Wikileaks Releases Video of Journalist Killings 1671
linguizic writes "Today Wikileaks released a video of the US military firing large caliber weapons into a crowd that included a photojournalist and a driver for Reuters, and at a van containing two children who were involved in a rescue. Wikileaks maintains that this video was covered up by the US military when Reuters asked for an official investigation. This is the same video that has supposedly made the editors of Wikileaks a target of the State Department and/or the CIA, as was discussed a couple weeks ago."
Needless to say, this video is probably not work safe (language and violence), and not for the faint of heart.
How long will this video last? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
Wikileaks also recently released CIA "Red Cell" [telegraph.co.uk] files on how they will manipulate public opinion to keep countries around the world supporting the Afghanistan war this summer [salon.com], a time when casualties are expected to rise and they say "public apathy will no longer be enough" to guarantee support for the war.
Re:Video (Score:1, Informative)
What really got me was that they used a GUNSHIP on HUMAN TARGETS.
30mm HEDP works outrageously well on human targets.
Re:Context? (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikileaks#Airstrike_Video_Release [wikipedia.org]
Reuters article: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1617459520070716 [reuters.com]
Re:Video (Score:4, Informative)
At the rank of Lt. Colonel, he's likely to be the one commanded to fall on his sword, unless he's got some heavier clout than his rank would indicate. Lt. Colonel isn't that much of a heavy hitter, when it comes to situations like this.
Re:Simply put you don't shoot wounded and unarmed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:How are we supposed to understand this? (Score:3, Informative)
The military personnel CLEARLY thought that crowd had an RPG, AK and other weapons. You don't carry that type of weaponry for protection. Hell, you can even hear them talk about being worried the RPG was being readied to fire on them.
Re:Video (Score:2, Informative)
"The usage of 'gunships' on human targets is valid by the laws of war.'
Excuse me, 30mm is NOT allowed for human targets just like WP isn't supposed to be used. Using anti-aircraft/anti-vehicle weaponry against non-armored human targets goes against the Geneva Convention.
Oh, yea, we didn't sign that, did we?
Re:Video (Score:1, Informative)
Actually, that's not true at all, there are laws regarding which weapons are allowable and not allowable in war (international treaties and such).
For instance, the use of landmines is currently regulated. Chemical weapons are a general no-no. Nukes are considered bad. In Vietnam, American troops carried flat bayonets, whereas Viet-Cong carried three-sided ones, because of a ban that the American troops had signed. There are also maximum calibers on guns allowed to fire on human targets, above which the gun is classified supposed to be fired at vehicles and equipment.
So, in short, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Re:Simply put you don't shoot wounded and unarmed (Score:1, Informative)
At 8 minutes 30 seconds you can hear the guy in the Apache, crosshair hovering over a gravely wounded individual that is clearly struggling to even get anywhere saying and I quote "Come on buddy all you gotta do is pick up a weapon".
...which sort of runs counter to the point, since he didn't just drill the guy and move on to the next target like he would have if these troops were just engaging in a spot of wanton murder.
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
Short version: there's a few people wandering about, on the street.In the video none of them are obviously carrying anything big, though you can hear the soldiers calling in that the people were carrying AK47's and an RPG.
They shoot and kill/wound them all.
Fast forward a little with a few people bleeding to death on the ground some poor sod driving by in a minivan stopsto help and a kid and I think parents try to carry one of the injured/dead people into the car.
Over the radio you hear the soldiers calling in that more insurgents are picking up all the weapons and rescuing the wounded and they request permission to fire.
Then they shoot and kill them all.
what followed was a coverup and attempts to strongarm wikileaks into not releasing the video.
Magnet link (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I don't see the problem (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Video (Score:2, Informative)
rescuing the wounded
Then they shoot and kill them all.
I haven't seen the video. You sure about that?
I have been out of the Army for well over a decade, and I still remember that wounded folks and medics are not to be targeted by the Geneva Convention.
I checked wikipedia and my memory was correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#The_conventions_and_their_agreements [wikipedia.org]
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
Can you please point out the exact moment (time) in either short or full version of the video when children are clearly seen...
A few seconds before they fire on the van, while the guys in the chopper are swearing about how they want permission to fire.
Please keep in mind that what the soldiers in the helicopter see isn't a 360p youtube video (this is obvious from comments they make about details which aren't visible in the youtube video due to the low resolution).
...and when the soldier says "serves them right"?
Towards the end of the short video when mention of the kids come up one of the chopper guys says it serves them right for bringing their kids to a battle.
Re:Simply put you don't shoot wounded and unarmed (Score:1, Informative)
... which means by current ROE that if is still positively identified with a weapon they are free to engage. When the pilots lose line of sight to the, "threat" - be it buildings, smoke, or whatever, they have to re-establish PID.
IAINA (I Am In The Army)
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
They were clearly evacuating a wounded man, something I thought was pretty much a universal no-no for engagement.
