After I saw the first video, I did some googling around and reading about the rules of engagement during an insurgency. Under the Geneva Convention, clearly identified medical personnel treating combatants removed from combat are protected. However, if an armed combatant is attempting to help another combatant get to cover, they're both fair game. There's a grey area when it's not clear if a person helping a combatant to cover is a civilian or a combatant.
That's the first part. The second part is that the Army and other forces have made it very clear that attempting to take any weapons from the battlefield counts as engagement, and they will fire at anyone attempting to do so. Apparently this was a big problem during the start of the war - if they took out insurgents, their guns would often be grabbed and ran away with, and presumably used again later. So that's a clear situation right now - attempting to remove weapons from a battlefield will get you fired upon.
It's unclear who was in the van, and if they were attempting to take weapons, though.
Everyone picking up the bodies and from the van was clearly UNARMED. Unarmed non-combatants were picking up the body of an unarmed non-combatant who never held a weapon.
If I was running an insurgency in Iraq, I would keep a guy in the back of an unmarked van with an RPG and I would drive around pretending to pick up bodies. I think I'd probably get a lot of kills that way. I don't think it's fair to say the van was clearly unarmed, especially when you consider the fact that the van could have been called in to make a pickup by a group of people confirmed to have at least one RPG and at least one AK-47.
In the moment of the firefight it was unclear whether the van was armed or not. Was was clear to the soldiers was that the van responded very quickly to a group of wounded people who had several confirmed weapons among them. Also, as others have mentioned, the soldiers knew the insurgency has used similar tactics in the past to salvage weapons and ammo.
It doesn't surprise me they found an RPG on the ground after the chopper reported there was one.
I have it on good authority from people who were actually on the ground that soldiers regularly keep RPG's and AK-47's in the Humvees such that if they do kill an innocent civilian, they just place the AK-47 or RPG on or near the victim to make them look like an insurgent. I don't know if that's what happened in this particular instance, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.
Edit: I guess I'm being down voted for hearsay? Well, I worked with a number of soldiers and have a few friends who are infantry. This does happen, whether people want to accept it or not. Again, it could be that there was someone, or multiple people, were armed in this particular instance. I don't know. I haven't, to my knowledge, met anyone that was involved in this incident to ask. I have, however, talked to a number of people that were on the ground, that did have to take the lives of other people, and did have to cover things up when they made a mistake.
I hesitated before downvoting you; but I feel I have to because it's very easy (even with the edit) to make these claims online with little or no substance.
I feel if this was readily admitted to yourself it would have been admitted to others too and, by now, made it to the mainstream news. Where it would have been a massive, massive story.
I also feel all we have is your word and really that's not enough for such a huge claim!
Finally statements such as whether people want to accept it or not sound a lot like "typical" internet style rhetoric used to attach credence to a story.
You're right, and I hesitated before even posting it.
There's a difference in what some people are willing to say to a friend and what people are willing to say to a reporter. Honestly, it's surprising to me that more things like this incident and other like it haven't made it to the mainstream media. Ask any soldier that was on the ground (especially around 2007), and they'll tell you that, maybe, 10% of what is going on in Iraq is actually being reported. There's a bunch of stuff that goes on that you will never hear about.
From what I can tell, most people that were over there would rather leave most of it behind them. I haven't met anyone that's come back better for it, and very few of them are willing to go into any detail about the incidents unless it's with someone they're extremely comfortable with. When they do open up, it seems to come with an understanding that it won't be shared, and if it is, no names or specifics will be brought up.
Even after leaving Iraq, these guys can still face penalties if it's found that they were covering things up. I'm not sure what, if anything, they'd be charged with, but most of them are still within the Statutes of Limitations of the UCMJ for Court Marshal, and there are worse punishments beyond that that have no Statutes of Limitations.
I trust the stories that were told to me because they came from multiple people that weren't connected save for being in the military and having been stationed in Iraq at some point in time. If my word isn't enough for you (and I don't blame you if it isn't) then feel free to pass it off as another random person on the internet repeating a possible fabrication.
I mulled over this last night and today; here's my current thinking.
If this is true it is more than a step beyond what we have seen here. In the video we see a tragically mistaken engagement (which I understand) and then a terrible, idiotic, but I feel not malicious, attack on unarmed civilians. Even the restriction of information released by the army, whilst something I don't agree with, is understandable.
However; finding a mistake on the ground then covering it up by planting weapons? That's fraud and a war crime. It's morally and legally reprehensible.
This is why I feel it is probably not true (or a one off you have heard about); if it is a prevalent thing then it surely would have been reported by now (I cannot believe there is not one person in the US army that would be morally outraged by this).
