The Pentagon has acknowledged that chilling Wikileaks video we've been talking about today as real footage of a 2007 attack in Baghdad, reports NBC's Jim Miklaszewski. He adds that military officials "offer no specific judgment on the crew's actions."
Commenter Josh W. in Seattle offers some:
I was in the military and I had to ID things that were very difficult to ID at a distance and I always made it known that I saw something or not. I would ID it as what it was and if I didnt know I would ID it as unknown. If someone started to add to what I was looking at but I could not verify I would report it.
Looked like laziness to me. None of those people were scrambling for position on the chopper, none of the appeared to have defensive positioning to indicate they were preparing for a gunfight.
To kill with such disregard for positive ID of the enemy is shameless in my opinion. There is no honor in this fighting.
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This is NOT an isolated incident. This is an injustice to humanity itself. Those that defend this as a simple mistake by soldiers in a war zone miss the point entirely. The war was based on a lie with malicious intent to destroy a country and establish a new regime. The murder of innocent people, even children and journalists, is inexcusable. The commanders and propagandists of these wars need to be held accountable and tried for war crimes. I consider the U.S. Military and our Congress and our Executive Branch (including Obama) to be engaged in illegal wars of aggression against a free and independent population. This is not a rational or responsible reaction to 9/11. This is genocide. This is indiscriminate murder on a massive scale. This is mass murder. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent lives have been taken as a result of our governments actions.
Does anyone under 45 ever do "due diligence"? If the mouth pieces of the dumbocrats and rebumplicans (Maddow, Hannity, etc) did not act like they were still in high-school making a living throwing barbs at one another maybe this country would actually get somewhere in fixing some of the issues. In the case of the video-please, do your research and with everything else these talentless, talking heads say-dont believe in sound bites.
For example, the tea partiers...Taxed Enough Already-TEA- I have 40% of my pay contributing to my community, my State and my country...how much more do you folks (Rachel???) want me to contribute before I can focus on contributing to my own kids and my own retirement.
War is ugly. I guess all the American soldiers from WWI, WWII were all terrorist as well huh? Wake up folks...."Our time is gonna come...sooner then later"
When did Miklaszewski report this? Is there a link to his statement, or an article or video?
Wow that's really @!$%#ed up.
I really like the newspeak by the military describing their actions to this attack.
I was an Aviation Systems Warfare Operator (AW). In Iraq we did alot of camera work for many differant things and I agree with Josh that an attepmt at making a positive ID on what they had was not there, and that was unheard of when I was there in 06. There is not defense for this and is inexcusable, but I know that this is not the norm. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this evidence of laziness and hate.
Are you sure this is not the norm? What specific experience of other U.S. warriors gives you this understanding, or do you possibly deeply feel the need to defend the service you offered your life to? I don't usually pray, but here, I do pray that you are true and honest and correct.
The guilt I feel for my country's actions is very heavy. I fear this has happened so many times that there is no way it could be thought of as an accident. I pray that I am wrong.
I wasn't able to see this at work, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to watch it tonight. I'm not sure if I'm up to it.
The initial attack is not very gruesome (lots of smoke and debris) the aftermath is pretty bad tho. I've seen worse combat videos then this, there was a documentary on youtube about the white phosphorous attacks in Fallujah, that stuff is terrible. Rachel should bring that up and the problems with Depleted Uranium in her show.
Definitely not a good shoot but here are some points....
1. These aviation assets were obviously working in support of a ground combat element. If you listen to the call signs and the conversation, you can clearly make out that the birds are supporting the ground element who has been and might still be in hostile contact. Keep in mind when you hear the Bushmaster element give permission. All the information he is basing his decision on is coming from the air crew's description (gathering at the corner with AK-47s and RPGs) and the fact that they are in a firefight. This is again supported when the aircrew asks permission to engage the vehicle that is attempting to evacuate the wounded "insurgent." It sounds like the air crew provides the ground force commander (GFC), who does not have line of sight, with a description so that the GFC can make a shoot/no shoot call. The description is decidedly biased toward presenting the image of a hostile casualty evacuation element to what seems to be the GFC. The presumed GFC authorizes the engagement without a second thought. Keep in mind when you hear the Bushmaster element give permission. All his information i coming from the air crew's description (gathering at the corner with AK-47s and RPGs). The kids are hard if not impossible to identify as such.
