. The only issue is with how many murders we’re looking at.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 10:20 pm
@Jack5: You and I have quite a different definition of what a “race” is, I guess. Oh well.
“Sorry. I remember now. Only right wing whites and part-whites can be racists.”
Nah mate, I think you’re trying to stereotype me in with some other group inferring that kind of belief onto me. Anyone can be racist, and a hell of a lot of those who are aren’t white. But then I’m one of the people who believes we need to get rid of the placing importance on the category of race anyway, so meh.
On a humorous note, although lacking in good taste perhaps: http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l0isuiPKZ31qzkiaoo1_500.jpg
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
RRM in his 3.37 post continues his denigration of Americans:
Unfair, if you consider the bombing of Nazi Germany. The Americans went in by day at tremendous cost and by daylight were able to target factories etc. The British, at Bomber Harris’s wish, chiefly carpet bombed German cities full of civilians by night. Both, of course, killed many innocent civilians, but I think the British night raids killed far, far more.
Perhaps you should also consider the American dive bomber pilots who saved NZ and Australia from Japanese occupation by their brave, devastating assault on Japanese carriers at Midway. The American torpedo bomber crews were mostlly wiped out in a slightly earlier assault.
Then, in a big battle in the Philippines, I think Leyte Gulf, the American pilots flew from their carriers knowing they probably wouldn’t have enough fuel for the return flight. Most dropped into the sea on the return journey. This battle was also instrumental in securing NZers’ freedom.
When it comes to killing the innocent, even our NZ forces can make this error, as our artillery’s shelling of Australian infantry in Vietnam showed. I say error, because there is a huge difference between intentional killing of enemy and mistaken killing of those you think are enemy.
RRM, why don’t you read the autobiography of “Anzac of the Year” Colonel Masters, who until not long ago was a frequent poster on Kiwiblog. Decorated for bravery, he was sent to command our artillery in Vietnam after the friendly fire mishap. He had a lot to do with the American forces, and in the book he notes a wide variety of standards because of the sheer size of the American military. His praise for the best, such as the marines, is high. It is interesting, too, that the over-all Australian commander chatted to him about what he considered the less than perfect physical shape of the NZ gunners.
NZ troops have performed extremely well in many theatres and wars, but there are many good soldiers in the world. We seem ready to acknowledge the Turks at Gallipoli as good fighters, but the German airborne troops, for example, who beat us in Crete and repulsed us at Cassino, were also tough and skilled. So were the American marines, rangers, paratroopers, and, once they gained combat experience, most of their GIs.
I don’t think you would find many of our SAS veterans denigrating the American SEALs, either.
Vote:April 8th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
Dive Kitty posted at 10.20:
On this, Dive Kitty, I agree. Mostly it seems to boil down to skin colour, which is just the mechanism of adjusting for safe Vitamin D intake from the sunlight at the latitude where you live.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 12:15 am
Sickening, the Apache AH-64 crew failed to adequately identify their targets, despite the assertion of a commenter above, there’s no way the guy peaking around the corner is armed with an RPG7, the object has a flat nose and is too short, so probably a camera with zoom lens.
The role of the Apache’s, as people have said, is to support the troops on the ground, obviously there were no US troops near the victims in need of support when the Apache fired.
Vote:The M230 30mm chain gun has a muzzle velocity of nearly 800m/s, it appears to take 2 seconds for the rounds to reach their target (though the first rounds may have struck outside the field of view), the RPG7 is pretty hopeless beyond 200m at best, AK47′s aren’t much better, so this group posed no threat to the AH-64′s.
Ground troops were close enough to the scene and should have been given the job of positively identifying the group, before the group was attacked. Several times the AH-64 crew appear to mislead their controller so as to elicit permission to fire.
April 9th, 2010 at 12:26 am
Have been reading some reviews by ex-military personnel who seem to think the 1st attack on the posse of dudes was marginal, but the 2nd attack on the van was really REALLY not on:
And if you go back to that site, there are two more entries – both saying the first and second attack was justified. The problem is everyone will see this attack from their own biased view point, nobody will agree EVER.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 9:14 am
Yeah, thats my take too Bevan, the firing on people who were clearly just trying to pick up the wounded and get the hell out.
Vote:Mind you, while its important to try to make ‘rules of war’, the idea seems to me inherently impossible — war is a system which gives people moral justification for killing — you’ve kind of already crossed the line at that point.
