Wikileaks video - controversial!

NoQuarter

This is sure to cause some unease!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0

I really suggest watching it all but if your pushed for time skip to 4:30 and then to 9:30...

Not for the faint hearted...

punchdrunk

as a photographer it's 100% clear to me that they are carrying cameras not RPG'S

how could he get the scale of the object so wrong?





an RPG is AT LEAST 3,if not 4 times the length of a professional camera?

from the video available,there seems a few seconds delay on the rounds impacting so the Apache must be some distance away,are they at max magnification on the optics?

if the "enemy" weren't shooting at anyone right at that time,then why the rush? why not close range for a better look?

I can see a single weapon in the area of the van,why fire on it?

I'm normally very supportive of the US and British troops involved but that is a piss poor call on behalf of the Apache crew.

also after reading of the British Army's Apache force in Afghanistan I dare say it's unlikely they would have fired in this situation

concussion

Before this turns into the mess I've seen on other sites, there is a ~40 min version on youtube which contains radio messages confirming an RPG at the scene.

Local-womanizer

concussion wrote: »

Before this turns into the mess I've seen on other sites, there is a ~40 min version on youtube which contains radio messages confirming an RPG at the scene.

Interesting,I should have watched all of it.

But a point I made in regards the situation,its easy with hindsight to judge the call that was made by the pilots. If there was indeed a direct threat to the ground troops then action was needed. Listening to the video werent there reports of the troops taking fire? It seems to me the location of the source of the fire was mixed up,resulting in the incident.

I suppose its easy for us to "make the call" when there are no reprecussions at all to come from it.

Still,if needs be and mistakes were made in carrying out procedures then those responsible should be held responsible. But until its investigated I wouldent be so quick to judge.

R.I.P to those who died btw.

Burnt

what are the guys carrying at: 3:21 the middle of the left edge of the frame,
3:43 in the centre of the frame and again at 3:45 in the centre of the frame?

punchdrunk

possibly AK 47's

but it wouldn't be unusual for contractors protecting journalists to carry these

NoQuarter

Yeah looks like AK's to me!

Id be supportive of the troops too but it seems they were a bit to hasty to engage this time! I also be aware that we dont have all the facts too!

But especially the van part, they radio someone for clearance to shoot and the other line asked no questions! it was just a "roger, engage". Hrmm...

Mahatma coat

concussion wrote: »

Before this turns into the mess I've seen on other sites, there is a ~40 min version on youtube which contains radio messages confirming an RPG at the scene.

See, We have Radio Claims that there were RPG's, but can you show an RPG anywhere in that Video????

Even AK's, one guy is spotted with an AK but when the gunner reports back he says that there are 5 with Ak's, trigger happy thugs is all I would consider these guys to be, this is what happens when you take the soldier out of harms way, they become rather complacent about Slaughtering people when they're safely cocooned a few miles away

Shooting the Van is truly disgusting, or watchin the guy crawl away just willing him to pick up a weapon so they could end his life, Teh wanton disregard for life and the gung ho attitude is disturbing.

I would concede that one of the people may have been armed, but those people posed no threat to the Americans in the helicopter, if this is how they bring Freedom and Democracy is it any wonder that people are Blowing them up at every available opportunity.

Manic Moran

Given the existance of two threads on the matter elsewhere on Boards (One on Politics, one on AH), I'm inclined to lock the thread as un-necessary, but I'm going to let it run for now and see if it stays on topic, as it were.

NTM

airvan

I watched this video once. I didn't study it and replay it and didn't analyse it. Only because I knew there was a man with a camera there before I watched the film and because it was highlighted in the version I watched did I realise it was not a weapon. Not only that I wasn't keyed up in the front seat of Apache in a war zone tasked with protecting my comrades on the ground. So I could regard it with cold objectivity. But at the time he saw these pictures live. No chance for replays.

What I saw is a group of men gathering with an air of anticipation. Two of them separated and walked purposefully towards a corner. One had something slung over his shoulder, incorrectly identified as a weapon by the gunner. In the background a man could be seen with a long object. He grounded it at one point and leaned on it. A shovel or an RPG?

The men gathered at the corner and at one point we can see the photographer as we now know crouched low in a tactical manner peering round the corner holding his camera with telephoto lens in the direction that the US ground troops later arrived. Coincidence? Maybe. It may have obviously been a camera to an experienced photographer with hindsight sitting in a comfortable room miles from the warzone but to the man on the spot it simply looked like an RPG.

My conclusion is that an attack on the US column was being prepared probably with an RPG in the presence of the photographer. The Apache crew had long ago formed the same opinion. If as someone said RPGs were found on the scene. This would appear to back this opinion up.

As for the attack on the van trying to rescue the wounded man. That was an obvious mistake but not really surprising given the situation. It is difficult to justify other than that the Apache crew had just attacked what they believed were insurgents and now it appears some of their comrades was attemping to rescue a wounded insurgent. The children are a red herring because they weren't visible and frankly it wasn't something you would expect.

