Isn’t this the same video discussed in this thread: Look at this Apache gun cam film… (1-17-04)?
Cisco, thanks to Squink’s link, here’s the answer to your question:
I mentioned “30 cal” which was wrong, it was 30 mm.
They seemed up to the job. They are suitable for lightly armored targets on down.
I’ve seen 20mm rounds. I actually have one, given to me aboard the USS Peleliu (it’s not live, obviously.) I was told that it would rip your arm off if it passed within 3 inches of it. I was also told it was a war crime to fire it directly at a human target.
I can’t imagine what a 30mm even looks like, much less what it would do to a body if you took a direct hit from one.
Not that I’m getting all bleeding heart on you guys or anything, instant death from an M-16 can’t be much different that instant death from a 30mm, I’m just pretty sure they misused those rounds and I was curious as to why no one has mentioned it.
Of all the dreadful myths and lies about that wretched war, this has to be thevery acme, the cherry perched atop a turd sundae.
It didn’t happen. If you got try to track down the original story, you have an endless daisy chain of people who heard it from someone who knows someone who’s cousin…you know the drill.
I was quite active in the anti-war movement, and I knew no-one…not even deranged Trotskyists…who ever did such a thing, or wanted to. I also knew a fair number of 'Nam vets, those connected to the V.V.A.W. The story is a crock, lovingly embellished and past on, lo, these many years. It ranks right up there with “Well, could have won that one, but the wimpy politicians wouldn’t let us.”
If I could catch this lie in its coffin, after daybreak, I would pound a stake through its slimy heart singing “Ode to Joy”.
You might want to read up on the Milgram experiment, and then you would understand that the subjects of the experiment, far from deriving pleasure from their administering “shocks,” were in considerable emotional distress but continued to obey the directions of the experimenter.
The point of the experiment was to demonstrate that, given a direct command from authority to obey, any normal person could find himself committing appalling acts of cruelty.
So, yes, you got my comment completely wrong.
It will not rip your arm off, barring a hit, or if it is a explosive round, fragments may cut it up. Sure, it is big compared to a 5.56, but in the scheme of things, 20mm ain’t all that. And no, it is not a war crime to use against a person. Nor is it a war crime to use a 25mm, 30mm, 120mm, 155mm, etc, against a person.
The 30mm cannon on the Apache fires 3 different types of ammunition. One is a practice round, one is a incendiary round for use against ‘soft’ vehicles (Not used much, since it isn’t too effective against hard targets.) The rounds used in the video were M789 HEDP rounds. (High Explosive Dual Purpose). These are armor-piercing rounds with a explosive charge, used against all types of targets, from vehicles to people.
This was a proper use of the 30mm cannon. What the fuck do you expect, the crew to land, and engage with M9 pistols? Maybe fire off a Hellfire? A salvo of 70mm rockets?
Cisco was probably recalling the prohibition of exploding rifle bullets in the wake of the US civil war. The St. Petersburg Declaration has since been folded into the Geneva conventions. As you say, the rule isn’t applicable to this case.
Gobear, thanks for setting the matter (AND ME!) straight but I still disagree with your assessment here. If you want to characterize this event within the confines of “appalling acts of cruelty” then that’s your perogative but many would view this as taking out a determined enemy that meant U.S. soldiers harm and not have a lot of qualms about it. My guess (and it’s only that) is that they saw this as kill or have your buddies killed and they acted judiciously and decisively but certainly not as an automatron. I kinda doubt their consciences were racked with guilt afterwards seeing as how they likely prevented further U.S. deaths, but then maybe my “complicity” means I’m just a less tolerant bastard that I realized.
In short, your reference to Milgram seems to insinuate they knew they were doing wrong and did it anyway. If so, I disagree.
True, I am well aware that there are no verifiable incidences of this happening in bus or train stations when they arrived home, I was using it as hyperbole. However, for obvious reasons I can not give you any proof or cites, but I can assure you that I have seen the police reports of one client who spent time in jail (a few days after he came home) for attacking someone after this person called him a “baby killer”. Other examples of degrading incidents have come up time and time again with others vets. I have a hard time believing that they are all lying.
In my 15 year career (and counting) as a counselor to veterans I can assure you that the Vietnam veteran most certainly did not get the welcome home that soldiers from other war periods received. There are problems we see in the Vietnam vet that don’t appear in others. It is attributed to many things, one of which is the way their country turned their back on them.
If you doubt the shit they endured once they came home, I suggest you volunteer at your local Vet Center and see for yourself.
