[IRAQ] US Forces with an example of "Collateral Damage"

That depends. Does that population have reason to think that these "bank robbers" are risking their lives for them? Is the population sympathetic to their cause? Does the population identify more with the "robbers" in this case than with the "police"?

If the answer is yes to those questions, then no I don't necessarily assume that they are "working with" the bank robber. Maybe they are just concerned for his safety as fellow countrymen.

 

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That has nothing to do with killing people who do not appear to pose a threat.

 

Aiding insurgents???

 

Do you believe it's ok to kill two people that are unarmed and are carrying a wounded "man" without sending troops on foot to investigate it and get a clear view on who the men are?

 

It was a telephoto camera lens.

 

That's the only thing that I got from the videos.

 

Apparently they have another video they plan to release of 97 people being bombed last May.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/36182090#36182090

 

If you don't identify yourself as an aid worker, sure. If you are providing aid to an enemy force and you're clearly identifying yourself as a neutral force, then don't be surprised by us. A person who isn't identifying himself as netural and is helping an insurgent is likely to be one himself, and the Army isn't going to second-guess and let more of the enemy get away so they can shoot more of our men.

I think there were cameras, but there was CLEARLY RPGs lying around there. Even the New York Times reported on how when the soldiers arrived, they found RPGs, and you can see them in the video, as shown here:

 

so you believe that all unarmed child or adult citizens of an occupied nation without red cross identification who renders help to injured or dying insurgents are automatically considered as enemy combatants which should be killed on sight, correct?

 

Thanks for sharing, includes some good analysis by people who know what they are talking about.

 

Adults? Sure. It's not like we knowingly shot kids in that video, and if you charge ON A BATTLEFIELD TO HELP THE ENEMY, yeah, we're going to think you're the enemy.

 

A more accurate scenario would be if the police shot innocent bystanders and photojournalists because they were near the bank robber as he tried to make his escape down the street.

 

No. The scenario requires the bystanders to try and assist the bank robbers to be equivalent. If the people in the van hadn't made contact with the "insurgents" then they would have been off limits. If they'd milled around across the street watching but not involving themselves, they would have not been targets.

Just for a moment assume that the first group had been insurgents. The second group could be removing fighters to heal them up and stage more attacks at a later date, they could have been securing intelligence that would help the Army fight the insurgents, and they could have been re-securing matériel and supplies that would enable more attacks. Any one of these would be things that would result in more American soldiers dead. That is why they are legitimate targets.

I've seen several retired military officers today who've agreed that even if you are unarmed, if you give aid to people who are and you don't have the red cross/crescent, you are according to the legal and agreed upon rules of war a combatant. One of them described it as, "Cruel and heartless, but legal" followed by several platitudes about the nastiness of war, and said that excepting for the identification, they did everything exactly the way they are supposed to and that even then the misidentification wasn't grossly negligent.

Maybe you people should spend a little more time trying to understand what goes on in war when there aren't videos for you to spend ten minutes shaking your heads at and promptly doing nothing about. What you see is war. It is exactly what has been happening in Iraq and Afghanistan for more or less the last decade on a daily basis. The only thing abnormal about this video is the misidentification by the helicopter pilots, and the fact that Reuters has a dog in the race which made them pursue the video. Otherwise, this is what happens every day. America, meet war. Apparently, it isn't what you thought it was.

 

Well most Americans doesn't think the military performs psyops on us. Much like the meat industry tries to hide what happens in a slaughterhouse, the military has been focused on controlling information and public perception since Vietnam.

 

I have to agree with Ottomaton here. It's definitely a terrible tragedy what happened, and the soldiers do come across as heartless and cruel...but really, what do people expect?

In a combat zone people fire away. Once these soldiers mistakenly concluded they were insurgents, everything is set in motion.

Clearly these guys didn't think an American military helicopter was a threat since they were journalists...and clearly the Americans didn't have a good view.

But in war, there's no requirement to investigate before shooting. Soldiers aren't police. That's the evil of war. There is no avoiding it. There will never be a fair war. Never will there be a war where innocent people don't get killed unless the combatants are fighting on the moon.

The advent of guerrilla warfare really put innocent lives at risk more than ever. But I fail to understand...how is what happened here any more tragic than the bombing of Dresden, Japan, or even Yugoslavia. The same thing happened in all of those places, to a much worse degree.

Yet people feel that was more justified because??? It was a "moral" war? There's no such thing. I'm not saying war is always bad...nor that what happened is acceptable. But the reality is that it's unavoidable.

I don't think the soldiers or command violated any rule of engagement or are guilty of any crime here. They did as they were trained to do. They made a mistake. But sometimes they make mistakes that result in friendly fire - this stuff happens.

This is going to really wreak the U.S. image abroad..and that's too bad. Because of all the things that should wreak our image, it's not this.

 

But they weren't helping an insurgent, they were helping a cameraman.

 

Again, it doesn't matter, because the soldiers thought the were insurgents, and the US Army review has been determined that that belief was not unreasonable. One is only able to operate on the basis of the best information that is available to them. Making you think insurgents are cameramen and vice versa is exactly why insurgents don't wear uniforms.

If they waited as long as some of you seem to want, American Army casualties would be untenable. I guess that is what some people prefer, but from the Army's standpoint, they are bound to try to operate in a fashion that will enable them to continue fighting and trying to achieve the goals they've been given.

 

What would happen if the so called "insurgents" surrender by putting their arms up or waving a white flag, would that stop the shooting??