US attack on Iraqis, intentional?

[SultanOfSurreal]

That statement is irrelevant to mine, as well as irrelevant to the statement I was responding to. Try again, coward.

i'm not sure exactly what it is you're waiting for, but rest assured, you are certainly wrong about whatever the f*ck it is you're talking about

Yeah, I figured you'd see how utterly ignorant your assertion was once you looked at it closely. Thanks for admitting it.

i'm serious dude, i don't know what you're looking for from me

the military is nothing more than a global murder syndicate and everyone who takes part in it is filth who, while they will never be able to truly repent, should at least put forth a nominal token of remorse and abandon their post. any soldier who doesn't is willfully taking part in countless atrocities.

you think this is untrue because i'm too cowardly to join the military

that's retarded

what else is there to be said

[daddy1gringo]

i only chose a picture from world war ii because you're a mealy-mouthed fascist willing to defend every imaginable war crime up to an including genocide to avoid facing the fact that america's military is the single worst purveyor of violence in the world today

Your choice of WWII is a good one. It's the best example I know that there are just and appropriate uses for military action. It was the American military, along with others, that stopped the people in your picture from committing more acts like the one in your picture.

[thegreekdog]

Why are you guys arguing with Sultan? He doesn't argue any of your points. He makes blanket, generic, canned statements that are not relevant at all to the situation we are discussing here. He doesn't, and won't, answer any of your questions. Yet you continue to argue with him like he's a reasonable, sane, and knowledgeable individual. Sultan will continue to use phrases like "killing little brown men" because it gets you fired up. He has yet to make any statement regarding the actual video, preferring instead to liken the accidental killing of civilians by American soliders to the purposeful killing of Jews in an effort to eradicate them from the face of the earth. That comparison, and that comparison alone, should be enough to stop you from attempting to reason with him. He's either incredibly misguided and a moron, or else he's trolling. Either way, ignore him.

Anyway, to the topic at hand: The disturbing part of this whole thing, in my mind, is the length of time it's taken for the US military to release this video (although Neo apparently watched it two years ago) and for the media to pick it up.

[Baron Von PWN]

Why are you guys arguing with Sultan? He doesn't argue any of your points. He makes blanket, generic, canned statements that are not relevant at all to the situation we are discussing here. He doesn't, and won't, answer any of your questions. Yet you continue to argue with him like he's a reasonable, sane, and knowledgeable individual. Sultan will continue to use phrases like "killing little brown men" because it gets you fired up. He has yet to make any statement regarding the actual video, preferring instead to liken the accidental killing of civilians by American soliders to the purposeful killing of Jews in an effort to eradicate them from the face of the earth. That comparison, and that comparison alone, should be enough to stop you from attempting to reason with him. He's either incredibly misguided and a moron, or else he's trolling. Either way, ignore him.

Anyway, to the topic at hand: The disturbing part of this whole thing, in my mind, is the length of time it's taken for the US military to release this video (although Neo apparently watched it two years ago) and for the media to pick it up.

The US military didn't release the video, wikileaks got a hold of it and released it after they managed to decrypt it.

[PLAYER57832]

Several most definitely appeared to be armed.

For those who cry I know what an AK47 looks like blah blah blah. Are you aware how many variations of that weapon there are? Several. Sure looked like rifles to me.

None of you can honestly say that those camera bags were cameras either. Explosives come in bags too. And cameras.

Dude at the corner of the building. He sure wasn't holding his dick.

They asked for and received authorization based on what they perceived upon the scene.

The van. No way to tell what all was inside of it or who those two adults were that stopped to pick up a wounded combat target.

It's a war zone.

Look, NPR is hardly a pro-fighting new organization, hardly a "cover up for the military" .. or the government or any other group news. They try to be as nuetral as possible. When even they agree largely with Fox... something happened.

For any who just looked at the video and skipped the commentary, a later investigation showed that there not only were weapons present, but that several rounds had been fired.

There are questions. The biggest is at what point this stops being a war and is instead a police action, where civilian rules need to take place. As for the actualy incident, I leave that to folks with more military knowledge and knowledge of rules of engagement, etc to decide. War is not civilian life. That is not a "pass" for anything the military does, but I am not going to sit here in my comfortable house and lay judgement based on a few images. I leave that to people who can view ALL the facts involved appropriately.

[jaimito101]

The most shocking thing about this is the reaction of the people involved. The laughing through the speakers and the apparent indifference when they found out they where shooting at children.

Though they look at their actions ligheartedly at the moment, most of these people involved will probably suffer from phycological problems for large parts of their lives.

