In May 2007, [Ethan] McCord, a 33-year-old Army specialist, was engaged in a firefight with insurgents in an Iraqi suburb when his platoon, part of Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry, got orders to investigate a nearby street. When they arrived, they found a scene of fresh carnage – the scattered remains of a group of men, believed to be armed, who had just been gunned down by Apache attack helicopters. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. Their 43-year-old father, Saleh, had been driving them to a class when he spotted one of the wounded men moving in the street and drove over to help him, only to become a victim of the Apache guns.
McCord was captured in a video shot from one helicopter as he ran frantically to a military vehicle with Sajad in his arms seeking medical care. That classified video created its own firestorm when the whistleblower site Wikileaks posted it April 5 on a website titled “Collateral Murder” and asserted that the attack was unprovoked. More than a dozen people were killed in three attacks captured in the video, including two Reuters journalists, one carrying a camera that was apparently mistaken for a weapon.
McCord, who served five years in the military before leaving in Nov. 2007 due to injuries, recently posted an apologetic letter online with fellow soldier Josh Steiber supporting the release of the video and asking the family’s forgiveness. McCord is the father of three children.
Wired’s Kim Zetter reached McCord at his home in Kansas. This is his account of what he saw.
So, the guys story is spot on about what most thought and posted when this issue was first presented.
Giving our commanders in the field “great leeway” stops short of cart blanche.
AMERICA OVER ALL
ONE COUNTRY
ONE PEOPLE
ONE LEADER
THEY WERE JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS
“THEY/I WERE/WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS”
“THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS”
“AT ALL COSTS”
“FOR THE COMMON GOOD”
Phrases used to excuse the inexcusable.
Cursor_
Tragic, but that is war and why war should be avoided at all costs – something the Cheney administration dismissed. This falls squarely on the Cheney administrations shoulders and hope that historians make it clear.
Vietnam My Lai style massacres aside, soldiers have no need to apologize for what took place here.
The Gestapo and the SS were just following orders too. So were the Japanese soldiers when they invaded China. Following orders does not make it right.
We now have a 2013 prediction of an economic collapse? In the event of a GOP election victory, this would not be good news. Fool me once …. fool me twice…..
Oops. Posted in wrong area – meant to post in the Horrorwitz interview.
Dallas–no apology to the father driving a van to school who stops to help injured people lying in the street.
Your position boils down to: “Its war. They did it. Its ok.”
Would you draw any lines at all and assuming you would, how does that line not come this side of the van attack?
#8 Individual soldier or soldiers personal apologies for specific circumstances such as this I can understand. In fact, it shows a human element that is positive.
I’m referring to some broad, official apologies expected of the military for operations in war.
When the military fucks up, I expect them to learn from it and feed it back into training. I don’t expect them to issue some public apology that in turn gets used by the enemy brainwash the sheeple.
#9 Dallas
Not apologising if you kill innocent civilians could be used by the ‘enemy’, apologising makes it look like you are on the side of the people you pretend to be on the side of. Think rationally.
Well Dallas–“for real” the second step in admitting a mistake is to apologize for it. It has a “tonic” effect. No warrior like to apologize, so they are more likely to avoid the same scenario in the future if they “fear” having to admit to error.
And if you disagree with that, then think of the converse: NOT apologizing. I doubt very much you will have much learning there.
Conclusion: the military is hard enough to teach on the best of days which isn’t that surprising when the best among us gets upset an apology might be made when innocent people are killed for the sport of it.
#10 Good points and perhaps I need to reconsider my position.
However, apologies for each imperfect mission with civilian casualties, collateral damage, etc can be also be re-broadcasted as “US ADMITS killing civilians and bombing baby milk factories”.
#11. I reject your premise that the military systematically “kills innocent people for the sport of it”.
When that corner case happens, it’s an entirely different argument.
Well Dallas==heh, heh. Can’t argue the point made so you quibble? Bad form. I never said “systematically.”
I don’t know what you mean by “corner case” so again you have retreated to your private world.
I do agree where I think you are now aiming===that every case has to stand on its own. Cases of unjustified murder MUST BE distinguished from collateral damage. You are making that distinction. FAIL!!!
