Yahoo.com: AP source confirms video of Baghdad firefight

[grego]

forget it. rant over.

[TheGoodBits]

Your understanding of the ROE is totally inaccurate and sounds like it is based on Top Gun. If you want to make informed accusations then you may want to research exactly when you fire...one hint...not when fired upon.

i'm going to hold off on what i'd really like to say, but, in short, sometimes its better to back off, get a little perspective- both sides of an issue, and hold your tongue.

its mighty easy to sit and judge from an ivory tower.

So, just curious, to both of you: what was the justification for shooting that group of guys? Was it that they were a group of Iraqi males that looked like they possibly might have had a weapon?

You've got to do better than that if you're in that position. I understand these guys are under a lot of stress. They often get attacked by an invisible enemy, and there's nobody to shoot back at. So, yeah, I understand that the temptation is there to see things that might not be there. To swear you see a weapon that's really just a camera, just so you can have someone to fight back against. But as soldiers of the United States, these men need to not make this kind of mistake.

From what I saw, the men they were shooting at posed no threat to them or any other US forces. I don't see what the justification was.

Also, as much as I love Top Gun, my understanding of ROE in Iraq comes mainly from reading the firsthand accounts of Lt. Caleb Cage and Capt. Greg Tomlin in the book The Gods of Diyala. Pretty good read, you should check it out.

edit: @grego... thank you for your service, but since you decided you needed to lecture me I have to ask... did at any point you kill a dozen iraqis just standing around not doing a thing? Maybe a couple journalists thrown in there too? No? Well good, you're a member of a not-at-all exclusive club filled with US military soldiers that managed to not murder people for the hell of it. Congrats. In this particular event, the soldiers who partook in such actions need to face consequences. There are plenty of excuses for them, but not a good one in the bunch.

[Midnight Judges]

I don't see how our guys did anything wrong. Those looked like weapons to me. I only watched the video once, but then again, one chance is all you get.

[TheGoodBits]

I don't see how our guys did anything wrong. Those looked like weapons to me. I only watched the video once, but then again, one chance is all you get.

I watched it then re-watched the part where they initially were circling the men asking for permission to engage. I didn't think either time that you could tell there were weapons. I'm not sure if the guys in the helicopter had a better view than the camera, but I'm assuming they would have had to since they were just calling out that 6-7 guys were armed. Unless they were wrong.

[Perky72]

I watched it then re-watched the part where they initially were circling the men asking for permission to engage. I didn't think either time that you could tell there were weapons. I'm not sure if the guys in the helicopter had a better view than the camera, but I'm assuming they would have had to since they were just calling out that 6-7 guys were armed. Unless they were wrong.

I couldn't tell either, and it took those repeated frames I linked to to convince me they did in fact have an RPG.

But the crew could've spent months discriminating weapons from nonweapons from that same camera view. Their demeanor (and the mentioned hyping up of supposition to fact to apparent lies in order to justify further engagement) makes me seriously question their professionality, but they're still sure to be able to tell what's a weapon better than civilians like me, unless it was their first patrol. Sort of like how soldiers come to know airplane models based on a quick glance at a far away silhouette, when to me they'd all look the same.

[visionary]

An update:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100407/ap_on_go_ot/us_us_iraq_video

WASHINGTON – The U.S. military said Tuesday it can't find its copy of a video that shows two employees of the Reuters news agency being killed by Army helicopters in 2007, after a leaked version circulated the Internet and renewed questions about the attack.

Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said that the military has not been able to locate the video within its files after being asked to authenticate the version available online.

"We had no reason to hold the video at (Central Command), nor did the higher headquarters in Iraq," Hanzlik said in an e-mailed statement. "We're attempting to retrieve the video from the unit who did the investigation."

It's the latest twist in a three-year saga that raises questions about the rules of engagement in battle and the safety of journalists sent to cover wars.

[Redskins Diehard]

So, just curious, to both of you: what was the justification for shooting that group of guys? Was it that they were a group of Iraqi males that looked like they possibly might have had a weapon?

You've got to do better than that if you're in that position. I understand these guys are under a lot of stress. They often get attacked by an invisible enemy, and there's nobody to shoot back at. So, yeah, I understand that the temptation is there to see things that might not be there. To swear you see a weapon that's really just a camera, just so you can have someone to fight back against. But as soldiers of the United States, these men need to not make this kind of mistake.

From what I saw, the men they were shooting at posed no threat to them or any other US forces. I don't see what the justification was.

