What? You think he's trained as a battlefield surgeon? You think he knows what to do? I would do the exact same thing in his situation. If you're untrained, anything you do will most likely make the injury even worse. Obligatory.
The guy with the camera was acting odd, the way he checked around the corner looked like he was gonna shoot an RPG at someone. Some of the guys in the first group looked like they had AK-47s, so I don't blame the chopper crew for firing on them. The van however, I'm not sure about, the gunner seemed very trigger happy to me. At the end of the day, it was a terrible mistake, but we can be sure that this isn't the last time this'll happen. But with the van, why would you take two children to a hot zone? I'm sorry, but that wasn't a smart decision at all.
You guys don't even know what war is. War is the fear and knowledge that at any instant, your life can change, or even end. These men saw people with AKs. How many times do you think they've seen people with AKs pointing them at their faces? I bet over 100. So if they see the threat that they're used to seeing, what do you think they're going to do? And for God's sake, if you saw someone standing like the man was at 4:10, what would you do? Would you do nothing, and risk the lives of your men and yourself, or just eliminate the possible threat. But, this is just another wrong place, wrong time situation.
...Really? You think he was like 'Oh I'm going to take a picture around the corner but make it look like I'm targeting with my RPG.'? Yeah, no. No one was aiming AKs at them...They were just walking around with the AKs strapped over their shoulders.
I'm at a loss to understand how you can be so ethically complacent. This is voluntary manslaughter. The second group was completely unarmed. What where they going to do, throw rocks to take down the chopper? The van posed absolutely no risk. There is no reasonable justification.
Alright, so I just watched this video and here are my thoughts. The first engagement I can understand. Not saying that it wasn't completely overkill, but it was somewhat justifiable. A guy looking around a building at a helicopter with what appears to be a weapon. Hm, reasonable. Also, gathering in a crowd and looking suspicious might not be the epitome of innocence. I sort of just watched the first eight die with interest in what the real reason of attack was. In conclusion, it could've been handled much better(clearly). I guess patience isn't a strong suit of the military these days. This second attack on the medical van just made me think to myself, "really? Is this what our military considers a threat?". The guy even said that a van was coming "to pick up the bodies". Not plant a bomb or rally the troops. To pick up dead bodies. I don't know about all of you, but I've never had to fear for my life at a graveyard. The gunner no doubt had some sort of maniacal trigger finger that would make Jason Vorhees proud. Just kill everything in sight. Come on, you have a helicopter and they have medical supplies. This is a fair fight, really. Did you hear how many times he asked for permission to engage? Unfortunately, the light bulb didn't go off in his head that maybe they didn't pose a threat in the least before he blasted everything to hell. But what really made the video tie in with the main theme in my head, desensitization, is where the two men hilariously converse about a man getting run over, as if the story was taken out of Beavis and Butthead. "Hey Beavis, did you see that guy get run over by that car?" "Yeah, that was totally sweet. He he." Hopefully more people see this video and take some time to realize that war isn't exactly war anymore. Just a twisted game of "run and hide before the Apache kills you".
You can't blame them for having the children there. They might have been a few blocks away enjoying a bite to eat with his kids. He hears gunshots and then notices that the dust has settled. He can't leave children in the middle of nowhere, but he wants to see if he can help. He was being a good Samaritan. EDIT: As for the suspicious behavior of the 'squatting' reporter. The man was leaning around a corner, but the shape was not that of an rpg and you could see that whole length of it. If it was an rpg then it would have been longer. The pilot probably only saw a shape and a man peeking around a corner and jumped to conclusions. The irony in all this is that the man was probably just checking to see if the coast was clear and geting ready to continue with the interview. EDIT2: The pilot claimed the man was shooting. Now that is an outright lie.
And what we learned today kids is not to be the nice guy, because being the nice guy not only makes you lose out on things in life, but it can also get you killed! I can understand being a good Samaritan, but how stupid is that? He hears gunshots and brings his kids into a kill zone were helicopters are still flying over head. Sure, they have different standards of living, but what the hell I wouldn't jeopardize my childrens lives, because people were gunned down. Unless of course I knew the people that got shot. In that circumstance, that suspicious behavior to me and in my in my mind that's probable cause for the military.
Exactly. The heli pilot shouldn't have shot the second group to pieces because they posed no threat whatsoever but because its a guerilla war innocent people are mistaken as threats and slaughtered. What I'm trying to say is that, to me, the biggest **** up here was the pilot's decision to shoot the second group of people rather than the fact his mistook the first group's long cameras for weapons.
The video is not embedding because on youtube the video is restricted to those with accounts and are over 18.
