WikiLeaks publishes apparent negligent attack on civillians in Iraq video

[Husar]

The "callous" comments made are what I think people would have to say as a defense of their own psyche in a war situation.

I've been thinking about that, but is it really the point of that war? Is it right to go there to protect the innocent people from all sorts of horrible things and then turn into a monster yourself?
A soldier without any compassion is just a killing machine, I found it quite telling when he was wishing for the guy crawling on the ground to pick up a weapon so he could shoot him (what he did later anyway when the van arrived), no regard for human life at all, in fact I could envision the taliban saying the same things after killing americans, so what exactly makes these soldiers better again?

Why would they do that?

Because some people help those who are in need of help, it's called human compassion, it may be surprising to you but it also exists in the middle east.

I don't mean to question your obvious expertise in long range target identification, but if you examine the video posted at 3:40, there clearly looks to be a man with a weapon.

Yeah, I saw the guy carrying the tripod for the camera, too...

Further, at 4 minutes in, it very much looks like a man with an RPG is crouching and peering around the corner. It even startles the pilots.

Oh yes, the guy kneeling around the corner holding this 20cm long RPG in one hand who then disappears behind a building in the next second, that's clearly enough evidence to warrant killing 8 people...
I didn't hear anyone being startled either, I'm probably too hardass and not caring enough about those poor soldiers in that gunship, 2km or so away from the scene.

Even from a video as heavily edited as that, I'm still not convinced that the pilots erroneously saw weapons that weren't there.

Yeah, sure, but oh what fun they had when the HMMWV drove over a body, I'm sure they're good christians and all that.

[Louis VI the Fat]

When you are trained for a long time in something, you'll want to put it into practise.

I do wonder, are these people overtrained in shooting, and undertrained in refraining from shooting?

From this distance, with this weaponry, the people shot do not look like people. They do not bleed, they do not scream, they do not die. They are 'elements', to be erased with the push of a button. I find the language of the soldiers very discomforting.

War is war, and requires detachement of the soldier from empathy with the opponent. His orphaned kids can not be the overriding sentiment in pitched battle. One can take this detachment a level too far, cultivate it through language, physical detachement from the battlefield.

I find the use of dehumanised words such as 'elements' even more dangerous than words that relish in actual blood and gore. ('Haha - did he just drive over that dead body?') The latter requires the acknowledgement of the opponent as a human being, who bleeds, suffers, knows humiliation and pride. The former does not, and is therefore even more dangerous.

~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~

As for is/isn't/is too an AK-47/RPG: the one thing that debate shows, is that the military patrols in such a manner, from such a distance, that this can't be established with any accuracy, but will shoot.
In that light, it isn't all that important what the exact nature of the people shot in this video turns out to be. The method itself is a recipe for civilian casualties. If not in this instance, then someplace else.

[HoreTore]

The method itself is a recipe for civilian casualties. If not in this instance, then someplace else.

That's what dem lousy hippies say all the time!!

....Like the commander of the US troops in Afghanistan.... A clear case of hippie, next we'll see him form a drum circle.

[PanzerJaeger]

Because some people help those who are in need of help, it's called human compassion, it may be surprising to you but it also exists in the middle east.




Yeah, I saw the guy carrying the tripod for the camera, too...


Oh yes, the guy kneeling around the corner holding this 20cm long RPG in one hand who then disappears behind a building in the next second, that's clearly enough evidence to warrant killing 8 people...
I didn't hear anyone being startled either, I'm probably too hardass and not caring enough about those poor soldiers in that gunship, 2km or so away from the scene.


Yeah, sure, but oh what fun they had when the HMMWV drove over a body, I'm sure they're good christians and all that.

I don't understand how you could possibly be that righteously indignant with such a vague and ambiguous command of the facts surrounding this incident and the context in which it occurred. Goebbels did say something to the effect that the best propaganda cuts through rational thought in to raw emotion.

