[General Battuta]

Bad luck for the camerapeople. However it doesn't necessarily excuse the behavior of the helicopter crew.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

It's amazing more reporters didn't get killed that way.  Home many times where there reporters near insurgents who were fighting?  There were all kinds of interviews and videos of insurgents from back then. 

[iamzack]

isn't the number of dead reporters something like 150?

[NGTM-1R]

The RPG-7 picture appears to be showing nothing.

[Snail]

In all honesty, I wouldn't be surprised if the AKM picture wasn't even of the scene in question at all, but of a nearby area or something.

[Ford Prefect]

The RPG-7 picture appears to be showing nothing.

The insurgents have the gray box. My god, this is worse than we thought!

[Slasher]

You'd think with all the tax dollars they get, the Pentagon could do a better job at cover-ups. 

[karajorma]

They'd spent the cover-up budget on 9-11 and the moon landings already.

[The E]

The lesson here: Democracies are really bad at covering things up.

[zookeeper]

Attitude of the pilots bad or not it wasn't their call to pull the trigger.

...what? Of course it was. They made the call to pull the trigger, and you're trying to say it wasn't their call to pull the trigger. Duh.

[General Battuta]

Attitude of the pilots bad or not it wasn't their call to pull the trigger.

...what? Of course it was. They made the call to pull the trigger, and you're trying to say it wasn't their call to pull the trigger. Duh.

No, it actually wasn't; by rules of engagement they have to get permission to fire.

They did, however, receive that permission.

[Nuclear1]

Exactly. No one in the military is allowed to pull the trigger willy-nilly without authorization. That's what the assholes at Haditha got in trouble. 

And no, that shouldn't be the attitude of the helicopter crew, but when you're about to pull the trigger on someone and take away somebody's father, brother, son, cousin, etc..it's stressful.  I really, really, really doubt these guys take pleasure in killing anyone.  If anything it's just a mental defensive reaction on their part.

Frankly, with the intel they had at the time and given the situation, they did the best they could.  When a recon platform picks up radio calls indicating a bunch of insurgents operating in an area, and then a camera spots a bunch of armed folks walking around carrying what looks to be an RPG near a helicopter...

[zookeeper]

Attitude of the pilots bad or not it wasn't their call to pull the trigger.

...what? Of course it was. They made the call to pull the trigger, and you're trying to say it wasn't their call to pull the trigger. Duh.

No, it actually wasn't; by rules of engagement they have to get permission to fire.

They did, however, receive that permission.

Permission to fire isn't an order to fire, so pulling the trigger was still their call. Were they ordered to or were they simply given permission to fire on all those people?

And even if they were ordered to fire, nothing would force them to do it, so it'd still be their call. You can't threated me into shooting someone else in such a way that it wouldn't still be my call to shoot or not shoot that someone else, assuming I don't turn all non compos mentis. And we're actually talking of a situation where the repercussions of choosing to not fire would likely have been "none" and the pilots don't exactly seem like they're panicking either.

[Wanderer]

Defensive reaction? It seemed more like they were continuously looking for any possible excuse to start shooting at a wounded unarmed man crawling on the street.

All you got to do is pick up a weapon

Apparently its OK to consider wounded men, the people who help them, and their medevacs all as valid targets according to US RoE. Wonder what other things in it contradicts with certain international accords...

[Kosh]

Anyone who says releasing the video is a threat to national security is a ****ing moron.

Also, anyone who believes what this story seems to imply, the US deliberately doing this is equally a ****ing moron.

They said it was a threat to national security because they were covering it up. Good thing they blew it (eventually).


Oh, and about the picture showing the guns and stuff, how do we even know that was real? If it was real then why did they try to bury the story for so long?

[NGTM-1R]

All you got to do is pick up a weapon

Apparently its OK to consider wounded men, the people who help them, and their medevacs all as valid targets according to US RoE. Wonder what other things in it contradicts with certain international accords...

Anyone with a weapon in his hand is a valid target by any international accord, and an Apache's own weapons are not precise enough tools to kill one and leave those standing next to him unharmed. If the crew geniunely thought they were carrying weapons, then they did exactly the right thing in firing.

Also considering that the insurgents neither mark their medical personnel (if they have any) nor respect US medics, does it come as any surprise they'd fire on percieved insurgents trying to pull someone to safety? If you want the protection of international accords you have to operate within them.

[Wanderer]

If you want the protection of international accords you have to operate within them.

And this is reason enough to fire on civilians? That is how are civilians supposed to do that?

[iamzack]

Mmm... Just thinking about what we'd be saying if the insurgents shot up a van of kids of people trying to help a US soldier.

[Kosh]

Also considering that the insurgents neither mark their medical personnel (if they have any) nor respect US medics, does it come as any surprise they'd fire on percieved insurgents trying to pull someone to safety? If you want the protection of international accords you have to operate within them.

So because they choose to act like a bunch of barbarians that means we should follow suit?

[NGTM-1R]

And this is reason enough to fire on civilians? That is how are civilians supposed to do that?

You conveniently ignored the rest of my post. Try reading it again and pretending you don't have an axe to grind.

So because they choose to act like a bunch of barbarians that means we should follow suit?

If you employ terror as a weapon, conciously or otherwise, people are going to react like you did: they'll strike at you in any way possible. This is the exact reason why the US has greatly cut back on the employment of airstrikes and limited night operations so much; they scare the hell out of people.

However expecting a soldier to offer mercy to a percieved enemy who isn't at the least wearing a Red Cross armband and not armed is basically madness. The nature of the tools employed is such that mistakes are inevitable. If you want it to be treated like a law-enforcement matter you should use law-enforcement personnel.