April 9th, 2010 at 9:28 am
[Jack5]:RRM in his 3.37 post continues his denigration of Americans
LOL – in your heart you really really believe that I (and all other “lefties”) hate America, don’t you?
It upsets you that you don’t agree with another view of the details of this video; but rather than engage, you just flame anyone who disagrees with you.
It’s a waste of time discussing anything with you. Take your off-topic WW2 diatribe and your trolling and GTFO.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 10:03 am
I’m (mildly) interested in writing a post on this, trying to analyse both sides. Since I’m quite firmly on one side, I’d be interested in someone supplying the other in the form of two lists.
a) what they see as the facts not in dispute here (e.g. the presence of weapons, the camera being mistaken for an RPG)
b) the facts that *are* in dispute that support the wikileaks interpretation (e.g. claimed insufficient identification of the terrorists)
I’ll write my own list of a), and c) the facts in dispute that support the US version and try to explore the differences between the two.
username@gmail is the email…
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 10:26 am
^^^ I don’t really know why you want to couch the whole thing in terms of “sides” and “dispute”. There’s some stuff that’s known, and some stuff that’s not known, but drawing “sides” before you’ve even started seems like you’re dooming your project to partisan hackery before you’ve even started?
How about lists of
(a) things that can be known based on watching the video (e.g. who was shot, what they were doing, etc)
(b) things that cannot be known based on watching the video (e.g. where the posse of dudes in the street came from, where the van came from, who van occupants are, etc)
And then see how easy it is to reconcile the Wikileaks take on it and the Army take on it with lists A & B.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Yeah, thats my take too Bevan, the firing on people who were clearly just trying to pick up the wounded and get the hell out.
How do you know they were ‘just trying to pick up the wounded’? The van was not marked as an ambulance? And what the hell was the van driver doing, taking two kids into an area that had just been the location of an intense firefight between insurgents and the US military? Fuck me, they were standing around with people holding an Ak47 (according the the Herald, an Alaska-47, journalism FTW!)and an RPG! Doesnt take a genius to realise that is not a very good fucken idea!
Yes the language used by the helicopter pilots was extremely callous, disgusting and they should be punished severly for it – but I understand why they would think and talk like that. They would remember the arab citizens rejoicing in the street when the twin towers were falling, the constant chants of ‘Death to America’, the rejoicing of the insurgents in the beheading videos, the rejoicing of the Iraqi citizens while security guards were dragged behind utes until their limbs were ripped off before setting them on fire…. Yeah they will remember that – shit like that can effect a man. And the garbage about expecting better from the yanks, or they should hold themselves to a higher standard, well guess what its a fucken war zone.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 10:46 am
RRM posted at 9.28:
My apologies RRM. When you went off topic with your anecdote of supposed World War 2 Kiwi soldiers’ views of American bombing, I thought you were widening the discussion. How stupid of me to confuse your jumping from Iraq to World War 2 Italy with a move to widen the debate.
Are you a member of the MSM? You seem to believe that carrying a tele lens or shoulder camera should make a journalist invulnerable to bullets, bombs, and IEDs. Journos may be among today’s celebrities, but surely they should still have the intellect to realise that when they go into front lines for stories they are at risk of being killed, usually in error.
As for the “GTFO” order in your 9.28 post, unless you are a pseudonym DPF uses, which I doubt, have you assumed editorial control of Kiwiblog?
As for the trolling allegation – to use that as an ad hominem assault on those with whom you disagree is shouting instead of talking.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Amidst the argument over detail we might also want to have the larger debate over what this and other incidents mean for the West’s ability to fight against terrorist tactics, especially in terms of the Geneva convention and the dropping of the principal of reciprocity.
After all, it can only be a few years before Wikileaks unearth video from the Predator drones currently carrying out Obama’s orders in Afghanistan, especially in light of reports like this
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Excellent point Tom Hunter (11.01 post).
Terrorists are making full use of a Western MSM that is either sympathetic, pacifist, anti-Western, or all three. Or perhaps it’s just that the MSM is over-academicized and confused by current sharp changes in MSM means of delivery.
It would be sad if the West’s (and largely America’s) volunteer forces were so hamstrung by MSM and leftist overview that the world had to wait until another big terrorist attack before giving those forces due support.