[thegreekdog]

Why are you guys arguing with Sultan? He doesn't argue any of your points. He makes blanket, generic, canned statements that are not relevant at all to the situation we are discussing here. He doesn't, and won't, answer any of your questions. Yet you continue to argue with him like he's a reasonable, sane, and knowledgeable individual. Sultan will continue to use phrases like "killing little brown men" because it gets you fired up. He has yet to make any statement regarding the actual video, preferring instead to liken the accidental killing of civilians by American soliders to the purposeful killing of Jews in an effort to eradicate them from the face of the earth. That comparison, and that comparison alone, should be enough to stop you from attempting to reason with him. He's either incredibly misguided and a moron, or else he's trolling. Either way, ignore him.

Anyway, to the topic at hand: The disturbing part of this whole thing, in my mind, is the length of time it's taken for the US military to release this video (although Neo apparently watched it two years ago) and for the media to pick it up.

The US military didn't release the video, wikileaks got a hold of it and released it after they managed to decrypt it.

I'll amend my statement - The disturbing part of this whole thing is that the US military hasn't released the video or apologized (to my knowledge) for the activities.

[BigBallinStalin]

Hello, everybody. I think this is the most important question that's been raised:

the soldiers were not watching in blurry black and white through a gunsight, they were watching in broad daylight with their own fucking eyes, and they should have been able to tell that there was no threat. and even allowing that they made an honest mistake, firing on van rescuing the wounded was a violation of rules of engagement and qualifies as a war crime of the worst kind. jesus christ you are stupid.

Do you know what the rules of engagement were at this point? I certainly don't, and I'd like to. I certainly haven't seen them listed anywhere.

I'd like y'all to read this in its entirety because it's extremely informative and really clears this issue up. Understanding this key question unlocks a more profound understanding of this video's situation and many other situations that one sees on a common enough basis.

If you don't read it, then you're not going to learn anything new.

So from a Feb 19, 2008 interview with Lt. Col. David Bolganio and several experts on law and other military servicemen, PBS.org provides some insightful information:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/themes/roe.html




First, we have the gunner and pilot assessing a situation. They see guns and an RPG man, who ducks behind the wall. That constitutes as an imminent threat, and they decide to engage in self-defense. So, as they roll up and gun them down, that's completely legal and comlpetely reasonable.

According to Lt. Col. David Bolgiano, U.S. Air Force:

The confusion over the inherent right of self-defense doesn't come from the written word. It doesn't come from the law. …

The confusion over the inherent right of self-defense comes from assessing judgment-based shootings after the fact that, in the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight, may not appear to be reasonable when, in fact, by law and by tactics, they were. Let me give a prime example (see that website's 3rd answer).

In short, that example being the one about a car speeding towards a US military checkpoint in Iraq and failing to slow down. The soldiers perceive this as a threat and shoot it to hell. After the fact, it could've been an Iraqi bringing his pregnant wife to the hospital or an Italian intelligence officer driving a freed reporter back to safety. At the time of the shooting, those soldiers made a reasonable and justifiable decision.

Now, there's also this:

[What is positive identification?]

… Positive identification is a targeting term that's used against a declared hostile. For instance, we'll take a notional rules of engagement … where our command authority at a high level will designate terrorist group ABC as a designated hostile.

To engage that person, all one needs to do is ascertain positive ID -- in other words, to reasonably believe that that particular person is a member of the ABC terrorist group. We're unconcerned about whether or not that person is presenting an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. It matters little under the law or tactics.

However:

PID is nearly always irrelevant when it comes to responding to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury in a self-defense capacity. I don't care whether or not the person shooting at me is a member of ABC terrorist group. I don't care if, in fact, they're an insurgent. All I care about is, by their actions, are they presenting an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to myself or friendly forces? That's all the legal authority I need to engage them. So too oftentimes this PID term is incorrectly sprinkled into what is, in fact, a self-defense scenario.

And so Gary Solis, an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law School; Marine (Ret.) says this on PID:

Can you explain positive identification? …

PID, positive identification, is as the term implies: Before you can fire on an individual, you must positively identify that individual as representing a threat to you or your fellow Marines or soldiers. And if you cannot do that, then you are not supposed to fire on him or her.

So he contradicts what the Lt. Col. says, but let's hear him out:

The question is always, what constitutes PID? Some of us may have seen the shooting of a wounded individual in a mosque in Fallujah that happened some time ago. When one observes that, you may initially say, "Well, there's no PID there. There's no threat evident there. That looks like a murder in combat."

And the question is not what I think or some other viewer thinks. The question is, what was in the mind of the Marine who shot the individual? Did he honestly and reasonably believe that that individual presented a threat to him and/or his fellow Marines? And, if he did, then no offense has been committed.

