Thread: The murder of innocence

Come, let the apologia begin.

I am in the process of watching this and am raging unbelievably fucking hard .

I mean seriously...

"Oh yeah look at those dead bastards."
"Nice. Nice (laughing)."

or

"I think they just drove over a body."
"Haha really?"
"Haha yeah."

Phenomenal footage.. I'm surprised it was released at all, Freedom of Information Act or otherwise.

But at least we go to such great lengths to verify that the people we're shooting at are hostiles, right?... Right?

this is pretty sad stuff. Casualties are sad enough. I think the worst part is that it doesnt surprise me

You know, I watched some video called the "History of Execution" (something like that) once. Do not want to ever see it again.

Shooting at unarmed medical personal is a war crime. If a van shows up and it starts picking up injuried people, and it doesn't appear to be hostile then what is it?

I saw it yesterday.

It's simply a disgrace.. I don't think the pilot and gunner have been punished or reprimanded, they should.

Originally Posted by tkdyo

this is pretty sad stuff. Casualties are sad enough. I think the worst part is that it doesnt surprise me

This.

Originally Posted by Invader

Phenomenal footage.. I'm surprised it was released at all, Freedom of Information Act or otherwise.

But at least we go to such great lengths to verify that the people we're shooting at are hostiles, right?... Right?

It wasn't from the FOIA. It was leaked by a whistleblower. Just FYI.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

I saw it yesterday.

It's simply a disgrace.. I don't think the pilot and gunner have been punished or reprimanded, they should.

You need to understand that to these guys this was just another group of people posing a threat to people, so they dealt with it. They couldn't possibly tell that the guns were actually cameras.

The way that the guys talk about it has no meaning. Do you expect soldiers to shed tears everytime they shoot an enemy?

Originally Posted by Marvo

You need to understand that to these guys this was just another group of people posing a threat to people, so they dealt with it. They couldn't possibly tell that the guns were actually cameras.

The way that the guys talk about it has no meaning. Do you expect soldiers to shed tears everytime they shoot an enemy?

If they can see the shoulder strap of a camera, then it's kind of hard to miss the Lack of the actual AK-47. They are standard trigger-happy idiots, of which there are probably thousands in all militaries, militias or wherever... it's what is to be expected. It's not right (duh) and makes me kind of angry, but it seems that the decadent modern world turned me into a mostly apathetic person regarding these things. It's just another picture of the absurdity that is the human existence. This is just one thing and just as terrible things are happening and going to happen as long as human beings exist.

Pretty much yeah. War causes a lot of shit.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Do you expect soldiers to shed tears everytime they shoot an enemy?

I think we expect them to correctly identify targets before they fucking shoot them.

From what I could hear, they thought they saw an RPG, which could be used as ground-to-air missils, a threat. Then again, the RPG-7 has a range of about 550 meters or something, and those choppers were supposedly 1.4km away.

Originally Posted by Invader

I think we expect them to correctly identify targets before they fucking shoot them.

Exactly. Just like I wouldn't pardon a cop who rushes into a civilian-heavy situation and just unloads on everybody who has something in their hands that vaguely resembles a weapon. These people have a job to do, and part of that job is to identify the threat, before neutralizing it.

Yes, "War causes a lot of shit", but that doesn't mean every consequence of war is justified, "since it's war."

Originally Posted by Oneironaut

Exactly. Just like I wouldn't pardon a cop who rushes into a civilian-heavy situation and just unloads on everybody who has something in their hands that vaguely resembles a weapon. These people have a job to do, and part of that job is to identify the threat, before neutralizing it.

Yes, "War causes a lot of shit", but that doesn't mean every consequence of war is justified, "since it's war."

There is a difference between standing right next to the presumed law breaker, and hovering over 1 kilometer away from them, trying to make out black shapes in their hands through a monitor.

I have come to agree though, that if these guys had not been so trigger happy, this would not have happened. In hindsight, maybe though would have died in another situation, where they held fire, because they were not sure if the threat was real.

Saw these two posts on another forum:

They were carrying cameras the size and shape of automatic weapons. The men in that apache saw what looked like (granted arrogant and sloppy) threats, routed the video to superiors who thought they saw the same thing, received confirmation and then fired and killed over 10 civilians.

You want to be all mad about the war and aim that anger in the right direction? aim it at the politicians who call the shots, not the guys who are forced to take those shots.

Originally Posted by Marvo

You need to understand that to these guys this was just another group of people posing a threat to people, so they dealt with it. They couldn't possibly tell that the guns were actually cameras.

The way that the guys talk about it has no meaning. Do you expect soldiers to shed tears everytime they shoot an enemy?

Of course they could tell the difference from a gun to a camera, they should! It is so apparent in the video that it's not guns. Those pilot and gunner have (or should) been educated on identified such objects, but they failed miserably. They saw what they wanted to see.

Tell me, why the fuck are they so quick to get permission to kill the people in the van, who comes to pick the wounded up. That is beyond reason and Rules of Engagement!!

They should should be charged with homicidal war crimes in a military court. But no no, the superior officers won't even admit anything, that they were in fact civilians, and that children was among the victims.

What happened when the ground soldier found the two injured kids? He requested MEDEVAC to a nearby field base, which has a proper hospital facility. But no, superiors said that the Iraqi police could take care of it, and a local hospital. Not even were they unjustified shot, but they couldn't get the best treatment available, and the risk of bleeding to death while waiting for the IP to arrive.

If you had seen that video without the knowledge that they were camera men, you would've seen guns too. I've seen several people on the internet admit that they thought they saw guns too in that video.

The guys who got obliterated in the van was uncalled for, and I agree that that is breaking international war laws. Supposedly they saw weapons, though I'm not so sure about that.