I believe you are mistaken on this point. International law and the current US ROE most certainly allow one to fire on a retreating enemy target until they law down their arms and equipment and surrender. A duty to allow enemy troops to retreat with their weapons and equipment intact in order to regroup and attack again at some future time makes absolutely no sense. Customary international law (according to the Red Cross) states it this way:
http://www.icrc.org/IHL.nsf/WebART/612-047?OpenDocument [icrc.org]
Rule 47. Attacking persons who are recognised as hors de combat is prohibited. A person hors de combat is:
(a) anyone who is in the power of an adverse party;
(b) anyone who is defenceless because of unconsciousness, shipwreck, wounds or sickness; or
(c) anyone who clearly expresses an intention to surrender; provided he or she abstains from any hostile act and does not attempt to escape
All of this is moot, of course, if the man is not properly an enemy target to begin with, a question I take no position on here because it is a factual dispute and I just wanted to post on the law as I understand it. I'm not at all claiming that it was proper to attack these folks, only that armed retreat is not and has never been grounds for protection under the laws of war. To claim protection, a combatant must lay down his arms and cease trying to escape.
See also:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19910227&id=rnQfAAAAIBAJ&sjid=OPEDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5146,4465272 [google.com]
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1842&dat=19910227&id=7k8eAAAAIBAJ&sjid=XscEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1239,3716450 [google.com]
Re:America! (Score:3, Informative)
Meh. It happens to every army. Didn't some German Peacekeepers in Afghanistan waste a truckload of local soldiers? It isn't good, but every soldier everywhere lives in a Kill or Be Killed situation. And nearly everyone decides to err on the side of self preservation. This is human nature, and as long as we have wars, we will have senseless killing of civilians.
- doug
Re:Simply put you don't shoot wounded and unarmed (Score:3, Informative)
Did some have weapons? YES. Kills authorized? YES. It's the people in the van helping the wounded that are the crime. You never shoot wounded, ever, ever, ever.
Though I mentioned this before I'll mention it again - Iraqi law under Saddam and was continued by Paul Bremmer allows civilians to carry ak-47s.
Imagine the military wiping out a bunch of American civilians because someone was carrying a rifle, and had the right to carry that rifle in public! That's what the situation was here. And of course if you watched the video it was a camera, not RPG.
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
The video clearly shows them shooting at the people who arrived to help a wounded victim (identified by Wikileaks as one of the Reuters employees). However, when asking for permission to fire on the new arrivals, the American gunship crew repeatedly said that the people were "collecting bodies".
But they weren't "medics" from what I could tell. They were just some passing civilians, trying to help a wounded man.
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
Excuse me, 30mm is NOT allowed for human targets just like WP isn't supposed to be used. Using anti-aircraft/anti-vehicle weaponry against non-armored human targets goes against the Geneva Convention.
Citation, please.
I've actually read the Geneva Conventions. I've had usage of force training, etc... I am military. USAF, to be specific.
The wording of the conventions is that we aren't to use weapons that case 'unnecessary suffering'.
You are allowed to use any weapons available on any target available with very few exceptions.
Stuff considered banned:
1. Non-metallic rounds. Metal rounds work just as well, non-metallic ones designed to be harder to be removed is just being cruel.
2. Nuclear/Biological/Chemical: Comes under 'not discriminary enough', 'militarily ineffective', and 'needlesly cruel'. Especially against militaries prepared for them.
3. Hollowpoints, but only 'sortof', it's actually a prohibition against expanding/explosive rounds below a certain caliber. Plus, this is more by convention than law, since the USA is not a signer to the treaty that actually banned them, and as long as hollowpoints are demostrated to be 'more effective', they'd actually pass the standards of the Geneva conventions rather easily.
WP is more considered a chemical weapon, plus, if you're close enough to use WP, you're close enough to use other weapons, generally speaking, thus the unnecessary suffering part comes into play.
Re:I don't see the problem (Score:3, Informative)
You mean the camera stand? you're either trolling or need new glasses.
Two sides to every story (Score:3, Informative)
Early in the video, it really does look like a legitimate mistake. At least one of the guys is clearly carrying an AK, and at 4:15 in the video the camera looks a lot like an RPG and the cameraman as if he's about to take a shot from around the corner. However, when the helicopter flew around for a clear shot it should have raised an eyebrow that not only was no RPG apparent, but that people were not assuming any combat stance. Nonetheless, I can understand that given the earlier context of the day (apparently shots had been fired at American helicopters) that the Apache team was on edge.
The real crime here comes when they fired on the van that had come to evacuate the wounded. Note that they did not fire on Saeed when he was down, and no weapon was visible. It was against their rules of engagement to fire on the wounded (Rules of Engagement refcard, 2c). The van was clearly not engaged in any hostile action against coalition forces. The Apache crew did obtain permission to fire from their superiors, so it appears that it is those commanders that are at fault for this crime.
Transcript (Score:5, Informative)
going to try to post transcript, prolly will get filtered as spam, guess we'll see...
00:03 Okay I got it. 00:05 Last conversation Hotel Two-Six. 00:09 Roger Hotel Two-Six [Apache helicopter 1], uh, [this is] Victor Charlie Alpha. Look, do you want your Hotel Two-Two two el- ...this location and there's more that keep walking by and one of them has a weapon. ... Okay, we're gonna come around.
00:14 I got a black vehicle under target. It's arriving right to the north of the mosque.
00:17 Yeah, I would like that. Over.
00:21 Moving south by the mosque dome. Down that road.
00:27 Okay we got a target fifteen coming at you. It's a guy with a weapon.
00:32 Roger [acknowledged].
00:39 There's a...
00:42 There's about, ah, four or five...
00:44 Bushmaster Six [ground control] copy [i hear you] One-Six.
00:48
00:52 Roger received target fifteen.
00:55 K. 00:57 See all those people standing down there. 01:06 Stay firm. And open the courtyard. 01:09 Yeah roger. I just estimate there's probably about twenty of them. 01:13 There's one, yeah.