I think the private van evacuating injured people was as clear a case of “murder” as you can get===but it was murder in the heat of battle, in a war zone, part of an authorized engagement. So==murder it is but technically we’ll call it something else, so that we remove those warriors from the field for some retraining.
You don’t win wars when you murder the people we are teaching democracy to.
Line 7: You AREN’T making that distinction. FAIL!!!
((Corrected are to aren’t))
#12 Dallas
True, but certain people will lie either way and I would rather act ethically.
It is probably better for the soldiers involved also, stuff like this can really weigh on your mind.
#13 OK I’ll try one more time.
Well Dallas==heh, heh. Can’t argue the point made so you quibble? Bad form. I never said “systematically.”
I interpreted your last comment to suggest otherwise. I also said I can reconsider by broad position. So, if you’re looking for an argument victory for teh sake of winning, OK.
I don’t know what you mean by “corner case” so again you have retreated to your private world.
It’s a high tech term to meaning “out of the normal range”. Never mind.
I do agree where I think you are now aiming===that every case has to stand on its own. Cases of unjustified murder MUST BE distinguished from collateral damage. You are making that distinction. FAIL!!!
Not quite but close. Every case of unjustified murder or unjustified collateral damage must stand on it’s own. Yes…. and PASS.
I think the private van evacuating injured people was as clear a case of “murder” as you can get===but it was murder in the heat of battle, in a war zone, part of an authorized engagement. So==murder it is but technically we’ll call it something else, so that we remove those warriors from the field for some retraining.
I suppose monday morning quarterbacking would call that murder. I call it a war casualty.
You don’t win wars when you murder the people we are teaching democracy to.
I agree but I didn’t see what I classify as murder as being committed.
Dallas, it would be fun/instructive to lay out a few more scenarios to see where you might draw the line. If I am right that it was murder in a war zone for the sport of it, then what has you confused is merely the closeness in time and place of this murder to the righteous killing that had taken place 30 seconds before. But morality admits no momentum. No corners. No complexity. Very staightforward.
Enemy engaged, shot to shit, no further threat. End of scenario.
Scenario number two: unarmed civilian vehicle enters area to remove wounded personnel. I’d still love to know what the “formal” rules of engagement were on that one. I don’t think “anything goes, its WAR!” is the rule of the day.
Now, if YOU are right, then My Lai must be a puzzler for you.
Dallas, it would be fun/instructive to lay out a few more scenarios to see where you might draw the line. If I am right that it was murder in a war zone for the sport of it, then what has you confused is merely the closeness in time and place of this murder to the righteous killing that had taken place 30 seconds before. But morality admits no momentum. No corners. No complexity. Very staightforward.
Enemy engaged, shot to shit, no further threat. End of scenario.
Scenario number two: unarmed civilian vehicle enters area to remove wounded personnel. I’d still love to know what the “formal” rules of engagement were on that one. I don’t think “anything goes, its WAR!” is the rule of the day.
Now, if YOU are right, then My Lai must be a puzzler for you.==or better yet, how exactly would you define murder on a battle field, or would you?
#18 OK. I’m up for the challenge!
Scenario #2: Your description of scenario 2 is loaded with false presumption.
(1) Unarmed? Says who?
(2) You unlinked scenario 1 and 2. Why? They are linked.
(3) Civilian vehicles? I’m pretty sure terrorists don’t have a uniformed army, much less military markings on their transports.
So, I have to reject your premise you laid out to get the answer you’re looking for.
Let’s go back to what really happened !
* Military engaged confirmed terrorist activity
* Military summons a squadron of young military boys to the area to collect intelligence, etc.. One of them is your son.
* Apache is responsible for ensuring the safety of those boys that are mere blocks away. your son is the first one that is suppose to get out and inspect the area.
* Apache sees van pull up rescuing terrorists that we both agreed should have been wiped out.
* Apache sees no guns, does nothing.
* Apache sees guns and conducts accepted ROE (Rules of Engagement)
* Apache soldiers say things that we may not like.
* Next day Monday morning quarterbacks show up.
* Next day Military conducts investigation and training to reduce likelihood of similar civilian casualties.
So, those are the facts. My Lai was murder. You don’t have to analyze it a whole lot to come to that conclusion.
No doubt this is a problem with faulty intelligence work.
