Collateral Murder (merged)

[Freiwillige]

Who says that they brought children into battle? It looks as if they were just driving down the road and saw an injured guy on the side walk and went to help him. Maybe get him to a hospital. The pilots couldn't wait to get clearance to fire and in fact kept saying that they were going for weapons which they clearly weren't!

Even the wounded dude crawling they were begging for him to grab anything that looked like a weapon so they could fire again like he could be much of a threat.

I'm all for blowing up the bad guys but this just has bad judgment written all over it!

[tater]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/...ootings_o.html

It's easy to look at a youtube video compared to watching the camera in the cockpit, I'd imagine. Any helo drivers here care to comment on the stability of head vs screen compared to sitting at your desk?

The above link says that there was in fact an AK, RPG, and grenades at the scene. Reuters has been known to hire local photographers and reporters who are in fact associated with one of the combatant forces (the guy who photoshopped the smoke in Lebanon, for example). Not saying these guys were, but in Sadr City, they could very well have been escorted by local (possibly hostile) militia units, no?

Without far more data, it's hard to make a call. Did reporters in areas like Sadr City have to file a "flight plan" with the US to avoid stuff like this, or was it suggested? Was there a warning for reporters not to ever go in some areas unless embedded with US forces?

Bottom line is that this happens, even when the air assets have to call in and get permission for every single engagement. In WW2, a P-47 would simply have gunned down anything that moved on the other side of Allied lines. Anything that moved. So sad as this might be, the % of "collateral" (called "spillage" in WW2) casualties is FAR lower than in previous conflicts, and becomes lower every year.

[CCIP]

Yeah, I'm not sure that we can really call this a "battle". It's a civilian area however you slice it, and as long as the population is there, there's nothing to say they couldn't have been just driving along on their daily business and came across this. I'm willing to buy the "good samaritan" explanation for why the van stopped. All the more, I highly suspect that the people there are not so stupid and would have seen the chopper that shot up the scene. The fact that they did not seem concerned by it being overhead seems to tell me they weren't expecting to be shot at - at least in the case of the would-be rescuers, seems like it was just an error.

I'm also quite willing to buy that there were two guys with AKs and an RPG in the original group. Immediately assuming them to be bad guys is problematic, but again, when there are friendly troops rolling through the sector, it's not like anyone would be willing to risk walking up and asking who they were and what they were up to. It does make sense, though, to bring up the old pro-gun argument about self-defense - armed dudes don't immediately equal bad dudes. In this case, though, it doesn't totally matter. What does bother me though is that again, the effect that the pilots were concerned with was not taking out guys already in possession of a weapon, denying a potential ambush, or otherwise pursuing actual tactical goals - what they were really concerned about is killing the entire group and anyone who assisted it, as quickly as possible. That right there is, well, really messed up and indicates a wider systemic problem with the US military - it's all about efficiency, with dubious effectiveness at best. When the primary effect of engagement being sought is achieving kills, well, there's your problem with stability on the ground right there.

[Fader_Berg]

Originally Posted by Freiwillige

Who says that they brought children into battle? It looks as if they were just driving down the road and saw an injured guy on the side walk and went to help him. Maybe get him to a hospital. The pilots couldn't wait to get clearance to fire and in fact kept saying that they were going for weapons which they clearly weren't!

Even the wounded dude crawling they were begging for him to grab anything that looked like a weapon so they could fire again like he could be much of a threat.

I'm all for blowing up the bad guys but this just has bad judgment written all over it!

I double that...

It could also be the men that dropped the journalists off. As a matter of fact... It could be anyone acting under emotional stress when seeing a man crawling on the street, fighting for hes life.

Why should anyone open fire on unarmed men taking care of a wounded guy. The SOB is lying to the command, just to get a ok to bring them down. This is murder in cold blood. This is so sick that it can by no means be justified at all.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I personally would line them up on the wall - last but not least as an examplary call to maintain discipline.

Germans shooting Americans was tried in the last century. It didn't work out so well for the Germans.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by tater

Bottom line is that this happens, even when the air assets have to call in and get permission for every single engagement. In WW2, a P-47 would simply have gunned down anything that moved on the other side of Allied lines. Anything that moved. So sad as this might be, the % of "collateral" (called "spillage" in WW2) casualties is FAR lower than in previous conflicts, and becomes lower every year.

I don't think that's a problem. The problem is a) dealing with it when it is avoidable, and some of it here absolutely was; b) cover-ups. There was a pretty blatant cover-up in this case, and in general the military puts out very misleading presentations of what they actually do out there and how it all works. From where I sit, at least - I think if the public was better-aware of the real risks and issues of 'spillage', there might be a lot less chance that these air assets - or any military assets - would have been where they were. And if it is the Mehdi army we're talking about - any strategic gains from killing those guys are definitely extremely dubious and have nothing to do with the initial war aims as it is.

[Dowly]

I don't know, the more I watch it the more I get the idea that civilian population means close to nothing as long as the target is destroyed. The full version shows the other engagement against a building where they saw bunch of gunmen walk into. As they fire the Hellfire, there's clearly a guy walking by the building who seemed to me be just a civilian passing it on his way somewhere *KABOOM*, he dead. (At around 34min to the full vid)

Now, I know there will always be civilian casualties in a war, but it would've taken less than a minute for the POSSIBLE civvy to get clear before shooting.

[HunterICX]

Originally Posted by August

Germans shooting Americans was tried in the last century. It didn't work out so well for the Germans.

HunterICX

[tater]

Sadr City was (is?) walled off from the rest of Bagdad as I recall reading once. It was (particularly back in 2007 when this took place) the area where the bad guys were.

I think that oversimplifying this is way too easy, but by all means, keep doing so, particularly those of you that reflexively hate the US (since you will anyway).

Without knowing far more than I can find in news stories right now, it's hard to say if it was a screw up, or overly aggressive pilot, or anything at all.

[tater]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I don't think that's a problem. The problem is a) dealing with it when it is avoidable, and some of it here absolutely was; b) cover-ups. There was a pretty blatant cover-up in this case, and in general the military puts out very misleading presentations of what they actually do out there and how it all works. From where I sit, at least - I think if the public was better-aware of the real risks and issues of 'spillage', there might be a lot less chance that these air assets - or any military assets - would have been where they were. And if it is the Mehdi army we're talking about - any strategic gains from killing those guys are definitely extremely dubious and have nothing to do with the initial war aims as it is.

Do you have links to good articles on this? I listened to NPR this morning (as I always do) and I didn't get any sense of cover up from them—and NPR usually likes painting the military in a less than glowing light.

[August]

Originally Posted by HunterICX

HunterICX

Well sorry to dissapoint you Capt Picard but where is your face palm for Skybird? The man just advocated the murder of my countrymen to teach a lesson to others. That doesn't rate?

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by tater

It was (particularly back in 2007 when this took place) the area where the bad guys were.

I think that oversimplifying this is way too easy

Those two statements next to each other are pretty ironic
(i.e., that's quite a big simplification there - bad guys relative to whom? I think it's safe to call Moqtada a whackjob, but as far as militias like that go, calling them bad guys is a vast oversimplification - and from the US perspective, the Mehdi army has nothing to do with stated war aims nor is a threat to national security. It's a real mixed bag down there, and in some regard these militias are only a natural response to the lack of security and government control on the ground. They're part of the problem, but in some sense they're also a local solution. I don't think "bad guys" quite covers it.)

Also, at the risk of sounding like I'm on the wrong side of this - I should also admit that "Collateral Murder" is, by definition, a rather obvious piece of propaganda. The title itself is propaganda gold. For all the wrongness of what's happened, grains of salt are also due.

[tater]

Originally Posted by Dowly

I don't know, the more I watch it the more I get the idea that civilian population means close to nothing as long as the target is destroyed. The full version shows the other engagement against a building where they saw bunch of gunmen walk into. As they fire the Hellfire, there's clearly a guy walking by the building who seemed to me be just a civilian passing it on his way somewhere *KABOOM*, he dead. (At around 34min to the full vid)

Now, I know there will always be civilian casualties in a war, but it would've taken less than a minute for the POSSIBLE civvy to get clear before shooting.

I've watched other vid where they don't engage, and miss the guys because of passers by, too. Might depend on the locale, targets, possible friendlies in area, all sorts of stuff we don't know. Or maybe just who is on the other end of the radio giving permission.

Regardless, it's still far better than, say, carpet bombing (WW2 solution). In ww2, US ground forces would approach a german town, and they might have a captured german warn them not to fight. If a lone sniper—or a misguided kid given a rifle or RPG by the nazis—fired on them, they might very well call in divisional artillery and wreck the place.

FWIW, it's a good sign that people are actually concerned about non-combatant deaths in small numbers. Like all other casualties our tolerance for ANY (not just on "our side") has decreased to a great degree.

[tater]

CCIP, I was thinking in terms of how we viewed that area generally in 2007 when I said "bad guys." Meaning that it was one of the more dangerous parts of town to be in, not that it was all, or even mostly bad guys, just that attacks were staged from there as I recall, and it was a principle area of concern.

It was (is?) walled off, after all, so clearly they had some concerns, no?

I suppose "bad guys" should have been in quotes? <S>

tater

PS, I got the impression that the photographer went to the corner of that building, knelt, and was taking pictures around the corner right before they were engaged (the audio talks about RPG getting ready to fire at that point). The NPR article has an update saying that he was taking pictures of US forces, so that would have escalated the situation for the Apache, no? They think (mistaken) that the long-lens is an RPG, and one of the guides HAS an RPG, and then he "sneaks" around corner to take a pic? (sneaking would be sensible, as he doesn't want to get shot at. It really is tough, a war photographer is a pretty dangerous job.

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by tater

CCIP, I was thinking in terms of how we viewed that area generally in 2007 when I said "bad guys." Meaning that it was one of the more dangerous parts of town to be in, not that it was all, or even mostly bad guys, just that attacks were staged from there as I recall, and it was a principle area of concern.

It was (is?) walled off, after all, so clearly they had some concerns, no?

I suppose "bad guys" should have been in quotes? <S>

The problem in Sadr city was basically civil ("civil"?) conflict between local militias, not even mostly sunni vs. shia (Sadr city is mostly Shia), but just different Shia groups, Mehdi army being the most powerful of them. And yeah, they were quite happy to kill people that didn't agree with them, whether they were Sunnis, members of other militias, government representatives or US troops. At the same time, of course, the Mehdi army more or less ran all the infrastructure in the areas it controlled - and was composed of and working with the local population.

The problem, really, is that it's the kind of clusterf**k that the US should've kept out of. This is not a "battle" nor even a real civil war. It was a policing scenario and using heavy military ass[ault equipment] to tackle it was fraught with problems from the start. And like I said, the inevitable is seen happening here - instead of effective policing, you get effective killing. From civil life, it's pretty easy to tell that in order to work, the overlap between those two things should be minimal.