[Closed] Iraq gun camera footage

out of interest why does this cause more of an outcry than airstrikes ?

I think because with airstrikes, we don't see the actual moment when people are being killed. With this video, we see the moment Human Life is extinguished, which is somewhat more emotive, in a strange way.

It's horrible, The fact that it's fuzzy footage, and you can't see the people's faces clearly, somehow sanitises it, distances the viewer further from the actual act of killing, but it is still absolutely sickening.

And here we are, arguing about the 'legitimacy' of such slaughter. 😥

maybe. i was in a situation once where we were taking a lot of fire from a built up area and my gaffer called in an airstrike as we were up shit creak. the u.s flew in and cleared the area for us. it was mad they were releasing before they had even passed us (we thought they were gonna take us out) and it was amazing to be there. lots of civvys no doubt got killed but i didnt at the time really think about it i was just glad it was them and not us . and tbh i still am.

so do you not worry that all the civvies you had killed all have family members who are probably that much more ready to kill the next lot of british troops sent out there?

and the point is the apaches werent taking fire from anyone

Roper, I understand what you're saying. We agree that if the military f*** up, they deserve to be punished.
What we don't agree on is

in this case, Reuters seem to have seen the situation clearer than the soldiers.

kimbers eer no, no i dont 😉

i know they werent taking fire at the time. i was just wondering about the differences between this and airstrikes

i have no answer for that one backhander am not a soldier, other than not taken a job that involves blowing up civilians

and im aware there will always be a need for soldiers, i just fail to see the point in a continually self perpetuating circle of violence like afgahnistan or the mass grave that iraq has turned into

other than not taken a job that involves blowing up civilians

Ahh, I understand. You dislike soldiers. I dislike politicians myself.

i just fail to see the point in a continually self perpetuating circle of violence like afgahnistan or the mass grave that iraq has turned into

Quite agree with you there though. I'd be more comfortable with it if there were sufficient troops there so that we could see an end. I don't think it'll get resolved otherwise.

i dislike the soldiers in the video, yes

laughing and joking as you run over a dead reporters body in your bradley doesnt endear them to me, let alone turning your gunship on a minibus with 2 kids in thats trying to evacuate the other guys you just murdered

backhander,
No that's not what I've been saying and I suspect you are deliberately not listening or misunderstanding for arguments sake, so won't carry on talking to you about it.

Blacklug - Member

Anti-American propaganda

The guys had rpg and ak47s ... they werent out to do a bit of fishing were they? the reporters knew the risks when they hooked up with them.

Well from what I saw they might as well have been on a fishing trip

It's hard to imagine a more relaxed bunch of guys - chatting, milling around, etc, without apparently, a care in the world.

Now assuming that the helicopter wasn't "invisible", nor that it was completely silent, I reckon that it's pretty fair to conclude that the last thing they, including the Reuters reporters, were expecting, was to be attacked.

Which is not exactly the attitude you expect from an enemy.

There is very little doubt in my mind that the whole incident was simply a case of cold blooded murder. But there is nothing surprising in that - there was a war going on after all.

And the US government's furious reaction to the video going public, betrays the fact that they don't see it as a unique and unrepresentative incident which needs to be thoroughly investigated without any cover-ups. So presumably they consider it to be fairly routine and representative.

What I do find peculiar however, is how so many people appear to be strangely shocked and surprised by the event - nothing I saw, did either of those things to me. War isn't some sort of boisterous 'gentleman's parlour game'.

What is also surprising, is that there would appear to be people who are very well placed within the US military that are prepared to leak such material in direct defiance of the US government.

The two blokes in centre screen at 3:40 to 3:50 in the video are clearly carrying weapons, or something looking very, very like them - AK and RPG.

Given that - the point where the bloke looks round the corner with the camera can then easily be conceived as a "plausible" threat

Engaging the van was clearly cold blooded. murder though.

What is also surprising, is that there would appear to be people who are very well placed within the US military that are prepared to leak such material in direct defiance of the US government.

Really, you're suprised that elements in the US military would seek to embarass a Democrat Govt ?