So it's not only an objective assessment, but then it's also a largely subjective assessment. … That's why one person may say yes; another person may say no. The question is, what did the shooter feel? …

So from the US soldiers' point of view they did the right thing. Even with the van, it can be argued that he still did the right thing. His buddies were approaching that area, he had no idea what was in the van, even if they're putting a wounded "fighter" in it, he's not sure what's in there, but he's not going to take the chance to wait and find out if the enemy will try crashing that van into his buddies on the ground and exploding them to bits.


Gary Myers, Attorney for Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, says:

[… Over the course of this war our tactics have changed. Our understanding of the strategy has changed. How have these rules of engagement changed as well?]

Well, frequently they're local rules of engagement that address a given set of circumstances. Fallujah II is an example of where the rules of engagement were dramatically relaxed to allow for Marines to fire much more liberally, shall we say, than they would be in other environments. But Fallujah II is considered by the Marine Corps, and by those who were associated with it, to be one of the most significant battles in the history of the Marine Corps. And so the rules of engagement there were relaxed.

Rules of engagement are promulgated on the local level and so there are many rules of engagement that adjust to individual circumstances. So it's impossible to tell you there hasn't been a generic shift in the rules of engagement. The fundamentals are still the same -- right to self-defense, positive ID, so on. But there are, under certain circumstances, alterations in the rules of engagement to take into account the anticipated operational circumstance.

So this shows that these rules can be more flexible at times. However, Gen. James Conway of the US Marines brings up an interesting point to the interviewer's question:

[Can you talk about the insurgent tactic of hiding behind civilians? We've heard elsewhere that it's actually a tactic for the insurgents to actually bait U.S. forces into firing on civilians. Why would they do that? How would they do that?]


.....Let me give you an example. Before we crossed the berm in Kuwait in '03, we had an expression that we used to help our commanders understand application of the rules of engagement. We said if we initiate fire, the issue is collateral damage; if the enemy initiates fire against you, the issue is proportionality, OK, so that if you take a single sniper round from a building, if you can identify the window that that fire came from, then you can put fire on that window, certainly.

That you would destroy the entire building with a 500-pound bomb does not meet this concern for proportionality, and it's not something we would encourage our troops to do. So that's, again, the nature of an insurgency. If this were open warfare and we knew those buildings were cleared, the village was empty, we wouldn't hesitate. But where there are civilians, we must exercise those concerns. ...

The helicopter gunner didn't drop bomps on these guys, he used the right amount of firepower to deal with the perceived threat. So, even though there were reporters among these perceived insurgents, they're still fair game since the perceived insurgents were using them as shields.

When those "insurgents" identification becomes clear at aa later time, this still has no bearing on the legality of the decisions made by the soliders right before they engaged them.


The main reason why the Pentagon wanted to cover this up is because the public would react wildly while not really understanding the sensible reasoning on part of the US soldiers (much like what has been seen here in this thread and I'm sure in many parts of the world).

Let's give Gen. James Conway the final word:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/interviews/conway.html

[I understand you can't talk in specifics about rules of engagement on the ground. But can you talk generally about how the rules of engagement are different in an insurgency than from other conventional conflicts?]

The rules of engagement are not terribly different. The rules of engagement that we put into place as we crossed the berm going into Iraq in '03 are exactly the same rules of engagement that are in place today.

At its essence, what the rules of engagement say are that if you feel threatened by an enemy force or by an incident that's taking place in front of you, you are authorized to engage. That hasn't changed, nor should it change, be it a conventional environment or an insurgent environment. ...

Thanks for reading, hope this clears everything up.

[BigBallinStalin]

The most shocking thing about this is the reaction of the people involved. The laughing through the speakers and the apparent indifference when they found out they where shooting at children.

Though they look at their actions ligheartedly at the moment, most of these people involved will probably suffer from phycological problems for large parts of their lives.

First of all, they didn't know there were children; you've just made that up. They identified those men earlier as a threat and decided to engage them. A van pulls up, who knows what's in it and what it could do to the US soldiers on the ground coming around the corner. Engaging those men and the van was pefectly reasonable and justifiable, so it's not shocking at all how they reacted.

[BigBallinStalin]

Why are you guys arguing with Sultan? He doesn't argue any of your points. He makes blanket, generic, canned statements that are not relevant at all to the situation we are discussing here. He doesn't, and won't, answer any of your questions. Yet you continue to argue with him like he's a reasonable, sane, and knowledgeable individual. Sultan will continue to use phrases like "killing little brown men" because it gets you fired up. He has yet to make any statement regarding the actual video, preferring instead to liken the accidental killing of civilians by American soliders to the purposeful killing of Jews in an effort to eradicate them from the face of the earth. That comparison, and that comparison alone, should be enough to stop you from attempting to reason with him. He's either incredibly misguided and a moron, or else he's trolling. Either way, ignore him.

