From CollateralMurder.com:
WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff.
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
[violation of too many posting guidelines to imagine]
The title is BS from all the radio traffic the soldiers thought they were armed bad guys. Like #1 said it looks like a sad mistake.
Yeah, you can roll the camera back and point out the kids in the van after the fact.
And you wonder why they don’t want to release this stuff. Look how this is being treated.
Why so upset? It’s just game footage of Modern Warfare 2.
I know it is your Birthday John, but you should really keep an eye on what is getting blogged here.
This video is, at best, ammunition for a mainstream media distraction. Nothing will ever come from this video since it is presumed that accidents happen in war, and unfortunately enemy combatants aren’t the only ones who catch bullets.
[I was going to post this myself — jcd]
You can clearly see they weren’t armed in any way.
Looks like some soldiers just wanted to use there guns – nothing in this video shows any provocation at all. No guns, no threats, just some people standing around and getting killed for it.
They looked armed to me. I woulda pulled the trigger if I was in that same position.
Looks like clean kills to me. Behind the two photo guys are two other guys with REALLY long “sticks” likely rpg’s. Then there’s another guy peeking around the corner and clearly aiming something at the ‘copter. Is he taking tourist photos of ‘copter for his blog? And it seems there is someone on the ground talking to & directing the pilots and confirming the intel.
When you “enhance” the video you see two blobs that we now know are kids in the van. It’s not clear to me there were any kids in the van in the “normal” video and blown up, I can’t 100% identify those blobs as kids.
It’s a tragic shame and war is bad and killing is bad but our boys did the best they could. WTF would this van driving guy being his kids into this kind of area for in the first place? He had to know he was risking his life & his kids by driving into a “hot zone.” To me, that act either demonstrates their lack of concern of their lack of education.
It makes me sad when any human life if lost but our boys did a damn fine job.
Guns are for cowards.
Shooting from a distance only underscores their cowardice.
News flash! War sucks.
I fail to see the problem here. Some Reuters stringers were hanging out with some bad guys during a war and got killed. That is the risk you take being a war correspondent. Perhaps he should have considered a safer career option since he had a family to support.
I feel bad for the kids. The driver of the van was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. We don’t know if he was just some guy driving along and decided to help. Or if he was a collaborator there to help his Al Quaida buddies. That is why war sucks.
These dirtbags love to hide behind women and children because they know that people with soft brains and spines will get all upset. Gee, these same scumbags seem to have no problem mass murdering their fellow Iraqis, women and children included. But their supporters seem to conveniently forget that fact.
War SUCKS as a tool to fight terrorism.
Why? Because the condition of war breeds extremism.
The dead loved ones (civilian or not), the refugees, the prisoners, the homeless, the tortured… all this creates far more terrorists than you can kill.
Of course, the conservatives understood this (it’s just common sense!) but they were hell-bent on their damn war anyway.
ROE should be to fire only if fired upon. Period.
Sucks for the troops, but if we want to be seen as the “good guys”, there is no other way.
I’m reminded of Shakespeare’s phrase “…cry ‘Havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war”. War is a grizzly business that by its very nature cannot be orderly, error-free, or well contained, regardless of the “rules of engagement” that are adopted.
Warfare leads inevitably to tragedy and horror for everyone on all sides, which is, perhaps, why we should not rush into it the way we do.
#11
I have a RPG pointed at your face, I am going to kill you. Are you sure you want to wait until fired upon?
Uh-huh, thought so, period.
>> gus said,
>> WTF would this van driving guy being his kids into this kind of area for in the first place? He had to know he was risking his life & his kids by driving into a “hot zone.” To me, that act either demonstrates their lack of concern of their lack of education.
I dearly love my family and I have a Masters degree.
I’ve also accidentally driven them into a firefight — a couple of times, at least!
When you live in a conflict zone, the “hot” areas aren’t marked with those big warning signs they have on American freeways.
You’re taking your kids for a bucket of chicken or to soccer practice. You’re paying close attention to the traffic, turn a corner, and see guys shooting at each other on your left and right.
It’s just how it happens — it’s nothing to do with concern for your kids or education.
>> yanikinwaoz said, on April 5th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
>> News flash! War sucks.
>> I fail to see the problem here.
We’re trying to WIN the war on terror, not fuel it.
See how that’s a problem?
The circumstances doesn’t matter. To most of the world this will appear as indiscriminate murder. All the allies are looking for an excuse to get out of this hopeless hellhole, and I don’t blame them.
unarmed. the reuters guy was shouldering a video camera and the apache crewmen opened fire. you have to wonder whether this has anything to do with someone trying to shut down wikileaks last week?
#9 – There’s an awful lot of assumptions here. What makes these people the ‘bad’ guys? What makes this area a ‘war zone’, other than a US chopper firing on groups of people standing around? If the army was engaged with these people, wouldn’t you expect them to be taking cover from the chopper overhead?
We know that two journalists, several children and others were ‘collateral’ in this engagement. What makes you so sure that the other armed civilians were not likewise innocent? Would you be armed if you lived in Iraq in 2007?
I accept that the US Army was not in Iraq to hold hands and sing Kumbayah, but this engagement is fishy, and the fact that this particular footage was leaked makes it even fishier.
War is hell and there are ALWAYS innocent victims, including friendly fire.
Baaaaw! The liberal media is to blame baaaw!
The next thing the “conservatives” watching this blog will say is that the gang rape done to an Okinawan girl by marines is not a rape but an infusion of American seed.
God aweful shooting to say the least. If you’re going to carry a gun make sure you can aim right in the first place! Damn gun loving freaks that can’t shoot anything worth diddly squat.
Why would anyone in their right mind put a video camera on a machine gun? What is next, Twitter clients on land mines?
The apologists on this website for the indiscriminate killing by America’s occupying force is appalling. The military has no right to occupy another country much less exercise such loose rules of engagement. America is not at war; America is gawking over blended iPads. Killing a band of reporters and their security personnel is INEXCUSABLE.
Everyone feels sorrow and remorse for the children. I feel sorrow and remorse as well for the Apache pilot that will have to live with this. I’m sure he (or the command chain) never intended to shoot children, but in war it happens sometimes. And living with it is the most difficult part.
Don’t see the issue and totally aware this took place in 2007. This is far better than carpet bombing a town. Is Cherman looking to replace CNN’s Nancy Grace with the “outrage”?
As far as Reuters employees go, well… it goes with the territory of covering war on the battlefield.
“Shooting Down”
I have to call bullshit. I didn’t see any flying civilians to get shot down.
>> John E. Quantum said, on April 5th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
>> I feel sorrow and remorse as well for the Apache pilot that will have to live with this.
That’s another think I preached in the lead up to the Iraq war — war ALWAYS as blowback on America.
It devastates the lives of OUR soldiers, too, and they come back and cause grief to their families and society in general.
I reminded my conservative friends of this price as they where giddy to invade Iraq, singing along with diddies about bombing Iraq on the Rush Limbaugh show.
They didn’t care. They demanded and got this damn war.
The Apache camera can be slaved to the gun. You try shooting someone with a chain gun from a moving helicopter while looking at a tv screen, from a distance. People tend to forget the purpose of the Apache was to spy on enemy tanks and then kill them. So the camera came in handy. Something about the radio chatter bugs me. Not the content of the conversation, just the overall amount of chatter back and forth. Not saying it was faked!! so don’t freak out.
>> Dallas said, on April 5th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
>> As far as Reuters employees go, well… it goes with the territory of covering war on the battlefield.
My word, you are cold hearted.
What if the “Reuters employee” was your child or spouse? Would you say “oh well. It’s the job.”