My point in my above post was that I am very afraid that the few shameful incidents we have seen (like the sexual abuse photos) are going to cause the people of the U.S. to turn their backs on our soldiers eventually creating a new generation of Vietnam vet-type problems for them. I sincerely hope that does not happen.
The Milgram experiment doesn’t mean that peoplem will necessarily derive pleasure from inflicting cruelty, or even that they know it’s wrong. It just showed that people will be obedient to perceived authority even to the point of inflicting cruelty. There is a dissasociation from responsibility when one is “following orders.”
I also think you’re making a lot of assumptions about the Iraqi victims in this case. It has not been proven that the Iraqis on the ground were a “determined enemy” or that they meant harm to US troops or even that they had a weapon despite all the speculation about a mortar.
Anyway, my intention with starting this thread was no so much to debate the legitimacy of shooting Iraqis but to bitch about the fact that these images will now be added to the torture pictures and that the image of US troops as a cruel occupying force will be further bolstered in the Arab world despite any context for the shootings (and when I started the thread, I was unaware of the “mortar” theory. The Drudge story didn’t mention it. It just said that an Apache shot three guys who did not appear to be a threat). Shooting a wounded man hiding under a truck- a man who has not been proven to be a combatant- looks bad regardless of context
That’s right, we killed people who were injured and trying to crawl away. It was not a “fair fight”. It was an “uneven battle.” You know what? FUCK THEM. An “uneven battle” is dressing in civilian clothes and driving an unmarked truck full of explosives up to a checkpoint. An “uneven battle” is stockpiling weapons in a mosque because we don’t dare send Americans in to search them. An “uneven battle” is wiring old artillery shells up and using them to attack fuel convoys. Nobody fights “fair”. “Fair” is a myth, it’s bullshit. War is about controlling the actions of the enemy and killing is the ultimate control. You want a fair fight, go play fucking chess. If you want to last more than a few minutes in a war, then wake the hell up:
You want to sneak around at night? We’ll wear night-vision goggles.
You want to hide mortars in a farmer’s field? You just made it a target.
You want to transport weapons in a civilian truck? Kiss it goodbye.
You think just because you dropped the weapons and ran away that you’re no longer a target? Tough shit. As long as we can tell you from the other civilians (whom we are trying NOT to kill, by the way, a courtesy that your side can’t afford), your ass is ours.
Send ground troops? Why bother? If we intend to kill the enemy, and have a clear shot at no risk, we take him out.
War is cold, calculated murder on both sides. I pity the Iraqis, but in a country crawling with Americans, toting guns and missiles and helicopters bristling with explosives, if you do anything that looks suspicious, you are taking your life in your hands.
By the way, I’d love to hear your explanation for what three “innocent” guys were doing sneaking around under cover of darkness in a truck, leaving a metal tube near an American outpost. Was it a metal tube full of flowers, to thank their liberators? Is it some arcane Arabic tradition I couldn’t possibly understand because I lack cultural sensitivity? Too fucking bad. They were moving around in the dark with what we interpreted as a weapon.
That makes them the enemy.
If you were the officer in charge, and you had to write a letter home to the families of every 18-year-old kid and 40-year-old father that got killed under your command, would you send in a group of pleasant referee-types to ask these fine, innocent gentlemen to please stop what they’re doing and promise not to do this ever again? Would you throw them in Abu Ghraib where they’d be abused and then set free, even angrier at the men under your command? It’s not a video game. You can’t send in fifty guys after those three and expect that they’ll give up without a fight. They might kill six or seven guys, and that’s six or seven guys you don’t have on the next day.
Before you criticize American soldiers for not being “fair,” try walking a mile in their boots. Everything they do is focused on
(1) Accomplishing their mission goals, and
(2) Coming home alive
…in that order. When it’s your ass on the line, you can decide whether to fight fair. I’ll give you a hint, though: don’t bring a knife to a gun fight, and don’t bring a makeshift mortar to a helicopter fight.
I disagree, Dio. Combat is a sufficiently different context to matter. You don’t get a whole lot of mental computation time. A split second too late, and you’re proved wrong as your insides spill out of your mouth. Proof is too onerous a burden in the context of combat.
(bolding mine)
Yeah, the information age is a bitch. We have gun camera footage running to prevent things like My Lai, and now anytime we kill anyone on camera, it gets leaked and shown completely out of context - Diogenes is right, it makes us look like absolutel bastards, when we’re just doing our jobs. One of the best weapons the Iraqis have is the media. All they have to do is stay off camera and we’ll make monsters of ourselves by doing all the cruel things that war demands of the warrior.
