Wartime Discussion - Collateral "Murder"

[FrozenIpaq]

Well a recent video was "leaked" of an Apache gunner killing several "insurgents" in Iraq. The site below does a good job summarizing the entire situation and the significance of the video. I would recommend that everyone bypass the opening sections of the video and go straight to the apache gunner view as the beginning of the video is really just used to fire you up and make you more sensitive to the situation at hand. Step back and take it from an object standpoint, not the standpoint given after the fact. Either way it offers a tantalizing look into wartime actions and behavior (note that some of the language and mindset used is a coping mechanism).

Collateral Murder

 

[MenaceInc]

Just watched the whole 17minute edited video. It was an unfortunate incident but from what I seen, there wasn't anything out of place.
I could understand from the images how the people on the ground could of been mistaken for a gathering of terrorists.

These kind of things happen all the time all over the world where everyday objects are mistaken for weapons.

 

[FrozenIpaq]

Just watched the whole 17minute edited video. It was an unfortunate incident but from what I seen, there wasn't anything out of place.
I could understand from the images how the people on the ground could of been mistaken for a gathering of terrorists.

These kind of things happen all the time all over the world where everyday objects are mistaken for weapons.

My beef isn't so much with the initial attack but with the attacking of the van that came up after the initial firing had occurred. That's the part that has gotten me (and hoping the guy will pick up a weapon just so you can shoot him again....really?).

 

[Nick]

truely horrible. why would they talk like that? these people are going to hell ;_;

 

[Moose]

Seems to me like those men thought they were playing Call of Duty.

 

[x3sphere]

Very poor judgment all around. Granted I wasn't there, but this did not look like a high risk zone. The soldiers seemed trigger happy, almost as if they wanted a confrontation to occur. They did not thoroughly assess the situation either.

In war, taking a second more to make a decision can put lives on the line, and so can taking action without thinking. Did this situation require such a knee-jerk reaction? No way.

In fact, the way they responded could have gotten them killed. They did not properly scope out the entire area. While they were occupied with gunning down these harmless civilians an insurgent hiding in the distance could have taken one of the choppers down.

I'd like to think these soldiers do not exemplify the majority of the US military. The government should honestly pursue war crime charges against them.

 

[Spiros]

I took FrozenIpaq's advice and just watched the portion of the video where the attack occurred, but then I thought it necessary to watch the entire video before making a post.

I am absolutely disgusted. The way these men behaved is nothing short of inhuman and imo, evil. I understand they are in a war zone, but like someone else said they acted as though they were playing CoD. laughing about it. gloating about their kill. one man even laughed because a tank drove over a dead body. This is not the way a rational person behaves. I don't believe you can kill someone, laugh, and not be evil(i know evil is usually a word reserved for comic book super-villains and charles manson, but I don't know of a better way to describe them). Even if you believe the life you've just taken is of an al'qaeda soldier, to laugh about it... it just doesn't sit well with me.

These men could not be thinking rationally, but the US military sees them fit to be judge, jury, and executioner. People high up in the military must have watched that video, but chose to sweep it under the rug and leave them in the field to make more inhuman decisions and destroy lives.

I'm sorry if my post is a bit intense, but these men are murderers and will have come back as heroes. I'm not religious but these kind of things make me hope that there is a hell.

And these people believe they are fit to be the moral compass for the rest of the world...

---------- Post added at 03:02 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:53 AM ----------

(note that some of the language and mindset used is a coping mechanism).

I don't believe that's true, i mean most of the guys on the tape were super excited about killing.

 

[eldiablov]

I don't believe that's true, i mean most of the guys on the tape were super excited about killing.

What FrozenIpaq is referring to is a recognised psychological defence mechanism. By dehumanising the enemy, it makes it easier to cope with killing them.

I'm not in a position to say whether it was being used or not. However, I'll organise the heated discussion we had on IRC in a few minutes and post it up here. There are a range of different takes on the subject that I feel should be shared.

 

[Adiuvo]

The guy who leaked the video was arrested for those that didn't hear about it. Link.

I also absolutely love Wikileak's tweet in response to that article.

Adrian Lamo&Kevin Poulson are notorious felons,informers&manipulators. Journalists should take care. U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe | Threat Level | Wired.com

Yeah, good job there Wikileaks.