2. As for the eagerness of the air crew to gain permission to engage... 07 was a bad, bad time. There was ALOT of contact. It wasn't just IEDs and EFPs, there were alot of direct fire engagements, daily and nightly. The level of training and discipline of the insurgents (especially the Jayish Al-Mehdi/Mehdi Militia) varyied greatly. While many were welll trained in neighboring countries (I wounder where...) many were local fighters with out much skill. A mix of armed "combatants" and unarmed lookiloos popping out at intersections to let off a burst or an RPG was almost as common as the highly coordinated ambushes and attacks that took place. This much is actually evident in quite a bit of footage shot both by insurgents themselves and the brave journalists who were granted close enough access to film this behavior. Another favorite tactic was the pre-positioning of weapon systems a key firing points, allowing fighters to maneuver front position to position unarmed and, as such, as perceived non combatants. You cannot imagine how infuriating that and other tactics (like using IP and IA vehicles to transport fighters) would be to an air crew supporting a ground force. The ROE in many situations is as much a part of the battlefield as the streets and buildings. The pilots clearly believe this to be one of those cases where they know these are "bad guys" and need the "proof" to make it legit.
3. As far as the MEDEVAC being denied goes, thats a tough, tough call. Its likely that the unit had whatever assets it had and could not spare it, as US military trumps civilians in the hierarchy of medical care. Just another one of the harsh realities of war.
These statements are merely to help provide some context a better understanding of the environment in which this took place, nothing more. I am still processing the situation and am reserving judgment until more is known. It is clear however that, things like this happen in war. They will never be totally avoided. This should always be weighed when contemplating military action. This is a fact I'm sure the faithful viewers of your fine program know all too well.
Nice post. I think many of us understand the nuances of this situation and other occasions when civilians are killed during combat operations, but it does our military a disservice to report the opposite or to finesse a @!$%#ty situation with PR speak, when the reality is the opposite.
These pilots were acting with unclear information and can not be totally blamed for this incident. Judgement will depend on several factors, wether these guys were hunting for isolated targets, or were already hyped up from previous engagements with militia/insurgents.
Everyone needs to see this video and see just how gruesome, sloppy and messy war is.
As with many issues, i suppose, there is a HUGE gap in each individual's frame of reference/subject matter expertise. Some of the responses I have have been mature and thoughtful, while others, by their content, belie a complete lack of the aforementioned frame of reference/subject matter expertise.
Rather than castigate those who clearly have neither of these, we who do should strive to provide it for them as much as possible. This is not to sway their opinion, but to afford them the same opportunity to construct a cogent, valid thesis as we enjoy.
In fact, this situation has made me wonder what subjects I have spoken "with authority" on which I am lacking the requisite knowledge/experience! Maybe I should stop talking now!
"Definitely not a good shoot"? Is that what you call it? Is it like missing a putt?
Those pilots and gunners were cowboys who couldn't wait to say anything needed to get permission to go "yippee" and blow people away. When they discovered they had shot children they showed no remorse - they said about the people they killed whose children they shot when they stopped to help a wounded man "It was their fault for bringing them into battle".
Your argument is reasonable, the people you are arguing for are not by their own words and actions in plain view before us. Somethings are not excusable.
When combat operations are an every day occurrence, death and danger become the norm. This is not to say that fear and adrenaline and all that don't run through you every time, but the norms shift quite a bit. The crazy horrific stuff that goes on around you (and to you) in a world like that changes your perspectives. The average person, upon realizing they may have killed or injured children, would probably break down emotionally and physically. These men don't have that luxury. There was no pause button. Obviously he knew he might have hurt those kids, unfortunately, he was still supporting a ground combat element who had been and might have continued to be engaged in combat. The rationalization he shot out might have been just that, a rationalization. Something to get his mind past that situation and back into the here and now which still required his attention. We really can't know if this thing weighs on him to this day or if he is at piece with it. He attempted to keep himself within the rules of engagement (hoping the guy would pick up a weapon) if you remember. Maybe it was no only to finish the job, but if the guy did go for a weapon, it would have validated the lethal force already used (because the guy is a fighter) as well as provided the authorization for more. I don't pretend to know. I do know however that I would not want my character judged by some of the things my guys and I have said and laughed about.
Its just not the same as our world here in the states. These guys in the Apache are nowhere near becoming crazed war criminals, but anyone engaged in real combat operations for long enough is gonna have his norms skewed away from that of the safe and sound US and toward what the average man would call crazy.