President Bush won’t show the American bodies on camera because he wants to stay in office, but the Iraqis have no such qualms about showing off their dead. The end result is one-sided footage of us using “unfair” odds to obliterate anything that looks remotely hostile.
As for “speculation” about the mortar, I’m a serviceman (if you couldn’t tell from my free use of the word “we”). I know there’s some assholes out there in uniform – see Abu Ghraib – but do you really think we’d send up a helicopter to just roam around looking for “anything that moves” at night, and wipe it out, with no other information? Can you really see an American officer saying, “we heard there was a truck full of baby food on Route 8. Go blow the shit out of it” ? Every time they leave camp their lives are in danger; they wouldn’t go out unless they honestly believed they were neutralizing a threat.
If you asked that pilot, he would be able to tell you exactly what he was doing. But you can’t. All you can do is watch the tape and listen in horror as he does all the cruel, cold, callous things that war requires of him. And you’re right – it makes him look like a monster.
Fair enough, Dio. Possibly the whole moral dilemma of whether or not you’re “inflicting cruelty” goes hand in hand with your conviction regarding the suspects’ status… combatent or innocent, Iraqi or foreign extremist, definately out to harm or worthy of further investigation. It could be debated endlessly and isn’t, as you say, entirely germane to the OP.
Airing the pics won’t do anybody a lot of good though and the fact they’re shown of of context probably won’t matter at all to more than a few over there.
especially given the various statuses being bandied about these days. “enemy combatants” who can be taken to Gitmo and held until, when? etc.
Um, then can you really use it to support your thesis, even in the Pit where burden of proof is not as stringent?.
Well, there is a lot of poorly treated mental illness in the world and there was much more thirty years ago, before modern drugs. One would need to be crazy to call some guy three days out of the jungle a “baby killer,” but the men you work with are also not the best adjusted guys around and there’s a possibility they are, er, trying to win sympathy.
Even when they were welcomed with open arms and the thanks of a grateful nation they were brought home in dribs and drabs over ten years as more were being sent to replace them so there couldn’t be the massive VE Day parades because one would have been needed every day as another planeload came home.
I dunno. I was around at that time and of the same age as those guys and I saw none of the shit. Vets I knew were honored and sympathized with. Again I suggest that you work with the ones who did not readjust well and are, uh, exagerating their troubles or who might have met one of the rare people who are really dumb, like that kid who wrote that appalling editorial about Tillman, when they got home. What surprises me are the men who DO come home and pick up where they left off, considering what a lifechanging experience war can be. I would like you to define further what you mean by “their country turned its back on them.” The people of America did not, as a group, though the institutions at first may have. (I’m still pissed at the VFW for not accepting Vietnam vets for many years because it wasn’t a “real” war.) Now, though, Vietnam-era vets, even those who only served in Europe or the US, are a protected minority, protection the vets of WWII, Korea, and the first Gulf War have not received.
Jurph – I agree with every word you have written here.
It is a cold fact that war is a bloody, dirty calculated mass murder. I hate it. I wish we lived in a world where it didn’t exist, but it does, and I thank my good Lord baby Sasquatch for those men and women who are willing to put their asses on the line.
It is easy to be an armchair quarterback, especially when you have nothing to go on except a blurry 2 ½ minute video feed. The fact is, is that none of us know all of the details behind the decision to take the three men out, but it doesn’t seem unreasonable considering their location and actions.
Dropzone -
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The work I do with veterans is not limited to just the mentally ill, homeless, or maladjusted.
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Excuse me for not sharing your views that the thousands of veterans I have come across over my years are saying things “the win sympathy”. Admittedly some do, but I find it appalling that you suggest that these guys are lying. I have seen enough documentation to know otherwise.
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Just because you didn’t see something happen, doesn’t mean it didn’t.
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Learn the meaning of the work “hyperbole”.
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What is this “protected minority” for Vietnam vets only?
Well, since she went on to say:
I’m comfortable with saying that Diane’s main point is confirmed. That is-- it was happening much more often than people like to fool themselves into thinking.
I agree.
This, I think, is a bit of a low blow. Yes Factitious Disorders exist, but it’s absurd to dismiss the people Diane is talking about - with PTSD, etc - as “crazy people with a motive.” If you get a spare minute, I suggest you Google “PTSD” and “Vietnam.”
LilShieste
To clarify - I have come into contact with thousands of veterans over the years, I didn’t mean to imply that they all are Vietnam veterans who have experienced the negative comments. In reality, they are just one category of veterans we see. We assist all vets – peace-time, war-time (WWII are our oldest war vets), active duty personnel, and surviving spouses, parents, and children.