Also as part of the argument in this thread, perhaps we could look at Reuters, employer of the journalists unfortunately killed. This news agency, which survives because of the earnings of its finance-services section, in general news has drifted steadily left and now tends to see through Third World eyes. I’m surprised Reuter’s business customers don’t see they likely subsidise proselytising of a liberal-leftist world view.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 11:55 am
>I don’t really know why you want to couch the whole thing in terms of “sides” and “dispute”.
Because there are two sides, and they are disputing?
> There’s some stuff that’s known, and some stuff that’s not known, but drawing “sides” before you’ve even started
>seems like you’re dooming your project to partisan hackery before you’ve even started?
I’m not bipartisan on this, but what I am interested in is getting a clear idea of what either position *is*.
>(a) things that can be known based on watching the video (e.g. who was shot, what they were doing, etc)
In other words, what’s not in dispute.
>(b) things that cannot be known based on watching the video (e.g. where the posse of dudes in the street came from,
> here the van came from, who van occupants are, etc)
Right, things that are subject to interpretation according to one’s initial view.
>And then see how easy it is to reconcile the Wikileaks take on it and the Army take on it with lists A & B.
Quite. That’s sort of what I did mean when I said “explore the difference between the two”. I look forward to your email.
I’m being quite open here that my view is that the Army’s report seems consistent with the video. But of course, should I post something the whole point is to gather comments from different perspectives to my own. There’s been some good comments made here in this thread, which *have* modified my view of what happened here.
I guess what I want to see is how much of the undeniable facts are denied by whatever view, and which facts appear undeniable to one view but which do not to the other.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Milt said…
So, your point is that suspicion is good enough justification for hosing people down with a cannon?
RRM said…
How about lists of
(a) things that can be known based on watching the video, blah, blah, blah…
Andrew W said…
Sickening, the Apache AH-64 crew failed to adequately identify their targets, despite the assertion of a commenter above, there’s no way the guy peaking around the corner is armed with an RPG7, the object has a flat nose and is too short, so probably a camera with zoom lens.
You guys are talking nonsense. Your logic applies only when you’re in peacetime but not in a war-zone. How hard is it to understand that?
Here is a challenge, How about all you guys (the 3 of you) volunteer to become Apache pilots for the US army in Iraq? The army should send you on every mission that requires the use or assistance of Apaches and all 3 of you will be the first choice of every mission. See, if you can apply your so called good judgment in a hostile area like the one shown in the vid above. I bet you that you will default to the tactics used by the Apache crew in the wikileaks. If you think you will do differently, then you’re obviously deluded. Stop fucking trying to be righteous from far away, when in fact you had no experience in a hostile environment like that shown in the vid above. Stop this fucking fixation about Geneva fucking convention. Geneva Convention didn’t save the Blackhawk crews that were shot down in Somalia more than a decade ago where the body of one crew member was dragged on a dusty road for the whole world to see. Where was fucking Geneva Convention there?
I can’t believe that anti-western idiots like you are apologetics to terrorists who in their own country don’t give a fuck about women and children, because that is their main target in their campaign to explode bombs in crowded civilian area to kill as many civilians just to make a point?
Why don’t all of you go to Iraq and help out with Relief organisations over there and try to make a difference, huh? Stop trying to be righteous from the comfort in your living room, because in a war zone, it is different. You don’t have time to identify as you do in peacetime; you react instantaneously to things that you perceive as danger. There is no time to fuck around. Why didn’t the fuck’n guy who peeked around the corner, just flee the scene, perhaps sneaked into one of the apartment in that building he was standing next to?
Arguing about Geneva Convention is not going to prove your point. The only way to prove your point is to put yourself of the position of the Apache pilot. Go over there mate and fly an Apache to a war zone and see if you can apply your Geneva convention and your perfect judgment there. If you manage to have 20 successful mission over there (provided that you still alive), and on your return home to NZ, I will buy you a bottle of nice wine for your courage in sticking to your superior Geneva Convention rulebook. They need you there Milt, Andrew, RRM. Stop the loud mouth, get to Iraq now and show the US military that they have got the RoE wrong all along. They would be happy for you guys to take over. The pay is top dollar too.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Getting to fly an Apache would be so cool FF, realistically though it ain’t gonna happen, I would have thought you’d know that.
“I bet you that you will default to the tactics used by the Apache crew in the wikileaks. If you think you will do differently, then you’re obviously deluded.”
Are you advancing that as a logical argument FF?
“I can’t believe that anti-western idiots like you are apologetics to terrorists”
If it was established that those people were terrorists you could perhaps stick that label on me, as that hasn’t been established you’re talking shit.