Anyway, to the topic at hand: The disturbing part of this whole thing, in my mind, is the length of time it's taken for the US military to release this video (although Neo apparently watched it two years ago) and for the media to pick it up.

The US military didn't release the video, wikileaks got a hold of it and released it after they managed to decrypt it.

I'll amend my statement - The disturbing part of this whole thing is that the US military hasn't released the video or apologized (to my knowledge) for the activities.

I really don't think they should apologize for this. The soldiers made the right decision on the information they perceived at that time. Had the US government had to apologize for every time that certain things came to light aftewards, then they'd be apologizing almost every day.

As for giving those reporter's families money, then that would be a nice gesture, but it's not really necessary for the US government to do so.

The US government's actions regarding this video are completely reasonable.

As for not realeasing it, that makes sense since the public at large would be outraged but also wouldn't understand the legality of the situation from the US soldiers' point of view, which I addressed in full in that long ass post above this one.

[thegreekdog]

Nice work BBS!

[AAFitz]

Watch the video before you make any more ridiculous statements. A bunch of guys, two of them with cameras, magically turned into approximately 20 people armed with AK47s and an RPG.

There was no firefight. The US helicopter opened fire, not a single shot appeared to be fired against them, even after they started shooting.

As for "anti-American reporters"... they were with Reuters, maybe you've heard of it. One of the bigger and more renowned news services in the world, based in the UK.

No one magically turned into anything. The soldiers clearly thought they saw AK47's and an RPG. They also saw what looked like someone setting up to fire upon them from around the building.

Its very easy to inspect the situation after and find cameras and realize mistakes were made, and its also very easy to watch that video over and over while sitting at a computer, but its very different to be flying a helicopter, under the threat of weapons fire at any time, and the need to eliminate all threats before they are killed.

This was an obvious, and unfortunate killing of two reporters. It was nothing more than mistaken identity though, but it was mistaken identity in war, in which the soldiers are simply under orders to eliminate a possible threat, before they or fellow soldiers are killed.

There is absolutely no question whatsoever that the men knew for sure they were engaging an armed enemy, and it is clear there was never any question about that whatsoever. They saw what looked like a group of men setting up with weapons and they eliminated it. I am very sure they wish they saw it differently for what it was, but it was hardly an impossible assumption to make, especially since that is what they had been doing for years.

As far as their treatment of the kills and their demeanor towards them, these people were assumed by them to be the very, if not similar to the soldiers that have killed their fellow soldiers, shot down their helos, and murdered innocents themselves. There is no question that it is perhaps slightly unprofessional, but these are 18-25 year olds that have been fighting a war and getting shot at for years. At no time to they not ask for permission to engage, at no time to they wildly take it upon themselves to impulsively just start shooting. They assess the situation, they mistake it for hostile activity and weapons, and they do what they were trained to do, which is eliminate the threat. It clearly looks as though someone is hiding behind the corner, setting up a weapon to fire upon them. They acted quickly to eliminate that threat.

Its highly unfortunate that the reporters were there, and then further that the children were brought into an area that was just minutes before the scene of an obvious battle, and that they were not at all visible, and the rescue mission was mistaken for further hostile activity, including the retrieval of weapons. But it is also fully clear that it was a mistake, and in my opinion a very honest one. Those videos also give the impression that the helos were right on top of the battle and could see everything very easily, but they were in fact much further away than the video would appear, and there is no way anyone could say that they knew those were cameras and not weapons and guns, until they were inspected on the ground.

Its very hard to watch those men die, but it is an unfortunate consequence of war, and anyone accusing these soldiers of murder is a complete coward hiding behind a computer screen and a keyboard. No one in the field would ever question this engagement as anything but a mistake of identity and equipment. They clearly look as though they have weapons, and if I was flying in an exposed helo and was charged with protecting my fellow soldiers who were not too far away, in the midst of war, I am fairly certain Id have made this call too. At no point does this seem to be anything but what the soldiers thought it was. Only upon investigating on the ground was it obvious the mistake that was made.

[jaimito101]

The most shocking thing about this is the reaction of the people involved. The laughing through the speakers and the apparent indifference when they found out they where shooting at children.

Though they look at their actions ligheartedly at the moment, most of these people involved will probably suffer from phycological problems for large parts of their lives.

First of all, they didn't know there were children; you've just made that up. They identified those men earlier as a threat and decided to engage them. A van pulls up, who knows what's in it and what it could do to the US soldiers on the ground coming around the corner. Engaging those men and the van was pefectly reasonable and justifiable, so it's not shocking at all how they reacted.