01:15 Oh yeah.
01:18 I don't know if that's a...
01:19 Hey Bushmaster element [ground forces control], copy on the one-six.
01:21 Thats a weapon.
01:22 Yeah.
01:23 Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight [second Apache helicopter].
01:29 Copy on the one-six, Bushmaster Six-Romeo. Roger.
01:32 Fucking prick.
01:33 Hotel Two-Six this is Crazy Horse One-Eight [communication between chopper 1 and chopper 2]. Have individuals with weapons.
01:41 Yup. He's got a weapon too.
01:43 Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight. Have five to six individuals with AK47s [automatic rifles]. Request permission to engage [shoot].
01:51 Roger that. Uh, we have no personnel east of our position. So, uh, you are free to engage. Over.
02:00 All right, we'll be engaging.
02:02 Roger, go ahead.
02:03 I'm gonna... I cant get 'em now because they're behind that building.
02:09 Um, hey Bushmaster element...
02:10 Is that an RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade]?
02:11 All right, we got a guy with an RPG.
02:13 I'm gonna fire. 02:14 Okay.
02:15 No hold on. Lets come around. Behind buildings right now from our point of view.
02:19 Hotel Two-Six; have eyes on individual with RPG. Getting ready to fire. We won't...
02:23 Yeah, we had a guy shoot---and now he's behind the building.
02:26 God damn it.
02:28 Uh, negative, he was, uh, right in front of the Brad [Bradley Fighting Vehicle; an tracked Armored Personal Carrier that looks like a tank]. Uh, 'bout, there, one o'clock. [direction/orientation]
02:34 Haven't seen anything since then.
02:36 Just fuckin', once you get on 'em just open 'em up.
02:38 All right.
02:40 I see your element, uh, got about four Humvees [Armored cars], uh, out along...
02:43 You're clear. 02:44 All right, firing.
02:47 Let me know when you've got them.
02:49 Lets shoot. 02:50 Light 'em all up.
02:52 Come on, fire!
02:57 Keep shoot, keep shoot. [keep shooting]
02:59 keep shoot. 03:02 keep shoot.
03:05 Hotel.. Bushmaster Two-Six, Bushmaster Two-Six, we need to move, time now!
03:10 All right, we just engaged all eight individuals.
03:12 Yeah, we see two birds [helicopters] and we're still fire [not firing].
03:14 Roger.
03:15 I got 'em.
03:16 Two-six, this is Two-Six, we're mobile.
03:19 Oops, I'm sorry what was going on?
03:20 God damn it, Kyle.
03:23 All right, hahaha, I hit [shot] 'em...
03:28 Uh, you're clear.
03:30 All right, I'm just trying to find targets again.
03:38 Bushmaster Six, this is Bushmaster Two-Six.
03:40 Got a bunch of bodies layin' there.
03:42 All right, we got about, uh, eight individuals.
03:46 Yeah, we got one guy crawling around down there, but, uh, you know, we go
Re:Video (Score:3, Informative)
The Geneva convention has nothing to do with it.
No, seriously, go look it up. The GC covers wounded soldiers, POWS, civilians, noncombatant forces and the like. That's it. Nothing in there at all about weapons. If you think this is a mistake, then might I ask you what section of which convention limits the use of such weapons?
Now, your problem is simple. You've seen others make the same claim about the GC and have made the easy mistake of assuming they were right without confirming it for yourself. It's a very widespread myth, so you've likely seen it repeated.
There are international conventions on the use of weapons above a certain caliber, or made to expand or explode on impact, or leave undetectable fragments inside a human body, etc. The Hague Convention is one, the much more recent Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons is another, and there are probably more that I've forgotten about. None of them are the GC.
Re:Video (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, that's it exactly. In fact, the conventions are written in such a way as to specifically exclude from (most of) their protections those who are unlawful combatants, which means those who do not fight according to the rules the convention lays out. For example, a force that does not wear uniforms and hides among civilians is both not entitled to the protections of the conventions, but also is the responsible party in any attack that kills those civilians. You wear uniforms and try to avoid the civilians so that your enemy won't attack your civilians.
If you go back and look at the history of WWII, you will find that we mostly observed the rules against the Germans, who mostly observed the rules against us. (This was, IIRC, predating the Geneva conventions per se, or at least the later ones.) The exception was the SS, who massacred American soldiers at Malmedy and as a result were generally not captured after that, nor allowed to surrender. Against Japan, though, we generally didn't observe the rules, because the Japanese didn't. Japanese early on frequently used the ruse of surrendering and then setting off a grenade as they were being taken into custody. They may have kept trying this, but it didn't work for long, because we started shooting people trying to surrender.
My View as a former Bradley gunner and Infantryman (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
You know what, we don't have any fucking business over there IN THE FIRST PLACE. Okay? Fuck the MIC that sends them over there to kill and be killed.
Re:Video (Score:4, Informative)
Regarding WWII & Germany, Allies did want to essentially starve the German population for a few years...and all German POWs were reclassified quickly after the war to fall outside the convention.
Re:Video (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that's not true at all, there are laws regarding which weapons are allowable and not allowable in war (international treaties and such).
Sure, chemical and biological weapons are banned, as is deliberate attempts to make shrapnel out of hard to detect/remove substances such as glass.
Beyond that, there are no caliber limits. It is a frequent urban legend, to the point I've actually heard it briefed by military people. However, once I've asked them to cite the regulation, they have been unable to. I've looked myself.