It always annoys me when people on the internet sitting at a keyboard with no concept of the reality on the ground sit there making judgements against people in the heat of battle or in a very dangerous situation. At the very least try and put yourself in the place of the people in the situation. What would you have done?

In my own case given the same scenario. I would have opened fire. I may regret it now but at the time it was the only response.

gizmo555

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Shooting the Van is truly disgusting

Contrast the actions of these guys in killing obviously unarmed civilians for having the temerity to render assistance to the wounded, to the attitudes reflected in this interview with a WW II US army artillery observer:

I was bringing the artillery in. One day there came several German vehicles in line. Three ambulances were in the middle. That was hands off.

Local-womanizer

gizmo555 wrote: »

Contrast the actions of these guys in killing obviously unarmed civilians for having the temerity to render assistance to the wounded, to the attitudes reflected in this interview with a WW II US army artillery observer:

I was bringing the artillery in. One day there came several German vehicles in line. Three ambulances were in the middle. That was hands off.

Huge difference between marked emergency vehicles and a black van.

concussion

Mahatma coat wrote: »

See, We have Radio Claims that there were RPG's, but can you show an RPG anywhere in that Video????

No, I can't because I haven't spent months looking at the gun camera of an Apache. There are several men walking around with very long objects in there hands which I can't identify but are definately too long and narrow to be cameras. However, the most telling thing about the edited video (the comms about the RPG notwithstanding) is that the producers do not claim that some of the men were unarmed and the diaglogue at the start says "some of the men appear to be armed".

It would appear to me that these reporters were not only in an area from which an attack on US forces had originated but were also in the company of armed men.

gizmo555

Local-womanizer wrote: »

Huge difference between marked emergency vehicles and a black van.

The guys carrying the wounded to the van were clearly unarmed, with their hands full carrying the wounded and obviously rendering emergency assistance. Should they have left them dying on the side of the road until an ambulance arrived?



Or, to take an example closer to home, should Bishop Daly and the men around him here have been shot because they weren't wearing Red Cross armbands?

Local-womanizer

gizmo555 wrote: »

The guys carrying the wounded to the van were clearly unarmed, with their hands full carrying the wounded and obviously rendering emergency assistance. Should they have left them dying on the side of the road until an ambulance arrived?

Or, to take an example closer to home, should Bishop Daly and the men around him here have been shot because they weren't wearing Red Cross armbands?

These pilots were certain that the original targets were insurgents. Therefore they were always going to attack anybody who came along to help them,either to make sure they died or to stop weapons falling back into enemy hands.

Its an unfortunate turn of events.

In relation to the Bishop Daly incident,there is a big difference in assesing a situation from a few hundrred metres away and a few miles away tbf.

arybvtcw0eolkf

gizmo555 wrote: »

T


Or, to take an example closer to home, should Bishop Daly and the men around him here have been shot because they weren't wearing Red Cross armbands?

By that stage the Para's had already murdered 13 innocents and injured 26, probably got fed up killing and wounding by that stage.

gizmo555

Local-womanizer wrote: »

These pilots were certain that the original targets were insurgents. Therefore they were always going to attack anybody who came along to help them,either to make sure they died or to stop weapons falling back into enemy hands.

Well, you're shifting your ground here. First, you said the helicopter crew was justified in firing on the van because it wasn't marked as an ambulance. Now you're saying it was justifiable to make sure the original targets were really dead, notwithstanding the fact that the people coming to the aid of the wounded posed no direct threat. The same justification could have applied to firing on the German ambulances mentioned above - after all, the wounded in them could have been patched up and returned to combat.

Local-womanizer wrote: »

In relation to the Bishop Daly incident,there is a big difference in assesing a situation from a few hundrred metres away and a few miles away tbf.

Are you really saying that the helicopter crew was firing on these people from "a few miles away"?

Looking at it purely pragmatically, a big similarity in these situations is that in the same way as Bloody Sunday provided one of the biggest boosts to IRA recruitment, the more incidents like these that come to light, the greater the reaction will be against the US.

concussion

Doesn't the similarity end rather abruptly because the people in the video were armed??

gizmo555

concussion wrote: »

Doesn't the similarity end rather abruptly because the people in the video were armed??

To be clear, I'm specifically referring to the obviously unarmed people who were assisting those wounded in the initial attack.

concussion

That's fair enough Gizmo. The US obviously has a procedure for dealing with those removing combatants or the pilot wouldn't have requested permission. I'm open to correction on this, having never actively served and therefore never received a full briefing, but the only thing stopping to stop a soldier from being targetted while attending the injured is the Red Cross. Ie, an unarmed soldier who starts first aid on his buddy is a legitimate target while the clearly identified, and armed, medic working benside him is not. If this is the case, then those helping the injured could be seen as legitimate targets.

