Thread: Downright disturbing US military behavior

Originally Posted by Syme

So, that said, let's move on the argument that you are apparently actually making. What's this "think they may" be carrying weapons? They WERE carrying weapons, the Apache crews clearly saw those weapons, and the infantry unit that secured the area after the attack found some of those weapons lying on the ground. There's no "may" here.

They found weapons around the area (which is... not surprising). There was no question of insurgents because those who were on the ground did nothing that should make a pilot alarmed to the extent that his immediate thought is to open fire.

The RPGs make it a different story.

Except they weren't RPGs. The pilot immediately freaked out when there was the possibility of one of the men having an AK, and this was before the question of an RPG. So basically the pilot expected them to be "evil" before the possibility of an RPG attack ever came up.

What hunch? Their weapons, RPGs included, had already been spotted by the Apache crew. What "standing around nonchalantly"? The radio chatter makes it clear that the Apache crew thought an RPG was about to be fired. Stop trying to be cute.

They were horrendously incompetent. They did, in fact, operate on a hunch.

As a SA poster noted:

What's awfully convenient is that all of this is coming out AFTER tons of skepticism over how the military handled all of this in the first place. Why were the FOIA requests handled so abysmally? Why, when the pilots state that they withheld fire on a vehicle earlier, were they so eager to shoot the one in the video?

I'm a veteran of the U.S. Armed Forces and even I'm skeptical of how this whole affair has played out.

Does this mean that if I can find members of the military who defend the soldiers in the video, their arguments would overrule anything you or other (non-military) critics of the incident have to say? Or does the knowledge/experience of military personnel only lend their views authority when those views concur with your own?

It means that this isn't an issue of "patriots versus [other people]." It's an issue of soldiers disgracing their line of work by murdering civilians and breaking military norms. The issue isn't "X fucked up," the issue is more like "X fucked up and deserved to be punished and not saved by a cover up."

At any rate, as far as I can see, most of the military personnel who criticize/condemn the soldiers in the video focus on the part where the van is fired upon. Again, that's not quite the same issue as whether they were justified in firing on a group of men which included RPG gunners, one of whom they believed was just about to fire his weapon.

The fact that the incident was so covered up is a pretty big indication that things weren't very good.

If we want to reach a "compromise" we could both agree with hindsight that opening fire was a bad move, no?

Originally Posted by DAVIDSDIVAD

BAWWWWW

Nice try. There's a difference between "some insurgent with a large family got shot at during a war" and "a bunch of soldiers committed war crimes." For example, soldier shoots insurgent, that's war. Soldier shoots civilian, that's also war (if a bad move). Soldier participates in massacre of ethnic group (e.g. Bosnia), that's a war crime. Soldier opens fire on a van picking up wounded persons, that's (arguably) a war crime. Not in the same quantity of lives lost, of course, but I'm pretty sure it isn't something taken lightly by various international organizations.

The fact that this was covered up is what makes it of value to people.

Originally Posted by Husein

They found weapons around the area (which is... not surprising).

Are you trying to suggest that maybe the group that was fired upon didn't really have any weapons at all, and that the weapons later found at the scene of the attack weren't theirs? Because you can clearly see them carrying those weapons in the gun camera video, including at least one of the RPGs (again, at 3:44-3:45; after reviewing the video at higher resolution, there's not much question that that's an RPG-7 with a round fitted).

Originally Posted by Husein

There was no question of insurgents because those who were on the ground did nothing that should make a pilot alarmed to the extent that his immediate thought is to open fire.

Sounds like you are assuming that aircrews need to be "alarmed" or otherwise threatened by their targets before engaging them. In reality, a perfectly common mission for attack aircraft (especially attack helicopters) is to patrol for possible enemy activity or enemy movements, and engage any targets they find on an opportunistic basis. An apparent group of insurgent fighters, regardless of whether they were doing anything "alarmed", would be a legitimate target for an aircraft engaging in such a mission.

Originally Posted by Husein

Except they weren't RPGs. The pilot immediately freaked out when there was the possibility of one of the men having an AK, and this was before the question of an RPG. So basically the pilot expected them to be "evil" before the possibility of an RPG attack ever came up.