For instance, the use of landmines is currently regulated. Chemical weapons are a general no-no. Nukes are considered bad. In Vietnam, American troops carried flat bayonets, whereas Viet-Cong carried three-sided ones, because of a ban that the American troops had signed. There are also maximum calibers on guns allowed to fire on human targets, above which the gun is classified supposed to be fired at vehicles and equipment.
The USA is not signatory to most of the land mine treaties. Generally because we've 'cleaned up' our act have have land mines that 'expire'.
I'll ask for a cite on the bayonet issue, and the maximum calibers, because as far as I'm aware, and I've looked, there are NONE.
The caliber thing is more a 'rule of thumb' to keep tankers from 'wasting' their main gun ammo killing individuals when the coax would do as well.
That doesn't mean that they can't use the main gun if the coax isn't handy, it's that urgent, or whatever.
'Militarily efficient' and 'breaks the Laws of War' are two different things, after all.
So, in short, you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
Re:How are we supposed to understand this? (Score:2, Informative)
When things like this happen, it immediately goes under investigation. What happens is that an investigating officer outside of the unit collects all the sworn statements and evidence to determine the proximate cause. 9 times out of 10, you will never see the results - but since this leak you better believe they will take this case seriously.
I have done a couple investigations myself, and you wouldn't believe how many are done in any given unit. If we run over someone's goat, guess what? An investigation is executed to determine who's at fault. The owner of said goat would get paid, apologies made to the owner and the village, and leaders would be ultimately responsible for what SOP's that were put in place (if rules were adhered to, inspections made, the whole nine yards).
I could understand how civilians are enraged by this, but when you've experienced the military life you may (or may not) understand why information does not get released. Does the government cover up these things as a knee-jerk reaction? Yes, but the intent is not primarily to lie to the American public. It's about the mission. War is fought over kinetic action as well as information. COIN operations are very heavy on controlling information, and the insurgents know and practice just that. It's all about who releases information first to sway the local national's opinion.
As a disclaimer, I am in the Army and I cannot take sides because I wasn't there. I'll be more than happy to talk about the things in my recent deployment though.
Re:C'mon! Let me shoot! (Score:4, Informative)
You sound like a guy who's never been in a war. The pilot wants to shoot because he thinks his guys on the ground were in mortal danger. First off, members of the group were armed with RPGs and AKs. Look at 3:46 in the long clip. But the photographer aimed his camera from a crouching position behind a corner, just like insurgents do when firing an RPG. At that moment, the pilot became very nervous, agitated, and couldn't wait to circle his chopper around to get the shot. He reasonably believed that the photographers were carrying RPGs. You do not expect journalists with cameras to be walking around. (It's not unforeseeable if you sit and think, but during combat, it would never occur to anyone that these were really large cameras.) I assume that bad guys want to kill the enemy. If you can somehow argue that the chopper pilots knew they were shooting at civilians or photographers, then you'd have a better argument. However, the pilots believed they were engaging hostiles.
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
I watched the video and didn't see any weapons. Certainly no RPG's, which have a fairly distinctive profile.
Check out 3:40. The journalists are no longer in frame. One guy has what looks to be a rifle swinging from his hand/arm. Another has a very long object. He even sets one end of it on the ground and leans on it, and it comes up to his chest. Looks like an RPG to me.
Re:Now I see why they hate us (Score:3, Informative)
That video is disturbing. I just did not have the stomach to watch it all.
The trouble too is that we "preach" democracy but when a democratic process puts those we "hate" in power, we (read the US government), then treat the democratically elected administration as parties not to be dealt with in any way. Hamas anyone?
"Not to be dealt with"? How about "overthrown and replaced with a servile monarchy or military dictatorship"?
The 1953 Iranian coup d’état, on August 19, 1953 (and called the 28 Mordad coup d'état in Iran), was the overthrow of the democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh by the United States Central Intelligence Agency; [1] The crushing of Iran's first democratic government launched 25 years of dictatorship under Mohammad-Rez Shh Pahlavi, who relied heavily on U.S. weapons to hold on to power until he was overthrown in February 1979. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d'%C3%A9tat [wikipedia.org]
This is the best documented event, but it's not the last. See also: All of south america. And don't think this is strictly a USA activity, Britain was heavily involved in this Iranian incident, in other instances France was involved (Argentina).
It's the new world order: International despotism with a friendly democratic front.
Judge what is right. (Score:5, Informative)
Most people have no idea what it is like to be in a situation like this (me included). But if you really think about it, it's easy to understand why this kind of thing happens. Most of us would do the same things in the same situations.
The main problem, for everyone involved is thoughtlessness. Soldiers are not in a position where they can consider their actions, because waiting to take action is often fatal. And regardless of their best efforts it is impossible to wage a war without killing innocent people.
The problem is not the soldiers, nor even the military establishment. The problem is, in fact, the thoughtless public who gladly pays soldiers to go out and kill our "enemy" so that they may continue to enjoy the conveniences an active military provides. Don't bother telling me that you "voted" against it and so it is not your fault. That kind of rationalization simply proves how thoughtless you really are. Our participation in a system that causes these things is what truly needs to be judged. Reflecting on the effects of your own actions, and using judgment to decide what actions to take is the only kind of judgment that matters.