Of course, the counter to this is that those helping the injured appeared to be unarmed and as they were not in uniform would be considered non-combatants, bringing me back to the start where permission was requested.

gizmo555

concussion wrote: »

The US obviously has a procedure for dealing with those removing combatants

It certainly has and we should be grateful to Wikileaks for showing us just what the procedure is . . .

concussion wrote: »

the only thing stopping to stop a soldier from being targetted while attending the injured is the Red Cross . . . If this is the case, then those helping the injured could be seen as legitimate targets.

The point is that these guys were not soldiers, there is absolutely nothing in the video to indicate they were anything other than unarmed civilians in a civilian vehicle, posing no immediate threat to anyone.

helimachoptor

concussion wrote: »

TIe, an unarmed soldier who starts first aid on his buddy is a legitimate target while the clearly identified, and armed, medic working benside him is not. If this is the case, then those helping the injured could be seen as legitimate targets.

Perhaps in older wars i.e. WW2 and Korea this kind of gentlemanly behaviour went on and have read several books where it has been described. But I would hazzard a guess that if Al Qaeda et all get a medic in their sights they wont be thinking Geneva Convention..

gizmo555

helimachoptor wrote: »

Perhaps in older wars i.e. WW2 and Korea this kind of gentlemanly behaviour went on and have read several books where it has been described. But I would hazzard a guess that if Al Qaeda et all get a medic in their sights they wont be thinking Geneva Convention..

I would have thought that the US army would and ought to hold itself to higher standards of behaviour than Al Qaida.

Not DeCoR18

helimachoptor wrote: »

Perhaps in older wars i.e. WW2 and Korea this kind of gentlemanly behaviour went on and have read several books where it has been described. But I would hazzard a guess that if Al Qaeda et all get a medic in their sights they wont be thinking Geneva Convention..

Saw something on Youtube about a group of about 12 US soldiers being pinned down by a sniper, it talked about how the sniper stopped firing at points to allow soliders to remove the wounded. They then promtly bombed the building to **** that he was in, can't remember if they found his body or what.

All the same I'd consider that a once off and by no means am I defending Al Qaeda.

Overheal

Manic Moran wrote: »

Given the existance of two threads on the matter elsewhere on Boards (One on Politics, one on AH), I'm inclined to lock the thread as un-necessary, but I'm going to let it run for now and see if it stays on topic, as it were.

NTM

Truthfully I dropped by your abode as the best place to focus the matter on the Hardware, the Tactics and the Rules of Engagement, etc. without getting bogged down by a bunch of Angry Mob outlash this; bloodthirsty nazi's that; Jack Bauer.

My only question right now is what were the Rules of Engagement/Modi Operandi (sp?) in the circumstances.

edit: Also what counter-measures does the insurgency have at its disposal to a gunship?

Burgo

Overheal wrote: »

Truthfully I dropped by your abode as the best place to focus the matter on the Hardware, the Tactics and the Rules of Engagement, etc. without getting bogged down by a bunch of Angry Mob outlash this; bloodthirsty nazi's that; Jack Bauer.

My only question right now is what were the Rules of Engagement/Modi Operandi (sp?) in the circumstances.

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/rules_of_engagement_match_2007.pdf

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/rules_of_engagement.pdf

Overheal

Burgo wrote: »

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/rules_of_engagement_match_2007.pdf

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/rules_of_engagement.pdf

I will rue the Day web browsers let you view PDF in-browser. now I have to find a plug

Zambia

The French Foriegn legion have a Code of Honour all recruits learn the last line being

In combat, you will act without passion and without hate, you will respect the vanquished enemy, you will never abandon your dead or wounded, nor surrender your arms.

This whole thing has its holes, but a bloke in a helicopter itching to kill a wounded person does not sit well with me.

Had I seen a Video like this of a British Helicopter operating in Belfast as a younger bloke I would have joined any organisation that offered me a way to fight back. That crew have killed more US personnel by their actions that day than they will ever realise.

Morlar

Some are clearly carrying AK's and are about to mount an attack (or with the benefit of hindsight at the very least stage some kind of pro terrorist propaganda footage).

Seeing that group of armed men would easily lead you to think that the 2 with shoulder slung cameras were actually carrying compact sub machine guns slung over their shoulders. Watching it there it would actually make you think those 2 were possibly in command of the group as they appeared to have more easily concealable weapons.

I know what a camera looks like also, but knowing that now as you watch it is not the same as the guys seeing this unfold in realtime.

The van removing the bodies was not red cross - it could easily have been fellow insurgents removing weapons and or helping the wounded to escape in order to avoid capture to fight another day.

That footage also slow motions and zooms in even further on figures inside the van with the caption of 'Children here'. The pilots obviously did not know there were kids in the van at that point. Neither did I watching it there. It's obviously tragic that children were injured but in their shoes anybody with any sense would have done exactly the same as they did. As for the media personnel operating with terrorists they were not identified as media - they genuinely appeared to be a part of the group.