[HoreTore]

I don't understand how you could possibly be that righteously indignant with such a vague and ambiguous command of the facts surrounding this incident and the context in which it occurred. Goebbels did say something to the effect that the best propaganda cuts through rational thought into raw emotion.

Do I smell a Goodwin?

[Strike For The South]

When you fight behind civilians, some are bound to get killed.

The insurgents use these tactics b/c they hafto, any rational person assumes any civilians miling around the insurgents make get mistaken for insurgents themselves. It should come as no surprise what happens when you go into a firefight in an unmarked van and have men unload out of it.

[Brenus]

“I would like to know how blind the pilot and gunner must be to think a long-range camera is an AK-47”
Happened to me after Iraq. I saw weapons everywhere (camera as a small weapon). And I was in France, in the festival of jazz in Vienne (near Lyon, not Austria).
The fact is when you are in a war zone (or just come back) your brain links all to war and danger (or food).
So, I watch this video.
What I find disturbing is the will for the pilot and the gunner to see weapons…
Then yes, the RPC is clearly not one. In black and white.
Now due to Iraq luminosity and the fact that the observers did not have black and white vision (I don't know), a black long object could have been suspect.
Then, because their mid was set on “insurgents” they interpreted all the others movements as dangers or help to insurgents.

“As far as I understand those two apaches clearly recogniced that no one was shooting at them”
That is not a reason not to engage potential enemies in a war. In fact it is what you do in ambush… A trained insurgent would take cover again a Apache if he has not AA weapons…

“it is clearly a fixed wing aircraft”: ? Can you developp on this assertion?

“In summary: Bad guys spotted, rules of engagement followed, van is shot when trying to pick up bad guys”. Err, excepted that the dad guys were not bad guys, weapons were not weapons and rescuers were just nice people trying to help… That is a ground point of view…

“Well, they didn't, they thought it was an RPG, which makes it all okay, no wait, worse, because people always wave RPgs around with one hand and everybody knows RPGs are just 20cm long” And even it was a RPG, it wouldn’t have been a menace as RPG are not AA, so in order to be use against choppers you have to be on a roof if you don’t want to be burned by the flame made by the rocket (around 5 metres) when launched…

“Further, at 4 minutes in, it very much looks like a man with an RPG is crouching and peering around the corner.” Err, no, it doesn’t on the black and white film I saw. Again, I don’t know if it is how the gunner/pilot see it, of if it as the colour and light…

“I'm still not convinced that the pilots erroneously saw weapons that weren't there”. Well, if the comments match the film, yes they saw weapons where it was none.
I saw a lot of weapons in fighting situations and angles (not for above) and I can’t see any thing which could be bigger than a light pistol in the hands of the men on the ground…
And knowing that all men in Iraq had/have weapons I don’t understand the haste of the pilots to engage, but I don’t know the tactical situation and the rules of engagement in this particular zone…

“From this distance, with this weaponry, the people shot do not look like people. They do not bleed, they do not scream, they do not die. They are 'elements', to be erased with the push of a button. I find the language of the soldiers very discomforting.” Yeap, and that is the difference with the US grunts running to evacuate the children…
Do you imagine what the infantrymen’s reaction when they saw the result? How did they feel? How you feel when you realise what a mistake it was? The smell of the blood, the heat, the sand, the flesh spread every where…

[Brenus]

When you fight behind civilians, some are bound to get killed. That is actually Karadzic defence in The Hague... I don't think it will work for him...

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Such a defense would only work if the preponderance of evidence shows that such civilian deaths were NOT the norm -- but merely a sad byproduct.


I always have trouble second guessing these things for the same reason I have trouble second guessing cops on the beat.


Did they see what they wanted to see? Did a climate of constant anxiety lead them to this? Was this film edited to excise weapons that were present in the hands of a few.

Or are they like the chopper gunner in "Full Metal Jacket" who just didn't care, shot them all, and offered the advice that you didn't need to "lead" women and children as much.



