BTW, for the not so faint at heart, here is a link from the GQ thread on this subject that purports to have at least some evidence that they DID in fact find weapons on the scene, and also supposedly goes into some details about the events that were happening in the area during this event.
I haven’t gone into the site myself, as the warning is kind of hinking me out here, but I’d be interested if anyone is feeling froggy enough to give it a try and see what’s in there.
(ETA: Here is a link to the GQ thread on this same subject)
That kind of thinking would get more of our soldiers killed than already have. Its one thing to do the best you can in a shitty situation, but these guys are trained to kill or be killed. They had been fighting insurgents in that area all day already, those Iraqis on the street were armed and matched descriptions of some insurgents that had been seen in that area earlier in the day that were directing attacks against our ground forces, and the rest happened. The pilots were also unaware of any journalists being in the area as well.
Its regrettable, but its also war. Lets not forget target acquisition in a highly urbanized environment is logistically very hard and also subject to human error. And these guys are tired…many of them on second and third tours in that shithole.
The fact that this occurred in 2007 at the height of insurgent activity, IED’s and ethnic conflict within Iraq also puts this into some context.
War is indeed hell, for everyone involved. Its never pretty, perfect or scripted.
No, it was not clearly marked as an ambulance. (There was a cite further up thread.)
And it would seem the action itself was OK under the Rules of Engagement. This I arrive at from reading the ROE in effect at the time and my own viewing of the video. There are a plethora of opinions out there and I’m not going to cite one over the other. It is a swamp.
What would any further investigations serve? I would hope that it might lead to a change in the practices that make it OK to fire on the wounded since to me if they are wounded they are problably no longer a combatant. And yes, I understand the military feels this is sometimes necessary.
I support our military and this event has not changed that. I was against invading Iraq and nothing in the past seven years has changed that opinion either.
Well, too damned bad. Their lives are not more valuable than that of the civilians they sacrificed. Less, under the circumstances. Our “the lives of thousands of foreigners is worth less than risking a drop of the blood of the worst American” philosophy is disgusting.
It just goes to an error screen for me. I don’t know if they pulled it or if it just won’t work with Chrome. Here’s the image of the rpg I found elsewhere. It has a redaction box over it that completely obscures any part of a weapon. Literally all you can see is some concrete around the edge of a grey box.
Its not too damned bad, it is what it is. You railing against it doesn’t change anything.
We cannot on the one hand train young men and women to be reactionary killing machines and then weep and wring our hands when they do what they are trained to do, particularly under duress and shitty conditions.
If you think for a minute that the majority of these people in our military want to be “over there” (wherever that may be at the moment), killing people and being away from their own families and homeland, you’d be decidedly wrong. Sure, there’s a few crazies in every organized military that “get off” on the killing, but they are in the minority. Since its clear you haven’t actually served in the US or any other armed force (get it? ARMED FORCE…lethal implications there by design) you will never understand.
Blame the politicians. They are the ones that sent the soldiers over there, and they are the ones that are keeping them there, precious Obama included. The military doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it exists at the behest of elected representatives and is beholden to them and their budgets. And whims.
You are trying to change the subject. I was pointing out the fact that we are willing to kill great numbers of innocent people to reduce casualties on our side, despite our being in the wrong to be there at all.
Nor do I care. They are, as demonstrated by their actions, scum. Their self justifications are irrelevant. Whine, whine about how they don’t want to be there, about how terribly they are being victimized even while they murder and worse their victims. They are not the victims here.
How convenient. Murder, torture, rape, random destruction; all excusable with a shrug and “blame the politicians.”
How you twist your perception of reality is your own business. You should care. These are fellow Americans doing what they are trained to do, what we collectively PAY them to do (by the way, the pay is shitty).
Again, it isn’t whining to continually point out the fact that our military is beholden to our politicians. I agree that they shouldn’t be there, and I’m man enough to own up to the fact that the pretenses for invading Iraq were false even though I initially supported the action because I believed along with many others that Saddam and his regime was a threat.
So be it. You can rant and rave all you like about the US military being scum and deserving of death. Its kind of like bitching about lawyers and police being scumbags…until you need one.
We can expect them to take more care of which targets they shoot and don’t. They’ll do what they’re trained to do. Notice these guys did wait for permission to engage, they didn’t just see somebody and instantly shoot. Raise the bar on what conditions must be met for that permission to be given, especially for something as imprecise as urban warfare in a helicopter gunship, and they will follow that procedure.
Nonsense. If the police and lawyers acted this bad, I wouldn’t ever need them. I wouldn’t go near them for any reason.
Nor are they protecting me in any way by acting like this; on the contrary, they are busy manufacturing more and more people with reasons to want Americans dead.
In situations of swirling murk, I try to grasp one fact, one solid thing, and see what it can tell me.
As pointed out in another thread, at about 9:15 in the tape, we see the van arrive. Before the van has even stopped moving, someone is reporting that it is picking up weapons and wounded. This simply is not possible. The only reasonable explanation is that the the crewman is relaying a report that will encourage his commander to give him permission to fire. I would that it weren’t so, but it is what it is.
This is entirely unacceptable, from just about any perspective. From the standpoint of military behavior and discipline, its not good. From a mission standpoint, ostensibly to protect the Iraqi people from insurgents, it defeats the mission. It certainly does not protect the victims, and almost certainly fosters distrust and hatred for the US military, and that puts our soldiers at risk!