Local-womanizer

gizmo555 wrote: »

Well, you're shifting your ground here. First, you said the helicopter crew was justified in firing on the van because it wasn't marked as an ambulance. Now you're saying it was justifiable to make sure the original targets were really dead, notwithstanding the fact that the people coming to the aid of the wounded posed no direct threat. The same justification could have applied to firing on the German ambulances mentioned above - after all, the wounded in them could have been patched up and returned to combat.





Are you really saying that the helicopter crew was firing on these people from "a few miles away"?

Looking at it purely pragmatically, a big similarity in these situations is that in the same way as Bloody Sunday provided one of the biggest boosts to IRA recruitment, the more incidents like these that come to light, the greater the reaction will be against the US.

Yes they are justified,see,as I pointed out before,there is a major difference between an Ambulance and a black van. I have no doubt that if an Ambulance had pulled up it would not have recieved fire. But all that did pull up was a black van looking to carry away the "insurgents",therefore the pilots were justified in relation to what they believed at the time, ie that these men were insurgents.

Yes,the chopper is at a considerable distance,so much so that if you watch the full version of the video ( I dont know if you have or not) the choppers continue to engage a building were an armed man enters. They fire a hell-fire at said building and you can clearly see some-one walking beside this building totally unaware of what is coming towards him. And it happens again with a second rocket and different on-looker. If these people were aware of where these rockets came from or they could see the chopper,they wouldent be hanging around.Apaches have a phenomenal range capability,one of their major selling points.

To sum it up,to compare this current "war" or whatever its called nowadays to WWII is pointless. Completely different methods of fighting from both sides with no defined rules as such,with what being the Coalition forces up against a Insurgent Force who are not regarded as an army.

I am in no way defending or condoning the actions of the pilots,as it is pointless to do so at this stage without hearing the pilots version of events,which they are in their rights to do so.Their actions should be judge on what situation existed at the time and was presented to them and not on some "rule book" designed to introduce fairness into war wrote from the comfort of an office or dreamed up in some committee....

helimachoptor

gizmo555 wrote: »

I would have thought that the US army would and ought to hold itself to higher standards of behaviour than Al Qaida.

If the US was fighting in a conventional war then I'm sure if a medic ran onto a battlefield to tend the wounded he most likely would be spared direct fire, just my opinion though. however the war on terror/ Al Queda/Insurgents is not a conventional war, they don't wear uniforms.

Not DeCoR18 wrote: »

Saw something on Youtube about a group of about 12 US soldiers being pinned down by a sniper, it talked about how the sniper stopped firing at points to allow soliders to remove the wounded. They then promtly bombed the building to **** that he was in, can't remember if they found his body or what.

All the same I'd consider that a once off and by no means am I defending Al Qaeda.

I'd also be bombing the building! If true fair play to him, the wounded were no longer a threat but if i was in the americans position I'd have called in the big guns to level the building.

Local-womanizer wrote: »

Yes they are justified,see,as I pointed out before,there is a major difference between an Ambulance and a black van. I have no doubt that if an Ambulance had pulled up it would not have recieved fire. But all that did pull up was a black van looking to carry away the "insurgents",therefore the pilots were justified in relation to what they believed at the time, ie that these men were insurgents.

Yes,the chopper is at a considerable distance,so much so that if you watch the full version of the video ( I dont know if you have or not) the choppers continue to engage a building were an armed man enters. They fire a hell-fire at said building and you can clearly see some-one walking beside this building totally unaware of what is coming towards him. And it happens again with a second rocket and different on-looker. If these people were aware of where these rockets came from or they could see the chopper,they wouldent be hanging around.Apaches have a phenomenal range capability,one of their major selling points.

To sum it up,to compare this current "war" or whatever its called nowadays to WWII is pointless. Completely different methods of fighting from both sides with no defined rules as such,with what being the Coalition forces up against a Insurgent Force who are not regarded as an army.

I am in no way defending or condoning the actions of the pilots,as it is pointless to do so at this stage without hearing the pilots version of events,which they are in their rights to do so.Their actions should be judge on what situation existed at the time and was presented to them and not on some "rule book" designed to introduce fairness into war wrote from the comfort of an office or dreamed up in some committee....

Agree fully, the pilots could well be a couple of miles away(only have seen the above video) Their job is to kill the enemy and they beleive the people in the video are the enemy. also they request permission to fire, they're not just going off half cocked and strafing every living thing in sight.
Unfortunately people die in war.

Not DeCoR18

helimachoptor wrote: »

I'd also be bombing the building! If true fair play to him, the wounded were no longer a threat but if i was in the americans position I'd have called in the big guns to level the building.