Tactically, firing from such a crowd is a perfect terrorist tool. They want hatred of the suppressor force, can't shoot back on an even footing anyway, and really don't care about the lives of those killed so long as the larger cause is served.

I hope Kukri, MRD, and some of our "old sweat" soldiers can speak to this. The USA fights pretty much all of its conflicts with this as a dominant condition (since the rare instances when we've been allowed to face a "conventional" opponent in the field with few civilians about have resulted in quick and lopsided US victories in the last 30 years we can expect folks NOT to oblige us). How do you train troops to address these situations? How do you effectively institutionalize such training?

The basic model for suppressing an insurgency is well known -- we did it very successfully for decades from 1880 through WW2. So what has changed and how do we get back to that level of success?

[Husar]

I don't understand how you could possibly be that righteously indignant with such a vague and ambiguous command of the facts surrounding this incident and the context in which it occurred. Goebbels did say something to the effect that the best propaganda cuts through rational thought in to raw emotion.

Why? Of course I don't have all the info but if this was a superhot combat zone why were those eight guys casually walking on the street?
And apart from that, go tell the pilot and gunner they should have weighed their arguments better and considered a bit more of the circumstances before pulling the trigger on more than 8 innocent people.

[Louis VI the Fat]

The basic model for suppressing an insurgency is well known -- we did it very successfully for decades from 1880 through WW2. So what has changed and how do we get back to that level of success?

What happened was WW2, and the moral lessons learned.

It is not hard at all to defeat an insurgency. See: British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian Empires. It is just a matter of what you are prepared to do.

[PanzerJaeger]

Why? Of course I don't have all the info but if this was a superhot combat zone why were those eight guys casually walking on the street?
And apart from that, go tell the pilot and gunner they should have weighed their arguments better and considered a bit more of the circumstances before pulling the trigger on more than 8 innocent people.

Even while admitting to not having all the facts, you've packed in as many unproven assumtions into two sentences as possible.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

What happened was WW2, and the moral lessons learned.

It is not hard at all to defeat an insurgency. See: British, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Russian Empires. It is just a matter of what you are prepared to do.

I wasn't advocating a return to the "glory" days of the Belgian Congo or Spanish Cuba. I had in mind the generally successful -- and surprisingly non-brutal, non-lethal to civilians -- efforts by the USA in Nicaraugua, Haiti, Vera Cruz, and (though a number of brutal incidents shamefully mar this record) much of the occupation of the Phillipines. Now, it is easy to suggest that we were behaving immorally in our high-handed assumption that we had a right to intervene in those places at all, but the tactics employed were reasonably successful and did not generate the localized hatred we seem to garner today. It should be noted that "shock and awe" featured little in this model, and even when used was restricted to the early phases against a clearly identifiable armed "bad guy." Why would it not work now?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

http://www.collateralmurder.com/en/transcript.html

Here's the transcript of the video. Some things I didn't catch watching the video in the OP. Generally you get more of an impression that there was fighting in the are and several groups of insurgents--they shoot missiles at another group at the end of the transcript.

[spmetla]

Here's good article by the New York Times that goes a bit into the psychology of soldiers in general while discussing this tragedy.

Psychologists Explain Iraq Airstrike Video

[Husar]

Even while admitting to not having all the facts, you've packed in as many unproven assumtions into two sentences as possible.

So did the pilots, the difference is that I created a forum post with it and they created a bloodbath, is that so hard to get?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

So did the pilots, the difference is that I created a forum post with it and they created a bloodbath, is that so hard to get?

I believe that PJ is suggesting that they should be held morally/ethically responsible for a series of mistakes under trying conditions, whereas you appear to be suggesting that they are culpable for willful murder (sounds like 2nd degree the way you phrase it, not pre-meditated 1st degree).

[Husar]

I believe that PJ is suggesting that they should be held morally/ethically responsible for a series of mistakes under trying conditions, whereas you appear to be suggesting that they are culpable for willful murder (sounds like 2nd degree the way you phrase it, not pre-meditated 1st degree).