Also, as much as I love Top Gun, my understanding of ROE in Iraq comes mainly from reading the firsthand accounts of Lt. Caleb Cage and Capt. Greg Tomlin in the book The Gods of Diyala. Pretty good read, you should check it out.

edit: @grego... thank you for your service, but since you decided you needed to lecture me I have to ask... did at any point you kill a dozen iraqis just standing around not doing a thing? Maybe a couple journalists thrown in there too? No? Well good, you're a member of a not-at-all exclusive club filled with US military soldiers that managed to not murder people for the hell of it. Congrats. In this particular event, the soldiers who partook in such actions need to face consequences. There are plenty of excuses for them, but not a good one in the bunch.

The justification is entirely within the rules of engagement and in a person's unquestioned right to defend themselves. Your fundamentally complete misunderstanding of this based on the book you read leads you to a very false conclusion(that prosecution is an obvious result). It is one thing to be wrong like you are, it is another thing to be righteous and judgmental at that same time.

The view that you see in that video is likely the exact same view that those pilots had. I have a feeling you are pretty committed to your position here. For what it is worth, 6-7 guys with one RPG and two AK-47's are reported as "6-7 armed men with AK-47s and an RPG". That statement does not imply that there are 6-7 AK-47s. Further, permission to fire by the ground maneuver element does not mean that the ground unit is necessarily confirming the engagement fits in the ROE. Many times that is a target deconfliction/direct fire control measure. "Go ahead and shoot" in this situation quite possibly means that there are no friendly forces down there.

There is nothing in this video which makes prosecution, let alone a conviction for "****ing murder", which you are so sure of in your initial post.

[frostyj]

You fire when fired upon, right? Aren't those the rules of engagement? Even if they thought the 2 cameras were somehow 6-7 AK47s and an RPG, there were no US personnel around. There was no reason to fire on those guys. The video evidence warrants changes filed against everyone involved in the shooting. Part of being a soldier is being able to tell the difference between weapons and ****ing cameras that aren't posing any threat to you. They murdered these guys in cold blood. No ****ing excuse for it.

lol at your ROE - When I was over(initial invasion) our ROE was to shoot on site anyone in an Iraqi uniform. So much for 'when fired upon'

I'll give you there was one guy with a camera, but don't forget the one with an RPG and 2-3 with AK's. Collateral damage sucks, but don't hang out with a bunch of armed guys(in a time of war) and the risk drops drasticly.

Clean shooting.

[ardowling]

Here is the official report on the event

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/06/6--2nd.brigade.combat.team.15-6.investigation.pdf

Try again, if doesn't work go to this site:

http://www.socnet.com/showthread.php?t=93996

Check out post #7 that link works for sure

[Springfield]

Here is the official report on the event

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/04/06/6--2nd.brigade.combat.team.15-6.investigation.pdfwe

Link not found.

[ardowling]

Fixed the link sorry

[stickyshooZ]

When I saw that, all I wanted to do was punch a hole in my wall. Those soldiers make me sick. We have a sick society when we rationalize people machine gunning unarmed men and children and then laughing about it.

Then again, they're brown people. So who cares, right?

[ardowling]

When I saw that, all I wanted to do was punch a hole in my wall. Those soldiers make me sick. We have a sick society when we rationalize people machine gunning unarmed men and children and then laughing about it.

Then again, they're brown people. So who cares, right?

Read the report you might gain a little insight, and no one mentioned them being brown people (other than you), they were legitimate targets to include the van if you want to blame anybody blame the two reporter who inbed with the bad guys and the idiot that brings his kids into the middle of a firefight

[sacase]

Legit engagement, very professional and calmly handled. If you pay attention, the two people who they point out to be reporters are different than the person who appears to have an RPG and another guy who appears to have an AK47. 4 people who appeared to be armed. Sadly, when you are looking through the gun camera you don't have a perfect picture. I am willing to bet that the two people who are complaining loudly and jumping to conclusions would not have known there were two cameras there without being told that they were there. They followed the ROE perfectly. To get an Idea how far away the apache's were, look at the time it took from the sound of the gun fire to the time the rounds impacted. The rounds travel at 2461 ft per second. There was about a 2 second deley so they were shooting from a mile away. Perfect weapon identification from a mile away...I don't think so.

Seriously think about it for a second. Would you really want to walk around in a war zone with something that could easily be mistaken for a weapon?

Some people are really feeling themselves here.

Edit: Look at the 3:40 point of the video...those two guys are Not the reporters and they are armed. Righteous shoot.