Oh yeah completely, I was merely just telling the outcome of the confrontation, rather than implying the Americans were unhonourable or something to bomb the building.

p1akuw47h5r3it

Local-womanizer wrote: »

Interesting,I should have watched all of it.

But a point I made in regards the situation,its easy with hindsight to judge the call that was made by the pilots. If there was indeed a direct threat to the ground troops then action was needed. Listening to the video werent there reports of the troops taking fire? It seems to me the location of the source of the fire was mixed up,resulting in the incident.

I suppose its easy for us to "make the call" when there are no reprecussions at all to come from it.

Still,if needs be and mistakes were made in carrying out procedures then those responsible should be held responsible. But until its investigated I wouldent be so quick to judge.

R.I.P to those who died btw.

I agree with what u say. What annoyed me was the joy the Pilots seem to get from killing the people. Yes they believed they were the enemy but killing someone is still kiling someone and they just seemed very disrespectful to me.

Manic Moran

DanDan6592 wrote: »

Yes they believed they were the enemy but killing someone is still kiling someone and they just seemed very disrespectful to me.

Is there a respectful way to kill someone?

"I say, Sir... no disrespect intended, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to shoot you..."

NTM

concussion

The After Action Report is available on Scribd
http://www.scribd.com/doc/29487634/Centcom-FOIA

It confirms several things - several members of the group were armed with AK's and RPG's and the two journalists both knew they were in the company of armed men and made no attempt to identify themselves as non-combatants.

Following from this, the attack on the men at the corner was justified.

Regarding the attack on the van, the men removing insurgents, injured or not, could be considered to be engaged in hostile activities and if so would lose their status as protected persons. As the US military confirms the ROE were maintained, that is what I conclude to be the case.

Contrary to what the captions in the video state, the children were evacuated to a US military hospital before being transferred to an Iraqi hospital the next day.

As for the Apache crew - they correctly identified combatants and engaged them. They requested permission to engage the van and received approval under ROE. They did nothing wrong but wrongly identify a camera as an RPG but this is a moot point as they had already positively identified AK's and RPG's.

Hobby Horse

The sad thing about this video is that there wasn't even really an attempt to cover it up. The US Army really doesn't believe the video shows them doing anything wrong.

Firstly the reasoning that the journalists were in the presence of Armed men. It's Iraq everybody and his dog has a rifle, it's legal to have an AK47 and 40 rounds of Ammunition. As for the RPG well one person in the group does appear to be carrying one but still I don't think any reasonable person could justify the actions the Apache Crew took.

I deployed to Iraq with the British army a few years ago. As part of the Theatre training package they show you a series of videos from the gun cameras on Helecopters.

They mainly show the videos as a confidence building measure, as the bases were getting rocketed on a daily basis it got to be incredibly frustrating on the troops stationed there, and it was felt that it was importantfor morale to let people know that the guys setting up the baseplates for the rockets were getting hammered.

Some of the videos were a bit extreme especially the chatter between the crews as they engaged the targets. The americans had an incredibly broad description of what a threat was, things like digging at the side of the road (for a possible roadside bomb) would warrant a missile being fired.

While the tactics did work, (rocket attacks dropped off dramatically when the americans took over responsibility for an area) there have to be moral guideline as well as military ones.

I think the worst part of the video was the chatter between the crew of the aircraft, I really don't see how anyone can justify it.

delos

Manic Moran wrote: »

Is there a respectful way to kill someone?

No there is not, but what seems to be pleasure in killing topped-off with the Drirty Harry parody as a wounded man crawls along is worrying. This, combined with the "well, they shouldn't have brought their children" response to the wounded children suggests a level of dehumanisation in the helicopter crew.
While I'd imagine that a certain level of dehuminisation is required to function in these circumstances, how do you measure this and decide that it has gone too far? This is not in any way intended as a dig, I'm genuinely curious as to how this is monitored and managed.

Manic Moran

I deployed to Iraq with the British army a few years ago.

In that case, you'll know that though

it's legal to have an AK47 and 40 rounds of Ammunition

it's not legal to carry it around on the city street. It is legal for me to own my three rifles and two pistols and the 1,500 or so rounds of ammunition I have, but I guarantee you the authorities would be talking to me if I tried to take the rifle and ammunition up the road. And regardless, the RPGs sealed the deal.

While I'd imagine that a certain level of dehuminisation is required to function in these circumstances, how do you measure this and decide that it has gone too far? This is not in any way intended as a dig, I'm genuinely curious as to how this is monitored and managed

It's not dehumanisation. It's simply dealing with daily routine. Dead bodies are somewhat unusual to us, but I'll guarantee you that funeral workers, EMTs and other such people who deal with death routinely have a pretty macabre perspective on things.