One of the biggest problems with this clip is that it does not convey the sense of danger and urgency that was there. To the average person it looks like a calm scene of people spotted walking around. People are used to movies where everyone sprints the whole time and fires a magazine at a time on full auto. Combat doesn't always look like that, especially through a camera circling overhead.
Perhaps even then you may be absolutely right and what happened may still not be excusable. I don't know. None of us can. True war crimes are usually much more blatant and heinous. These were quick decisions made by men in combat, and more importantly to them i suppose, supporting ground troops in contact. Imagine the last play in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl or the final pitch in Game 7 of the world series over and over and over again, day after day, night after night. Most men get tired of it really fast and some men even get addicted to it. Every man fights his own war and when this one is over, a whole lot of people are gonna have to ask themselves a whole lot of questions about their own personal wars. Did I always do the right thing? Did I do any good over there? Did I help everyone I could? Was I courageous? Was I a coward? What do those words even really mean? Was I a professional? Did I do my job? Did I compromise my own values? Did I make the right call when the chips were down? Until I answer those questions for myself, I simply cannot and will not answer them for anyone else.
-Mr. Bot
What I see in that video is an occupying army that considers itself at war with the population, something many people have said and the military has denied. My uncle, George Shomeker was a Sargent Major who fought in WWII, Korea and Vietnam and retired to do training at Fort Benning. He was one of the calmest, most careful people I ever met. I may judge the military using him as a standard, probably a mistake.
Use the same words and logic for the guy who runs through a light and wipes out a family. With your logic and "judge not least you be judged" standard we would have to consider many things acceptable and our society would break down. War is hell, but there are many things do break people down and we don't give them a free ride, we can't and continue to function as a society.
I watched the video, then reviewed selected relevant portions. The airborne were looking for targets. The group of men was in no way furtive or hostile. They also had to know there was a helicopter circling them. No warning, no real attempt to ascertain what the men were doing, and no honest assessment for weapons.
The stories about the type of weapons the men were "carrying" escalated although no new views of the men were shown. Still a small camera on a strap and a sidearm. No automatic weapons, no RPGs. The soldiers were clearly becoming increasingly excited and almost aroused by the prospect of killing these people. After the highly charged reports of weapons that "all of them were carrying", even though it is patently false when you look at them, the gunners were pleading to be able to shoot.
The cavalier attitude is disgusting. We are the enemy there. We've destroyed a country. The arrogant and dismissive attitude of the soldiers toward the citizens of Iraq reminds me of the last war that we lost... Vietnam.
OK I posted this on the other thread because there still seems to be a misinterpretation of the video....
Watch the 39 minute un-doctored video for an unfettered look at what went down.
At 2:04 the gun camera shifts up from the two reuters journalists to a group of four men, 3 walking abreast and one facing them. The heavy set man in what looks to be stripes on the viewer's left of the group is carrying an AK-47. The man to his left/viewer's right is carrying an RPG. The caption reads, "He's got a weapon too." Both men's weapons are dangling from their right hands. From 2:04 to around 2:12 the pair are turning and talking to each other and the weapons swing away from their bodies multiple times. At around 2:10 (depending on which frame you pause at) the RPG gunner has turned 180 degrees and the weapon is near horizontal and at 2:14 he rests the tube on hit foot. These things may be hard to see at first but the their outlines are extremely clear to someone familiar with these weapon systems and the guys spend a couple of seconds spinning them around for us.
As far as the guy at the corner, I'm pretty sure that that's a camera with a telephoto lens. At 2:41 You can see what appears to be a widening telescopic lens connected to a large rectangilar box. Frozen, the image is pretty clearly a camera, after responding to a call by the men on the ground for support after receiving fire and positively identifying the RPG and AK-47 and only getting a glimpse, the gunner thought it was a weapon. To be perfectly honest, I probably would have as well.
This should clear up the FACTUAL question as to whether or not there were weapons present. Remember TRMS's recent Rachel re: segment about facts and bull puckey? We need to at least agree on the facts here. That's the only way this can be discussed honestly.
Robot
P.S. I believe it was just Friday where TRMS exposed the ACORN scandal in the same way. Doctored/edited tape = Scandal vs. unedited tape = legitimate.
