Sheesh. Walrus, Fuchs, your bias is showing
Which is okay, you're both certainly entitled to it but aside from US bashing, you gloss over the fact that war is evil. all war, it begets evil and anyone who thinks you can do it nicely is a bit remiss.
You both also gloss over the excesses and illegalities of the "little brown people" (Walruses words, not mine) to concentrate on whipping the party to the war that, imperfectly and human foible prone for sure, at least tries to do the 'right' thing most of the time as opposed to the opponents blatant disregard for the western norms you both seem to hold dear.
Your opinions are fine as is expressing them and fairness is admittedly a schoolboy concept but I suggest if you wish to speak of hypocrisy, you might give the above a bit of thought.
The Apache crews, as Seabee pointed out, got overexuberant. It happens. The US is not perfect, we make a lot of misteaks (see?) and we do dumb stuff. People do get overexuberant and Nations -- all of them -- foul up on occasion. Get over it, it's a war, it isn't nice and isn't going to be. :cool:
Nor should it be. As the guys fighting it on all sides know. Others are offering their opinion and without ever having been in a position of having to determine whether to fire or not, whether to celebrate or cry looking at their first kill and indeed, certainly not being involved directly in an incident under discussion. So I'm not inclined to grant much credence to that noise. I can hear the opinion, accept it, record it as such and move on -- but I wouldn't expend much effort trying to correct a or the 'problem' based on such opinions. :rolleyes:
Fuchs also said:
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Discipline is supposed to keep such phenomena sufficiently in check.
A true statement -- if there was in fact 'wrongdoing' in this particular phenomenon -- but applied to all phenomena the key words are "supposed to" as is often the case. What is 'supposed to be' and is often differ -- particularly when humans are involved. Can either of you offer the statement that other nations have never transgressed in the area of 'war crimes' (silly phrase, war itself is a crime...) and thus the 'hypocrisy' cited is solely an American attribute?
Polarbear1605 got it right:
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If they are not tracked down and killed, they will reture to kill you (or Iraqi civilians, usually the ones on our side) later.
That's reality. Harsh but reality. Most else is academic -- in the pejorative sense of the word.
Yes, please do go to this ....
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from Fuchs
Maybe you should go read the GC IV and the additional protocol I.
and you will find that neither API nor APII have been ratified by the US or by Iraq. You and others can insist all you want that the Euro-centric construct of "international humanitarian law" be imposed on the US; but to date that has not happened.
GC III and IV have been ratified by both the US and Iraq and apply to situtations covered by them. Not all situations fall into those covered catagories (e.g., armed conflicts not of an international character are not covered by all GCIII and GCIV provisions).
I am persuaded to agree with ...
Ken White. To be sure some of this looks like over-exuberance, but I am also assuming that this didn't come out of the blue. As Cavguy said, there was likely TIC earlier leading to this exchange. It's easy to yank things out of context and lose the backdrop for events. So much easier when it has to do with something like this.
That said, it has long been a pet peeve of mine that the CJCS Standing ROE (which I have read) and the Iraq-specific ROE (which I have read) and the RUF (which I have read) do not countenance offensive operations, at least as regards GP forces not otherwise under mission specific ROE. This lead General McKearney to want to charge two Army snipers with murder when they killed a Taliban commander in Afghanistan who didn't happen to be brandishing a weapon at the time. Silly, but true.
Whether they were a specific threat at the time or not is irrelevant to me. The question redounds to this: were they insurgents? The answer is yes. I have no problem with the targeting of insurgents who are not a threat at the specific moment in time.
As for the two Reuters photo-journalists, they were embedded with the insurgents. I feel the same way about this as I did about Nir Rosen embedded with the Taliban.
As for the van and those in it who came to pick up the wounded, I would have to know more about the rules under which they were operating. The children shouldn't have been there. I am also persuaded that the standing or Iraq-specific ROE don't apply to CAS and combat aviation. If it did they couldn't do their job. Someone who knows more than I about the rules for CAS could weigh in.
More thoughts at my blog.
Ah, Pinniped, always good to hear from you...
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Originally Posted by
walrus
1. It is sufficient to note that the Military suppressed this video, which confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that this episode was regarded by serving officers as deeply shameful.
I do not know that it was suppressed (not publicly released is not suppression, it is simply non release). It may have been, may not have been. What I do know is that logically, even if it was suppression, that does not prove your 'deeply shameful' assertion.
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2. My understanding is that many Iraqis are armed. I did not notice any signs of furtive activity that might indicate an intention to shoot at troops with the exception of a photographer taking a photo around a corner. I did not notice any concern that they were in range of an Apache gunship either. I am prepared to take advice whether this is a realistic appreciation or not.