Re:How are we supposed to understand this? (Score:2, Informative)
"...They use vans to come up and pick up the bodies, but truth be told they don't care about the bodies, they come to get the weapons/rpg's. We have made it VERY well known throughout the country that they cannot even make it look like they are going for weapons. The problem with this situation is one i've seen personally on multiple occasions... The Van pulls up, takes the bodies of the men, leaves any children/women, and takes all the weapons. Then they take pictures, and blast them across the airwaves saying Americans murdered unarmed women/children."
http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/bmooi/wikileaks_video_just_got_released_its_titled/ [reddit.com]
Re:Video (Score:3, Informative)
You are, however, still vulnerable to small arms fire and surface to air missiles. More than that, you are responsible for the lives of everyone one of the soldiers on the ground whom you are supporting, and if you fail to take out the targets, you'll have your friend's blood on your hands.
That said... there are still rules of engagement, and how to identify targets that these men are trained in. The story here is not that this horrible thing happened -- these things are not excusable, but not unexpected, either -- it's that it was covered up, and that apparently no one was held responsible for it. Empathy is not separate from justice or real standards of conduct.
I remember watching a documentary on the first gulf with my veteran cousin. On one shot they showed an armored vehicle through the bore camera of an american tank. My cousin immediately said "wait, that's a friendly" right before it opened fire, and the announcer started talking about the friendly fire incident. They spend a lot of time training people what they are and are not supposed to shoot at.
Re:Video (Score:2, Informative)
Like hell it was. Look up the night-bombing campaigns that the British used against the Germans. Like say Dresden. Or the USA's bombing tactics against Japan. We killed over a million people in Tokyo using fire-bombs. Those were specifically designed and tested to burn paper houses. Then let's not forget the use of nuclear weapons on Japan.
We mostly avoided shooting Germans trying to surrender, but after Guadalcanal, US soldiers typically didn't try to capture Japanese soldiers as they had a habit of blowing themselves up and whomever was nearby with a grenade.
Ever heard of the French Resistance? (Score:5, Informative)
For example, a force that does not wear uniforms and hides among civilians is both not entitled to the protections of the conventions, but also is the responsible party in any attack that kills those civilians. You wear uniforms and try to avoid the civilians so that your enemy won't attack your civilians.
No. This is simply poorly-researched revisionist nonsense. I guess you have never heard of the French Resistance or any of the various other national resistance movements supported by the Allied during WWII.
GCIV Article 33. "No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited."
Civilians are "protected persons" and the restriction is against the occupying power.
The fact that the parent was modded to a 4 proves how little slashdotters know about law. Maybe we should stick to praising Linux and dissing Windows.
Re:Simply put you don't shoot wounded and unarmed (Score:1, Informative)
I think that at 3:42 you have a good case for two guys walking in the street behind the photographers, with weapons. This doesn't justify the decision to fire w/o a better confirmation than the video, but they look like weapons to me...
Re:Judge what is right. (Score:3, Informative)
And regardless of their best efforts it is impossible to wage a war without killing innocent people.
Is it possible to try not to kill innocent people? Because this video shows what happens when you make no effort whatsoever to sort friend from foe.
Re:Simply put you don't shoot wounded and unarmed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Video (Score:2, Informative)
People often erroneously repeat Geneva Convention myths about weapons of war, I'm not sure why. Some think .50BMG is banned against people as well, but of course it isn't. Nor is the 20mm Bradley cannon. The conventions that are in place regarding munitions do not reference caliber, only type of bullet.
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, you're right. Clearly they should have landed those helicopters, walked over, and said "Hi! We're with the US Military, and we'd really appreciate it if you could tell us: are you the bad guys?".
Don't assign me your poor reasoning skills.
They should have confirmed with intel before they opened fire. If this is outside of their capability, they shouldn't have opened fire. This is if they gave a shit about killing civilians, which they didn't.
The result is a huge decrease in civilian casualties, but results in MORE bitching by uninformed simpletons.
I won't mistake your planet sized ignorance for malice. The US Military doesn't keep a body count for a good reason: they kill a lot of innocent people.
The Brookings Institution has used modified numbers from the UN Human Rights Report, the Iraq Body Count, General Petraeus’s congressional testimony given on September 10-11, 2007, and other sources to develop its own composite estimate for Iraqi civilians who have died by violence. By combining all of these sources by date, the Brookings Institution estimates that between May 2003 and August 22, 2008, 113,616 Iraqi civilians have died.
Finally, the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count (ICCC) is another well-known nonprofit group that tracks Iraqi civilian and Iraqi security forces deaths using an IBC-like method of posting media reports of deaths. ICCC, like IBC, is prone to the kind of errors likely when using media reports for data: some deaths may not be reported in the media, while other deaths may be reported more than once. The ICCC does have one rare feature: it separates police and soldier deaths from civilian deaths. The ICCC estimates that there were 43,099 civilian deaths from April 28,2005 through August 22, 2008.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22537.pdf [fas.org]
How you can possibly defend driving out 2.5 million people from their own country and killing hundreds of thousands more for oil resources is beyond me. I'm sure someone will be along shortly to applaud you for your capacity for evil, but they'll call it patriotism.
Re:Video (Score:4, Informative)
Whilst a lot of the content in this video is indefensible - there is one moment, where the Reuters photographer bends down on one knee at the street corner and presumably looks at the back of his digital SLR - which has a long lens on it. I replayed this bit a few times and I can tell you that (unfortunately) it looked exactly like the activity to load and arm a cheapo shoulder mounted RPG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPG-22) where the front tip is aimed to the ground, charge is loaded and ranger finders snapped up. Clearly, the camera angle on sees about 1/4 of the activity and the diameter and profile of the SLR with its long lens match that of an RPG.