Please, get your facts straight in your own thread!
So yes, at the moment of the shooting they did not know there where children in the van. But once the chopper stops shooting, the ground troops arrive and carry out the injured children, at this point you hear a soldier saying I quote “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle." “That’s right.”. With a chuckling sound. Do you think this is a normal reaction??

Also at some point around minute 9, 2 people try to are picking up the wounded, to try to get them to a hospital and the chopper engages the van and this time clearly unarmed civilians... what is the reason and the danger is the helicopter facing at this moment?!?!

A tank comming to the place of action drives over an injured body... the pilots notice and react with a "yeah!"

at another point a soldier states, Ha, ha, I hit 'em.' Another says:“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.

I know war is never pretty, but some of these actions are sickening violations of any engagement codes.

[AAFitz]

The most shocking thing about this is the reaction of the people involved. The laughing through the speakers and the apparent indifference when they found out they where shooting at children.

Though they look at their actions ligheartedly at the moment, most of these people involved will probably suffer from phycological problems for large parts of their lives.

At best this was unprofessional behavior in the midst of battle, but if you think you can hold absolute perfect professionalism to the point of never showing emotion in a battle, after years of war, its you who simply does not understand psychology.

The important thing is that while clearly in a situation they felt was immediate danger, they followed protocol to the letter. They repeatedly asked for permission to engage, they never fired without permission. These are young men, who have been shot at and lives are in danger, and have been for years. They are tasked to kill other human beings. There is no doubt that they will have remorse at what they needed to do, but if you think its even possible to have remorse in the heat of battle every time you are forced to kill someone, you really have no idea what you are talking about.

In the heat of battle, there can be no remorse, remorse is for later, if at all, and all it will ever do is allow the enemy to kill you or your fellow soldiers. They were engaging what they thought was a group of murdering terrorists with weapons who were planning to kill them. What kind of things would you say about someone a few hundred yards from you with the intent to kill you....would you even possibly be as calm and controlled as they actually were....given your knee-jerk reaction to this situation....I think its very clear you would not...or perhaps you would hesitate and show remorse and be afraid to act decisively...and then watch your friends or family die for that mistake, before you too were killed.

[jaimito101]

The important thing is that while clearly in a situation they felt was immediate danger, they followed protocol to the letter. .

they ask permission to shoot people trying to pick up the injured to take to the hospital!!! What danger where they in at this point??!

check the video starting at around 9.28

[BigBallinStalin]

The most shocking thing about this is the reaction of the people involved. The laughing through the speakers and the apparent indifference when they found out they where shooting at children.

Though they look at their actions ligheartedly at the moment, most of these people involved will probably suffer from phycological problems for large parts of their lives.

First of all, they didn't know there were children; you've just made that up. They identified those men earlier as a threat and decided to engage them. A van pulls up, who knows what's in it and what it could do to the US soldiers on the ground coming around the corner. Engaging those men and the van was pefectly reasonable and justifiable, so it's not shocking at all how they reacted.

Please, get your facts straight in your own thread!
So yes, at the moment of the shooting they did not know there where children in the van. But once the chopper stops shooting, the ground troops arrive and carry out the injured children, at this point you hear a soldier saying I quote “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle." “That’s right.”. With a chuckling sound. Do you think this is a normal reaction??

Also at some point around minute 9, 2 people try to are picking up the wounded, to try to get them to a hospital and the chopper engages the van and this time clearly unarmed civilians... what is the reason and the danger is the helicopter facing at this moment?!?!

A tank comming to the place of action drives over an injured body... the pilots notice and react with a "yeah!"

at another point a soldier states, Ha, ha, I hit 'em.' Another says:“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.

I know war is never pretty, but some of these actions are sickening violations of any engagement codes.

My facts are straight; you're the one who wasn't being specific enough.

Their reaction about dead children being brought into a war zone, the running over of dead bodies, and bragging rights over killing perceived insurgents all sound completely normal given the situation they currently are and have been in.

Now, these may be sickening to some, but are they in violation of the rules of engagment? Not at all. Get your facts straight by reading my long-ass post below.

[BigBallinStalin]

(moved here for jaimiato's sake).

Hello, everybody. I think this is the most important question that's been raised:

the soldiers were not watching in blurry black and white through a gunsight, they were watching in broad daylight with their own fucking eyes, and they should have been able to tell that there was no threat. and even allowing that they made an honest mistake, firing on van rescuing the wounded was a violation of rules of engagement and qualifies as a war crime of the worst kind. jesus christ you are stupid.

Do you know what the rules of engagement were at this point? I certainly don't, and I'd like to. I certainly haven't seen them listed anywhere.