I cannot advise you on any of that as I was not there and as I'm reasonably sure there is more footage on that tape that we have not seen and which might add considerable context. What I can tell you is that it is unlikely the Iraqis were aware of the Apaches observation of them and that the magnification of the night sensors make those on the ground appear much closer than the probably between 500 and 1,000 meters the birds were away from the target area. Also, their track lock capability keeps the picture fairly steady while the aircraft may be constantly maneuvering in all axes.
I also suggest that even if many Iraqis are / were armed, being armed near a body of other armed folks, particularly a bunch of notoriously trigger happy Americans is likely to attract unwanted attention. As it did in this case.
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3. The attack on the vehicle was premeditated murder in my opinion. Soldiers in other wars have faced a court martial and been shot for less.
We can disagree on that. Without being there, we cannot know with certainty.
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4. The content and tone of the voice communication from pilot and gunner suggest a complete lack of any human values at all.
Well, of course it does, they're Aviators ;). Yes, I too am possessed of few human values. FWIW, I recall as much exuberance from an Oz (1/RAR) M-60 gunner outside a little village in Phouc Tuy Province in the summer of 1966. Guys in combat get exuberant at a 'win' because a loss is always rather, er, sobering. Macabre and gallows humor abounds.
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5. As for the "contempt for Western Norms" shown by Jihadists, agreed, however that does NOT excuse us for not upholding them ourselves. Neither does the "War is hell" meme. Two wrongs don't make a right.
Sorry, again we can disagree. In my view war is so terribly wrong that there is little sense in talking of right and wrong on individual acts because the potential for those to occur is so great. The overall tenor is the determinant and I'll stack Australia and the US up on the 'they really try to not do wrong' side of that equation (acknowledging that the US due to sheer size is going to have more aberrant acts). Everyone in a war will do some wrong. Everyone (Yes, even moi). It's endemic. The key is to hold it to a minimum, never easy but we and you and most of the west try most of the time. While I agree with you in principle, in practice it is far more difficult than many can envision.
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...to believe that there is an innate propensity for hypocrisy embedded somewhere in the America psyche. The "torture" debate illustrated it rather well.
Could be. No question we have a very different approach to many things. Also no question that many nations have reputations they probably don't deserve. For example, I know all Strynes are not Bogans. :D
The 'torture debate' showed me little other than how people on both sides can twist an issue for political reasons into an unrecognizable and ludicrous interchange that solves nothing. As did the torture debate solve nothing.
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I am aware of only one successful set of prosecutions for mistreatment of Iraqis - and that was after incontrovertible evidence of abuse, and the abusers, was captured on film at Al Ghraib, and even then it was passed off as "operator error" instead of official policy. Given that the attitudes of the Apache crew are common, and expressed every day on various websites, it is incontrovertible that similar unreported incidents occur and are always condoned.
Such incidents emphatically do always occur -- and they occur in all Armies at war. All. As to '"always condoned," having seen too many court martialed for offenses even you might call minor, I very much disagree with that. Just because those minor aberrations are not given wide publicity does not mean that nothing is done. There are more out there, I'm sure you could Google up a few -- here's one (LINK). Notice the number charged and the number of dismissals -- for lack of evidence, mostly. The US military justice system has a higher standard of proof than does US civilian law but even so there have been a bunch of charges brought and convictions gained.
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...suggests that we have a systematic truthiness problem here.
Again we disagree but I'm not about to waste time on search for punishments and / or the lack thereof. I will acknowledge that the US Army, like any bureaucracy, tries to protect itself and cover up things it should not (think Mohamed Haneef or Utegate ;) ). Unlike you, my experience and observation is that it always comes out eventually. Truthiness in my observation is human proclivity that is pretty much universal (see any Australian politician...).
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The conclusion must be that the ROE are not there to protect civilian lives, but merely to cover backsides in the dreaded event that the media might find out about bad behaviour.
I'm not sure I follow that logic. Again you reach a conclusion that does not logically follow the basic assertion. What I am sure of is that you have decided there is evil in the US and its Army and nothing I say is likely to change that -- and that is, as I said, your prerogative...
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The second conclusion is that suppressing this video was a mistake, as the incident has been magnified from an "unfortunate incident" into a deliberately suppressed war crime.
Well, I don't think it was suppressed but I do think that whether an "unfortunate incident" or a deliberately suppressed war crime, it will fade from public view as an issue in about two weeks, plus or minus 17%.
Except for the Anti American and / or Anti War crowds, they'll hang onto it long past its shelf date...:rolleyes: