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From WikiLeaks, Collateral Murder

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  • It seems I couldn't embed the video on my first message and I can't edit it now.

    It's a high definition version.

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    • Dude, I'm young and live in America. Of course I personally know several soldiers. ALL of them laugh about torture and ALL of them believe Innocent Iraqi is an oxymoron or at least rare enough not to matter. You might tell me go out there and talk to soldiers one on one and see what they say when the cameras are off. I have. They say: "I kill people for college money".
      The question is does this guy contribute anything of value here?
      To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

      Comment


      • Regardless of the debate of weapons present, civilians present, or the decision to shoot, or even what the official report says. Those soldiers made a decision IAW the ROE. No matter what, those troops know for sure what happened and the result of it regardless of the morality attached to the action and must live with it.

        I don't quite know how to say what I mean here, but bottomline is, officially justified or not, the only opinions that count are the troops involved. If it realy wasn't what they thought it was, they have to live with it.

        I have personal experience with getting awarded for actions that I had some doubt of did I really do the right thing, not the legal justification of it. I'm a soldier not a lawyer. I have to live with my decisions, regardless of others opinions.

        I think the Col. summed it up in a few short words. The fog of war.

        For my personal opinion. If people are getting blown away from above it is time to un-ass that grid square if I am not involved. To go rolling into that in a mini-van constitutes stupidity.
        Last edited by Blue; 08 Apr 10,, 04:05.

        Comment


        • Zraver Reply

          I don't believe you possess enough facts to determine these men liars. I find your rush to judgement WRT that wrong. I initially wrote a long point-by-point rebuttal.

          You've ignored possessing only a single camera view of this engagement. You have both the AR 15-6 report and the attendant convention articles available for consideration. The AR 15-6 report indicates the absence of non-combatants from the A.O. along with the both a running all-morning gunbattle and B Co 2-16 Infantry's very close proximity to the scene.

          The colonel's example to you earlier was perfectly salient WRT the circumstances surrounding this combat.

          You ignore convention articles that make clear the need to be medical personnel wearing clearly identifiable emblems while exclusively engaged in the treatment of wounded. We saw no treatment, of course. No medical bags. No stretchers. No first-aid rendered at the scene. Nothing indicating medical professionals on a battlefield.

          You seem to believe that those men had every right to transport the wounded from the scene of a battle as though it differed not at all from a terrible car accident. In the absence of identifying emblems making clear any professional medical affiliation it seems obvious they didn't have that right to do so at all.

          Nonetheless, you choose to believe the pilots misrepresented the circumstances in order to gain the authority to engage.

          I don't accede any moral high ground to your views WRT those officers inside those helicopters. I find your accusations baseless in light of your limited knowledge attained from a single camera, your attendant speculation, and the actual circumstances.

          To that end, I abhor your rush to judgement. You're not disloyal except to the integrity of those pilots. Yet while waving the flag of "highest standards" WRT those men, you've hardly held yourself as accountable given all the available information and intervening time. Therefore I find your conclusions and accusations terribly wrong.

          You can't be dissuaded from your view so it's pointless to continue.
          "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
          "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

          Comment


          • Christopher Dickey
            What Combat Looks Like

            The video of two Reuters newsmen being shot by Americans in 2007, however grim, shows business as usual in a war zone.
            Apr 7, 2010


            Robert Capa, whose combat photography brought alive the wars of the mid–20th century, used to say famously, fatalistically, fatally, "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." He was killed in 1954 on the guerrilla battlegrounds of Indochina.

            I've spent much of the last three decades covering wars, and I've known a lot of journalists who lived by that rule and died because of it. So it was impossible not to think of them as I watched the just-released July 2007 video of two Reuters newsmen being cut to pieces in the stifling dust of Baghdad's streets by 30mm cannon fire from an American Apache helicopter high overhead.