I'd like y'all to read this in its entirety because it's extremely informative and really clears this issue up. Understanding this key question unlocks a more profound understanding of this video's situation and many other situations that one sees on a common enough basis.

If you don't read it, then you're not going to learn anything new.

So from a Feb 19, 2008 interview with Lt. Col. David Bolganio and several experts on law and other military servicemen, PBS.org provides some insightful information:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/themes/roe.html




First, we have the gunner and pilot assessing a situation. They see guns and an RPG man, who ducks behind the wall. That constitutes as an imminent threat, and they decide to engage in self-defense. So, as they roll up and gun them down, that's completely legal and comlpetely reasonable.

According to Lt. Col. David Bolgiano, U.S. Air Force:

The confusion over the inherent right of self-defense doesn't come from the written word. It doesn't come from the law. …

The confusion over the inherent right of self-defense comes from assessing judgment-based shootings after the fact that, in the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight, may not appear to be reasonable when, in fact, by law and by tactics, they were. Let me give a prime example (see that website's 3rd answer).

In short, that example being the one about a car speeding towards a US military checkpoint in Iraq and failing to slow down. The soldiers perceive this as a threat and shoot it to hell. After the fact, it could've been an Iraqi bringing his pregnant wife to the hospital or an Italian intelligence officer driving a freed reporter back to safety. At the time of the shooting, those soldiers made a reasonable and justifiable decision.

Now, there's also this:

[What is positive identification?]

… Positive identification is a targeting term that's used against a declared hostile. For instance, we'll take a notional rules of engagement … where our command authority at a high level will designate terrorist group ABC as a designated hostile.

To engage that person, all one needs to do is ascertain positive ID -- in other words, to reasonably believe that that particular person is a member of the ABC terrorist group. We're unconcerned about whether or not that person is presenting an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury. It matters little under the law or tactics.

However:

PID is nearly always irrelevant when it comes to responding to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury in a self-defense capacity. I don't care whether or not the person shooting at me is a member of ABC terrorist group. I don't care if, in fact, they're an insurgent. All I care about is, by their actions, are they presenting an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to myself or friendly forces? That's all the legal authority I need to engage them. So too oftentimes this PID term is incorrectly sprinkled into what is, in fact, a self-defense scenario.

And so Gary Solis, an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown Law School; Marine (Ret.) says this on PID:

Can you explain positive identification? …

PID, positive identification, is as the term implies: Before you can fire on an individual, you must positively identify that individual as representing a threat to you or your fellow Marines or soldiers. And if you cannot do that, then you are not supposed to fire on him or her.

So he contradicts what the Lt. Col. says, but let's hear him out:

The question is always, what constitutes PID? Some of us may have seen the shooting of a wounded individual in a mosque in Fallujah that happened some time ago. When one observes that, you may initially say, "Well, there's no PID there. There's no threat evident there. That looks like a murder in combat."

And the question is not what I think or some other viewer thinks. The question is, what was in the mind of the Marine who shot the individual? Did he honestly and reasonably believe that that individual presented a threat to him and/or his fellow Marines? And, if he did, then no offense has been committed.

So it's not only an objective assessment, but then it's also a largely subjective assessment. … That's why one person may say yes; another person may say no. The question is, what did the shooter feel? …

So from the US soldiers' point of view they did the right thing. Even with the van, it can be argued that he still did the right thing. His buddies were approaching that area, he had no idea what was in the van, even if they're putting a wounded "fighter" in it, he's not sure what's in there, but he's not going to take the chance to wait and find out if the enemy will try crashing that van into his buddies on the ground and exploding them to bits.


Gary Myers, Attorney for Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt, says:

[… Over the course of this war our tactics have changed. Our understanding of the strategy has changed. How have these rules of engagement changed as well?]

Well, frequently they're local rules of engagement that address a given set of circumstances. Fallujah II is an example of where the rules of engagement were dramatically relaxed to allow for Marines to fire much more liberally, shall we say, than they would be in other environments. But Fallujah II is considered by the Marine Corps, and by those who were associated with it, to be one of the most significant battles in the history of the Marine Corps. And so the rules of engagement there were relaxed.

Rules of engagement are promulgated on the local level and so there are many rules of engagement that adjust to individual circumstances. So it's impossible to tell you there hasn't been a generic shift in the rules of engagement. The fundamentals are still the same -- right to self-defense, positive ID, so on. But there are, under certain circumstances, alterations in the rules of engagement to take into account the anticipated operational circumstance.

So this shows that these rules can be more flexible at times. However, Gen. James Conway of the US Marines brings up an interesting point to the interviewer's question:

[Can you talk about the insurgent tactic of hiding behind civilians? We've heard elsewhere that it's actually a tactic for the insurgents to actually bait U.S. forces into firing on civilians. Why would they do that? How would they do that?]


