comp_ali

WikiLeaks says the encounters killed as many as 25 civilians, including two Reuters journalists. The U.S. military said in a statement at the time that a total of 11 people died in the strikes conducted by U.S. and Iraqi forces, including two Reuters employees.


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source : Fox News

Jac

I watched this video and it is very disturbing.

With things like this it's hard to get a good feel for what's going on without knowing the full context of the situation. Reports I have read suggest that US ground troops were under attack from RPGs in the area - that could be just smoke and mirrors thrown up by the US military though in PR damage control.

So, if you're a US pilot flying in support of ground troops and you identify a group of men who appear to have weapons slung over their shoulders - should you open fire. I would say the 1st engagement was 50/50. We now know that 2 of the group were journalists carrying cameras but others did appear to have rifles.

The second engagement shouldn't have happened imo. The target was seriously wounded and should have been contained or left to flee.

Obviously it's easier to call in hindsight. The resolution of the gunship camera needs improvement.

Senor_Mota

The conscience of the gunner is really the only thing that needs improvement. They murdered all of those civilians in cold blood. None of those men were a threat. In fact, you can hear him say "NO GROUND FORCES IN THE AREA", so they're just "pot-shotting" a bunch of dudes in t-shirts with a FUCKING 30mm cannon? It makes me wretch to think people get a kick out of decimating someone's father, son, daughter, whatever.

We deserve to die. We deserve death without remorse. We have taken too much without giving back. Our fate belongs to nothing but oblivion.

Jac

I have to say I'm not defending the actions of the pilots. I'm just saying that you have to take into account the full context of that situation. He didn't say there were no ground forces in the area - he said there were no forces 'east of our position'. That was to clarify that there were no US troops in the firing line.

Watching the footage I think it's clear that the pilot mistook the long lens camera of the journalist for a weapon. Also the footage appears to show two other members of the party carrying assault rifles. I think the clincher was when the journalist peered around the corner with the long lens to take a photo. I think most people looking at that shot, and in the context of the situation, would see someone aiming an RPG down the street.

The whole situation is a complete cluster-fuck and there are no solutions as far as I can tell.

Judas

that's a drop in the bucket to what has occured in that entire region of the world to defenceless civilians.....

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Dude111

I saw this video earlier and i am truly disgusted living in this country! (This is no surprise however..This country is filled with idiots with attitudes who think they can BULLY THE WORLD!!)


Look how they treat people in Iraq!


This driving is absolutely ridiculous and uncalled for.. SMASHING INTO PEOPLES CARS,ETC......

http://files.ww.com/files/66513.html


EDIT:

Here is another cameraman killed by them in 2003!! (FOR NO REASON)

http://web.archive.org/web/200308181...eut/index.html

Judas

Like i said...... drop in the bucket...

There are countless videos and things that have occured over there that no one even knows about yet and likely will never know about.

And the excuses that are being brought up to defend these bastards is even more rediculious.

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gmLoki

I think that hits the nail on the head really. Undoubtedly a very unfortunate event but these events must happen all too often. What we can see is that the intel on the ground was poor at best if they mistook a camera for an RPG.

I'm not sure on the rules of engagement but from the video there are no shots fired from the people on the ground nor was there any attempt for them to engage the helicopter.

Judas

nope..... they never tried to take cover or anything that would have been suspected of looking even remotely a threat or suspicious

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Freulein

high precision collateral damage.
a result of recruiting soldiers with the game "americas army" ?

i feel so strange, i played that call of duty modern warfare 'ac-130 gunship mission' , the same pictures, just a button click, not in touch with the real world, not confronted with the result.

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Drinking Mates

Optix

Shoot first, shoot again, shoot some more and when everybody is dead, then ask questions.

I'm not sure what movie that was from but I think it's fitting in most cases. Don't think for a minute I am trying to downplay or mock what the majority of the troops are trying to do over there but you will always find a douche bag or two in the group if you wait long enough.