Here’s a Typical Scenario:
1. Official ROE are disseminated that morning stating “all armed personnel in ‘X x Y’ area are to be considered hostile, and free to be engaged”. I.e. ground forces received mortar fire from that area the night before.
2. While on a the mission to locate the enemy, the Official Translator on the ground is “tipped off” by a local that, armed bad guys are just around the corner. (Could be, could not be, but they already expect to find enemies.)
3. The CO on the ground, aware that he has air support, “phones it in”, since they were already fired upon, probably 4-8 hours ago, from that same area.
4. Air support checks coordinates, and according to ROE, checks for weapons. Since they expect to see weapons as previously reported, they see weapons and/or “weapon-like” gear and engage.
The Camera: After all, you don’t have all day to flip through the “Official Field Weapon Silhouettes of the Post-Iraqi-Army Field Book”. Franky, I recognized a camera right away, but the telescopic camera to RPG/AK47/variant ratio on the ground, there, at that time, was probably on the order of 1:100,000. I call bad luck.
The Van: If someone comes to aid the enemy (as you see it), they are also an enemy. Remember, there’s no ‘fighting fair’ in war, a fleeing enemy is still a legitimate target.
Banter: They actually feel good about it since that’s one less potential ambush the guys on the ground would have to deal with. Also, it’s their job.
If this action was by the book, which by this typical scenario above it could be, it was not a war crime. Not even close. Even if the video was 100% unaltered. Which it isn’t.
War is Hell. It’s a shitty thing that happened. The difference between war and murder is that one is officially sanctioned while the other is not. Another “problem”: sensitivity to American casualty numbers has changed the way the U.S. does war. I.e. eliminate the threat at arms length before they even see you. It creates these “unprovoked attacks on innocents” scenarios.
Apparently, Dallas and I developed #19 and #20 independently and concurrently.
To bad I was hampered by a crash of Chrome, which had never happened before…
Thanks for your time.
Seems to me that little value is put on the lives of Iraqi’s and the ROE are relaxed in accordance. The institutions which put the soldiers on the ground in a situation where murder of civilians are within the ROE are to blame.
Reading all the excuses for what happened makes me sick to my stomach. I can’t believe people are apologizing for the killing of anyone. War is disgusting, and one day I will stop funding it by not paying federal taxes. I feel personally responsible as it is because my money, which was forcefully extracted from me, was spent to fund such abhorrent activity.
The phrase “collateral damage” should be stricken from the English language. The military is just a bunch of hired guns, paid murderers doing the bidding of corrupt politicians for the sake of their buddies in the military industry. Nothing like this would be possible in a free market society.
I’d like to see if people on this forum would use “collateral damage” so flippantly if it were their family and friends catching stray bullets from an occupying force on US soil?
The rules of “war” are simply this. Engage and kill the enemy. Eliminate the enemies ability to wage war by destroying personnel, material, and support. An actual officer oral test question during Vietnam. You are in a truck loaded with marine personnel. You are sent on an important mission. While traveling down a hill with a cliff on one side and the mountain on the other, the brakes fail. There is a child in the road. You have two choices. Run down the child or drive off the cliff killing every one in the truck. The correct answer was to run down the child, and complete the mission. This is what happens when you run down the child. To put it as coldly as my drill instructor. “Your job is to complete your mission in any way possible and bring home your platoon fuck everybody else” If this is not a war than this was cold blooded murder. If this is a war than this was the business of war. Rules of Engagement are great philisophical questions over a few beers at the BOQ. When somebody is shooting at you, you tend not to notice anybody other than the guys with the guns. Your primary motivation becomes not getting shot while killing the other guy. What happened here was not new it happens in war and always has. Every soldier, marine, aviator or ship driver has a regret for something they did. The age of the internet simply allows for everyone else to see that regret and comment good, bad, or otherwise. Peace is an illusion its just the lull between wars.
@clancys_daddy, #24
Does this include the “war” on terror? How do you define personnel, material or support then? What about the “war” on drugs? Or the “war” on poverty? Do you kill a homeless person if he gets in your way?
If this were a foreign country doing the same thing on US soil, this wouldn’t be “war is war”. This would be labeled an atrocity. But americans have this f*cked up view that americans are somehow more human than everyone else in the world and everyone else is expendable in the name of war.