“I will buy you a bottle of nice wine…” out of interest, what was the one you just finished?
In war mistakes happen, through arrogance, the fog of war, or through having to make fast decisions in life or death situations, the last two reasons are excusable, not the first.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Falafulu – so no-one but other Apache pilots should be entitled to comment on what US Apache pilots are doing on America’s behalf in Iraq?
By that measure then, I trust you will be refraining from further comment on KB about any NZ MPs until such time as you have done a term in Parliament yourself and are therefore entitled to comment? Hmm?
And OK I give up… I secretly hate the west, and hope that Mohammed’s forces & all of Ghengis Khan’s hoardes join up to purge the evil of christianity from the world. Yeah. That’s it. You got me there.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
And another thing:
[Falafulu]:Stop this fucking fixation about Geneva fucking convention. Geneva Convention didn’t save the Blackhawk crews that were shot down in Somalia more than a decade ago where the body of one crew member was dragged on a dusty road for the whole world to see. Where was fucking Geneva Convention there?
[/quote]
You can’t understand the concept of having a moral code based on doing something because it’s simply the right thing to do, can you? Do you earnestly think that if someone else does it, then you should be immune from criticism if you do it too?
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 2:36 pm
RRM’s 1.52:
But who decides what is the right thing to do, RRM? Do you believe there is some innate sense in everyone which always tells them what is “right” with the definition of “right” universally accepted by everyone in the world, now, and in the past? Or is this sense of right you talk of more like the voice of society. If the latter, which society, and what if society has many different views?
Does your moral code apply to mistakes and errors made reasonably in the circumstances, RRM? Things get a bit fuzzy with mistakes and instant decisions, don’t they?
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
Jack5:
Theft, rape, murder, paedophilia.
Right or wrong? QUICK!
Don’t suppose your innate sense of right & wrong is really all that different than mine.
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
RRM: your 2.51 question…
Probably not much difference, but then I’m not a Pitcairn Islander nor from a society that takes child brides, and I’m not from a family of habitual thieves.
You might have been on stronger ground if you had said: do you believe in treating others as you would wish to be treated yourself? But then, of course, lots of people ignore this golden rule, though it seems at the core of most major religions.
More apposite, views of friendly fire casualties vary from culture to culture. For example, pre 1940s Germany and Russia both accepted casualties inevitable in military exercises. They also started aerial bombing of citizens with the airships in World War 1 and with aircraft in the Spanish Civil War.
Americans have always practised closer air support of ground troops than their Allies, partly because they are better equipped with aircraft. Adjacent Allied troops have often copped a bomb or two, and at other times they have warmly welcomed the close American air support.
War correspondents must know they are even more at danger of mistaken identity and air attacks when they are covering American operations. Before the Reuters incident, a BBC unit was accidentally bombed in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Was Reuters cavalier in exposing its staff to the possibilities of being mistaken for insurgents and attacked?
If a reporter covering a shooting match wilfully walked beyond the firing mound so as to get a better view of the targets, surely he or she would be largely to blame if accidentally shot?
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Well, the video was edited in an extremely manipulative way.
What happened was tragic, however the helicoper pilots honestly believed they were looking at enemies. The fact that civilians had cleared the street, the fact a few of them were carrying weapons … they put two and two together and asked for permission to fire.
Two things *did* shock me about this video:
1. They received permission to fire on people collecting wounded. Seriously? How lax were the rules of engagement at this time?
2. The people driving into a battlezone in an unmarked van had children in the back. I mean … they couldn’t have left the kids at home (or on the street – wouldn’t have been any more dangerous!) before driving into the kill zone?
Anyway, as shocking as this is the fact remains it’s a snapshot of one of the most well documented warzones in history. Pretty much every recount of the initial invasion, or the battle for fallujah, contains far more shocking incidents of civilian death.
In this case I can only assume WikiLeaks is trying so hard to manipulate our feelings is because reporters got killed.
I just wished they would try so hard to get footage of what happened in Chechnya …
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
RRM, where was your outrage here on Kiwiblog in the general debate threads for the reason suicide bomb in Iraq recently that killed about 50 civilians (women & children) included? Lucky that the Iraq security forces killed 2 suicide bombers before they even detonated their bombs in the designated targets. It was unlucky for the civilians that were killed at the vicinities of the Iranian & Egyptian embassies. Please point me out to your outrage about this suicide? I find none at all here at Kiwiblog?