There is very little doubt in my mind that the whole incident was simply a case of cold blooded murder

Come on ernie, you don't really think that do you?
You really think they thought "oh I know, lets kill those innocent civvies down there, c'mon it'll be a right laugh"?

apparently wikileaks has similar footage from afgahnistan to release as well

right now im sure this is being forwarded around the arab world
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/04/201045123449200569.html

all these 2 wars have done for us is increase the production of heroin, send the price of petrol through the roof and convince 4 lads from the midlands/yorks to blow themselves up on the tube

as backhander said i blame the politicians, i dont think sending more troops out is the answer
especially when the wahabbi? brand of islam seems to be the main problem and thats based in our oil buddy saudi arabia

Oooh I like wahabbi especially on peanuts. Hot.

Im crying watching that...I don't know why I watched it as I know that these sort of things upset me.

As a younger man ( I now refer to it as being my other life)I have witnessed military attrocities...I am not proud of this - it has had a profound effect on my life. My path is now one that heals and helps rather than maims or kills.

What's done is now done ....lets just hope that the children are safe, and that the pilots come to terms with what they have done.

Jeez.

Didn't the Yanks kill more British troops than the Iraqis did in the first Gulf War?

Come on ernie, you don't really think that do you?

What ? You expect me to think that war is some sort of gentlemen's game instead ? I expect the Geneva Convention to go out of the window. I expect prisoners to be shot, etc etc. I haven't been taken in by Hollywood and the likes of Tony Blair since I was a kid. There is no 'law and order' in war. And people die who shouldn't die. I'm not necessarily condemning those who carried out the apparent cold-blooded killings.......it's all part of a bigger picture. The only people who are really useful in a war, are the psychopaths (10% of the population iirc?) Normal people are fairly useless by comparison, unless you can get them to kill people that they can't physically see.

If we're going to have wars, then we should celebrate psychopaths, not condemn them. And of course we do generally celebrate them - give them medals in fact. There is not such thing as a clean and fair war. And it is a complete waste of time trying to achieve one. imho of course.

For an intelligent bloke, that's a really stupid post.

OK just checked, not 10% of the population (of course) about 1%. About 20% of prisoners though, so 10% of soldiers sounds feasible.

backhander - you are perfectly entitled to consider my post to be "really stupid". But you have no right however, to assume that you know my intelligence.

myheadsashed i believe you are correct

Well research show the first kill by US Apaches in the first Gulf war were on US troops 😯

Ernie raises an interesting point. One of the major "issues" for the modern army is the necessary desensitization of it's troops. You need soldiers to be able to act decisively under massive amounts of stress (the modern battlefield) this in turn neuters certain "normal" human emotions and reactions to the horror around them. Fine perhaps in the heat of battle, not so fine perhaps once these poor sods get back to civvie street. I suspect as a society we will be dealing with the mental fallout from these conflicts for a long time

Having just watched that video its all pretty sickening. The sentiment that "it's a war - soldiers kill - it's expected" is rubbish. Whatever, happened to "soldiers protect"? As far as I can see they killed a dozen people. Of that dozen - two were armed(?), one was a photographer and several were possibly children.

I didn't see or hear any stress in the gunner or pilot's voices to indicate they were stressed.

Stressed? That's "desserts" spelt backwards and perhaps they'll get theirs too.

The sentiment that "it's a war - soldiers kill - it's expected" is rubbish. Whatever, happened to "soldiers protect"?

ffs, to kill another human being is completely unnatural. To do that, a normal person, needs to,
turn off.....ignore.....whatever .... their "moral switch/valve/sensor/whatever". You can't expect them to do that when the circumstances require it, and then, just simply turn it back on, when the circumstances "no longer" require it.

OK, maybe some remarkable people can sometimes do that. But to expect [i]all[/i] people to be able to do it [i]all[/i] of the time, is quite frankly ridiculous, imo. We're talking about human beings here - not ****ing machines with mechanical switches. I expect all soldiers in theatres of war to have morally impaired judgement.