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Judas

considering several reports stated, quite a number of them actually, and quite often they don't wait.... they'll purposefully go out and find a reason to, and quite often if they don't find a good reason, i'll either make one up, or shoot to kill so they don't have to make one up as there won't be any reason to explain near the end. (provided they aren't being recorded)

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iPlayer

And they still might get away with it.

Optix

It all comes down to who will police the police. I suppose it would be who will army the army but that doesn't make sense.

How many times have you heard of a member of the armed forces, not just American get away with something terrible with a reprimand, demotion or a dishonorable discharge while anybody else would get straight jail time?

Again, I respect why many people are over there. I could never do it but I support the ones that are legit. It is unfortunate that all of their hard work is overshadowed by something like this.

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Judas

what hard work are they doing...

when majority of the reasons for their going over there are uncertain, what they were told as to why they went there is known to be factually a "LIE", at what point is there something done about it?

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Neshi

you should watch the movie: Battle for Haditha, and Rules of Engagement.

War is a fucked up thing and alot of times you have to make decisions at the spot. I can really imagine that if you see buddies of you shot by insurgents you want to take revenge for that.
Also, what if it was an RPG and he shot some humvee killing soldiers. Wouldn't there be the same discussion with a slight difference:
Why was there a gunship in the location who saw insurgents with weapons but didn't do anything about it?!

It's a grey area imo, and war means casualties.. Not only soldiers and insurgents die, innocents as well.. It's the reality.

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If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Judas

It's an unnecessary reality forced onto those that had nothing to do with it.

First off, the military of any type is an obsolete instatution now. The last number of "wars" were forced through questionable means and used purely for preasure, not for the reasons we are told at all. That's a fact, It's murder/slaughter which is never legal even in war times WHEN the war itself is both ilegal, based on lies... and so forth.

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Neshi

yea, but the fault doesn't lie with the soldiers executing orders, but with those institutions who are in power.

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If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Judas

Part of the problem is the soldiers, as the command structure in place is hugely at fault, it still relies somewhat on the "intelligence" that is given to them by said soldiers..

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OmegaRED

Finally saw this video and there's not really any way to defend the actions of the attack chopper crew when they clearly were firing on unarmed civilians. It could be argued that they mistook the cameras for guns right up until the van pulls up to carry the wounded to get medical attention and were murdered without justification. If these soldiers weren't conditioned to believe every person in Iraq is a combatant they would have assumed a passerby found the bodies and tried to help; there's simply no reason to fire on unarmed people treating the wounded.

These soldiers should be tried for their crimes but since this happened several years ago and we're just hearing about it (thanks to the leak) I doubt that happened.

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Neshi

but I don't think you can fault the 'intelligence' altogether. Some calls have to be made on the spot (not talking only about the video here) and there is always the chance you make the wrong call.
But like I said, if you make the 'aye' or 'nay' call, and it turns out wrong the soldier is always the one blamed. But in such situations I can understand they'd rather it be the 'insurgents' instead of themselves. Sometimes you can't take the chance.

What if it were weapons and soldiers got killed with it. After that this video leaked and it shows that the people with those weapons were spotted but no action was undertaken.
I guess the families of the deceased could understand that.. (not really)


But I agree that shooting the van wasn't necessary. Although I didn't see the kids inside the van the first time around, only when they showed it the second time and pointed them out. I doubt the soldiers behind the camera saw them either, their focus was more on the adults than on the van I presume.

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If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

xen.chris

This is the face of war, not what CNN tells you. And you rise an eyebrow when people say in your face that you are cold blooded killers. Oh and let's not forget the love muslims all over the world have for US & UK bulling everyone around just because they can. Oh, look, that state is terrorist, is supporting terrorists. Let's invade them & show them what democracy is all about. Simply sick.

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...servant of the masters...

Neshi

haha.. not what CNN tells you.. All media is biased and doesnt show you the whole picture.. Neither does this videofeed. it's totally out of context.

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If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Judas

Actually go visit the site in which it's posted.. they post the entire sum of the video.. but it's a LONG video..... there is actually additional information pertaining to what this video shows and the documented occurances surrounding it.


It's not so out of context that it's simply shortened up a bit so people are sitting around for ages.