While they may have been "allowed" to shoot persons with what they thought were weapons, killing everybody in the van that was trying to assist the wounded man is clearly a war crime. These soldiers should be prosecuted. This story is more important than tiger woods return to golf.
As I watched I could not believe it when I heard that they wanted to shoot at the van trying to help the one guy that survived the initial attack.
It's easy to second guess something like this from the comfort of your home but that is inexcusable and these soldiers need to be held accountable for their actions.
Please talk about this on air now!
YES! and please do some research into if shooting into the van is a war crime. If you don't probably no one else will.
This needs to air very badly. I know GE would not like to go against DOD requests but it still needs to be discussed ON air. When our supposedly professional military can stop lying to the Country and making cover-ups then maybe we can gain some respect back for our Country. I served my Country from 1961 to 1965 and was in the South Pacific for a bundle of time and we did not have to lie about what we did. War crininals are war criminals no matter what their Rank or stature and need to be called and treated as such!
This is not going to be popular but after watching the full video there is just no story here. Maybe the van was questionable but even then not really.
1. The video clearly shows an RPG and an AK-47 or an RPK in the group along with the two weapon looking cameras carried by the reuters journalists.
2. It is clear that the Apache is responding o the area after being told by the ground element that they received small arms and RPG from that direction. This is supported by a) the pilot giving the casualty count and then asking if the unit had taken fire from "anywhere else" and b) by the ground element later.
3. The gunner's frustration and eagerness to fire at the group is justified. They responded to the ground elements request, positively identified an armed group of insurgents and saw one down on a knee pointing a cylinder around a corner. In that gunners eye's losing not firing sooner might have given the man on a knee or the chance to fire. Even though that turned out to be a telephoto lens, there were RPGs present. He is almost beside himself waiting for the gun to get clear of the building so he can engage. Imagine if you were him and you didn't take the shot as he didn't at first, and before you rounded the corner, that guy got off the RPG killing members of the ground element who were counting on you to watch there backs?
3. Another theme is wanting to get all the bad guys before they can scatter. They do this all the time and killing one guy and allowing the rest to melt back into the woodwork is not a good idea. When the bongo truck which looks very similar to the one by the mosque at the beginning shows up it seems like a vehicle attempting to evac the wounded before the ground troops can get there and take him prisoner. If that happens not only is the possible intel lost but the the "bad guy" lives to fight another day. Also, he's in a hury because the ground element is on the way, and if they get too close, the apache is not gonna be able to safely fire, forcing the guys to assault through the position when perhaps they wouldn't have to. This fear of scattering is reinforced later when they attempt to engage more armed men.
4. As for the wounded girls... the captions on the tape are about 85-90% accurate. One of the mistakes are the captions reading "SSC" instead of what the man on the ground said, "SSE" The ground element said that it was going to SSE the site, which is an acronym meaning that they are going to spend some time searching and processing the site and people located on it. You know, take pictures, finger print ask questions, look for documents... etc. They not leaving anytime soon. They are also not going to split their element in order to CASEVAC the girls, that would ave been tactically unsound. Instead, they realize that the local IPs can get them to an Iraqi hospital where they will be under a surgeon's knife before those guys have ever left the scene. Note that the team finds, among other things, a live RPG.
5. The pilots do rationalize... which is what the had to do to mentally get back and stay in the fight, which they end up doing by responding to another group of bad guys. Notice how tat last pair of armed men were walking as casually as the first group. Thats how they roll. They weren't happy about what happened but they weren't wrong either. That Iraqi man should not have driven his daughters up to the spot where a group of armed men were fired on from the sky. If you've been to Iraq you know, sometimes they do some crazy stuff, like walk up to you in the middle of a fire fight and strike up a conversation.
What happened was terrible but, while I'm not 100% sure about the van, it seems totally legit. Those dudes were armed and one of them took a knee and pointed a cylinder around the corner from a place where the troops had already taken fire. The gunner would have been wrong if he didn't fire on them.
It suck, I know.
"They not leaving anytime soon. They are also not going to split their element in order to CASEVAC the girls, that would ave been tactically unsound. Instead, they realize that the local IPs can get them to an Iraqi hospital where they will be under a surgeon's knife before those guys have ever left the scene"
So you have some wounded children you just shot and getting them to the hospital is at the bottom of your priorities. You plan to hang around for a while and letting them get to a hospital however they can is faster than having them wait until you finish "searching and processing the site".
