Freedomain Radio

The story on MSNBC:

In the full, unedited 40 minute video from the gun-camera of an Apache attack helicopter (below), well over a dozen unarmed Iraqi civilians, including two Reuters journalists, are coldly slaughtered by the helicopter's gunner as they congregate casually in a courtyard. A few minutes later when passersby stop their minivan to try to aid any survivors from the massacre, they too are fired upon and their van destroyed while children sit inside it. It seems that the helicopter gunner is purposefully describing what is obviously a camcorder and tripod as an "RPG" and "AK-47" over the radio to his commander in order to obtain permission to fire on the crowd. Ground troops and vehicles quickly arrive to cordon off the scene; the radio chatter includes chuckles about a Humvee running over one of the bodies. Upon the discovery of one of the child casualties, a little girl, still alive, merely "shot in the belly," the gunner says coldly "ah damn... oh well" and blames the child's parents for "bringing them to a battle." No shots are fired in the entirety of the footage other than those by the helicopter. Later in the footage the helicopter gunner again cries "weapon!" while observing a man casually carrying an object (likely a builder's tool) down a sidewalk into a building appearing to be under construction, in order to obtain permission to fire three consecutive hellfire missiles into the building, presumably killing all inside.

I wonder if stef will be doing a true news about this. (though I can already guess what he would say)

Here's a newspaper's account of the "battle."  (Stand away from your monitor, otherwise you might get pissed of and punch it.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/12/AR2007071202357.html

Brute, pure evil. I vehemently hate anyone in support of this slaughter.

I can't believe I made it through the entire video - Absolutely disgusting and appalling.  This is the state stripped bare....

Anyone who makes the claim that miltary service is courageous must watch this.  Soldiers are nothing but cowards--especially while hovering in a helicopter above the death carnage they are delivering.

...and these vile cowards get medals.

i don't think i would be able to stomach watching this.

If the news would\could actually show the raw documentation of war without all the bullshit overlaid on top to soften the blow I'd like to think, (mistakenly perhaps, as in the wishes of the Truther folks), that common people would not stand for it.  The only way sane people can support this is because there's a colossal buffer zone of nonsense in between us and the war zones.

The conservative pundits are coming out of the works to rationalize and dismiss this.

There are several videos on YouTube showing military contractors randomly shooting at other cars while they're driving down a road, and another of soldiers shooting at cars from a rooftop while they laugh and relish it as if they've done something heroic.

I saw it yesterday . . its bone chilling how calm the people speaking on the video are about the wanton slaughter of humans

I wonder how well it would go over if the Iraqi army flew helicopters over Montana where some naughty Militia group was hanging out and opened fire?  What if the Iraqi army flew their choppers over LA gang territory and started shooting drug dealers, you know, to protect people?  Would they be thanked for their noble deeds?  Would Toby Keith write a song about it?

From my military training my reaction was:

There was only one time in that video that I agreed with the assessment of "weapon" and that's the gentleman that walked into the second building.   I believe he was carrying a folding stock ak47 and the way he stopped swinging it and hid it against his body seems to confirm that he was trying to hide it.  Now I also understand that weapon ownership wasn't that unusual in Iraq, and I did not see the gentleman do anything threatening with it.  He simply tried to hide it.  Did he have it for self defense from insurgents?

Having said that,  using three Hellfire missiles to attack one AK47 seems like massive overkill and the risk for colateral damage would be excessively high.  I don't understand why that was approved or even asked for.   Especially when you've got two Bradley fighting vehicles and a platoon of infantry nearby.   Seems like ground sweep would be more appropriate and if you take fire then you call in the big guns.  But you don't start with the big guns.  Not when there are that many civilians in the area.   Especially not immediately after having two children hit.

And the taxpayer in me wants to know who justified using three $70,000 missiles to take out a $50 gun.  From a position that wasn't an immediate threat to anyone.

I also saw little in that video that required immediate action.   Seems to me that with the helicopter as observation platforms, they could have monitored the group while bringing the dismounted troops in closer for a ground verification of the threat. 

Conclusion:  I don't see any military justification for these actions.

As a person my reaction was one of sadness.  As we've discussed before, soldiers may still exist in a voluntarist society, but they need to be held to a very high standard of ethics.   This video just confirms why so many can't be trusted with that power. 

Apache's are crewed by two officers so we cannot say that the officers did not have the opportunity to explore philosophy & ethics.  We can't say they were limited by only having a public high school education (or is indoctrination better?).   So given that they had so many advantages and opportunities in education,  why?

I'm very glad wikileaks exists, this is very valuable to release stuff like this. And it's interesting to see people trying to scurry around and make excuses for it.

 

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out…and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel. And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for “the universal brotherhood of man” – with his mouth.

 

- Mark Twain

 

If the military's primary goal is to capture people for intel, then why does every US soldier carry weapons designed to kill, not to subdue?

borip:

If the military's primary goal is to capture people for intel, then why does every US soldier carry weapons designed to kill, not to subdue?

Actually one of the purposes of the 5.56 round is to wound and not kill.   On  a conventional battlefield, it is far more productive militarily to wound someone because it takes a corpsman (medic) to treat him, a couple others to carry him to a ambulance, the ambulance crew to get him to the hospital and the hospital staff to care for him.  

On the other hand, if he's dead.......then the coroner crew can come at their convenience to remove the body.

So in a battle of resources wounding is far preferable to killing.   At least that was the logic for conventional war. 

In asymmetric warfare, that logic doesn't apply as much because the terrorists seldom even attempt the after care or have the resources to try.  However the most of the military's gear was selected for a war against the Soviet Union and not Iraq/Afghanistan and that's why much of it isn't ideal for this type of conflict.