WikiLeaks (wikileaks) on Twitter

 

[angelsniper45]

The statements at the end were just plain retarded. They shouldn't have brought their kids to battle? If I was driving to the grocery store and saw a bunch of bodies and some wounded people moving, I would have stopped to help. I'm usually not biased, but the US military really needs to rethink its surveillance techniques and equipment.

 

[Adiuvo]

Since the videos been released a lot more information has come to light. The area they were in was a defined warzone, and they didn't make their presence known to the military. They were also confirmed to carrying an AK47, though the RPG was, as a lot of people thought, a camera.

 

[Josey Wales]

My beef isn't so much with the initial attack but with the attacking of the van that came up after the initial firing had occurred.

Literally the only statement that any of you has said that makes any sense.

That's the part that has gotten me (and hoping the guy will pick up a weapon just so you can shoot him again....really?).

Yes. Absolutely. Imagine if you will, being in a military where the Rules of Engagement state that you may only engage a target that is a threat to you - regardless of whether or not your instinct, intel, or all the judgement of you and your peers have. Imagine having to wait for you to do or be injured or one of your team members or family members be killed before you can even do anything about it? Imagine how you would feel if a drunk driver killed your mother in a car crash, and you were the asshole that let that guy drive... Thats how it feels. Thats what soldiers have to deal with. Every action, be it waiting on a situation or reacting all comes with consequences - the ugly part of war/battle that nobody can understand unless in it.

truely horrible. why would they talk like that? these people are going to hell ;_;

The same way two friends can talk to each other about banging their mothers. Or how married people argue. Or sworn enemies try to belittle themselves. You dont join the military with the mindset like "Nazis are just soldiers like me". The minute you have a weakness about why you are fighting then you can no longer fight. You become the guy hiding under a blanket scared to do anything. The same way a martial artist will yell or scream or grunt before an attack, the same applies here. You have to be a warrior, and thinking "awww I feel bad" will get you no where. If you want that go watch a Green Peace video saving a whale.

Seems to me like those men thought they were playing Call of Duty.

No, seems like theyre all normal to me. War existed before Call of Duty, sorry to tell you. CoD is more unrealistic in every sense of the design. Laughing, cursing, regardless of what they did - they all waited for clearance. They all handle protocol (from what Ive heard) and they all handled that situation accordingly and how it should have been done.

The problem is videos like this becoming public to a public, which imho, needs to live this world more often to see what reality is like.

Very poor judgment all around. Granted I wasn't there, but this did not look like a high risk zone. The soldiers seemed trigger happy, almost as if they wanted a confrontation to occur. They did not thoroughly assess the situation either.

A helicopter is not called on to a site unless the surrounding area is secured. Through the video you can tell that units were in the surrounding area. However, with that being said let me say this. The way the "camera" was held looked remarkably like a weapon. Spend any time in that area and you will see an obvious trend of how weapons are held to non-collation forces. From an apache's height and vision - they made the right call to identify that as a weapon. Albeit it wasnt, that should hold no grounds towards the soldiers.

In war, taking a second more to make a decision can put lives on the line, and so can taking action without thinking. Did this situation require such a knee-jerk reaction? No way.

It didnt, more time could have put in to assess the situation further, but like your statement - that could go either way.

In fact, the way they responded could have gotten them killed. They did not properly scope out the entire area. While they were occupied with gunning down these harmless civilians an insurgent hiding in the distance could have taken one of the choppers down.

Like I said before, in order for a helicopter to properly be called into an area, the area has to be secured on the ground first. The odds of this helo being in a situation before ground troops arrived would be under extreme unique circumstances.

I'd like to think these soldiers do not exemplify the majority of the US military. The government should honestly pursue war crime charges against them.

Nothing was done wrong, short of the leaked video but thats another discussion that goes either way. Freedom of Info + Classified documents + everything else makes for a difficult topic.

I am absolutely disgusted.

In a lot of ways, you should be and need to be.

The way these men behaved is nothing short of inhuman and imo, evil. I understand they are in a war zone, but like someone else said they acted as though they were playing CoD. laughing about it. gloating about their kill. one man even laughed because a tank drove over a dead body.

If you new to all your instinct and judgement that you were on the winning side of a war engagement you would do the same. The reason why when people react the way they do in CoD is because in a real situation like this, you would feel the same. Do you really think a soldier is supposed to care about their enemy? That goes against every thought of being a soldier in any army during any type of battle.