It was about 1 sec later that the mood changed from curious to blood thirsty attack mode and they got permission to engage before the helicopter even rounded the corner to get full sight of the group in the courtyard. Plenty of total bullshit like: "we received small arms fire"
I'd be keen to learn how the material was found and decrypted.
Fool's hope that... (Score:5, Informative)
I hope they will be put to a life time sentence without a parole, in a cell.
Americans [globalpolicy.org] don't do time for their war crimes. [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Criminal_Court [wikipedia.org]
As of March 2010[update], 111 states are members of the Court,[7][8][9] and a further 38 countries have signed but not ratified the Rome Statute.[7]
However, a number of states, including China, India, Russia and the United States, are critical of the court and have not joined.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_Parties_to_the_Rome_Statute_of_the_International_Criminal_Court#United_States [wikipedia.org]
In 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the American Servicemembers' Protection Act (ASPA), which contained a number of provisions, including prohibitions on the U.S. providing military aid to countries which had ratified the treaty establishing the court (exceptions granted), and permitting the President to authorize military force to free any U.S. military personnel held by the court, leading opponents to dub it the "Hague Invasion Act."
The act was later modified to permit U.S. cooperation with the ICC when dealing with U.S. enemies.
The U.S. has also made a number of Bilateral Immunity Agreements (BIAs, also known as "Article 98 Agreements") with a number of countries, prohibiting the surrender to the ICC of a broad scope of persons including current or former government officials, military personnel, and U.S. employees (including non-national contractors) and nationals.
None of these agreements preclude the prosecution of Americans by any nation where they are believed to have committed any crime.
As of 2 August 2006, the US Department of State reported that it had signed 101 of these agreements.[30]
The United States has cut aid to many countries which have refused to sign BIAs.[30]
In 2002, the United States threatened to veto the renewal of all United Nations peacekeeping missions unless its troops were granted immunity from prosecution by the Court.[31]
In a compromise move, the Security Council passed Resolution 1422 on 12 July 2002, granting immunity to personnel from ICC non-States Parties involved in United Nations established or authorized missions for a renewable twelve-month period.[31]
This was renewed for twelve months in 2003 but the Security Council refused to renew the exemption again in 2004, after pictures emerged of US troops abusing Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib, and the US withdrew its demand.[32]
And then people ask why would any nation want or need a nuclear program.
Re:Well, I'm going to make my first donation. (Score:1, Informative)
The difference here, is that their notes on the video, may be also related to the fact of being detained and try to close their site prior to the release. So I'd guess by their experience, they decided to put an additional emotion to the video. It's not right but "serves them well".
Re:Outrage of the week (Score:3, Informative)
Ron Paul was in favor of bringing our troops home and closing foreign bases.
Perot was also info in favor of closing foreign bases back in 1992.
This would save a lot of money.
Re:Ever heard of the French Resistance? (Score:4, Informative)
That's only half relevant. What that means is you can't go to a town and kill everyone because Baghdad Bob lives there. You can shoot at armed 'civilians' or 'civilians' who are with other people who are shooting at you. I put civilians in quotes because if no one wears a uniform, how is anyone to tell if you're a civilian or not? So you can't just assume anyone walking by in civilian clothing is a scary terrorist.
This is similar to the rules regarding hospitals and schools. They are civilian targets until you have military emplacements in them. Then you can attack them, after taking reasonable precautions to reduce civilian injuries (difficult, given the military placements were put there to take advantage of the unpleasant prospect of targeting civilians in the first place).
Oh, and according to this link [scrapbookpages.com], the French Resistance wasn't covered by the Geneva Convention for a number of reasons that apply to the Afghan fighters! "Because he was an illegal combatant, wearing civilian clothing, Lt. Guiraud did not have the rights of a POW under the Geneva Convention."
In short. Want to fight, and lay claim to the Geneva Convention? Get a uniform, and wear it! If not, suck it up. Guerrilla warfare is a bitch.
Re:Video (Score:5, Informative)
Re:oh fuck off (Score:5, Informative)
In Basic Training (Army), when my drill sergeant was explaining the use of a 50-cal in combat, he said that under the Geneva Convention, we could only use it against "equipment", not personnel. Then he added something to the effect of, "But the rucksack the guy's carrying? The helmet he's wearing? That's equipment."
Back then, I was young and dumb enough to enjoy the sentiment.
Re:Video (Score:2, Informative)
I've been in ISAF and NATO Security Branch.
We were not allowed to fire high calibre directly on humans, unless they were firing on "our" troops or civilians, if they were hiding behind a truck on the other hand..
Anywhoo, firing a 30mm into a crowd, would mean jailtime here in yurope.
Re:C'mon! Let me shoot! (Score:3, Informative)
What combat? There was no combat until the gunships opened fire. They came across an open square with a congregation of people. Not people who started to look up and look for defensive positions to target the Apache. Not people who looked nervous, excited or otherwise indicated they'd be about to launch an attack.
Now, I will admit that the journalist framing the picture, presumably to get a long narrow street with the Apache hovering over it, looks suspicious, but there was no combat.
Re:Even the Nazis got this right! (Score:2, Informative)
Even the Nazis got this right! With only a few glaring exceptions (most of which involved the SS) the Wehrmacht conducted themselves in a civil manner throughout the conflict and treated civilians and our POWs as well as could be expected. The Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine were similarly well behaved.