The only reason the military doesn't use a nuke to just off the country is because it would be definitely frowned upon. It's easy to send in soldiers that'll either want to kill people in cold blood and/or take orders like a good girl/boy without question and off whomever they can.

Alternative sources still say that while the people the US military is "saposedly" after is still around in so-so numbers, relatively unchanged, the number of civilians killed is in the hundreds of thousands...

Worse then veitnam.

The worst part is that no one is being held accountable for it, so all anyone can do is point their finger at the United States and whomever else followed them in. And unfortunately i'm quite miffed that Canada walked in with them.

Orginal accusations were for binladen, Documents PROVE that he had utterly not a damn thing to do with anything the "war" was started over.

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Neshi

I'm not saying I agree with the war in Iraq or with what happens there.And it won't solve anything because for every 'head' they cut off, 2 or more grow back..

Only that I understand that it happens.
Soldiers not following orders or right out defying orders are called deserters Judas. I bet you applaud them, but they will be chewed out by everybody so I can understand that nobody does that. (not to mention military court)

I am really suggesting you watch Battle for Haditha (based on real story). And it's not that the US soldiers are being applauded in the movie either. It shows the story from several sides.
The soldiers, the innocent civilians and the so-called insurgents.
Really worth the watch



Back to the video, I just think it's a little hyprocritical to judge those soldiers. First of all, we all have the possibility to over-analyse the video, something they can't do. They have to make decisions on what they see the first time around. Like I mentioned before, when I watch the video I didn't see the little children sitting in the van. Soldiers probably didn't see them either.
And don't go saying that they should have.. When you focus on something, it's easy to miss something out of that focus-area..

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If one does not attach himself to people and desire, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live?

Life is just too damn short for if's and maybe's

Judas

Theres outright "defying" orders, which are indeed desterters but there are the few that defy orders due to waiting for good inteligence or due to a moral obligation.

I applaud that ones that think, I don't applaud that ones that come up with petty excuses to just ignore orders straight away with no good reason. At least there are a few that aren't robots being fed info from sources that for the most part don't necessarily know what they are in.

And i cannot ignore that there are a few soldiers that have EVERY intent of killing anything that breaths for the simple game of it, it also explains a good number of the allied casualties.

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rastapeenor

There is a guy with an AK-47 and a guy with a RPG in that video. The Apache pilots made the decision to fire on them, the government has spent millions of dollars training those pilots and giving them the intuition to make those calls. Those "civilians" should have not been messing around with people who were carrying wepons. Its a tragic event that could have been pervented however the call was made. I mean besides its not like those bastards took down two of the biggest towers in the world and killed thousands of American Civilians thats just apart of war... right...?

Judas

WRONG


There is no such items, further investigations by the military themselves were able to determine that.


wrong,

The circumstances of those "biggest towers" is now so highly questionable, that the current official story has abslutely no factual backing for the claimed official story, both scientific and investigative.

Another fact is that you clearly do not know and are simply just siding with whomever for no real logical reason, perhaps your point of view would be different if you were part of the crew there that got slaughtered.

Some of the people there were actually media personel, get your facts right. That's why they were carrying things that the pilots thought to be something else.

And i don't feel like wasting time digging up previous similare incidents that have involved countless other even MILITARY personel from other countries as friendly fire.

No accountability is the current way of war, and it's simply unacceptable, disgusting and outright wrong.

Bad enough theres no accountability in the government and the finacial system at all. Many people should be currently strung up by their nuts, yet it doesn't seem to be taking place and it's pretty damn pathetic.

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OmegaRED

Even if the men were carrying a couple of weapons there was a large group of people who were unarmed and they were not exhibiting any threatening behavior, unless you call taking a stroll town the street a clear and present danger. Also, it is normal for journalists to have private security firms with tons of weaponry escort them around but citizens of Baghdad aren't allowed such a right?

I'm not going to touch the Towers issue and rastapeenor has chosen to blindly side with the military so I doubt any logic or reason will sway him. Furthermore, after the van with children is fired on simply for tending to the wounded for anyone to overlook that or justify those murders in any way makes you a sick person.

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Judas

well said...

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