.....Let me give you an example. Before we crossed the berm in Kuwait in '03, we had an expression that we used to help our commanders understand application of the rules of engagement. We said if we initiate fire, the issue is collateral damage; if the enemy initiates fire against you, the issue is proportionality, OK, so that if you take a single sniper round from a building, if you can identify the window that that fire came from, then you can put fire on that window, certainly.

That you would destroy the entire building with a 500-pound bomb does not meet this concern for proportionality, and it's not something we would encourage our troops to do. So that's, again, the nature of an insurgency. If this were open warfare and we knew those buildings were cleared, the village was empty, we wouldn't hesitate. But where there are civilians, we must exercise those concerns. ...

The helicopter gunner didn't drop bomps on these guys, he used the right amount of firepower to deal with the perceived threat. So, even though there were reporters among these perceived insurgents, they're still fair game since the perceived insurgents were using them as shields.

When those "insurgents" identification becomes clear at aa later time, this still has no bearing on the legality of the decisions made by the soliders right before they engaged them.


The main reason why the Pentagon wanted to cover this up is because the public would react wildly while not really understanding the sensible reasoning on part of the US soldiers (much like what has been seen here in this thread and I'm sure in many parts of the world).

Let's give Gen. James Conway the final word:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/haditha/interviews/conway.html

[I understand you can't talk in specifics about rules of engagement on the ground. But can you talk generally about how the rules of engagement are different in an insurgency than from other conventional conflicts?]

The rules of engagement are not terribly different. The rules of engagement that we put into place as we crossed the berm going into Iraq in '03 are exactly the same rules of engagement that are in place today.

At its essence, what the rules of engagement say are that if you feel threatened by an enemy force or by an incident that's taking place in front of you, you are authorized to engage. That hasn't changed, nor should it change, be it a conventional environment or an insurgent environment. ...

Thanks for reading, hope this clears everything up.

[Qwert]

Anyway, to the topic at hand: The disturbing part of this whole thing, in my mind, is the length of time it's taken for the US military to release this video (although Neo apparently watched it two years ago) and for the media to pick it up.

These question i put on page 2,and only now some people reply.
I understand that american reaction on video will be "Good they kill Iraq,less treat for our soldier", but how iraq people feel when they watch these video?
I think that one reason why they hide these video,its that many iraq will be angry and will try to join and fight against US soldiers in hes country,because many iraq-s feel that US are Enemies,and that want to go from hes country.
Who know how many more other incidend with civilians are hiding?

[AAFitz]

The most shocking thing about this is the reaction of the people involved. The laughing through the speakers and the apparent indifference when they found out they where shooting at children.

Though they look at their actions ligheartedly at the moment, most of these people involved will probably suffer from phycological problems for large parts of their lives.

First of all, they didn't know there were children; you've just made that up. They identified those men earlier as a threat and decided to engage them. A van pulls up, who knows what's in it and what it could do to the US soldiers on the ground coming around the corner. Engaging those men and the van was pefectly reasonable and justifiable, so it's not shocking at all how they reacted.

Please, get your facts straight in your own thread!
So yes, at the moment of the shooting they did not know there where children in the van. But once the chopper stops shooting, the ground troops arrive and carry out the injured children, at this point you hear a soldier saying I quote “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle." “That’s right.”. With a chuckling sound. Do you think this is a normal reaction??

Also at some point around minute 9, 2 people try to are picking up the wounded, to try to get them to a hospital and the chopper engages the van and this time clearly unarmed civilians... what is the reason and the danger is the helicopter facing at this moment?!?!

A tank comming to the place of action drives over an injured body... the pilots notice and react with a "yeah!"

at another point a soldier states, Ha, ha, I hit 'em.' Another says:“Look at those dead bastards,” one pilot says. “Nice,” the other responds.

I know war is never pretty, but some of these actions are sickening violations of any engagement codes.

What is very clear is you do not hear the actual emotion in the voices saying those quotes. What you clearly fail to recognize which was obvious to me even on the first listen, was that the one saying the comments was a much younger soldier than the pilot. He is overly excited and undoubtedly has an insane amount of adrenaline after killing people he thought were intent on killing him.

But the part you miss, is that the pilot does respond. He responds with the only possible response in the situation with his younger partner, and it is a one word "yeah"....and a "nice" But if you hear an emphatic positive tone there, you simply are not listening. It is very clear he is not elated about what just transpired. It is very clear from his voice that he knows he has done his job, and that those men had to die from his standpoint, and that they possibly killed some of his fellow soldiers in the past...but what is most clear is that he is not overwhelmingly ecstatic, and more relieved that he was able to carry out his mission and not lose any men in doing so.