You are just flagrantly misrepresenting the string of events surrounding the pilot's request for permission to engage. Unless you have a different video that shows what happened before the video in the OP begins, we don't know exactly what number/mix of weapons the pilot saw prior to requesting permission to engage (the video in the OP apparently begins shortly after he requested that permission). What the early part of the video in the OP does show is the pilot using his reticle to point out the armed men to the guy he's apparently requesting that permission from. And anyone who actually watches the video can see that he's not "freaking out" over the "possibility of one of the men having an AK", he's observing that several of them have AKs, and also that they have unspecified "weapons", at which point he hovers his reticle over Saaed and Namir who are carrying their cameras on shoulder straps (suggesting that the pilot thought they were RPGs, not AKs, although he simply says "weapons").

Originally Posted by Husein

They were horrendously incompetent. They did, in fact, operate on a hunch.

I guess "hunch" is a word that can be defined however you want. What they operated on was the fact that they saw a group of men armed with "five to six" AKs (pilot's estimate, see 3:47 in the OP video) and at least one RPG, possibly more, which frankly is pretty good grounds for assuming that they are insurgent fighters.

What do you think would have happened differently if the Apache had gotten closer and checked out the situation more thoroughly? Since at least one member of the group DID have an RPG, I don't think it's too likely that the Apache crew would have changed their mind about whether the group was made up of insurgents. They would have gotten closer and seen the weapons, RPG(s) included, even more clearly.

Originally Posted by Husein

As a SA poster noted:

I'm not going to look through 46 pages of posts to find out what exactly he thought was awfully convenient, but sounds like he is talking about different elements of the incident than I am. I've been defending the Apache crew's decision to engage the initial group of men armed with AKs and RPGs, not their decision to fire on the van, or the way the Army later handled the whole incident.

Originally Posted by Husein

It means that this isn't an issue of "patriots versus [other people]." It's an issue of soldiers disgracing their line of work by murdering civilians and breaking military norms. The issue isn't "X fucked up," the issue is more like "X fucked up and deserved to be punished and not saved by a cover up."

What are you talking about here? I never said anything about it being an issue of "patriots versus other people". I know it's not. What I said is that it's ridiculous for you to find a US military service member who happens to agree with your side of the argument, and then say "well I'd rather trust a soldier than some apologist for murder", as if the service member's opinion automatically trumps any counterargument simply because he was in the military. It's ridiculous because there are also certainly US military personnel who take the other side in this debate, and since obviously both sides aren't right, the mere fact that a person has military experience doesn't mean their view of the incident is automatically more valid than someone elses.

Again: If I find and quote military personnel who defend the events in the video, would you accept that their arguments overrule yours because they were in the service and you weren't? Would you accept it if I quoted such personnel and then said: "You'd think that members of the military who defend the soldiers in the video would know a bit more than armchair war-crimes lawyers, but yeah"? I don't think so. So kindly don't try to pull the same crap.

Originally Posted by Husein

The fact that the incident was so covered up is a pretty big indication that things weren't very good.

Right, once again, I'm not trying to argue that the entire incident is fine and dandy; what I've been arguing is that the Apache crew's initial decision to fire on the group of armed men was not unjustifiable. The later firing on of the van is a different story. That's a distinction I've made since my first post in this thread. And I think that the engagement of the van is what really pushed this incident as a whole over the line from "unfortunate wartime incident" to outrage-inducing scandal which the Army felt the need to cover up. If the Apache had only shot up a group of AK- and RPG-armed men which happened to include a couple photographers, there wouldn't have been nearly as much of an outcry (even if those men really weren't insurgents).

Originally Posted by Husein

If we want to reach a "compromise" we could both agree with hindsight that opening fire was a bad move, no?

Depends what you mean by "bad move". I still don't think the Apache crew was beyond justification in requesting permission to engage a group of men which included RPG gunners carrying loaded anti-tank weapons, strongly suggesting that they were more than just civilians armed for self-defense. But yes, in hindsight, obviously it would have been better if they hadn't done so.


EDIT: Looking over the most recent few pages of the SA thread, it really blows my mind how many posters there are insisting that there was absolutely no grounds for thinking that the group of men fired upon were insurgents, even though you can clearly see that at least one of them is walking around with an anti-tank weapon which is useful primarily for blowing up US military vehicles. Not a camera that was mistaken for an RPG, but an actual RPG. Again, 3:44-3:45 in the OP video, upper right-hand quadrant of the reticle, guy in the white shirt, you can see it as he turns. Yes, we all know AK-47s are a household item in Iraq and having one doesn't necessarily make you an insurgent. But they were armed with more than just AKs. It's not that hard to wrap your head around.