This is not the way a rational person behaves.

Looking into the situation, relaying information, waiting for approval for orders, asking what to do, taking precautions for ground troops and eliminating any threat to your side doesnt seem rational? I mean really, it doesnt? Irrational would have been to say "OMG terrorists!" and then without thought start firing. That would have been irrational and evil.

I don't believe you can kill someone, laugh, and not be evil(i know evil is usually a word reserved for comic book super-villains and charles manson, but I don't know of a better way to describe them). Even if you believe the life you've just taken is of an al'qaeda soldier, to laugh about it... it just doesn't sit well with me.

I understand this is personal opinion and I cant down you for that because its a part of your morals. And thats fine, but you have to understand being in situations where morals can not come in to play as they become emotionally blockages in a time for rational judgement and intelligence needs to occur. The reasons why humans are the superior species on this planet is because we have intelligence and have a way to describe out emotions. But war, battle and fighting is a primal feeling. This is our animal instinct and the two can not coexist in situations that require intelligence.

War begets anger. Violence in general does and not to hypo-criticize my own argument but anger is a more rational emotion to have in a time of violence. If caring and peace were important during fighting than no fighting would incur.

These men could not be thinking rationally, but the US military sees them fit to be judge, jury, and executioner. People high up in the military must have watched that video, but chose to sweep it under the rug and leave them in the field to make more inhuman decisions and destroy lives.

Im curious to how people think they reacted irrationally.

According to the RoE that I remember from the war, these men followed all procedures put forth by that area and by the military. Theyve done nothing wrong according to the laws.

HOWEVER, engaging on the vehicle for picking up bodies can go either way. In many ways, it breaks the Geneva Convention laws put into action a long time ago. I dont agree with what they did morally in that situation - but by all means they went with a judgement call and it happened to be a bad one. Shit happens. As fucked up as that opinion is, thats how I am now having hindsight.

I'm sorry if my post is a bit intense, but these men are murderers and will have come back as heroes. I'm not religious but these kind of things make me hope that there is a hell.

Theres a difference between murdering someone you know you want to kill and killing someone you know you are supposed to. This is the curse that the military has to bear and live with. You think these men who killed these people who apparently are civilians feel no remorse for what they did? You think they knew they were camera men? If you believe that you would be an idiot, and totally insensitive to what the military goes through. Try having to be told that for the next X amount of time you have to judge who is an enemy and who isnt - then if you make the wrong decision, you go to jail or punished for it if you dont follow all the RoE.

Become a cop and then deal with your department telling you that you arent allowed to defend yourself properly because they dont want the rest of the world to barrage the department about the calls you make as a law enforcement officer.

Go be on the chopping block for all your decisions and tell me that you think its fair that these men living with the guilt of killing innocent people AND doing what they thought was right and were told is now a bad thing in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Go do that and still have your opinion. I sincerely invite you to.

I don't believe that's true, i mean most of the guys on the tape were super excited about killing.

Whats this honestly have to do with anything? People communicate their emotions how they chose to do it. If you want to start judging people based on what they say, then dont look into the military - go back to high school and be a child. War is for grown ups because adults need to make decisions that are life impacting... teenagers cant do that.

_

These men did nothing legally wrong in my experience and my opinion. Attacking the van was a judgement call that was more wrong than anything else - and now they have to live with that regret.

And heres my opinion that nobody likes.

Collateral damage is a part of war. News reporters, civilians, any one who invites themselves to a war torn country - nevertheless a WARZONE accepts the risk involved. They chose to be there and accepted the terms set forth by war. This is a sad tragedy that wouldnt of happened if innocent people not engaged in the situation.

The Reuters employees could have easily said "no thanks".

Please, if theres any part of the situation that I am wrong on as far as what happened or who was there, please fill me in, I only watched the video of what happened and based my opinion on what the soldiers did.

 

[Moose]

No, seems like theyre all normal to me. War existed before Call of Duty, sorry to tell you. CoD is more unrealistic in every sense of the design. Laughing, cursing, regardless of what they did - they all waited for clearance. They all handle protocol (from what Ive heard) and they all handled that situation accordingly and how it should have been done.