Well, on SimHQ I was somewhat convinced that one of the guys may have actually had an RPG instead of a tripod, in that case they might have been insurgents, but I'm still not really convinced, in a warzone it would be wise even for civilians to peek around a corner, especially when there is a firefight in the vicinity. And if carrying AKs isn't illegal then yeah, you don't shoot guys for carrying handguns in the US without a warning, do you?
Now concerning the pilots, I don't know whether it was murder, more like they saw what they wanted and then had fun killing these people, yes it's horrible to imagine you just killed eight people but if you cannot live with that, don't sign up to become a chopper gunner, sometimes realizing what you are actually doing might help you not to kill the wrong people.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Well, on SimHQ I was somewhat convinced that one of the guys may have actually had an RPG instead of a tripod, in that case they might have been insurgents, but I'm still not really convinced, in a warzone it would be wise even for civilians to peek around a corner, especially when there is a firefight in the vicinity. And if carrying AKs isn't illegal then yeah, you don't shoot guys for carrying handguns in the US without a warning, do you?

How is carrying an AK in a combat zone, with fighting nearby, a question of legality? You are acting like none of them were insurgents, not just the photographers.

[PanzerJaeger]

sometimes realizing what you are actually doing might help you not to kill the wrong people.

That is an unfounded assumption that is not at all supported by any of the information available, be it the military's investigation, Reuter's comments, or even WikiLeaks itself, whose founder admitted that there were armed men in the group. While it is certainly a shame that these reporters were killed, if they were imbedded with insurgents, then their fate is no one's fault but their own. Do keep in mind that you are watching exactly what these people want you to see, nothing more and nothing less.

[Husar]

How is carrying an AK in a combat zone, with fighting nearby, a question of legality? You are acting like none of them were insurgents, not just the photographers.

That is an unfounded assumption that is not at all supported by any of the information available, be it the military's investigation, Reuter's comments, or even WikiLeaks itself, whose founder admitted that there were armed men in the group. While it is certainly a shame that these reporters were killed, if they were imbedded with insurgents, then their fate is no one's fault but their own. Do keep in mind that you are watching exactly what these people want you to see, nothing more and nothing less.

The thing is that I didn't see any of them shooting at US troops. There are civilian contractors in Iraq patrolling the streets with AKs, should a gunship gunner shoot them, too and assume they would be insurgents just because they carry AKs on their shoulder? There was also a reporter who was embedded with just that kind of mercenaries. I don't see how carrying a gun in a combat zone makes you an insurgent, I thought you were all about self defense in the US? If that really was an RPG, well, that's not for self defense and that makes it a lot more likely they were insurgents, but my last comments were mostly assuming it wasn't an RPG. Which I still find hard to say from the video.

And yes, wikileaks only lets me see what they want me to see, just like the US army so who guarantees me that they didn't just cut the gunner some slack?
If I'm not allowed to comment without 100% of all the info then we can just stop opening new threads...

[Louis VI the Fat]

Do keep in mind that you are watching exactly what these people want you to see, nothing more and nothing less.

Which is still a good deal more than what the US government released, which was some reports absolving their own from all blame.

If this was a textbook counter-insurgency operation, why was the full video not released? That would've ended all speculation.

It's still Wikileaks that is responsible for providing us with the fuller picture of what happened, even if by forcing the truth with an edited video. Let's not reverse propaganda and whistle-blower.

[PanzerJaeger]

The thing is that I didn't see any of them shooting at US troops. There are civilian contractors in Iraq patrolling the streets with AKs, should a gunship gunner shoot them, too and assume they would be insurgents just because they carry AKs on their shoulder? There was also a reporter who was embedded with just that kind of mercenaries. I don't see how carrying a gun in a combat zone makes you an insurgent, I thought you were all about self defense in the US? If that really was an RPG, well, that's not for self defense and that makes it a lot more likely they were insurgents, but my last comments were mostly assuming it wasn't an RPG. Which I still find hard to say from the video.