Oh, yes, the internet is a great new tool to expose the atrocities of war. Kind of like TV during the Vietnam war or Pictures during the WW. Just because these things have always happened doesn’t mean its ok. Regret means something is wrong. Repeated regret means something needs to be changed.
#24 clancys_daddy
“Peace is an illusion its just the lull between wars.”
Is that really how you see the world? Most people for most of history beg to differ. That is like saying rest is an illusion, it’s just the lull between work. Rather a misguided outlook for a healthy human to have. Coming from an American who has rarely needed to wage a war of survival it is a very troubling outlook, even more so for the people that have war waged on them and their families.
“You are in a truck loaded with…”
Your child was standing in the road in Vietnam where you were sent to fight an unnecessary genocidal war of aggression and your brakes failed, what would you do? If you say kill your child then you are not fighting for the right cause and the military has destroyed your moral/evolutionary compass (Bush would jump out, save his progeny and let you crash over the cliff, if he had actually turned up).
Alternatively, if you were defending America and your family from genocidal aggressors and you chose to hit a kid in the road (even your own) to complete your mission, that would be a different proposition. I hope the subtlety is not lost on you.
Either way this does not relate to this situation. At best we killed combatants that posed an immediate threat to fellow soldiers (in the Hummer patrol) and combatants that were rescuing them and posed no immediate threat (still justified if they actually were combatants), at worst we killed innocent civilians and journalists that posed no threat at all and innocent children who arrived at the scene in a car with someone who got out to help the others.
The point is if you now know them to be innocent, moral people would feel and express remorse unless they have been programmed to kill indiscriminately or are emotionally damaged by war. Putting it down to necessity when you later find out it was not isn’t good for the success of the mission or the troops mental health and safety in Iraq. The more innocent people you kill and write off as collateral damage, the more enemies you create, the more troops die, the more fellow troops are effected adversely by having friends killed, on and on to failure (e.g. Vietnam).
The country treated the Vietnam Vet’s very badly with terrible consequences, that was immoral. I do not blame the troops in situations like this and I truly appreciate their willingness to protect, I just think we should learn from the past and only put them in these positions when completely necessary and admit when we get it wrong.
No, that didn’t happen at all.
What did happen is that we voted the Democrats into power in the House and Senate in 2006 and, as promised, they got us out of Iraq.
28,
First off, dumbass, this video is from Bush’s term. Second, the right continues to block everything Obama does and then accuses him of not getting anything done. Nice try, though.
#19–Dallas==you think you are up to the challenge eh? I wish that were true, but not so pursuant to your specious logic and style. Being in the technical field you should be more conversant with sticking to fact patterns and the rigors of definition?
We both should go back and look at the video one more time . . . . . . . DAM!!! I hate it when I say that. So I did:
http://dvorak.org/blog/2010/04/05/watch-u-s-military-shooting-down-civilians-in-iraq/#comments ((Seems like a longer video than what I saw the first time?))
The van drives up at 9 minutes. The crew says they hope they go for a weapon so they can engage. The scene is perfectly clear. No weapons, no masks, no hostile activity–just picking up the war wounded. Command then gives permission to engage. Murder plain and simple, on the facts given.
It amuses me that YOU add the notion of the military not “systematically” murdering for sport and when I correct your making up facts to straw man argue against RATHER THAN accept the learning lesson you turn it around on me as if it was a clear implication of what I posted when what I posted was clearly limited to the facts before us.
Now, you ask why I separate the two scenarios as if I didn’t list the factors that made them two scenarios. Make up your own facts, ignore facts you don’t like. In addition, there are two scenarios as the crew is making a new request to engage. If it was all one engagement, there would have been no second request. No, you are not up to the challenge. Clean the BS out from between your ears and I do assume you have the ability to be relevant, just not the habit pattern.
Civilian vehicle as opposed to it having rebel insignia or other indicia of enemy support rather than humanitarian/neutral indicia.
I could go on like the “threat” you make up to the troops blocks away, or my son in the battle zone etc. You argue like a drowning man. No finesse at all, just grabbing at whatever is there, or not even there. FAIL.
Well, at least you agree My Lai was murder. We could start with that but I’m nearly out of peanuts.