And further, if the crewman was willing to deceive, what else might he have been playing fast and loose with? What about the reports of …what? six to eight?..AK-47s being toted around. I didn’t see them, and, OK, I’m willing to say I’m not experienced in this, perhaps there’s something I’m missing, perhaps I shouldn’t pay attention to my damned lying eyes. But the fact that deception played a part in attacking that van makes that a lot tougher.
Add on top of that what appears to be a concerted effort to cover up the incident, and where is there left to hide? How can I avoid the wretched conclusion? I’d be happy to, somebody give me some hard-headed realism to make these facts go away. I would be grateful.
The only minor uptick here is that it doesn’t appear to be SOP, not an everyday occurrence. Cold comfort farm.
I watched this video a few times. I didn’t want to, but the talk about whether it looked like the people on the ground had weapons or not piqued my curiosity.
At the 3:40 mark, it looked like the guy in the striped shirt was carrying an AK-47. The person to camera left of the striped shirt guy was carrying something longer that could be interpreted as a hand held rocket launcher of some sort.
Later, when the guy crouches and peeks around the corner, that just looked to me like a camera with a very long lens.
My heart goes out to the van driver who was just trying to help. The problem is, he was thinking/feeling/acting like a civilian in a non-combat area and was killed by soldiers thinking/feeling/acting like soldiers in battle in a war zone.
My heart goes out to the journalists who were killed. My heart goes out to the journalist who was trying to crawl to safety, though as a veteran journalist in a war zone, he should have known to just stay still and not move. Perhaps his survival instincts just overtook his battlefield experience.
This was a tragedy. This was FUBAR. This was war.
War is not pretty. War is not fair. War is ugly and brutal.
And I’d hate to be the one to take the farm away, 'luc. But if you’re to believe the reports coming out of the investigation, they were absolved on the very grounds that they followed the established ROE.
I’m sorry, but that’s not what is on the film. Where are you getting all this from? Here is what was actually said and a rough time stamp of what it was said (from the full version):
7:29: Yeah Bushmaster, we have a van that’s approaching and picking up bodies.
7:42: Where’s that van at.
Right down there by the bodies.
7:45: Bushmaster; Crazyhorse. We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons.
7:51: Let me engage
7:54: Can I shoot?
Roger, break.
7:58: Uh Crazyhorse One-Eight request permission to engage.
8:01: Picking up the wounded?
8:03: Yeah, we’re trying to get permission to engage.
8:06: Come on, let us shoot!
8:09: Bushmaster: Crazyhorse One-Eight
8:13: They’re taking him.
8:16: Bushmaster: Crazyhorse One-Eight
8:21: This is Bushmaster Seven, go ahead
8:23: Roger. We have a black SUV-uh Bongo truck.
8:25: Picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage.
8:26: Fuck
(I presume the ‘Fuck’ is because they have now got the guy inside the van)
8:31: This is Bushmaster Sever, roger.
8:33: This is Bushmaster Sever, engage.
So…the guy mentions weapons once, and it’s clear he’s speculating (‘looks like possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons’). And, watching the video in slow motion, you can’t really tell what people are doing. A lot of the time they are obscured by the van, since the helicopter is to the rear and on the passengers side, and the action is to the front and on the drivers side. Also, one guy moves out of the scene to the rear of the van, then moves back in. The driver goes behind the van, then he goes to the passenger side of the van, then back again several times.
You assert that this is deception, but you are getting the details completely wrong, so I ask again…what are you basing this accusation on, exactly? What facts can you present that will show deception? What I see is a gunner who reports through the filter of his preconceptions (my speculation: he obviously thinks these guys were armed hostiles, he obviously thinks the van is with them, and so he assumes they are there to pick up bodies and weapons)…he’s filling in a lot of the blanks with his speculation, but the blanks are certainly there. You CAN’T see what’s happening on the other side of the van. People are moving in and out of the view of the gun camera because he’s got it trained on the van as the most likely threat.
I don’t know what to tell you, except that I’m not seeing what you are…in fact, just the opposite. Granted, you think I’m hopelessly biased and, I think you are. Assuming we are both right (or both wrong), and assuming neither of us is lying (which I DON’T think you are doing), then you should at least have an inkling that perhaps things aren’t as cut and dried as you (and others) seem to THINK it is…that perhaps the video and the situation was a bit more ambiguous than you believe it was.
At any rate, I think I’m done here. I’ve watched this video more times than I ever wanted too, I’ve read what I can on the subject, and I think it’s pretty conclusive that this was simply a fog of war event. There was no concerted effort at deception. There was no cover-up. There are still a lot of questions that don’t look to be ever really answered, but to me, the case is closed, unless someone brings so REAL evidence, as opposed to out of the ass speculation, to the discussion.
I’m sorry, I just had to log on to comment on this.
It seems many americans just can’t cope with the idea that their military can do any wrong.
I understand that. Most of the world accepted post world war 2 propaganda accepting the allied soldier as the bringer of peace and good to all corners of the world.
Also,… after the lunar landing and the fall of communism, the world further accepted american ascendancy.
BUT,… after seeing how flat out BUSH and friends desired and obtained a manipulated military to occupy oil rich countries under no pretext other than “we deserve it”
well… my love of america kinda faded away.
I was confused on the timestamp, and for reasons I don’t quite understand, the places I went to see the video have disappeared it. Probably me.
But I clearly recall having that pointed out to me, and carefully confirming that the crewman states that the van is “picking up bodies” (I thought he said weapons as well, but it isn’t essential to the question…) The van is still in motion, it is entirely impossible that the van is picking up anything.
Its just not so, XT. Whaddaya want from me, pretend that it is?