If it were common practice for US gunships to open fire on random groups of civilians just walking around their neighborhoods, armed or otherwise, knowledge of such merciless ROEs would have certainly emerged after 7 years of war with the number of reporters present in the field. The fact that such a scandal has not occurred leads me to believe that there was a specific reason that this particular group of people was targeted on that day.

The video provides no information on who those people were, what they were doing, or the larger context of the military operations in which the gunships were involved. Such information is key in making any sort of judgment about the pilot's actions.

If I'm not allowed to comment without 100% of all the info then we can just stop opening new threads...

Good point.

Which is still a good deal more than what the US government released, which was some reports absolving their own from all blame.

If this was a textbook counter-insurgency operation, why was the full video not released? That would've ended all speculation.

It's still Wikileaks that is responsible for providing us with the fuller picture of what happened, even if by forcing the truth with an edited video. Let's not reverse propaganda and whistle-blower.

I don't believe it is common for the military to release such videos, most likely for this very reason. An investigation was conducted. Is there any evidence that it was handled improperly?

[Husar]

I don't believe it is common for the military to release such videos, most likely for this very reason. An investigation was conducted. Is there any evidence that it was handled improperly?

Yes, a leaked video that supposedly has two guys with RPGs but the investigation claimed they found one RPG.
I think the investigators are terrorist-loving commie supporters and planted a non-RPG at the scene!
And no, I don't think US gunships do that all the time, but I don't think that the heroic and patriotic deeds of the majority of soldiers should serve as a shield for the black sheep to hide behind.
IF they were black sheep, maybe it's just my perfectly fine eyesight and my love for people who want to kill me getting in the way of seeing that RPG, the US should spend more money on updating their optics perhaps, would make things a lot easier once we can start arguing about the fine print on that sticker on the RPG.

[spmetla]

The thing is that I didn't see any of them shooting at US troops. There are civilian contractors in Iraq patrolling the streets with AKs, should a gunship gunner shoot them, too and assume they would be insurgents just because they carry AKs on their shoulder? There was also a reporter who was embedded with just that kind of mercenaries. I don't see how carrying a gun in a combat zone makes you an insurgent, I thought you were all about self defense in the US? If that really was an RPG, well, that's not for self defense and that makes it a lot more likely they were insurgents, but my last comments were mostly assuming it wasn't an RPG. Which I still find hard to say from the video.

Civilian contractors do not and have not patrolled streets in Iraq, they have provided security for convoys and work sites and inside bases. They also tend to coordinate with the military so that their presence is known should they need help.

Carrying a gun in a combat zone doesn't make you an insurgent but it certainly doesn't help your standing as an innocent civilian. If there's shooting or combat or something most people bunker down in their homes or flee the area, they don't start patrolling the streets. This is why it was a big thing when the Sunni tribes started kicking out Al Queda in Iraq and trying to provide their own security; after this started the US sent people to live and work with the tribal security so that their was some sort of legitimacy and coordination.

As for it not looking like an RPG, bear in mind that the distinctive part of the stereotypical RPG is the conical warhead which is not universal. There are many different warheads for RPGs, the fragmentation antipersonnel ones look like a small stick out of the end of it making it much smaller and less distinct.

The transcript of the video makes it seem as if there had been a bit of shooting that day and in that area, probably the reason that the journalists were there. The journalists probably wanted to get some great footage of a firefight because that's their job, so very likely they head toward whatever area there was shooting in. If that were the case then it's likely that the pilot and gunner were amped from a previous engagement in the area, either by them or the previous Apaches on station. These pilots fly a lot, they see what normal looks like, they saw a group of men sticking together with large items in their hands - not normal. With US troops on the ground just minutes away in what sounds like a hot area I can easily understand why the gunner is eager to kill what looks like an ambush in the making.