And they don't just kill, they do other thoroughly unpleasant things such as rape - rape is extraordinarily common in war situations. In fact it's sometimes so widespread, that it's the ones which don't engage in it, who are the exceptions.

War is nasty. Either get used to it or, don't elect warmongers as leaders. There aren't any other fairyland alternatives.

Quite clearly you've been watching too much Platoon and Casualties of War.

Never seen them mudsux......films which bring home the reality of war have never really appealed to me. I go to the pictures (and I tend only to watch films at the pictures) to be entertained and [i]precisely[/i] to escape reality.

Quite clearly you've been following too many murder stories in the news, if you think that killing a member of your own species such a simple process.

Surely the issue here is that the people who decided to fire were miles away in an aircraft looking at pictures on a TV screen, and don't see the results close up. So they don't have to dehumanise anyone, that's done for them by the fact that they appear to be playing a giant video game - they sound like my teenage son and his friends on Modern Warfare 2.

There are now people who go to work every day in the US, and remotely fly drones over Afghanistan and ****stan and take out buildings, vehicles, and groups of people in this way with hellfire missiles... and then when their shift is over they drive home to their normal family life. No horror of war for them.

Just watched the footage from the heli gunship and found it disturbing, okay some of those guys appeared to be armed, but they were not firing on anyone, one guy behind the wall on the corner looked like he had a camera, I don't think the Americans were justified in firing on them and killing like they did, you see why so many civilians women & children get killed, Collateral damage they call it, pish trigger happy Americans more like.

That Apache footage... man, that's pretty f*cked up right there... it's not often you're confronted with imagery of people being killed in pretty much cold-blood... chilling and really sickening 🙁

Seems pretty clear that those guys on the ground weren't posing a threat to the Apaches, but there were ground troops in the area that they may have been a construed as a threat to??

And why the **** did they take out the van... that alone should result in charges, surely?

Trigger happy yanks indeed... 🙁

Surely the issue here is that the people who decided to fire were miles away in an aircraft looking at pictures on a TV screen, and don't see the results close up. So they don't have to dehumanise anyone, that's done for them by the fact that they appear to be playing a giant video game - they sound like my teenage son and his friends on Modern Warfare 2.

There are now people who go to work every day in the US, and remotely fly drones over Afghanistan and ****stan and take out buildings, vehicles, and groups of people in this way with hellfire missiles... and then when their shift is over they drive home to their normal family life. No horror of war for them.

Absolutely spot on, imo.

Specially : [i]"So they don't have to dehumanise anyone, that's done for them ....."[/i]

Watching the film was pretty sickening. What is also sickening, in its own way, is that people are prepared to claim black is white, and defend what was done.

After a quick skim through some of the above, and reading the smart-arse responses to my previous post, I thought I'd chuck in a couple more points;

Some of you clearly have too much time on your hands.

No-one is suggesting there is some sort of military-civvy them and us theme developing here, grow up people.

The times article states that it's source was an Afghan investigator and the incident involved US and Afghan SF - did I mention how corrupt the Afghan are? (not all clearly, but a lot of them).

People are still getting tied up in knots about things they can't change, or don't know the full story about.

Regards to roper,anokdale and backhander.

OUT.

It's one thing to mistakenly shoot people who appear to be armed when viewed via a grainy gunsight camera system. It's a mistake, but it's something I can understand.

What I really don't like is "They're picking up the bodies in a bongo van, permission to engage". To me, that's as bad as shooting an ambulance, which would be a massive incident in news / diplomatic terms. The vehicle may not be an ambulance with a red cross / crescent painted on the side, but this is Iraq we're talking about, not the western world where we have the luxury of infrastructure and a half decent ambulance service.

I think its fair to say there is no right or wrong in this case. It's not the soldiers fault they have been shipped out to a war that basically breaks the geneva convention. We are an imperiallistic foriegn force in someone elses country, the soldiers shooting aren't accountable its the people that sent them there. I think the reason no one wants the general public to see operational footage is because thre vast majority of people would be appauled that we are allowing our soldiers and our money to be frivolously wasted like a bag of rice at a wedding. Are we really being protected from global terrorism or are we threatening people who can't really fight us fairly? I have to say I for one am not surrprised that they play dirty, making it harder for soldiers to differentiate between civilian and miltia. If we sent our politicians in with guns no air support etc the war wouldn't have lasted this long and we could go back to normal and we wouldn't have wasted billions of public money which it now turns out we didn't have in the first place for what is basically totally unjustified.

