No, and he shouldn’t.
The blame lies with the Bush admin for not preparing for the aftermath.
Not enough troops to do the job. Not enough supplies for the troops that are there.
No one should blame the brave young man.
It’s probably too early for anyone to say if the Soldier who fired his weapon should or should not face disciplinary action. Since there was a shooting, I believe that the military will conduct an investigation. The results of that investigation will most likely be the determining factor regarding disciplinary action. To make a statement now one way or the other is just reactionary.
Hey this little accident is chump change if we can force our brains back a few months:
While I don’t think there are assasination orders out for reporters, some sort of unofficial intimidation isn’t beyond belief.
Oops, forgot linky:
Fox News Story from April 8/03
(thought I’d use them to defer anti-american bias comments)
US explanations of this case are contradictory and have no credibility whatsoever.
Ukraine demands follow-up on cameraman’s death in Iraq
Journalists who died in Iraq since the U.S.-led military campaign began
I think it’s useful to see this in a broader context. The mission of these troops is to try and act as troops/police/peacekeepers/aid suppliers in the midst of a partly urban terrorism/insurgency campaign, albeit one of relatively low intensity. Given the nature of urban fighting, casualties will be high both among fighting forces and innocent civilians. This cannot be avoided unless the mission is changed.
Actually quite a few could pass from a distance, shoulder launched anti-tank missiles are usually quite a bit more bulky than the average professional video camera but at a glance (and especially under duress) they can appear very similar. You have a shoulder mounted box like apparatus, both have visible lenses and sights, both may be tripod mounted or not. Bluring the distinction is the fact that some older cameras can be quite large while a few missiles can be pretty small relatively speaking. The fact that this journalist was filming a tank is especially telling, from a distance you had a soldier who saw a guy get out of a civillian vehicle, swing something up onto his shoulder and take aim at one of your tanks. He made a snap judgment in a dangerous place under stress and made a bad call. This is a tragic accident and should be viewed as such.
Here are some interesting pictures of current and past anti-tank missiles. Judge for yourself whether you could possibly have made a mistake under difficult circumstances.
But shouldn’t the soldiers be warned there was a cameraman authorized to be in the area? If so, isn’t this soldier responsible? If not, isn’t someone responsible for not informing this soldier a cameraman was authorized to be in the area? Someone in the military is at fault here. It is not like the cameraman was in an area he was not authorized to be in.
That first looks a lot like a camera.
Um, maybe this is out of line but when reporters or anyone else enters a combat zone, or whatever you want to call it, aren’t they taking a chance with their lives?
Marc
A recruit who joins the police force also takes a chance with his life. What’s your point? That it is OK to kill them? :rolleyes:
Is there going to be an inquiry to find out what happened.
Al-Jazeera Bureau in Baghdad
Al-Jazeera HQ in Kabul
Palestinean Hotel
and other questionable incidents seem to indicate there may be a problem with the procedures the media and US forces use to talk to each other.
You can blame the US administration who so desperately wanted to wage this war.
Frankly it doesn’t matter what we think on this board, or even what the truth is in this incident - what matters is how it’s seen in Iraq. You can bet there are plenty of “bad guys” who are makeing propaganda out of every civillian killing.
The pictures coming out of Iraq are starting to look horribly reminiscent of other attempts to police a civilian population with troops - Isreal say, or Northern Ireland. The American troops don’t seem to have been taught even basics like taking off sunglasses to make eye-contact and not screaming and shouting abuse. I saw a harrowing scene of a little girl shot in a car that didn’t stop (one of many such incidents apparently) the troops shouted “Stop!” in English nobody had thought to teach them something as basic as the word for stop.:smack: (I’m betting they’ve not been taught “please” and “thank-you” either, trivial?, not if you’re trying not to look like an army of occupation)
It doesn’t take many terriorist acts to make troops twitchy (and occasionally vengeful) -and it doesn’t take many “Regrettable incidents” to make people do stupid things.
Look at Bloody Sunday - 13 unarmed protesters shot by British troops. There are still arguements more than 2 decades later about what happened and why - but no doubt at all that that “Regrettable incident” led to support for the Provisional IRA terror campaign.
Sadly the bad guys know this, even if the coalition planners don’t, yet
yojimbo, you can see on sailor’s link that the US military seems to think the Palestine hotel incident is closed (though Reporters Sans Frontier disagrees).
… “propaganda” out of every civilian killing?
how would that go?
“Look! The Americans are killing us!”
mmm… yeah, real sneaky and devious those “bad guys”
time to re-assess who are the “bad guys” folks
Damn, Making not Makeing - well Real Men don’t preview
ChaosGod I’m thinking of Ba’athists and members of Al-Qua’ida type organisations (religious and nationalist extremists).
Maybe “bad guys” isn’t the smartest term I could have used because it possibly suggests I think there are “good guys” but if the people letting off bombs in Iraq and Saudi make progress I’m certain a lot of people are going to suffer, and thats ** bad ** .
Personally I think the war was wrong on a number of levels, but still the Iraqis would be better off with a functioning economy and a democratic government. The coalition is trying to achieve that (yes, while stealing their Oil, and playing regonal power-games - I know). The big problem is that you can’t just impose “freedom” - look at post-colonial Africa, how many countries left democratic now?
Well the strongest propaganda is always based on the truth
I can understand the mistake - I DO think it was a mistake.
The camera was pointed at a tank, and viewed from the front I’d be hard pressed to distiguish between a camera or a rocket launcher.
I don’t like the “shoot first ask questions later” mentality that this incident obviously shows us is the norm for the troops over there, but what I really don’t like is the whole stinking situation that we’re empbroiled in now.
It doesn’t help anything that the reporter was palestinian, either.
:rolleyes: Ooo, I love post full of :rolleyes: because they make you look so intelligent and funny. You really think I said it was ok to kill reporters? You might as well ask me if I’ve stopped beating my wife.
Marc
Oops, almost forgot. :rolleyes:
So what was your point?