Here's a few key quotes from the transcript:

15:28 Yeah Two-Six. One-Eight I just also wanted to make sure you knew that we had a guy with an RPG cropping round the corner getting ready to fire on your location.
15:36 That's why we ah, requested permission to engage.

30:15 Roger, I can ah hear small arms fire from your engagement area at two zero zero zero ah about three hundred meters from that objective over.
30:27 Crazyhorse; from what I understand small arms fire at two zero zero zero degrees about two hundred meters.
30:39 Just to the southwest.

As for evidence of it being a "hot" area in which there was fighting go on. The Apache has only 50 rounds of chain gun ammo left, the video doesn't show them unloading a thousand rounds so it can be assumed they had to use the rest earlier. The transcript also continues on to the Apaches having another engagement after the guys on the ground took over where they shot up the van. Not to mention the complete lack of people in the streets seeing as everyone seems to have hid or fled.

EDIT: At 3:39 to 3:53 there do appear to be AK47s being carried, from 4:09 to a few seconds later the radio chatter gives off that a Bradley fighting vehicle was just around the corner, the civilians were at it's 1 o'clock. Looking from the gunner's video while the cameraman peers around the corner it could very well be an RPG, and with US troops literally just around the corner it's understandable why he engaged these guys.

[Banquo's Ghost]

I don't believe it is common for the military to release such videos, most likely for this very reason. An investigation was conducted. Is there any evidence that it was handled improperly?

I think it's noble that you trust your government so completely. An example to all, believing that the state knows best and the citizen should accept their word for everything, needing not the wicked temptations of evidence.

[Brenus]

My problem with what I saw is I didn’t see weapons.
The query about engaging armed enemies (or even unarmed) in a war is not a problem.
It is part of the job to attack enemies when they don’t expect it, R&R included…
No. My problem is the keenness of the pilots to see weapons. I didn’t see a RPG. To be fair, I was not in the cockpit, and under tension.

But, having decided it was weapons, the pilots decided to link the mini-bus with the insurgents. And this is their major mistake. And it is the mistake of their Air-controller as well.
Bad enough to mix-up a camera and a RPG and to see AK but the fact that to pick-up injured as a help to insurgent was really a bad move.
As mentioned, the men doing it were unarmed and were doing what a Medic would do.

Now, the problem is how to respond to the insurgents?
If it is a war, they should be treated as soldiers, so yes, you engage when you see them. But, Geneva Convention, you stop to shoot when the cease to be a menace. And you don’t shoot against Medics.
If it is not a war, you don’t shoot in a crowd, and certainly not against a vehicle you can’t see who is inside…

[PanzerJaeger]

I think it's noble that you trust your government so completely. An example to all, believing that the state knows best and the citizen should accept their word for everything, needing not the wicked temptations of evidence.

...

And I think it is idiotic for you to trust the creators of such an obviously biased and heavily edited video to present the reality of the situation.

Seriously, as fun as it may be to do, how does mocking me address the question? If you are going to discount the military's investigation, you'll need more than the assumption that they are liars... like... oh I don't know... some evidence of misconduct in carrying it out.

[ajaxfetish]

If you are going to discount the military's investigation, you'll need more than the assumption that they are liars... like... oh I don't know... some evidence of misconduct in carrying it out.

And if it's not common for the military to release the materials from their investigations (and shouldn't be?), what kind of evidence is BG going to be able to find? Perhaps a leaked video? In the absence of other evidence, it's what we've got, man.

Ajax

[Sasaki Kojiro]

And if it's not common for the military to release the materials from their investigations (and shouldn't be?), what kind of evidence is BG going to be able to find? Perhaps a leaked video? In the absence of other evidence, it's what we've got, man.

Ajax

But the context is important to the video.

I don't think the fact that the military didn't want to release it is good evidence of wrongdoing. If a video looked bad but wasn't actually they wouldn't want to release it.