If it is true; it needs to be outed, stopped and prosecuted.
Of everything posted on this subject this idea is the one that sickens me the most :(
There's several issues at stake here. The first is that these guys are under extreme amounts of stress. The level of stress the average soldier faces in a war zone (and that's what it is) is unimaginable to pretty much anyone that hasn't been there. I've heard stories of some things these guys are faced with, and none of it is pretty. I've had to take a step back from some of it, and I didn't even experience it directly. When you get an RPG shot at you that bounces off the front of your Humvee and by some miracle, it doesn't go off, you don't walk away from that the same. Having to stab someone repeatedly in order to save your own life. Shooting at actual people. Not some representation of people, but actual living, breathing human beings, and seeing the carnage wrought by your bullets. It's hard to even comprehend.
Now, imagine these guys come back and are generally able to continue to carry on some sort of a normal life at home. There's a lot of training involved here, and part of it is that you were simply ordered to do it. The chain of command is a real force, something the average soldier respects enough to go into a situation that very well could end their life. They also fear it. It's a force that's almost worse than death. Would you want to admit mistakes, or would you feel better about simply covering them up? This hypothetical soldier is already hardened enough to take the life of another person without feeling intense amounts of guilt. What is covering up a mistake compared to that?
There's also an insane amount of camaraderie amongst soldiers. These guys are willing to go into the line of fire to get back a piece of their buddy to send back home, because no soldier gets left behind. Would you risk your hide to get back part of your friend's dead body in order to have a proper burial? I don't know if I would, but that's a fairly ubiquitous feeling amongst soldiers. These guys will fight and die for their fellow soldiers, dead or alive. If you would already put your life on the line for someone, why wouldn't you help them cover something up?
Finally, the perception of people (civilians or combatants) from the view of a soldier is horribly skewed from what it is at home. They aren't really humans when they're on the battlefield. They're targets. The guilt doesn't really hit until after these guys get home. When you're in the midst of it, you're worried about your own survival, and the survival of those you care about. They don't seem to be particularly worried about the collateral damage. If they make a few mistakes, oh well. It's better than not pulling the trigger and finding out they were actually the enemy.
I'm not saying it's okay. It's certainly deplorable behavior. I'm just saying it's understandable, from where I sit. If I were put in a similar situation, I'm not sure how I would react. No one does, but the only way to prevent is to simply not go to war.
I don’t know what happened in Iraq. But something like this happened in Argentina (at least once).
In 2001 one policeman killed 3 unarmed guys in a gas station. Then he took the bodies to the street and put a knife near one body. He claimed that it was an assault, but later he was found guilty and sentence to prison.
"I don't think it's fair to say the van was clearly unarmed, especially when you consider the fact that the van could have been called in to make a pickup by a group."
Or my theory: The van COULD have been driven by aliens from Orion 3. Or the van COULD have been driven by the guy from the future who wanted to stop the LHC again by fighting in Iraq. COULD be, you must admit!
"Could have been called", "I would do so and so", "it was unclear whether they were armed", "has used similar tactics"...
If you were an USAA general, would you promote to commander someone who would gave permission to kill based on faint suspicions and their definition of "very quickly"? Because that doesn't sound like an official. That sounds like a God.
You need to watch the video again. This time, turn off the sound and ignore the captions.
A man covered in blood is crawling along the side of the road as you drive by. You say, "My god! This man is injured! We need to help him!" You and your friend jump out to help an injured man, not really sure what's going on, and tell your children to wait in the car. Suddenly you're dead, because a helicopter flying high overhead killed you instantly because you were moving an injured man.
That isn't a hypothetical, that's what happend. And if you ignore the chatter of a few pilots eager to score more kills, it's very clear that these people had no connection to any activity on the scene. The Van is nowhere in sight until the very end of the engagement.
What's more, it's clear the pilot is eager to kill. He reports it in the most biased of terms: mentioning they were "possibly recovering weapons" despite seeing NO such action. How do we know he knew such a thing, you might ask? Because just moments before he was literally begging them to pick up a gun so he could kill them, and in the end he got a fire order anyways because of a biased report.
The actions of the pilots in that video were reprehensible and it is unfortunate that they will most likely be shielded from prosecution. On that day they ceased to be revered servicemen for the united states and became a representation of every flaw in our military system that Americans revile. They teetered on the edge of becoming war criminals. At the very least they should be dishonorably discharged.
There are some problems specifically in you analysis.
> Suddenly you're dead, because a helicopter flying high overhead killed you instantly because you were moving an injured man.
Im not sure if it was just your wording but it was several minutes before they fired on them.
> it's very clear that these people had no connection to any activity on the scene. The Van is nowhere in sight until the very end of the engagement.