To answer your question, it is viewed on two levels. Firstly, the effect on the mission. As long as the soldiers give indication that they are going to abide by the rules that are set for them, the soldiers can view it any way they want. Whether the shooters are filled with remorse for their own actions, or if they are psychopaths who just couldn't give a damn is pretty much irrelevant to the people on the other end of the gun, the Army's mission or the effect on world PR from their actions. Cockpit voice recordings notwithstanding.

On a personal level, there are a variety of support measures, varying from combat stress teams through the chaplain (he's not just for religious support) or simply Joe's colleague coming to the chain of command with concerns about Joe. Managing the psychological stress on soldiers has become a very big deal in the US military in the last decade or so.

NTM

gunnerfitzy

Manic Moran wrote: »

...
It's not dehumanisation. It's simply dealing with daily routine. Dead bodies are somewhat unusual to us, but I'll guarantee you that funeral workers, EMTs and other such people who deal with death routinely have a pretty macabre perspective on things.
...
NTM

The funeral worker and EMT didn't kill the person. I would like to think that a person should react differently to an event where they killed someone and one where they could not save a life or work with dead bodies.

Imagine a member of your family had been shot dead in an American city by the a member of the police and a somewhat similar recording of the radio chatter released. What would your thoughts be then?

Someone might expain somethings to me. It is normally accepted that if you are the general area of someone with an AK47 for example you become an legitimate target? Or that if you come across someone wounded in the street you are open to attack for trying to save their life because you 'may' also be an insurgent? Surely you should have to be carrying some kind of a weapon or engaged in a hostile act to have fire directed upon you and not mearly be putting a seriously wounded person in you vehicle?

The excuse that they within the ROEs and obtained permission to fire doesn't hold water with me at all. If the ROEs state that an apparently unarmed person and everyone in this company/vehicle can be fired upon for aiding an seriously injured person then those ROEs must be brought into question.

krissovo

Manic Moran wrote: »

Is there a respectful way to kill someone?

"I say, Sir... no disrespect intended, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to shoot you..."

NTM

There is absolutely a respectful way to handle these situations! Act professional is the simple answer!

iceage

Anyone seen the whole 39 minute video? Has anyone taken the time to bother? Would it not have crossed your mind for a second to ask why Wikileaks would edit nearly 20 mins out of that clip?

Ask yourself why Wikileaks did this. Was it to give an unbiased version of events? No it wasn't. Did they show that the ground callsigns in that clip were and had been on the recieving end of incoming small arms fire and rocket attacks from RPG? No they didn't. I've come to realise over the years to take everything I see either on the gogglebox, or read in the press and especially on the net with a fairly large pinch of salt for like most things, we're only getting one side of the story.

concussion

The AAR also states that the ground troops had been in contact the entire morning and that several of the insurgents killed by the Apache were id'd as those who had been firing at them. It also confirms RPG's at the scene.

delos

Manic Moran wrote: »

It's not dehumanisation. It's simply dealing with daily routine. Dead bodies are somewhat unusual to us, but I'll guarantee you that funeral workers, EMTs and other such people who deal with death routinely have a pretty macabre perspective on things.

These professions are classic cases where individuals are dehumanised by their work. If you want a sick sense of humour talk to a nurse, if you want to meet a cold-hearted, calculating individual who would shock a lawyer with their detachment talk to a field based aid worker who is good at their job. I've only ever dealt with funeral workers on a professional level when I've had other things on my mind so I can't comment. Without a level of detatchment (I'll use this term instead as dehumanisation can have connotations that are not intended here) from the subjects of their work, these people simply could not function. This is bordering on sematics so I'll stop now.

Manic Moran wrote: »

Managing the psychological stress on soldiers has become a very big deal in the US military in the last decade or so.

Sorry for veering off-topic a bit but has there been a noticable effect on combat efficency and re-integration on leaving the military with these changes? I suppose it would be very difficult to measure this.

delos

iceage wrote: »

Anyone seen the whole 39 minute video? Has anyone taken the time to bother? Would it not have crossed your mind for a second to ask why Wikileaks would edit nearly 20 mins out of that clip?

Ask yourself why Wikileaks did this. Was it to give an unbiased version of events? No it wasn't. Did they show that the ground callsigns in that clip were and had been on the recieving end of incoming small arms fire and rocket attacks from RPG? No they didn't. I've come to realise over the years to take everything I see either on the gogglebox, or read in the press and especially on the net with a fairly large pinch of salt for like most things, we're only getting one side of the story.

Yes I did but where do you think the 39 minute version of the video came from? While I have no doubt that Wikileaks have their own agenda here you can find the full-length video on their site. Maybe you should be asking why the video footage wasn't released as part of a FOI request and who it was that released the video to Wikileaks in the first place and why they did it.

Manic Moran

gunnerfitzy wrote: »

The funeral worker and EMT didn't kill the person. I would like to think that a person should react differently to an event where they killed someone and one where they could not save a life or work with dead bodies.