            The footage, shot from the chopper's gun camera, shows 22-year-old photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and 40-year-old news assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh being killed along with 10 other unidentified men. Reuters has been trying since the incident to get a copy of the footage from the Pentagon. Finally, without authorization, somebody handed the video over to an organization called WikiLeaks, a sort of clearing-house for whistleblowers, which posted it Monday on a site called Collateral Murder.

            Anyone who looks at it must be horrified, but any of us who have covered combat cannot be surprised. That is why Reuters editor in chief David Schlesinger was so measured in his comment on the footage: "There is no better evidence of the dangers each and every journalist in a war zone faces at any time," he said. These newsmen knew what they were getting into; it's the public watching the video now that has been caught unawares.

            The 39 minutes and 14 seconds of video are making headlines now, three years later, because Americans are so unaccustomed to seeing the quotidian horrors of war. Washington Post reporter David Finkel wrote about the incident in great detail last year in his book The Good Soldiers and refers to the gun-camera video almost frame by frame. But seeing it is something else.

            Most combat footage released by the Pentagon shows buildings blowing up, not people blown to pieces. American newspapers, magazines, and Web sites are reluctant to publish pictures taken on the ground by news photographers who put themselves in harm's way, especially if they show what the bloody harvest in the killing fields really looks like. They're deemed in bad taste. And believe me, to see such things leaves a very bad taste indeed, making you hate war and despise those politicians who talk about "cakewalks" and "collateral damage."

            That same day, July 12, 2007, President George W. Bush was telling a press conference in Washington, "Our top priority is to help the Iraqis protect their population," which to some extent was true. But if you saw the slaughter on the streets of Baghdad, those words would seem very damned ugly and ironic, which may be one reason the video was kept classified so long.

            Questions have also been raised about the legality of the Apache attack. But to condemn the crew for "collateral murder," as the video's title does, is misleading. This is what combat is like: a slaughterhouse in which a lot of mistakes are made and a lot of people die needlessly. What the full-length video offers, in fact, is a rare first-hand look at this lethal fog of war.

            The Reuters men knew the risks they were taking. They were where they were that morning because they had heard it was a hot zone. The incident took place at the height of the "surge," during the American fight to retake control of Baghdad, and if President Bush sounded defensive that day it was because U.S. casualties were at an all-time high that summer. The U.S. Army's 2-16 Infantry Battalion swarmed into the El-Amin district in force after being attacked there several times: on the ground were 240 American soldiers, 65 Humvees, and several Bradley Fighting Vehicles; overhead were two Apaches.

            As the video begins, one of the choppers spots a van on the move and, focusing in, the crewmen in one of the Apaches see about 20 people in the street. A couple of the pedestrians look like they are carrying weapons—these are the two guys from Reuters, with cameras slung over their shoulders. The Apache crew do not know there are newsmen in the area, and they are sure what they see must be guns. You can hear the voice of one crewman getting worked up as he gets ready for action, putting his sights squarely on Noor-Eldeen. "F--king prick," he says. But he doesn't shoot.

            Now, two minutes into the video, the camera swings back to other men there in the street. One clearly has an AK-47 assault rifle, another is carrying what looks like—and in my judgment almost certainly is—a Soviet-style rocket-propelled grenade launcher, or RPG. These men have never subsequently been identified, but under the circumstances it is a fair guess they were insurgents. That does not mean the Reuters men were in league with them. Reporters and photographers often move back and forth across the lines in urban combat, and in doing that a lot of us are killed. But it's the only way to get any real independent perspective about what's going on.

            The Apache reports "five to six individuals with AK-47s" and asks for "permission to engage." As the chopper circles , it loses sight of the two men who truly were armed when they disappear behind a building, but it sees Noor-Eldeen crouching behind the corner of the same building aiming his long lens down the street. The Apache crew think the cameras is an RPG, which can bring down a helicopter. Their voices are excited now. "I'm gonna fire!" says one, but there's no clear shot. The chopper continues to circle. You can hear the adrenaline in the American voices on the radio. "Light 'em all up," says one, when they get what looks like a clear shot. "Come on, fire!" says another. The man visible earlier with the AK and the one with the actual RPG are nowhere to be seen.