I think its fair to say there is no right or wrong in this case.

Unbelievable.

why do people just do that on forums read a sentence then form an opinion. If you read the whole post you would see that I disagree with the war, I feel that by taking people and training them in a way that generates a certain response is the fault of the politicians not the soldiers. It isn't the soldiers fault they have been trained in that way. It is the politicians fault that they have broken the geneva convention to invade a country. The soldiers aren't to be held responsible for how they are trained nor for which conflicts they are sent to. And yes there is right and wrong in this case but obviously you're too far up your own ar$e to read on so I'll not write my opionion in future because no matter what I write you'll just select a small part edit it and then get on your high horse.

I thought I'd chuck in a couple more points;

Except you haven't actually made any points at all have you.

It isn't the soldiers fault they have been trained in that way

Soldiers are [i]trained[/i] to follow the rules of engagement.
Quite clearly, imbeciles, morons and psychopaths would be excluded from the selection process due to their inability to follow orders and make a judgment in such situations.

So to say "soldiers shooting aren't accountable its the people that sent them there" is wrong. Unless you have accountability up and down the chain of command (and that includes decision makers in government) you have no control at all.

I dare say combat training does desensitize an individual to their actions. Desensitized and moral impairment - two different things. The actions of a helicopter pilot and his gunner could be compared to [list]shooting fish in a barrel[/list]. Where does moral impairment come into it?

why do people just do that on forums read a sentence then form an opinion.

Umm, I didn't, but thanks for your interest in my posterior. I read your whole contribution and quoted your headline, but apparently you don't even mean what you wrote as now you say "And yes there is right and wrong in this case".

What is unbelievable is that anyone can excuse the behaviour of the murderers, regardless of the situation. They were not acting reluctantly, in self defence, and with regard to the consequences, they were just triumphally shooting down innocent people.

I can't be bothered to read the whole thread, I've felt sick about this since I watched it this morning.

The guy with the 'RPG' clearly had a camera. The group were not 'engaging' the helicopter. The guy practically begs the wounded man to pick up a weapon so that he can kill him. They fire on unarmed rescuers. I can't see how anyone can justify it.

DrJ you have out foxed me. I'mcoming out with my hands up, please don't shoot.

I havent watched the vid because its a work computer and I can't install the flash player. My home computer is about 1.5m away, I'm not sure if I actually want to watch the vid though.

DrJ you have out foxed me. I'mcoming out with my hands up, please don't shoot.

Just make sure you put down your DSLR and 800mm lens.... 🙂

too soon?

Or his carton of juice - they can be lethal too !!

[url= http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8582478.stm ]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/8582478.stm[/url]

[i]Go and ride your bikes..[/i]

With respect, many people (including ex- and serving members of HM Forces) opposed the Iraq conflict [i]precisely because[/i] they could envisage the massive cluster**** that was a' coming. As for blaming the nasty politicos for sending soldiers to war - well, yes, quite so. The point stands. But that hardly excuses "if in doubt, shoot" as a rule of engagement, or the brazen gloating of the pilots. I mean, I suppose those people smeared all over the sidewalk [i]could[/i] be Iranian-trained ninjas, and that van [i]might[/i] contain an entire AA battery.... but I'm pretty sure that none of the soldiers/security operatives on here would be comfortable walking the streets of Baghdad unarmed. Why should it have been any different for the Iraqis, in their own country (not least given what was effectively a state of civil war)? "AK-47 = target" is a pretty crude rule of thumb, even from the comfort of my armchair.

I have no relevant experience to back [i]any[/i] of this up - but I suspect the language on here would be far less restrained if this was video/audio of a "blue-on-blue" incident. But let's not second guess the pilots, eh?