I'm sure they do, but the effects as I understand them are not immediate, usually don't really start to take effect for a day or two after the kill. I've not read my Grossman in a couple of years.

Imagine a member of your family had been shot dead in an American city by the a member of the police and a somewhat similar recording of the radio chatter released. What would your thoughts be then?

I'm sure I wouldn't be happy. But then I'd be emotionally vested, wouldn't I? The gunner could be totally calm, cool, and saying nothing not directly related to his work, and then the accusations would come 'The Americans are unfeeling, unemotional, and don't care what they're doing, they just think they're killing sprites on a video game'. The only 'acceptable' conversation on the radio would be 'on the way.. target, target destroyed. Oh my God! What have I done!? The blood! The horror! How can I live with myself?"

Someone might expain somethings to me. It is normally accepted that if you are the general area of someone with an AK47 for example you become an legitimate target?

No. There are two possibilities: They are giving the impression of being part of an armed group, or they are giving the impression of being unassociated and in the wrong place at the wrong time. If the former then yes, legitimate target. If the latter, the decision then becomes a judgement call on the necessity of killing the guy with the AK whilst the civilian is still within the danger area and hoping the latter doesn't get too badly hurt.

Or that if you come across someone wounded in the street you are open to attack for trying to save their life because you 'may' also be an insurgent? Surely you should have to be carrying some kind of a weapon or engaged in a hostile act to have fire directed upon you and not mearly be putting a seriously wounded person in you vehicle?

Legally, no. Problem is that the laws of land warfare never had this sort of fight in mind. As one observer astutely pointed out about a year ago, there is much hullaballoo from the international community over the rules, but there seems to be absolutely no indication from the international community on actually modifying them.

Outside of the legal barriers, and into the 'real world', the answer is 'maybe.' and is a decision to be made in the totality of the circumstances. After all, just beacuse you 'can' doesn't mean you 'should.' For example, if the video were taken in Fallujah in 2004, there would have been little controversy. If it were taken in Basra in 2009, it would have been open and shut the other way.

There is absolutely a respectful way to handle these situations! Act professional is the simple answer!

They did. They followed the rules and procedures. What they say after the fact is pretty irrelevant to the guy who's now dead and has no effect on the guy's deadness.

Sorry for veering off-topic a bit but has there been a noticable effect on combat efficency and re-integration on leaving the military with these changes? I suppose it would be very difficult to measure this.

The biggest problem hasn't been the psychological effect of seeing (or making) death, but has been the massive stresses on the soldiers and their families due to the repeated deployments. It's not easy to keep a marriage going when you're away for two of the last three years, and if soldiers are worried about the home front, they're not focusing on their jobs. There are quite a few people who have said 'I love the job, but I love my wife more, and if I stay in, she'll leave me.'

Everyone who comes back will suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress, there's no way around it, which usually fade out within a month. The question becomes if it turns into PTSD, which is defined by persistent symptoms which affect the ability to partake in normal life. There are a whole slew of support structures available again, and friends and family are notified of them so that if the soldier isn't inclined to go to see the VA psychiatrist or whatever, the friends can call someone who does.

Before I left Afghanistan, I checked in with the Chaplain and Combat Stress team, to see if I had any soldiers I needed to keep an eye on that they knew of. They told me 'no', but I'm still having my NCOs check on people on a regular basis.

NTM

BrianD

airvan wrote: »

I watched this video once. I didn't study it and replay it and didn't analyse it. Only because I knew there was a man with a camera there before I watched the film and because it was highlighted in the version I watched did I realise it was not a weapon. Not only that I wasn't keyed up in the front seat of Apache in a war zone tasked with protecting my comrades on the ground. So I could regard it with cold objectivity. But at the time he saw these pictures live. No chance for replays.

What I saw is a group of men gathering with an air of anticipation. Two of them separated and walked purposefully towards a corner. One had something slung over his shoulder, incorrectly identified as a weapon by the gunner. In the background a man could be seen with a long object. He grounded it at one point and leaned on it. A shovel or an RPG?

The men gathered at the corner and at one point we can see the photographer as we now know crouched low in a tactical manner peering round the corner holding his camera with telephoto lens in the direction that the US ground troops later arrived. Coincidence? Maybe. It may have obviously been a camera to an experienced photographer with hindsight sitting in a comfortable room miles from the warzone but to the man on the spot it simply looked like an RPG.

My conclusion is that an attack on the US column was being prepared probably with an RPG in the presence of the photographer. The Apache crew had long ago formed the same opinion. If as someone said RPGs were found on the scene. This would appear to back this opinion up.

As for the attack on the van trying to rescue the wounded man. That was an obvious mistake but not really surprising given the situation. It is difficult to justify other than that the Apache crew had just attacked what they believed were insurgents and now it appears some of their comrades was attemping to rescue a wounded insurgent. The children are a red herring because they weren't visible and frankly it wasn't something you would expect.