If even the Nazis are capable of conducting war in a mostly civil manner, we should be capable of the same.
Total nonsense. The Germans were most cruel to people in the East whom they considered subhuman. I lost relatives to German army. If you also consider the numbers of Russian casualties and the numbers of SS as well as the numbers of troops killed by Stalin's own thugs, you have to logically concur that the Wehrmacht was guilty of many war crimes and actively executed civilans as well as POWs on top of providing logistical support for the SS.
War crimes of the Wehrmacht were those carried out by German armed forces during World War II. While the principal perpetrators of the Holocaust amongst German armed forces were the Nazi German political armies (the SS-Totenkopfverbände and particularly the Einsatzgruppen), the traditional armed forces represented by the Wehrmacht committed war crimes of their own, particularly on the Eastern Front in the war against the Soviet Union. The Nuremberg Trials of the major war criminals at the end of World War II found that the Wehrmacht was not an inherently criminal organization, but that it had committed crimes in the course of the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht#War_crimes [wikipedia.org]
Of course the Germans were more civil towards those they didn't consider sub-human eg French, Americans, British, Dutch etc and life was comparatively easier there with prisoner exchanges, five star facilities and whatnot. There were also instances of the Wehrmacht participating in massacres of civilians in Italy, France and Holland but not on the level as in the General Government (Poland), Soviet Union and other parts of Eastern Europe. The notion that only the SS were the main killers is preposterous and sick to the extreme.
It's amazing how we now demonise the Japanese but consider ONLY the Nazi SS to be nasty with gentlemanly armies and sailors fighting along - yet if you read the Wiki article on brothels, mass rapes, tortures, executions of non-Jewish women and children by Werhmacht soldiers (non-Gestapo/non-SS personnel) you realise how uncivilised Europeans really are. I had the honour of losing family to Wehrmacht in WW2 myself - civilians and POW.
Re:oh fuck off (Score:5, Informative)
He was propagating a popular myth. :)
John Browning's .50 BMG "Ma Deuce" has been lawfully composting enemy troops for nearly a century. It certainly doesn't cause "unnecessary suffering" as it is much more likely to be immediately fatal.
Some general background on similar myths:
http://www.thegunzone.com/hague.html [thegunzone.com]
More info. The ICRC, being anti-US, objects to API variants on a technicality:
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/522209 [answerbag.com]
"However, the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's office has issued a legal opinion that the .50 BMG and even the Raufoss Mk 211 round are legal for use against enemy personnel."
Re:Conditional Freedom of Speech? Yay! (Score:5, Informative)
First of all, I apologize that it took me so long to reply, and that my reply is so long.
Rules of engagement vary with the specific mission, the unit, the combat theater, and even the year. However, the concept of PID (positive identification of threat) is always crucial. PID is the sine qua non of any ROE.
Double-tap is against ROE, and it always will be, because a "double-tap" consists of neutralizing a threat and then shooting the target again for 'good measure' even when it is no longer a threat. If it's not a threat, you're not allowed to shoot it, even if it WAS a threat earlier. If it's no longer a threat, then you don't have PID. If you don't have PID, you mustn't shoot it, even if ordered to, unless you want to get caught under a pissing contest between your Chain of Command and the ROE of your theater.
Double-tap is not to be confused with a controlled pair. Example: Room-clearing team enters the room. Target is acquired. Target is shot twice - bang, bang - and target goes down. That's a controlled pair. We use controlled pairs because the M4, with its shorter barrel (4" shorter than the M16) and collapsible buttstock, has a tendency to ice-pick the target, rather than giving the tumbling we need in order to make a nice hole. However, two holes in close proximity to one another can really mess up your day. Plus there are those blended-metal rounds that we're not allowed to use anymore. :( But I digress.
Example of double-tap: Room-clearing team enters the room. Target is acquired. Target is shot (controlled pair, whatever, doesn't matter). Target goes down. Target is no longer a threat; incapacitation, surrender, death, doesn't really matter. Target is not a threat AND YET some bozo shoots the target a second time because that's what people do in the movies. BAD.
Whether the foe is wounded or not is irrelevant. The question is, do you (the good guy) still have PID (positive identification of a threat/target)? If the guy is no longer a threat, he's not a valid target. It gets more complicated when you're talking about traffic control points, vehicles, etc. but here we're talking primarily about a bunch of guys who are walking down the road, minding their own business, with their weapons (if that's what they are) slung, NOT in their hands. They weren't a threat to begin with. Therefore, the gunner didn't have PID. Therefore, he shouldn't have even asked for permission to fire, because he didn't have PID. His Higher gave him permission to engage (G-d knows why), and from that point on, it was the responsibility of the gunner to kill the targets, period. He had permission (which he shouldn't have, but whatever); from that point on, KILL THEM. Don't half-ass the job and then come back to finish the job when they don't pose any kind of threat.
The worst thing you can do is engage a non-threat, half-ass the job, engage a non-threat AGAIN, and finally engage the non-threat a third time while someone is ferrying the injured to hospital. I know it didn't have a red cross on the side but it walked, talked, quacked like an ambulance. The gunner knew exactly what was going on -- the injured were being taken to get medical attention -- and he engaged the vehicle anyway.
Engaging a vehicle with 30mm cannon fire is fine: 30mm is anti-materiel, and a vehicle counts as materiel. Engaging a group of men with 30mm cannon fire because they MIGHT have weapons slung across their shoulders? I'm not sure whose bright idea that was.