Have you watched the full 39 minute video? I've only had time to watch it once (so am withholding my full analysis of the engagement) but the same van is visible near the start of the video. It may not have been the same van but it seems a natural and fair assumption that it might be.
Saying things like "it is clear" based on the single perspective of the Apache gunship seems a little clear cut...
> Im not sure if it was just your wording but it was several minutes before they fired on them.
It didn't take “several minutes”. They hadn't even moved the injured man to the car before they were dead. And it's unlikely that they understood they were in a combat zone. Those helicopters fly high above the scene.
> Have you watched the full 39 minute video?
I've watched the full video once and then after that the shortened one.
> I've only had time to watch it once (so am withholding my full analysis of the engagement) but the same van is visible near the start of the video.
You can't tell if it's the same van on IR. They don't have a color, and I didn't see enough detail on the vehicles we swept over initially to resolve it without color information.
But even if that were the case, would it be so unusual? That wasn't a combat zone, it was an inhabited residential area. People live there.
> It may not have been the same van but it seems a natural and fair assumption that it might be.
Even if you allow for that, the people in the video never take any clear action constituting engagement. They were addressing a wounded man, and showed 0 evidence of retrieving weapons.
> Saying things like "it is clear" based on the single perspective of the Apache gunship seems a little clear cut...
I'm only speaking from the perspective of the pilot's actions. They massacred a family and innocent journalists. And I have to tell you, if they think a tulip hood on a 200mm lens looks like an RPG, then someone is in dire need of a refresher course. That shape couldn't be a more distinct signal of photographic equipment.
The entire engagement and the series of decisions that lead up to it stink.
> But even if that were the case, would it be so unusual?
According to all of the material (the video and released statements) a van was identified as ferrying combatants around. In the 39 minute video this is actually touched on and in the statements it is explained this was known by the pilots
(don't forget we have one gun cam video from one of the apaches during the latter stages of the operation - previously more action with other gunships had occurred. Without all of that material I dont think we can make a fully accurate assessment)
> Even if you allow for that, the people in the video never take any clear action constituting engagement. They were addressing a wounded man, and showed 0 evidence of retrieving weapons.
Absolutely; I'd not dispute that, and I agree. This was not what I was disagreeing with :)
Im not going to comment on the rest of what your saying because though I disagree in part it's not what I was disputing.
The vehicle was not transporting suspects! According to the Huffington Post it was a good semeritan taking his children to tutoring classes.
There is no indication it was the same black vehicle at the start of the video. No one on the ground or air claimed it was. Furthermore, even if it was, no one claimed the black vehicle at the start was a target or contained suspects! The air merely stated it passed under their targetting crosshair.
The suspect as reported by the ground was ONE MAN, who had appeared in front of their Bradley.
Imagine you're there, in the arena, adrenaline practically oozing out of your pores. You're 500 feet above the one of the most dangerous cities in the world [1], a warzone that's claimed the lives of thousands of young men, just like you, and you've just taken out the armed enemy. That was the enemy. And that guy laying there still is the enemy. And so is anyone helping him. And now a van has pulled up, unidentified. You don't know who or what is in that van and whether it is armed or not. You know the reality,the statistics, and they're not in your favor. So you do as anyone in that situation would do, with limited information and a hell of a lot of empirical data. You neutralize the threat. You destroy them and live to see another day.
"So you do as anyone in that situation would do, with limited information and a hell of a lot of empirical data. You neutralize the threat. You destroy them and live to see another day."
What exactly was the "threat" here? The helicopter was a mile away and in no danger of not "live to see another day" ?
(err why the downvotes? That was a straightforward question. The parent seemed to imply that the shooters were doing it in order to "live to see another day". Was anyone threatening the helicopter in any credible fashion?)
They weren't there though. According to the analysis on other sites, the helicopter was about a mile away. (Based on the time between when the rounds were fired and when they hit.)
The reality is that it is fucking stupid to put young Americans and young Iraqis alike into that situation to start with. It was stupid in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and it is still fucking stupid in 2010, because we've shoveled mountains of money into Iraq and mountains of dead people of various nationalities out of it, and nobody can tell me exactly what we've gained.
This is because even though nobody wants to admit it, we've gained nothing, and we will continue to do so, because this was a publicity stunt from Day One and now it's a political third rail thanks to the morons who direct what passes for a national discourse in this pathetic shadow of a democracy.
If you are fighting insurgents inside cities where enemy is in close proximity of children and women you can not damn reality and shoot to death whoever you suspect to be an enemy. That will always get you more enemies and endless war regardless of the noble cause that you may be pursuing.