It always annoys me when people on the internet sitting at a keyboard with no concept of the reality on the ground sit there making judgements against people in the heat of battle or in a very dangerous situation. At the very least try and put yourself in the place of the people in the situation. What would you have done?

In my own case given the same scenario. I would have opened fire. I may regret it now but at the time it was the only response.

I have a big problem with this. You may state it's a war zone but it's also a city with civilians. Therefore the onus on the American troops is that they have to verify and double check that the target that have identified is indeed a hostile party. Unfortunately, it may mean that they take a 'hit' before verification is concluded. This is what a professional army working in a civilian area has to accept.

What I don't understand that the civilians on the ground seemed to be unaware of the proximity of the aircraft. Could the aircraft not have moved closer so that they would have verified whether the targets were hostile or not?

concussion wrote:

As for the Apache crew - they correctly identified combatants and engaged them. They requested permission to engage the van and received approval under ROE. They did nothing wrong but wrongly identify a camera as an RPG but this is a moot point as they had already positively identified AK's and RPG's.

the video demonstrates that they did not do this. As someone else posted, armed civilians are common and most camera crews will have hired protection.

concussion

Law abiding citizens don't wander around with RPG's.

gizmo555

BrianD wrote: »

I have a big problem with this. You may state it's a war zone but it's also a city with civilians. Therefore the onus on the American troops is that they have to verify and double check that the target that have identified is indeed a hostile party. Unfortunately, it may mean that they take a 'hit' before verification is concluded. This is what a professional army working in a civilian area has to accept.

+1

concussion wrote: »

Law abiding citizens don't wander around with RPG's.

But they may, as the clearly unarmed driver of the van who was killed did, come to the aid of people they find dying of their wounds on the side of the road. As has been pointed out in the thread on this topic in the Politics forum, the Geneva Conventions expressly confirm the right of civilians in a combat zone to spontaneously render assistance to wounded combatants and not to be subject to attack for doing so.

The US military has apparently found that the Apache crew were complying with their rules of engagement in killing this man, although he was not armed and posed no threat either to them or to the ground troops. If so, there are very serious problems with the rules.

CatFromHue

there was an interesting article on this and on wikileaks in the sunday business post today.

here is the link

http://www.sbpost.ie/agenda/publish-and-be-damned-48586.html

concussion

gizmo555 wrote: »

But they may, as the clearly unarmed driver of the van who was killed did, come to the aid of people they find dying of their wounds on the side of the road. As has been pointed out in the thread on this topic in the Politics forum, the Geneva Conventions expressly confirm the right of civilians in a combat zone to spontaneously render assistance to wounded combatants and not to be subject to attack for doing so.

That they do. However, if that person is committing a hostile act then they can be engaged, whether or not they are armed. If the ground commander had reason to believe that the van driver was an insurgent and not just a civilian who happened to stop and help then the strike would be justified.

My opinion - it's pretty shocking to me that permission was given, based on what we saw in the tape. However, what we didn't see was all the briefings and intelligence that the troops saw. Neither do we hear radio comms from other units. I would hope I never have to be in a position to make that decision and I would like to think I wouldn't fire on someone I didn't know for sure was a combatant. But as I don't have all the information I won't jump around shouting murder.

Apologies for the delay in replying.

gizmo555

Looks as though the only person who is going to be punished as a result of this sorry episode is the GI who leaked the video. Typical.

A US soldier has been arrested in connection with the release of a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, the US military said last night.

US army specialist Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, who was deployed to Baghdad, is being held in pre-trial confinement in Kuwait, "for allegedly releasing classified information," according to a US military statement.

The statement did not provide details of the information in question but in an emailed response to a query, a US official confirmed that the case involved a US military videotape made public in April by WikiLeaks, a group that promotes the leaking of information to fight government and corporate corruption.

The gunsight video shows an attack by a US Apache helicopter on a group of men in a square in a Baghdad neighbourhood. The group included Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.

Wired magazine, which initially reported the arrest on its website, said Manning, an intelligence analyst, came under suspicion after he told a former hacker during an email exchange that he had leaked the video. Wired did not disclose its sources but quoted from what it said Manning had written.

The magazine said Manning also claimed to have leaked other classified information, including video of a 2009 bombing in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians and 260,000 classified US diplomatic cables.

Wired reported that WikiLeaks had previously acknowledged it was in possession of the bombing video. It said only one US diplomatic cable had been posted by WikiLeaks.

There was no immediate comment from WikiLeaks, but a person involved with the group said WikiLeaks did not know if Manning used its services because all its sources are anonymous.

"Our legal advisers have started working on the case, and are verifying how much this military investigation is violating the rights of our sources and us," the person involved with WikiLeaks said in an email.

The Pentagon said investigators were taking a very careful look at what classified information might have been divulged by Manning, who was deployed with the 2nd Brigade 10th Mountain Division.