Again, no action is taken without clearance, and their demeanor is unprofessional to hear, but quite consistent with the mindset necessary to go kill other human beings intent on killing you at all costs.

[jaimito101]

The important thing is that while clearly in a situation they felt was immediate danger, they followed protocol to the letter. .

they ask permission to shoot people trying to pick up the injured to take to the hospital!!! What danger where they in at this point??!

check the video starting at around 9.28

ok big balls, i moved this one for you. Please explain me where the rules of engagement state you should shoot at people picking up the wounded.

[thegreekdog]

Anyway, to the topic at hand: The disturbing part of this whole thing, in my mind, is the length of time it's taken for the US military to release this video (although Neo apparently watched it two years ago) and for the media to pick it up.

These question i put on page 2,and only now some people reply.
I understand that american reaction on video will be "Good they kill Iraq,less treat for our soldier", but how iraq people feel when they watch these video?
I think that one reason why they hide these video,its that many iraq will be angry and will try to join and fight against US soldiers in hes country,because many iraq-s feel that US are Enemies,and that want to go from hes country.
Who know how many more other incidend with civilians are hiding?

Why do you understand that the American reaction to the video is "good?" That has not been the reaction in this thread at all. We have such a bad reputation abroad, clearly, and I don't think it's earned at all.

[BigBallinStalin]

Anyway, to the topic at hand: The disturbing part of this whole thing, in my mind, is the length of time it's taken for the US military to release this video (although Neo apparently watched it two years ago) and for the media to pick it up.

These question i put on page 2,and only now some people reply.
I understand that american reaction on video will be "Good they kill Iraq,less treat for our soldier", but how iraq people feel when they watch these video?
I think that one reason why they hide these video,its that many iraq will be angry and will try to join and fight against US soldiers in hes country,because many iraq-s feel that US are Enemies,and that want to go from hes country.
Who know how many more other incidend with civilians are hiding?

Tons of videos like that are in their possession or destroyed. Why would the US government want to engage in supporting propaganda that directly undermines their mission in the region?

Collateral damage happens, but the issue is about proportional use of force. Like I mentioned in that long ass post, there's this General of the US Marines who mentions how engaging a sniper from a house window with rifle and even 20mm cannon fire is appropriate; whereas, dropping a 400 pound bomb on the house isn't.

Iraqis will be outraged as well many Americans, Europeans and what not, but what they have to understand are the rules of engagement in this situation and how the US soldiers' decisions are completely justifiable and reasonable at the time of that encounter.

May I recommend that you read my long ass post above, before you immediately reply to this post.

[BigBallinStalin]

The important thing is that while clearly in a situation they felt was immediate danger, they followed protocol to the letter. .

they ask permission to shoot people trying to pick up the injured to take to the hospital!!! What danger where they in at this point??!

check the video starting at around 9.28

ok big balls, i moved this one for you. Please explain me where the rules of engagement state you should shoot at people picking up the wounded.

How bout you read that long-ass post that covers this issue?

That way, I don't have to keep repeating myself.

After you not only read but also comprehend it, I'll be glad to answer this.

[AAFitz]

The important thing is that while clearly in a situation they felt was immediate danger, they followed protocol to the letter. .

they ask permission to shoot people trying to pick up the injured to take to the hospital!!! What danger where they in at this point??!

check the video starting at around 9.28

You check it again. They are not asking permission to shoot people trying to pick up the injured and take them to the hospital. They are asking permission to shoot people picking up weapons and people who were just armed with them. They saw what they thought were weapons, and saw new people coming in that could pick them up and use them. They were eliminating the threat of the new able people and their proximity to the weapons. Had their only goal been to kill the wounded man, they would have just done so. They had ample opportunity, but were very thorough before firing to make sure he was not arming himself. It was only when the van came into the scene, and blocked their view of what could easily have been a dropped weapon that they fired to eliminate the new threat.

They are scrambling to protect themselves and their fellow soldiers who are very close. Its unfortunate they did not realize this was just someone coming by to help, and for some insane reason thought it would be safe enough to bring children with them in a place that was a battle zone just minutes before. Its unfortunate that they were very brave for doing so, but also very stupid a the same time.

But the soldiers who fired, were eliminating the possibililty of a group of men jumping out on the other side of a van, all capable of carrying weapons to fire upon them, and they did their job, which was to eliminate that threat. It was a mistake, there is no question about that, but it was a mistake that simply could not be seen as a mistake until it was over.

[thegreekdog]

By the way jamster, note that you keep using terms like "take to the hospital" among other things. These are ideas and concepts that are known now but were not know at the time. I'm not certain you understand this.