I just watched this for the first time how sad to see people gunned down like that and even the children. Then to be denied help makes me ashamed to be british (part of the problem).

my son came back from a cadet shooting day. raving about the guns and what he can fire when he's 16. I asked him what the guns were for. he said shooting. i said shooting what. he said targets. i said they're for shooting people like you and your family who were born somewhere else. i think he gets it. i hope he does. call of duty has much to answer for. maybe I should also take him to Selly Oak

iDave - I used to love shooting. Targets. That's all they were for for me. But your point does indeed need to be made. Thing is I've loved shootemups from most of my younger years, and I love shooting targets when given a chance, but I'd have no interest in shooting people. I would love a try of a sniper rifle.

I've just read this ......

avdave2 - Member

[b]"Americans are imperialist **** who aren't really on the other side of the world to help the local people, shocker"[/b]

Ernie Lynch deems all people of one country guilty of the actions of a few shocker!

Seems as if your as prejudiced and as narrow minded as the people you are so quick to condemn. I'm sure that doesn't reflect you're considered opinion and is just a reaction to the horrific events in those videos.

Note the lack in my post of the term [i]"all people of one country"[/i] avdave2 ? 💡

To describe America as an imperialist country based on the policies and actions of those who represent and speak on her behalf, is perfectly correct.

And America is indisputably an imperialist country. In fact it is without doubt, today, the most imperialist nation on earth. Indeed the neo-cons in the last administration shamelessly described their foreign policy stance as : "Full Spectrum Dominance".

But I'm sure avdave2 that you'll be able to provide me with a very long list of countries which have a much more aggressive and imperialist foreign policy than the US ?

And yes, the United States doesn't send her armies to the other side of world because of some touching and heartfelt concern for the plight of poor/arab/muslim nations. Anyone who thinks so, is a gullible and naive fool.
I stand by every word I said.

One thing you did get right though avdave2.......I am not in the least bit open-minded and highly prejudiced. And I would be mortified if I thought that I might ever exhibited any other tendencies. I made up my opinion concerning imperialism and wars of aggression a very long time ago. There is no chance whatsoever that I might be in anyway swayed or even, momentarily sit on the fence.

All I can say is there's a big difference between an understandable mistake in a high-stress situation, and covering up afterwards. One isn't just forgivable, it's absolutely inevitable, expecting soldiers to go into a war and have no civilian casualties is absurd. The mistakes/bad calls will always happen, and nothing they do will ever completely stop them.

But covering up for them afterwards is not the same thing at all. That to me is a line crossed.

Can't be bothered reading the whole 4 pages as it's no doubt full of the usual STW theorising from one or other of two standpoints so instead here's my two pennorth - no judgement, I'll keep that to myself, and apologies if anybody's made these comments before and I'm repeating...

It would not be outside the realms of possibility for the Taliban to pretend to be policeman, or infact be policemen, how much do you think an Afghan policeman gets paid, how could he "improve" his incoming cashflow - might I suggest corruption.

Like the ANP copper who shot and killed 5 Grenadier Guardsman last year was later discovered to be Taliban.

Millions of dollars of training and the most advanced hardware of any army and they can't tell the difference between a SLR and an AK47...

Well an SLR is slightly longer, has a straight 20 round magazine, carrying handle and is made mainly of plastic and metal whereas an AK has a 30 round curved magazine and is made mainly of wood and metal. Both use 7.62 rounds though, unless it was actually an AK74 in which case it would 5.54mm.

I think SLR in the quoted passage was referring to a camera (single lens reflex) not the old British army rifle of the 70s (self loading rifle).

Can't be bothered reading the whole 4 pages

Maybe you should have done then you wouldn't be posting irrelevant military trivia.

Not sure if it's already been mentioned, but the vid linked to by the OP is a shorter/edited version (17min or so) of a longer video also released at the same time by wikileaks (around 33min long apparently). The longer video apparently makes it clear that there were operations underway in that sector, with American troops under fire from small arms and RPG's, these ground troops ahd called in the Apache support...

in these circumstances (live firefight underway, your troops and comrades in imminent peril etc) it's perhaps not suprising that the Apaches were eager to engage and provide support, they spot a group of men (perhaps moving towards the hot zone) who appear to be armed, and request permission to engage, which they receive...

