Collateral Murder (merged)

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by August

That was a great post Oberon but I don't think some folks here really care about reality. To them all they see is some Americans they can criticize.

Honestly, I should point out that I don't think it really matters who does what. I don't care if it's Americans, I care that it's wrong. Anyone can make a wrong judgment. I do agree with Oberon that a lot of the alternate-judgment here would be purely hindsight, but far from all of it. As I say, as much as the situation was unclear, the pilots already formed a story in their head as to what was going on, and no amount of "grey area" seemed to deter them from making a kill. There are things in that situation that they should not have done, and could have been judged then and there rather than in hindsight.

A lot of the arguments on this revolve around it being a war. But I really have trouble calling what was going on in Sadr City in 2007 an actual war. And if this was not called a war, and the people committing the attack were not in the military, I think they would have had to face a court with some serious consequences. I'm not convinced if "murder" is necessarily what happened, but it was some serious and unjustified homicide nonetheless. By any normal civil standard, this cannot be argued to have been correct or justified in any fashion. The actions of the pilots may be partially excusable, but ultimately indefensible imho. Imagine police in your home town using the same methods to deal with any large gathering of people who might possibly be armed. What would your reaction be then? Why is this supposed to be any different?