A lot of people need to see the bigger picture though. Why do we need attack helicopters flying around in Iraq in the first place?

Did you even watch the video? Cameras do not look like AK-47s. I wouldn't have seen them as weapons if I wasn't told they were cameramen. If your job is to fight an enemy which is only possibly recognized if he's carrying a weapon, then you're expected to know what a rifle looks like. They were not in a hurry, they could've circled around an x ammount of times to see what was going on and in the last resort send the ground troops to intercept. If they didn't have time, then they definitely don't have a reason to engage. You cannot recognise a short, thick camera and a shoulder strap as a rifle which is the length of a human torso. Why do you keep defending them? There are ways to deal such a situation and it's not shooting people casually walking down the street just because you're pumped up with adrenaline and seeing ak's everywhere.

They shot at the van because "We have individuals goins to the scene, looks like possibly uh picking up bodies and weapons" (before the van even stops - It appears these airmen were not only very good at recognising AK-47s and RPGs but also proficient in telepathy) ..."Picking up the wounded, -Yeah, we're trying to get permission to engage"... I don't even know what's up with this. How strange is it for a person to help another one in distress. I mean I know we in the western world are used to the bystander effect and let people die in our streets, but if you're driving down a street and see a man crawling around in a pool of blood and bodies calling for help, then you don't pass by and leave him there. I'm sorry, there is just no sense in shooting up a person that's trying to help. Especially if it's a van that is easily tracked and stopped if you really are convinced that it's driven by evil incarnate. This is a fucked up situation which is being coverd up exactly for that reason. There is no need to defend it.

I agree with you to some extent, though you're not completely right. If you watched that video without the knowledge that those guys were cameramen, you wouldn't be able to tell whether they were holding weapons or not. In any case it doesn't matter. The guys in the helicopters are watching this stuff on much smaller monitors than we have. Sure, if you snapped out pictures you could identify the cameras more easily. On the other hand, you can snap out other pictures and identify weapons.

It still all comes down to the fact that war does a lot of shit to people, like this. You are attacking the wrong people when you say "give them reprimands". The real culprits here would be the politicians.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

Of course they could tell the difference from a gun to a camera, they should! It is so apparent in the video that it's not guns. Those pilot and gunner have (or should) been educated on identified such objects, but they failed miserably. They saw what they wanted to see.

Tell me, why the fuck are they so quick to get permission to kill the people in the van, who comes to pick the wounded up. That is beyond reason and Rules of Engagement!!

They should should be charged with homicidal war crimes in a military court. But no no, the superior officers won't even admit anything, that they were in fact civilians, and that children was among the victims.

What happened when the ground soldier found the two injured kids? He requested MEDEVAC to a nearby field base, which has a proper hospital facility. But no, superiors said that the Iraqi police could take care of it, and a local hospital. Not even were they unjustified shot, but they couldn't get the best treatment available, and the risk of bleeding to death while waiting for the IP to arrive.

"Of course they could tell the difference from a gun to a camera, they should! It is so apparent in the video that it's not guns."

Obviously not.

I would have never guessed that those guys were carrying cameras if the video didn't tell me. And how often do you see people carrying such large cameras in the streets of Iraq? Compare that to how often you see people carrying weapons in the streets of Iraq. I agree they were hasty in their decision to engage, but don't act like they knew exactly who the people were.

Another thing nobody has mentioned is the fact that there were American troops in the vicinity. One of the purposes of air support is to monitor the streets to make sure nobody is setting up an ambush. You have to admit when the guy started peaking around the corner with his camera, he looked exactly like an insurgent ready to fire his weapon and leave. That's what the pilot saw and that's what I saw. You could see the barrel of the camera sticking out from behind the wall, it looked just like the barrel of an RPG. The nature of an insurgency forces us to proactively search for and destroy ambushes before they happen. Unfortunately this can often lead to cases of mistaken identity.

This is a tragic event but to the best of these mens knowledge, they acted within the rules of engagement and will not be subjected to courts-martial.

Personally, most of them looked unarmed to me. Maybe you saw one ak-47 but how the hell did you see a half a dozen ak-47 and an rpg and rifles?

Lets give them the benefit of the doubt however. Maybe its possible they could of mistaken them, however its impossible they mistook the van for anything other than what it truely was.

They clearly state in the video that the van is picking up dead bodies, and you can clearly see it going to the wounded guy first. Picking up dead or wounded people is not a hostile action, and any one with even a bit of common sense could tell they were trying to help.

You never shoot unarmed people, who are trying to treat injuried people. That is a war crime. Even if it belonged to a terrorist group, you don't blow up medical vans.

Originally Posted by Marvo

I have come to agree though, that if these guys had not been so trigger happy, this would not have happened. In hindsight, maybe though would have died in another situation, where they held fire, because they were not sure if the threat was real.

Yeah they may have died in another situation, but that's a few people, compared to the 10 + killed here (apparently they went and shot up a building with families in it afterward, no idea how many). Plus however many more innocents they will or have already shot. You can't use the logic of better safe then sorry, not when it involves other people.
It's like saying we should stop using morphine in hospitals because some people abuse it.

Originally Posted by Specialis Sapientia

Tell me, why the fuck are they so quick to get permission to kill the people in the van, who comes to pick the wounded up. That is beyond reason and Rules of Engagement!!

They should should be charged with homicidal war crimes in a military court. But no no, the superior officers won't even admit anything, that they were in fact civilians, and that children was among the victims.

Actually that is apparently within the rules of engagement. Because sometimes they come and pick up all the weapons, take photos and say "oh look the U.S killed these innocent people". I don't know if that actually happens, but that's their reason for allowing the shooting of people coming to help.