To me, in some ways, it would appear that that group of folk on the ground were in the wrong place at the wrong time... being a photographer myself, I know that you need to be where the action is, right in amongst it really, to get the best shot (have never been in a warzone, but the same principle applies regardless), so it's not unlikely that the photographer here was trying to get close to the engagement, probably escorted by armed men (good guys or bad guys, who knows?)...

Still a sickening video to watch... chilling the detachment of the gunner and pilot, but that's what their training instills, right?

Can't see that any of the above excuses/explains the taking out of the van rescuing wounded? That seems to me to be a fairly clear cut war crime?

I think SLR in the quoted passage was referring to a camera (single lens reflex) not the old British army rifle of the 70s (self loading rifle).

Can't be bothered reading the whole 4 pages

Maybe you should have done then you wouldn't be posting irrelevant military trivia.

So you've both completely failed to pick up on my sarcasm (or maybe troll) there. I suspect in Grum's case it's because you're letting your opinion get in the way. I had read the posts that caught my eye, namely the ones from the usual suspects who have plenty to say, and skimmed the rest. But now, just to keep you happy, I've read it all.

ROE:

If the military act out of the ROE (I think the US and UK ROE are quite different)

There is a huge variance in the US and UK ROE, the general principle for British Forces is "to act in self-defence" (as enshrined in British law and applicable to any one of use walking down the street) including shooting first if there is a clear and imminent threat. The Americans have a much more loose set of rules. I could go further in to the British ROE if you want as they are actually very complicated, there are different rules for different missions/tasks - for example a deliberate op against an identified target may allow a relaxation of the rules, e.g. an ambush against an identified group or using grenades to clear a compound that has been identified as occupied by the Taliban. In all cases though, clearance for variance to the self-defence rule comes from much higher up the (British) chain of command than your Joe Average private soldier and is subject to legal advice before it is granted, even if it is required at very short notice.

PS Porter - 60s, 70s and 80s for the SLR. There you go Grum, more military trivia. By the way, just so we're clear - I'm being SARCASTIC again.

here's some useless trivia for you Dave, most of the old SLRs are still in service! they were sold to the Sierra Leone army. I know because I fired some whilst there!

Along with all our old Saxons that went to Africa when we took the new Bulldog in to service. Sorry, did I say new - 40-50 year chassis recycled...

Ah, Saxon - the armoured ice-cream van...

davetrave - Member

So you've both completely failed to pick up on my sarcasm (or maybe troll) there. I suspect in Grum's case it's because you're letting your opinion get in the way.

.

Let me help you with the word "sarcasm".

[i]
sar·casm
? ?/?s?rkæz?m/ Show Spelled[sahr-kaz-uhm] Show IPA
–noun
1.
[b]harsh or bitter derision[/b] or irony.
2.
a sharply ironical taunt; [b]sneering or cutting remark[/b]: a review full of sarcasms.[/i]

I took Grum's comment : [i]".....then you wouldn't be posting irrelevant military trivia".[/i] as harsh derision and a sneering and cutting remark.

Obviously you completely failed to pick up on Grum's sarcasm.

My apologies I was mixing up my sarcasm and irony, although the two are, of course, closely related:

Sarcasm is the rhetorical device of using a characterization of something or someone in order to express contempt.[1] It is closely connected with irony.

Irony (from the Ancient Greek ???????? eir?neía, meaning hypocrisy, deception, or feigned ignorance) is a situation, literary technique, or rhetorical device, in which there is [u]an incongruity or discordance that goes strikingly beyond the most simple and evident meaning of words or actions[/u].

However, the intial post commented on the Americans' training, to military personnel the difference between an SLR and AK47 would not be trivial and they would be more interested in the long barrelled, shooting kind of SLR than cameras:

Beginning in the 1960s, the plural trivia in particular became used for knowledge that is nice to have but not essential

Then again, the Americans never used the SLR so I suppose their weapons recognition really isn't up to much. Which brings us nicely back to the original issue...