The problem is videos like this becoming public to a public, which imho, needs to live this world more often to see what reality is like.

As patronising (or honest) as you tried to make this post, you might be surprised to know that I am aware CoD is unrealistic. It's unrealistic in the sense that you run all guns blazing. It's unrealistic in the sense that killing takes no real thought - it's mindless. It's unrealistic because people expect it to just happen. You turn the console on and instantly you have the chance to participate in conflict. All of these things are reflected in the video. A team is sat in a helicopter... they see a group of men on the ground... they decide that their best option is to shoot them down using a machine gun... it takes a few minutes for them to get clearance to kill these men. Cumulatively, probably around 200 years of life was taken in a matter of minutes.

I'm no pacifist. I'm not arguing that war is wrong (neither am I condoning it). I don't think that life is a game and that war is Call of Duty, I'm merely elaborating on my post. I think you're argument is very realistic, and I don't blame the men in the helicopter. They were doing their job just like the guy that served me in Tesco this morning, but I do think that if your view of reality (or that of the men and women at war) is a helicopter shooting down a group of people then that is why things like this happen. If you live war, then you'll act war.

 

[Adiuvo]

The clearance to kill the men was given a long time ago when the initial decision to invade was made. It's unrealistic to expect there to be huge deliberation before each attack, especially in a defined warzone with your troops at risk.

 

[Moose]

The clearance to kill the men was given a long time ago when the initial decision to invade was made. It's unrealistic to expect there to be huge deliberation before each attack, especially in a defined warzone with your troops at risk.

Yeah, I agree. The fact that they thought the men on the ground had an RPG completely left my mind when I wrote that post so obviously I didn't take into consideration that there was an active threat at the time.

 

[Josey Wales]

As patronising (or honest) as you tried to make this post, you might be surprised to know that I am aware CoD is unrealistic. It's unrealistic in the sense that you run all guns blazing. It's unrealistic in the sense that killing takes no real thought - it's mindless. It's unrealistic because people expect it to just happen. You turn the console on and instantly you have the chance to participate in conflict. All of these things are reflected in the video. A team is sat in a helicopter... they see a group of men on the ground... they decide that their best option is to shoot them down using a machine gun... it takes a few minutes for them to get clearance to kill these men. Cumulatively, probably around 200 years of life was taken in a matter of minutes.

I'm no pacifist. I'm not arguing that war is wrong (neither am I condoning it). I don't think that life is a game and that war is Call of Duty, I'm merely elaborating on my post. I think you're argument is very realistic, and I don't blame the men in the helicopter. They were doing their job just like the guy that served me in Tesco this morning, but I do think that if your view of reality (or that of the men and women at war) is a helicopter shooting down a group of people then that is why things like this happen. If you live war, then you'll act war.

[was being honest]

The thing is though is that you are comparing the parent to the child when you should be comparing the child to the parent. They werent acting like they were playing CoD. People playing CoD act like people in war. There is a significant difference in the two phrases.

Its like if someone were to say "The 80's were a lot like 2010". That would be wrong, you cant compare forward - only backward.

"You are just like your son" It doesnt work that way "Your son is just like you". We can argue semantics if you want, but the fact remains is that both phrases are completely different

 

[karakura]

Seems to me like those men thought they were playing Call of Duty.

There in war, what would you act like? These men and women risk there lives to protect us so what if the only way they can get through the horrors they see is to distance themselves from it. and in my opinion turning it into a game is a perfect way to do that.

 

[RedHate]

you cant start a fight with some one then when they kick your ass start crying like a bitch and expect him to stop. this isn't conventional warfare.... its sad civilians get mowed down by apache gun ships sure but unfortunately you cant always tell who the enemy is.

Have we forgot about all the civilian attacks on nato soldiers? These soldiers are trained to scrutinize civilians to watch for behaviors.. If they saw something that seemed out of place they had a reason or maybe the gunner watched to much "full metal jacket" who knows...

 

[Dan]

Surprised this hasn't been bumped recently. What's happening to Manning is disgraceful.

 

[x3sphere]

Surprised this hasn't been bumped recently. What's happening to Manning is disgraceful.

I'm not surprised though. He's being made an example out of and will unfortunately receive the harshest punishment available. They will use every possible way to make his life hell. The government wants to instill fear to prevent future leaks.