            The Apache fires on the photographers and the people they are talking to. Noor-Eldeen scrambles over a pile of garbage and is blown to bits by the 30mm cannon. Chmagh runs down the street, the Apache overshoots and misses, and the shooter laughs nervously, retargeting, bringing Chmagh down. As the camera surveys the carnage, the American voices congratulate each other. "Good shootin'." But Chmagh's not dead yet. He's struggling to move forward on the sidewalk. He's in the Apache's sights. "Come on, buddy," says one member of the crew, like a gunslinger challenging his opponent to draw. "All you got to do is pick up a weapon," says the other member of the crew. But there is no weapon.

            A van arrives and men emerge from it to try to take Chmagh away. The Apache crew is anxious to start shooting again, requests permission to engage again, gets it and opens up on the van, aiming to kill Chmagh for good this time, and anyone who's with him. For a moment, as the dust clears, there is calm.

            The U.S. ground forces arrive a few minutes later. One of them who had lost his buddy earlier in the week would tell The Washington Post's Finkel that as he looked at the bodies of the men strewn around the site, he felt "just so happy … it felt like, you know, we got 'em." But the troops quickly discovered two wounded children in the van. One, a little girl, had been shot in the belly. The other, a little boy, was at first hidden under the body of his father.

            The shooters in the Apache were shocked at the news, but they quickly rationalized what happened. "Well it's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle," says one voice. "That's right," says another. Still, you can hear the anguish in the voices of the soldiers on the ground as they run with the limp little bodies in their arms and put them in a Bradley, thinking they will be evacuated to an American facility. Then the order comes down not to do that—to wait and hand them over to Iraqi forces if and when they arrive at the scene, so they can be taken to an Iraqi hospital. We do not know from any official sources what happened to the children after that.

            The video continues as the choppers spot more men on the street, and they clearly have weapons. The men go into what looks like an abandoned building, and the Apaches launch three Hellfire missiles into it. Other, unarmed men standing outside the building simply disappear in the massive explosions. "Sweet," says one of the voices on the radio.

            I've gone into such detail here because details are what count if you want to understand war, and those are what journalists risk their lives to get. From Tripoli to Belgrade and Baghdad, I've been on the receiving end of American bombs in military operations most of the world soon forgot. I've lost friends and acquaintances in Central America, Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East, from cameraman Ian Mates in El Salvador in 1981 to The Sunday Mirror's Rupert Hamer in Afghanistan this year. Others, like the London Sunday Times's Marie Colvin in Sri Lanka or ABC's Bob Woodruff and CBS's Kimberly Dozier in Iraq, have suffered terrible wounds. Why? We are after the details that you can only get by being there where the war is happening: details about uncertainty and fear, adrenaline and carnage, dead soldiers, dead civilians, and dying babies—the kind of details you only see when you are, in Capa's words, "close enough." Those are what protect us from what the French call "the logic of war," the delusions of grandeur that precede a conflict, when costs are not calculated and benefits are fabricated—the logic that got us into Iraq in the first place.

            But no, we should not blame the soldiers who killed the men from Reuters, nor the men themselves for being where they were. Sadly, bravely, insanely, they were all just doing their jobs.
            WikiLeaks Video: What the Iraq War Looks Like - Christopher Dickey - Newsweek.com

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              Wal mart truck with water is old and common news.
              Then you should have no problem finding some references to back up your allegations.

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              No word on whether it was National Guard troops doing the enforcing for FEMA but that is who was their performing that function in general.
              So not the regular military on American streets...interesting. That's different then your assertion that we have "soldiers on the streets of America."

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              Soldiers at Katrina unconstitutionally confiscating weapons is a court case that has been tried and won by the victims.
              This I agree with.