What the soldiers are doing is mostly shielding their butts while they maintain their presence. They are not helping the invaded civilians if they are also killing scores of them every now and then while being unable to stop the insurgents who are doing the same thing.
It's really blowing my mind that there are people on this site, which is ostensibly full of informed and educated people, arguing that it's okay to kill someone just because you're not sure and they're helping someone you shot.
Once you've murdered journalists in the field, the rules of engagement stop being as important in the war for public opinion. Modern war is as much about information as territory. You simply can't do this, regardless of if you can explain it away til next Tuesday.
Hmm, can you tell me where in the video that it's pretty clear anyone from the van was picking up weapons?
I can understand some fog-of-war "I thought the camera was a gun." excuses, but just because they say on the radio that they were "possibly" picking up weapon doesn't mean that they actually saw them do any such thing.
I've watched it twice and it looks to me exactly like they shot up a van that was trying to help a wounded man.
> Wouldn't a person helping a combatant get to cover be by definition a combatant (although perhaps just for the duration of the action)?
I think the key part is armed combatants in combat - you can't just open fire on any civilians who are helping an unarmed combatant after he's removed from combat. I'm not an expert though - I spent a bit of time reading on Geneva about a year ago, and just refreshed my memory today.
> Also, if we're talking about the Conventions, were these illegal combatants? (I haven't watched the video.)
There's still some limited protections granted to people fighting in "non-international conflicts" under Protocol II, a 1977 Amendment to the Geneva Convention.
I'm going to preface this comment by a brief statement on my background, because, as you will see, it's quite relevant to the discussion.
I personally campaigned against the US + allies invasion of Iraq. I even stood for election in Australia with that as part of my platform. I door-knocked with petitions to not invade - without much success. I also spent 9 years in the Royal Australian Air Force as an officer, and as such I have had to study the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of Armed Combat - officers need to know what is a legal order and what is not a legal order to give.
The thing is, if you are talking about combatants that aren't in uniform, the Geneva Conventions no longer apply - a uniform is the sine qua non of the treaty.
The idea is that combatants put on uniforms - yes, this makes them easier to identify, but the uniform makes it easy to discriminate combatants from non-combatants, thereby protecting non-combatants. When combatants choose to not wear a uniform, they are every bit as responsible for civilian casualties, as those that mistakenly fire upon civilians.
This engagement is a classic example - are the people in the van combatants aiding combatants? or are they good samaritan civilians aiding other innocent civilians? Or are they civilians aiding combatants, or of course, I guess it's possible that they were combatants aiding civilians. The point is that we don't know - even with hindsight we are unable to identify exactly who was who. Soldiers that think they have an RPG that might by lining them up certainly aren't going to be willing to give the people in question the benefit of the doubt. That is the fog of war.
You can complain about the US being in Iraq, but honestly, looking at the video, I don't find anything much that is shocking about the actions of the soldiers - they are perhaps a touch insouciant about the bloody mayhem that they unleash, but I suspect that a lot of that comes from the relief they are feeling at having neutralised what they perceived as a deadly threat. No, I really am not seeing a lot that was wrong in that video. What was wrong was the fact that the US was there in the first place...
One minor quibble followed by more disucssion (please correct me if I'm wrong, poor eyesight kept me out of the military so I never had to learn this for real): legal combatants "put on uniforms", but the threshold for this is fairly low, a distinctive armband is sufficient.
As you note, the rules of the game drastically change when combatants decline to be "legal", although from what little I know the Geneva Conventions do apply, just not in a way an illegal combatant will find appealing.
They are deliberately set up to so that there are strong incentives to stay within them, to not be an illegal combatant ... e.g. as far as the Conventions are concerned (not talking about what our Uniform Code of Military Niceness (UCMJ) or your equivalent says), as I understand it they can be executed out of hand if captured on the battlefield (I assume some due process is required, but only to establish their status).
E.g. as I recall, when we captured around a dozen non-uniformed Nazi saboteurs who'd been landed by sub? in the NE of the US during WWII, they were tried on that basis and then executed.
Similarly, in the GWOT, we are not obligated to treat captured illegal combatants as POWs, and have the option to interrogate them (e.g. Gitmo), something you're not allowed to do to a POW.
That's the first part. The second part is that the Army and other forces have made it very clear that attempting to take any weapons from the battlefield counts as engagement, and they will fire at anyone attempting to do so. Apparently this was a big problem during the start of the war - if they took out insurgents, their guns would often be grabbed and ran away with, and presumably used again later. So that's a clear situation right now - attempting to remove weapons from a battlefield will get you fired upon.
It's unclear who was in the van, and if they were attempting to take weapons, though.