Re:Can someone explain what they did wrong? (Score:3, Informative)
Another former soldier here. From a country which learned that war means your country is in ruins afterwards - and you will probably have lost someone you love. War is more than just sending heroes out to foreign countries to kill the "bad guys".
Of course, I would expect everybody up to NCO level to be against the conventions, as it makes their life more difficult. Working to international conventions requires judgement and thinking. But of course, life would be much easier if you could fire at civilians at will, use land mines, chemical weapons, napalm and many other toys.
I've seen the video. In addition, I read the official report, which is ALSO available online.
Look for
"INVESTIGATION INTO CIVILIAN
CASUALTIES RESULTING FROM AN
ENGAGEMENT ON 12 JULY 2007 IN
THE NEW BAGHDAD DISTRICT OF
BAGHDAD, IRAQ
Report of Investigation UP AR 15-6
MAJ , Investigating Officer
2ND BRIGADE COMBAT TEAM
2ND INFANTRY DIVISION (MND-B)"
The official report shows the following in Exhibit O:
AK found on the ground.
RPG-7 photo redacted, nothing to be seen.
In Exhibit R, we see photos which appear to be taken by the journalist before being shot at. You can recognize in detail a US HMMWV in telephoto range.
So, yes, there was at least an AK rifle and the helicopter crew might have at least good reason to see that a RPG attack was imminent. Exhibit C mentions "Probable Telephoto lens", but is this obvious to trigger-happy kids in a gunship? I doubt it. Plus they don't want to be responsible for the results of not taking action.
(Read paragraph 6 on page 12 of 43.)
The helicopter crew reports and requests permission to fire.
So far, this is more or less an unavoidable chain of events. Most likely a mistake, but given the circumstances, understandable.
But...
Have we learned to shoot at wounded combatants? At people trying to help the wounded? Which are obviously not returning fire?
There's the war crime.
Re:Video (Score:3, Informative)
It's been said by some people that he pointed the camera at the Apache to take a picture, but they've got the last few pictures from his camera here [collateralmurder.com] and that doesn't seem to be the case. The EXIF data has been stripped, but presumably whoever leaked the shots had the original files, and you can tell through a variety of means (most simply, the sequentially numbered filenames) if any shots had been deleted.
He was obviously doing *something* with the camera behind the wall, but I see no evidence to suggest they even knew the Apache was nearby, or looking at them - they were quite a distance away.
Re:Video (Score:3, Informative)
You keep noting that you haven't seen the video but feel the need to suggest you have a hard time believing what others are saying regardless.
Let me spell it out for you, because I have watched it, in the video it is absolutely clear that the majority of civilians in the group are completely unarmed, only one really looks like they have a weapon but it is a camera. It's a group of 8 people appearing very white on the camera footage, with nothing that could even be confused for a weapon standing out, again, apart from the cameras and even then, the gunners cry of "RPG" when he sees the camera is laughable, god only knows what type of RPG the insurgents have access to is that short and stubby- it's not like any RPG I've ever seen carried around in places like that.
After the shooting, one of the journalists with what appears to be his leg shot to shit is trying to crawl away to safety, the gunner says something along the lines of "Come on, pick up a weapon" because he's just desperate to shoot the guy, even though he never had a weapon to start with.
A van turns up, and starts to try and carry the injured guy into it, again, no one from the van has a weapon, there is no sign of the van having any weapons in it, the van is clearly just trying to help evacuate the wounded. The gunner is like a little kid basically saying "permission to engage" a few times which sounds in my mind more like "Can I shoot daddy? can I? please please please!" and eventually he's told yes, he can, so he does. After letting off a few rounds the dust clears and they see they got a round right through the windscreen amongst other places, and they congratulate themselves on that.
When the troops finally turn up and realise there were two kids in the van, who are carried away for treatment the gunner tries to tell himself what he does was all well and good by saying something along the lines of "Well, it's their fault, they shouldn't have bought their kids into the fight". Sorry? What fucking fight exactly? You mean carrying away the wounded?
Please, don't assume anything about the video until you have actually seen it, it's clear, wanton breach of multiple sections of the geneva convention, coupled with a few jokes and laughs about it all as they do so.
Re:Video (Score:3, Informative)
1. There was no RPG.
2. The children were with their family who were driving through the area (people do live in Iraq), and they saw a severely wounded man and had the audacity to try to help. That cost them all their lives.
If the gunner actually used his brain instead of itchy trigger finger, and didn't see a tripod on a guy's shoulder and jump to the conclusion that there are five or so armed people, they would all be alive. Yes, shit happens in wars, but that is no excuse to ignore the woefully under-trained state most US troops enter the battlefield in.
The US military shouldn't be shooting at people they only think have weapons - they should be shooting at people they know have weapons, and know said people are shooting at them. You are insinuating that every person in Iraq who hasn't actively identified themselves to US troops is a real target. That is pathetic.
Re:Decisions in the Field (Score:3, Informative)
They responded to a preceived threat of a rocket propelled grenade launcher. A real threat to a gunship.
An RPG has a range of ~1000 meter before it self detonates, an AK-47 has a range of 400 meter, the Apache was flying at a distance of around 1600 meter (~2 sec delay between shooting and projectiles hitting the ground multiplied by ~800 meter projectile velocity). Even if the RPG would have been real, they where never in real danger. And thats ignoring the van incident, nothing there ever looked like a weapon.