              However I must question your assertion once again. These guardsmen saw civilians WITH GUNS, yet did not open fire randomly with glee. How could that be? Don't they "kill people for college money?" Surely they would have massacred these "civilians caught WITH GUNS" since they had no problem with open fire on "innocent civilians" with "HD cameras" just minding their own business. What gives?

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              People being forced into the superdome when they wanted to stay in their homes is old and common news.
              Then you should have no problem finding some references to back up your claims.

              NO, a review on a book sold at Amazon.com is not a good reference. I can find lots of reviews on lots of books on Amazon.com. That doesn't make them legitimate sources of information.

              Originally posted by Roycerson View Post
              That guy wasn't killed at the superdome but he was the first I saw. Some went there voluntarily, some didn't.

              The reasonable conclusion that they would shoot me in similar circumstances comes from the fact that If I were in that van I would have stopped to help. They shot the guy who was with his kids and stopped to help. When an earthquake comes here and my neighborhood is declared a national disaster area and that guy is walking my streets, I hope he's better at killing bad guys and missing good guys than he is now. Right now he shoots up cars full of good samaritans. Apparently that's pretty much OK w/ everyone except me and Hitman.
              You still haven't answered my question on whether I make a legitimate target if I were to walk into a police cordon during a gun battle between the police and bank robbers, while openly carrying an unloaded rifle (which is entirely legal in the state of California), and rendering aid to someone they shot, whom they believed to be a bad guy.

              Hitman also hasn't expressed an opinion on what he would do with innocent Kurdish civilians carrying rifles on the streets of Ankara.
              "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                Hitman also hasn't expressed an opinion on what he would do with innocent Kurdish civilians carrying rifles on the streets of Ankara.
                It's illegal to carry rifles unconcealed, even it is not possible, they'll be warned then shoot. (Turkish or Kurdish. It doesn't matter)

                But I'm not pretty sure, maybe not in that order.

                Comment


                • Dude, I'm young and live in America. Of course I personally know several soldiers. ALL of them laugh about torture and ALL of them believe Innocent Iraqi is an oxymoron or at least rare enough not to matter. You might tell me go out there and talk to soldiers one on one and see what they say when the cameras are off. I have. They say: "I kill people for college money".

                  *I say bullshit and ontop of that you dont know anything but to talk shit for conversation. I serve along side many former soldiers from all walks and generations including todays generation of soldiers. I have personal friends serving in theater right now and have for their last two tours. Beit aboard ship or boots on the ground in the hot spots. None of them laugh about anything in their experiences relating to torture or killing another human being. Most dont even like relating their experiences while in country nevermind the bullshit about the camera's being on. Your making a mockery of one of the finest military forces on this planet and its disrespectful to say the very least. No matter which country you are in ALL are human beings and ALL deserve the benefit of respect and dignity until proven wrong.

                  "They say: "I kill people for college money".

                  *I say bullshit! I dont know where your from but I can promise you I see and converse with more then you can imagine (US, Canadian and British) and none of them act in such way. Camera or no camera! Jackhole!

                  *Your "friends" seem to be the type that tell other soldiers and female soldiers who were there that they didnt serve because they were not in the hot zone or didnt shoot anyone. It dont matter what you did there from infantry, to logistics, to air support to mechanics to truck drivers to cleaning latrines. They all served irregardless of what their particular jobs might have been, they all gave of themselves and their time irregardless and all deserve respect from the people they have served, namely the people of their respective countries.

                  Somebody needs to show this Jackhole the door and post haste!
                  Last edited by Dreadnought; 07 Apr 10,, 22:41.
                  Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by J`ve View Post
                    It's illegal to carry rifles unconcealed, even it is not possible, they'll be warned then shoot. (Turkish or Kurdish. It doesn't matter)

                    But I'm not pretty sure, maybe not in that order.
                    So there we have it. Carrying weapons, even in peace time, is a shootable offense in many countries.