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 6:21 pm
You won’t find any – that’s the first I’ve heard about it.
Do you get that I, a white, English-speaking child of the western world, feel slightly more “responsible” (for wont of a better word) for actions of the Western military, than I do for the actions of Muslim terrorists? Or is that concept too abstract?
Do you get that I, a white, English-speaking child of the western world, expect the Western military acting on my behalf to behave to very high standards? While I loathe the acts of Muslim terrorists, I feel entirely distanced from them. But like it or not, the US military adventure in Iraq is an East vs West thing, and I’m part of the West. I therefore feel that in a sense my culture is on trial every time the western allies take action. So they better behave impeccably, and I’d better say something if I think they aren’t. Whereas a Muslim terrorist blowing up innocent civilians is just another bad bastard from the other side, and what do any words of mine matter?
Do you get that? Or am I still one of your imaginary west-hating liberal traitors?
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
C’mon RRM:
Play the bloody argument ball, not the man.
Here’s a good round-up from The New York Times on military bloggers’ reaction:
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/reaction-on-military-blogs-to-the-wikileaks-video/
Some of the comments will please the anti-American lefties. But the clips include these remarks about Reuters:
and:
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 9:08 pm
Do you get that?
No, he doesn’t get it and neither do various other right-wing nutbars. Your insistence on holding Western regular forces to a higher standard than clandestine terrorist organisations whose members we kill on sight just goes to show your lack of a sense of proportion. Why yes, it is completely insane. Are you surprised?
Vote:April 9th, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Why is this all gone personal?
Why aren’t you discussing the event?
Sure they seemed like they wanted to have a go.
The weapons carried by some of the crowd obviously gave them rights to engage.
There were fr4iendlies in the area or entering it.
The crowd surely could see or hear the chopper?
What do choppers engage with ?
30mm
Moral, don’t hang around with people with Guns and RPG’s in a war zone.
How hard is that to understand?
Yeah they shot up a van that had no markings as a taxi or ambulance.
Reuters are playing this for all they can too.
Look at the people they employ and the bullshit they take part in in Lebanon, gaza and the territories.
they don’t have clean hands.
This is war and things get stuffed up.
welcome to the real world.
Now are we going to bomb the IED factories and storage places in the supply chain in Iran?
Vote:Are we going to bomb the buildings the directors (of Intelligence for activities in Iraq) of the civilian bombings who are in Tehran and Damascus?
Why not?
April 10th, 2010 at 6:54 am
“The weapons carried by some of the crowd obviously gave them rights to engage.”
That’s the major obstacle for me to accepting the attack was jusified, I didn’t see any weapons in the video, I did see the crew mistake camera equipment for weapons.
Vote:If there were weapons there, link to a close-up of a still from the video showing those weapons highlighted.
April 10th, 2010 at 8:25 am
Let’s get things in perspective.
The US and the coalition of the willing, the bribed and the bullied went into Iraq to
save us from Saddam’s WMD’s that could be deployed against the world in 45 minssave Iraqis from Saddam, right?And we do this by killing them, right? Security is guaranteed in the grave, right?
In 2007 in Iraq it was legal for all Iraqi households to have one firearm, usually an AK47 as protection was needed in the aftermath of the invasion – remember, the Yanks are not into nation building.
A couple of the crowd had AK47s, but everyone knew the helicopters were hovering, and were secure in the knowledge that they were clearly going about normal daily business. They were most likely after the reporters to complain about lack of basic needs like food and fuel.
It’s obvious from the transcript that the young kids were primed to kill, wanted to kill, and begged to be allowed to kill. Permission was duly given because, after all, at the end of the day, they are only Arabs, aren’t they?
And all you mad fuckers who try to justify mass murder by drugged up sickos masquerading as US soldiers,
I wish it would happen to you and your fucking family!– think about it.Most Kiwis, including myself, have never been in a war zone, thank (your choice of spiritual being), but at least those of us with a conscience and some degree of feeling for our fellow humans can imagine the absolute despair at being caught up in such a situation.
There is no need to demonise a nation over this, but the perpetrators, including the arsehole who gave the go ahead, need to be brought to account.
The chances of that in the land of the free? Two. One of which is a dog’s chance.
Vote:April 10th, 2010 at 8:51 am
“In 2007 in Iraq it was legal for all Iraqi households to have one firearm, usually an AK47″
Got a link?
Vote: