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After I saw the first video, I did some googling around and reading about the rules of engagement during an insurgency. Under the Geneva Convention, clearly ide

After I saw the first video, I did some googling around and reading about the rules of engagement during an insurgency. Under the Geneva Convention, clearly identified medical personnel treating combatants removed from combat are protected. However, if an armed combatant is attempting to help another combatant get to cover, they're both fair game. There's a grey area when it's not clear if a person helping a combatant to cover is a civilian or a combatant. That's the first part. The second part is that the Army and other forces have made it very clear that attempting to take any weapons from the battlefield counts as engagement, and they will fire at anyone attempting to do so. Apparently this was a big problem during the start of the war - if they took out insurgents, their guns would often be grabbed and ran away with, and presumably used again later. So that's a clear situation right now - attempting to remove weapons from a battlefield will get you fired upon. It's unclear who was in the van, and if they were attempting to take weapons, though.

Qz 17y ago
Yeah, it's pretty clear to me that they didn't just decide to shoot people without cause.
- indrax 17y ago
  Hmm, can you tell me where in the video that it's pretty clear anyone from the van was picking up weapons? I can understand some fog-of-war "I thought the camera was a gun." excuses, but just because they say on the radio that they were "possibly" picking up weapon doesn't mean that they actually saw them do any such thing. I've watched it twice and it looks to me exactly like they shot up a van that was trying to help a wounded man.
hga 17y ago
Wouldn't a person helping a combatant get to cover be by definition a combatant (although perhaps just for the duration of the action)? Also, if we're talking about the Conventions, were these illegal combatants? (I haven't watched the video.)
- lionhearted 17y ago
  > Wouldn't a person helping a combatant get to cover be by definition a combatant (although perhaps just for the duration of the action)? I think the key part is armed combatants in combat - you can't just open fire on any civilians who are helping an unarmed combatant after he's removed from combat. I'm not an expert though - I spent a bit of time reading on Geneva about a year ago, and just refreshed my memory today. > Also, if we're talking about the Conventions, were these illegal combatants? (I haven't watched the video.) There's still some limited protections granted to people fighting in "non-international conflicts" under Protocol II, a 1977 Amendment to the Geneva Convention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_II They do have much less protections than soldiers fighting between two sovereign nations.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Neither the US nor Iraq have ratified Protocol II.
  - demallien 17y ago
    I'm going to preface this comment by a brief statement on my background, because, as you will see, it's quite relevant to the discussion. I personally campaigned against the US + allies invasion of Iraq. I even stood for election in Australia with that as part of my platform. I door-knocked with petitions to not invade - without much success. I also spent 9 years in the Royal Australian Air Force as an officer, and as such I have had to study the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of Armed Combat - officers need to know what is a legal order and what is not a legal order to give. The thing is, if you are talking about combatants that aren't in uniform, the Geneva Conventions no longer apply - a uniform is the sine qua non of the treaty. The idea is that combatants put on uniforms - yes, this makes them easier to identify, but the uniform makes it easy to discriminate combatants from non-combatants, thereby protecting non-combatants. When combatants choose to not wear a uniform, they are every bit as responsible for civilian casualties, as those that mistakenly fire upon civilians. This engagement is a classic example - are the people in the van combatants aiding combatants? or are they good samaritan civilians aiding other innocent civilians? Or are they civilians aiding combatants, or of course, I guess it's possible that they were combatants aiding civilians. The point is that we don't know - even with hindsight we are unable to identify exactly who was who. Soldiers that think they have an RPG that might by lining them up certainly aren't going to be willing to give the people in question the benefit of the doubt. That is the fog of war. You can complain about the US being in Iraq, but honestly, looking at the video, I don't find anything much that is shocking about the actions of the soldiers - they are perhaps a touch insouciant about the bloody mayhem that they unleash, but I suspect that a lot of that comes from the relief they are feeling at having neutralised what they perceived as a deadly threat. No, I really am not seeing a lot that was wrong in that video. What was wrong was the fact that the US was there in the first place...
metamemetics 17y ago
Everyone picking up the bodies and from the van was clearly UNARMED. Unarmed non-combatants were picking up the body of an unarmed non-combatant who never held a weapon.
- otto 17y ago
  But, the vehicle was already transporting suspects. That's like using a medical vehicle to transport combatants and then come back and pick up the wounded from the same vehicle.
  - metamemetics 17y ago
    The vehicle was not transporting suspects! According to the Huffington Post it was a good semeritan taking his children to tutoring classes. There is no indication it was the same black vehicle at the start of the video. No one on the ground or air claimed it was. Furthermore, even if it was, no one claimed the black vehicle at the start was a target or contained suspects! The air merely stated it passed under their targetting crosshair. The suspect as reported by the ground was ONE MAN, who had appeared in front of their Bradley.
  - KirinDave 17y ago
    You need to watch the video again. This time, turn off the sound and ignore the captions. A man covered in blood is crawling along the side of the road as you drive by. You say, "My god! This man is injured! We need to help him!" You and your friend jump out to help an injured man, not really sure what's going on, and tell your children to wait in the car. Suddenly you're dead, because a helicopter flying high overhead killed you instantly because you were moving an injured man. That isn't a hypothetical, that's what happend. And if you ignore the chatter of a few pilots eager to score more kills, it's very clear that these people had no connection to any activity on the scene. The Van is nowhere in sight until the very end of the engagement. What's more, it's clear the pilot is eager to kill. He reports it in the most biased of terms: mentioning they were "possibly recovering weapons" despite seeing NO such action. How do we know he knew such a thing, you might ask? Because just moments before he was literally begging them to pick up a gun so he could kill them, and in the end he got a fire order anyways because of a biased report. The actions of the pilots in that video were reprehensible and it is unfortunate that they will most likely be shielded from prosecution. On that day they ceased to be revered servicemen for the united states and became a representation of every flaw in our military system that Americans revile. They teetered on the edge of becoming war criminals. At the very least they should be dishonorably discharged.
dailo10 17y ago
The reality is that there were kids in the van and they were trying to help a wounded journalist.
- cellis 17y ago
  The reality be damned. Hindsight is 20/20. Imagine you're there, in the arena, adrenaline practically oozing out of your pores. You're 500 feet above the one of the most dangerous cities in the world [1], a warzone that's claimed the lives of thousands of young men, just like you, and you've just taken out the armed enemy. That was the enemy. And that guy laying there still is the enemy. And so is anyone helping him. And now a van has pulled up, unidentified. You don't know who or what is in that van and whether it is armed or not. You know the reality,the statistics, and they're not in your favor. So you do as anyone in that situation would do, with limited information and a hell of a lot of empirical data. You neutralize the threat. You destroy them and live to see another day. [1] 2007 was the bloodiest year to date in Iraq - http://icasualties.org/ http://icasualties.org/
  - Alex3917 17y ago
    They weren't there though. According to the analysis on other sites, the helicopter was about a mile away. (Based on the time between when the rounds were fired and when they hit.)
  - plinkplonk 17y ago
    "So you do as anyone in that situation would do, with limited information and a hell of a lot of empirical data. You neutralize the threat. You destroy them and live to see another day." What exactly was the "threat" here? The helicopter was a mile away and in no danger of not "live to see another day" ? (err why the downvotes? That was a straightforward question. The parent seemed to imply that the shooters were doing it in order to "live to see another day". Was anyone threatening the helicopter in any credible fashion?)
    - jcnnghm 17y ago
      The troops that were 100m down the road.
kingkawn 17y ago
Once you've murdered journalists in the field, the rules of engagement stop being as important in the war for public opinion. Modern war is as much about information as territory. You simply can't do this, regardless of if you can explain it away til next Tuesday.

Qz 17y ago

Yeah, it's pretty clear to me that they didn't just decide to shoot people without cause.

indrax 17y ago
Hmm, can you tell me where in the video that it's pretty clear anyone from the van was picking up weapons? I can understand some fog-of-war "I thought the camera was a gun." excuses, but just because they say on the radio that they were "possibly" picking up weapon doesn't mean that they actually saw them do any such thing. I've watched it twice and it looks to me exactly like they shot up a van that was trying to help a wounded man.

hga 17y ago

Wouldn't a person helping a combatant get to cover be by definition a combatant (although perhaps just for the duration of the action)? Also, if we're talking about the Conventions, were these illegal combatants? (I haven't watched the video.)

lionhearted 17y ago
> Wouldn't a person helping a combatant get to cover be by definition a combatant (although perhaps just for the duration of the action)? I think the key part is armed combatants in combat - you can't just open fire on any civilians who are helping an unarmed combatant after he's removed from combat. I'm not an expert though - I spent a bit of time reading on Geneva about a year ago, and just refreshed my memory today. > Also, if we're talking about the Conventions, were these illegal combatants? (I haven't watched the video.) There's still some limited protections granted to people fighting in "non-international conflicts" under Protocol II, a 1977 Amendment to the Geneva Convention. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_II They do have much less protections than soldiers fighting between two sovereign nations.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  Neither the US nor Iraq have ratified Protocol II.
- demallien 17y ago
  I'm going to preface this comment by a brief statement on my background, because, as you will see, it's quite relevant to the discussion. I personally campaigned against the US + allies invasion of Iraq. I even stood for election in Australia with that as part of my platform. I door-knocked with petitions to not invade - without much success. I also spent 9 years in the Royal Australian Air Force as an officer, and as such I have had to study the Geneva Conventions and the Laws of Armed Combat - officers need to know what is a legal order and what is not a legal order to give. The thing is, if you are talking about combatants that aren't in uniform, the Geneva Conventions no longer apply - a uniform is the sine qua non of the treaty. The idea is that combatants put on uniforms - yes, this makes them easier to identify, but the uniform makes it easy to discriminate combatants from non-combatants, thereby protecting non-combatants. When combatants choose to not wear a uniform, they are every bit as responsible for civilian casualties, as those that mistakenly fire upon civilians. This engagement is a classic example - are the people in the van combatants aiding combatants? or are they good samaritan civilians aiding other innocent civilians? Or are they civilians aiding combatants, or of course, I guess it's possible that they were combatants aiding civilians. The point is that we don't know - even with hindsight we are unable to identify exactly who was who. Soldiers that think they have an RPG that might by lining them up certainly aren't going to be willing to give the people in question the benefit of the doubt. That is the fog of war. You can complain about the US being in Iraq, but honestly, looking at the video, I don't find anything much that is shocking about the actions of the soldiers - they are perhaps a touch insouciant about the bloody mayhem that they unleash, but I suspect that a lot of that comes from the relief they are feeling at having neutralised what they perceived as a deadly threat. No, I really am not seeing a lot that was wrong in that video. What was wrong was the fact that the US was there in the first place...

metamemetics 17y ago

Everyone picking up the bodies and from the van was clearly UNARMED. Unarmed non-combatants were picking up the body of an unarmed non-combatant who never held a weapon.

otto 17y ago
But, the vehicle was already transporting suspects. That's like using a medical vehicle to transport combatants and then come back and pick up the wounded from the same vehicle.
- metamemetics 17y ago
  The vehicle was not transporting suspects! According to the Huffington Post it was a good semeritan taking his children to tutoring classes. There is no indication it was the same black vehicle at the start of the video. No one on the ground or air claimed it was. Furthermore, even if it was, no one claimed the black vehicle at the start was a target or contained suspects! The air merely stated it passed under their targetting crosshair. The suspect as reported by the ground was ONE MAN, who had appeared in front of their Bradley.
- KirinDave 17y ago
  You need to watch the video again. This time, turn off the sound and ignore the captions. A man covered in blood is crawling along the side of the road as you drive by. You say, "My god! This man is injured! We need to help him!" You and your friend jump out to help an injured man, not really sure what's going on, and tell your children to wait in the car. Suddenly you're dead, because a helicopter flying high overhead killed you instantly because you were moving an injured man. That isn't a hypothetical, that's what happend. And if you ignore the chatter of a few pilots eager to score more kills, it's very clear that these people had no connection to any activity on the scene. The Van is nowhere in sight until the very end of the engagement. What's more, it's clear the pilot is eager to kill. He reports it in the most biased of terms: mentioning they were "possibly recovering weapons" despite seeing NO such action. How do we know he knew such a thing, you might ask? Because just moments before he was literally begging them to pick up a gun so he could kill them, and in the end he got a fire order anyways because of a biased report. The actions of the pilots in that video were reprehensible and it is unfortunate that they will most likely be shielded from prosecution. On that day they ceased to be revered servicemen for the united states and became a representation of every flaw in our military system that Americans revile. They teetered on the edge of becoming war criminals. At the very least they should be dishonorably discharged.

dailo10 17y ago

The reality is that there were kids in the van and they were trying to help a wounded journalist.

cellis 17y ago
The reality be damned. Hindsight is 20/20. Imagine you're there, in the arena, adrenaline practically oozing out of your pores. You're 500 feet above the one of the most dangerous cities in the world [1], a warzone that's claimed the lives of thousands of young men, just like you, and you've just taken out the armed enemy. That was the enemy. And that guy laying there still is the enemy. And so is anyone helping him. And now a van has pulled up, unidentified. You don't know who or what is in that van and whether it is armed or not. You know the reality,the statistics, and they're not in your favor. So you do as anyone in that situation would do, with limited information and a hell of a lot of empirical data. You neutralize the threat. You destroy them and live to see another day. [1] 2007 was the bloodiest year to date in Iraq - http://icasualties.org/ http://icasualties.org/
- Alex3917 17y ago
  They weren't there though. According to the analysis on other sites, the helicopter was about a mile away. (Based on the time between when the rounds were fired and when they hit.)
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "So you do as anyone in that situation would do, with limited information and a hell of a lot of empirical data. You neutralize the threat. You destroy them and live to see another day." What exactly was the "threat" here? The helicopter was a mile away and in no danger of not "live to see another day" ? (err why the downvotes? That was a straightforward question. The parent seemed to imply that the shooters were doing it in order to "live to see another day". Was anyone threatening the helicopter in any credible fashion?)
  - jcnnghm 17y ago
    The troops that were 100m down the road.

kingkawn 17y ago

Once you've murdered journalists in the field, the rules of engagement stop being as important in the war for public opinion. Modern war is as much about information as territory. You simply can't do this, regardless of if you can explain it away til next Tuesday.