I suppose if they were your kids you would do the same?
You just don't get it, "war is hell", "It suck, I know".
One of the things that has always made combat difficult is you are responsible for the results of your actions, yes, there is second guessing done, what else is having a Court Marshal? That is how it is and you know it.
RobbieRobot:
Re-reading, I realize I have taken a strident tone towards you and I apologize. You have calmly explained the decisions and reasons for them.
Will TRMS cover it tonight? I saw nothing last night.
That's the most questionable part of the video, and also of your (or military?) logic. What "intel" are you going to get if you just shoot people to pieces?
And the "bad guy" living to fight another day, so better shoot him right now? Kill them, before they kill us somewhere in the future? I've read a book once where seemly reasonable SS-officer says something similar about their war-prisoners. "We can't afford to honor any Geneva Conventions. It's how the war is. Kill them, or they'll kill us."
Shame on you Ms Maddow. Not 15 minutes after you slam FOX NEWS for showing edited tape to envoke a biased opinion, you do the same thing. Talk about hippocracy. The video you aired and the the short video going around on the Internet is actually part of a 38 minute video in which fighting was going on in the area for hours and the party that was attacted, DID HAVE WEAPONS. They clearly appeared to be setting up an ambush to the adjacent road. The reporters getting shot, while tragic, was due to their bad judgement. You hang out with bad people, bad things are going to happen to you. The van that stopped was the same type of van that had been used earlier in the day to transport insurgents and had no Red Cross or medical markings on it.
Yes, we all know that Fox is bias to Rebublicans. We'll call you Capt Obvious for pointing that out to all the ignorant masses. I tried to count how many times you said "Fox News" in your broadcast and ran out of fingers. I do threat assessment for a living. If I deem something is not a threat, I ignore it and move on. You seem obsessed with Fox. Is it hatred or envy of their ratings? I'm getting off my point, sorry. The point is, that when you engage in the same tactics as your enemy, Fox News, you become no better and maybe worse. You are both completely one-sided and nothing either of you say can be even remotely constituted as fair and unbiased. Why didn't you show the worst part of the ACORN video where they had the long conversation with the two ACORN women going in to great detail about how to cover up and run their underage prostitution ring. I would like to see the unedited version of that.
On a side note, wasn't this a "Classified" video. Why isn't Wikileaks being prosecuted for divulging it? The enemy will use this video as propaganda to rally people to their cause and cost more American's lives. Ask yourself, was it worth the ratings to help the enemy? You know why we were so successfull in WW2. The rating and Pulitzer mongors were blacked out. Wars do not need to be fought on the front page and primetime.
I do find it comical how all of you, so called, journalists claim to be experts on everything. Just report the news and keep your uneducated opinion to yourself.
". . . how to cover up and run their underage prostitution ring. I would like to see the unedited version of that."
Me too. If you haven't, how do you know about it?
Although it seems like the video was captured from one of the gunships is it possible that it is from a drone. At what distance is this engagement carried out? The resolution, although imperfect, is certainly good enough to distinguish between a two foot long camera lens and a four and a half foot long RPG-7. I suspect that it is unlikely the gunship crews involved will be charged with a war crime. The real crime was the WMD fabrication that sent an occupying force to Iraq in the first place.
As I recall, "I was just following orders" didn't work too well at Nuremberg either.
Dishonorable discharges up to including General Coverup.
The video is not from a drone. You can get some measure of distance from listening to the fire of the cannon and then seeing the impact. Although I didn't take the time to check the muzzle velocity on the cannon from the Apache and divide it by the time between the sound and the visual impact, I would rough guess that it was over 1000 meters. Apaches fly in and out of here all the time, you can't hear them until they are literally about to land on you. So, that explains the one post of the insurgents not being concerned about the Apache overhead. They never knew it was there. That's what they are built for.
In today's world with today's technology -- satellites that can zoom down to street level, high-powered cameras that catch our every move -- it's absolutely inexcusable for mistakes like these to be made, period.
Do any of you people read or do research before you spew words on a blog. Once again, this was a small, edited segment from a 38 minute video. Wikileaks only took the American fire section out of the video to create a "scandal". The ENTIRE video DOES show the RPGs and AKs and you can hear the entire picture of what was going on betweent he pilots and the ground forces. Geez. Sometimes I really do worry about my country when is see all the rampant ignorance.