                    Our soldiers saw suspicious characters with firearms, roaming about a war zone, and opened fire.

                    Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

                    Don't want to get shot? Don't hang out with guns in a war zone.
                    "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                    Comment


                    • J've,

                      I think this article captures things very well. Bad stuff happens in war, and to wear out a used phrase, don't hate the players, hate the game.
                      "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

                      Comment


                      • by Roycerson
                        Why do they see things that aren't there?
                        Once again, who says they're not.

                        once unarmed w/ a gun at my chest. You never know how you're gonna do when that moment happens. I acted quickly and decisively and no shots were fired.

                        Another time was in traffic and it was some kid in his mom's car. I just slowed down and let him leave me behind. A .45 is a big barrel to look at though.
                        Scary and yes, even frightening. Been there, done that. Saying I didn't like it is a huge understatement. So, I'll credit you with having at least some idea of what it's like. Having them actually SHOOT at you is an order of magnitude worse. It takes the situation away from the hypothetical to the actual. What that really means is that you go from fright to terror. It's personal when they pull the trigger.

                        Is there one single pro-military-war in iraq type person who thinks it's important to have accurate data? Incredibly so, you can't make good decisions with bad information.
                        I gather that you think it would be a problem for you to make such a decision based on the information available to you. Nothing wrong with that, it's a learned skill, some say an art. It is a fact that in combat you never, ever have enough information for complete certainty. Making life or death decisions without enough information is what it's all about. That's one of the reasons why those in command positions are respected.

                        If the guy can't be relied upon to accurately describe what he sees than what good is he doing speaking at all?
                        How can I say this and you not take it the wrong way. I'll take his description over yours any day. Just because he's there, you're not, he's got experience and you don't. Doesn't make you a worse person or him a better one.

                        by Dreadnought
                        Somebody needs to show this Jackhole the door and post haste!
                        I...um...yeah, it just pisses me off.
                        Reddite igitur quae sunt Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo
                        (Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's)

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by sappersgt View Post
                          Originally posted by Dreadnought View Post
                          Somebody needs to show this Jackhole the door and post haste!
                          I...um...yeah, it just pisses me off.
                          That's enough support for me.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Officer of Engineers View Post
                            That's enough support for me.
                            Awww ,,, just as he was getting promoted ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, to a CLERK

                            Comment


                            • I wasn't gonna say anything, I figure he's entitled to his own opinion, stupid and misguided as it may be...

                              He was slightly on the irritating side, though...
                              Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                              Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by bigross86 View Post
                                I wasn't gonna say anything, I figure he's entitled to his own opinion, stupid and misguided as it may be...

                                He was slightly on the irritating side, though...
                                *BigRoss, I most certainly agree with you in that he is entitled to his opinion here on the WAB as everyone else is as well, Fair enough, but he has absolutely no right whatsoever to make a brash generalization of our troops conduct in person or in third party. It has been my experience that anyone that I have encountered that wears a uniform has never either acted in such way or has spoken so immaturely about any real life experience they have had in the field. His post seems as though they commit execution and find humor in others pain and that in itself if very far from the truth.

                                No CO or Officer IMO, would ever tolerate such a thing in his/her command or words of the like. As OOE mentioned, fog of war and heat of the moment makes people react in different ways. In many ways its either a mistake or reaction. Its not always the best of ways, but surely it is nothing as he described above in that paragraph. Statements like that can do untold damage in ways I cant even begin to explain but a majority (including yourself) here know exactly what ramifications that could bring just by being careless with words and bravado. I hope you and the others here understand my reasoning for my above post in regards to the above mentioned post. I just un-nerves me to no end when people make such statements about our troops conduct. They have made mistakes, the odds favor that on the norm given situations, but those mistakes were made unintentional and not by mallace mixed with humor as he so claims.

                                Just my two cents worth.
                                Last edited by Dreadnought; 08 Apr 10,, 14:59.
                                Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

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