A common tactic insurgents use is to take the guns off of the dead bodies and make it seem like a civilian slaughter. Obviously the van didn't stay long enough to raise suspicion for the above, but I can see what the pilot was thinking, that the "insurgent" van was taking away the injured guy to fight another day. The reporters were hanging around with insurgents with AK's, so I would say they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Though OP, when you first identify a few people with weapons, you don't usually inspect to see if they all have weapons. If you're hanging out with people with guns like that, it is assumed you are part of the group. What if this situation was flipped around? What if those people (all, no reporters) were about to stage an attack and the helicopter let them go, or let that van go? The van had no identification, to anyone that would be suspicious. I do agree the gunner was a bit trigger happy. "All you gotta do is pick up a gun..." I would blame the mental stress of war itself on his actions. Not everyone can handle an insurgent war where everyone can be an enemy and split second decisions mean life or death. Being a cowboy might have been his way of dealing with it all.
I'm going to try and clarify that the term RPG means Rocket Propelled Grenade. It often refers to the Soviet era RPG-7, but it can also generally refer to a rocket launcher. I'm not saying that the murders were justified, I'm just saying. Also, couldn't the gunner or pilot zoom in any closer on the group, and with regular vision? I don't see why everything has to be black and white and show no detail at all. They could at least zoom in closer on the suspects to see if they were actually firing or if those were actually RPGs and that they would pose a threat. And...any news or info on the men that piloted the Apache and shot at the two groups? Have they been dishonorably discharged or taken out back and shot? Did they have any mental problems from having been deployed for so long or were they fresh recruits itching to get a kill?
People have mentioned how the gunner and pilot are seemingly callous. A helicopter is far enough from the actual bodies that they don't get the full impact of the deaths. The humor they display is most likely an attempt to get past the effects that the war must be having upon them. Even then, they feel regret at the injury of the girl and promptly attempt to justify it. They have been in a war zone, and that puts them under stress. They will have heard stories of deaths and bombings, and may have lost friends. Under these circumstances the gunner has a reason for being trigger happy. And they obviously really don't like the "enemy." The deaths were a tragic accident and while it could have been handled better, the gunner probably felt he was doing the right thing. Wikileaks has over dramatized the event by making it seem like that soldiers in the war wantonly kill civilians. Of course, they can say that with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. Would they have done better in the field? Also, how did they acquire this encrypted video? I'm pretty sure that whatever means they did this through are not legal (in America). Wikileaks claim that they are an Intelligence service for ordinary people. Nations have intelligence services because they have national security and their people to worry about. What does a volunteer org. have to worry about? How would they protect any 'agents' that get arrested?
What are you talking about? The whole point of Wikileaks is to put the information that the government and corporations deem too harmful for public consumption into the public's hands. They're not there to physically protect us or any ****, rofl. They're there to inform us.
The information that they are acquiring is classified data and things that are not commonplace info (see wikileaks site). And they have to have some method of getting this information , whether that be through informants (who would be committing treason or similar crime). And then they will have to decrypt and analyse data. So the way they are getting and processing information could make them an intelligence service, like NSA or CIA. Thats what intelligence officers do. They get informants to tell them information and then send it back to HQ to be analysed. Except Wikileaks is publicizing it. Do you see the similarities? And, no, they won't be protecting us physically. I never meant that. rofl. Edit: Maybe Wikileaks itself did not claim to be an intelligence service, I read that in the paper, but the similarities are there.
Why is the data classified? Because it shows government and military screw-ups. So, yea, I kinda should know these things in order to know who to put in office so that these things don't happen again. That is why you have video feeds so that you can prove you were firing at armed targets. There was a movie several years ago with Denzel Washington where there was a cover-up to try and show that he had fired on innocents. In this case, the video shows the incompetence of the gunner and the pilot. But how was the van insurgent? There is no proof in the video. It's like the pilot and gunner have the mentality that if anyone is near the battlefield then they must be insurgents. That sort of thinking cost innocent people there lives. Having a firearm does not mean that they are an insurgent. I have a gun at home, am I a terrorist. It's common place to have weapons in their culture. This isn't a case of wrong place, wrong time. That's putting too much blame on the innocent. The pilot and gunner made an error and it is all their fault. So you're saying it's okay to shoot unarmed people as long as they are around someone who does have a gun? Please, never join an organization that will give you a weapon. If they were about to stage an attack then it would have looked like they were about to stage an attack. This only goes to show that war is unnecessary in this day and age and that we shouldn't be sending troops over there. No way in hell are they feeling regret. Blaming it on the dead father you just mercilessly killed for the injuries you inflicted on his children isn't showing regret. I don't think their humor is in any way attempting to get past the effects of war. I think you're disillusioned. Do you think they might be 'enjoying' it? So, this was revenge? This only further shows that the pilot/gunner were incompetent. They haven't over-dramaticized ****. For the first time, I've gotten a real glimpse of what the combat is like. That's not war, it's a massacre. That doesn't mean everything in the war in Iraq is like that, but if things like that are happening, then why the hell are we over there. So mommy can afford to drive the kids to soccer practice. So what if it wasn't legal.