The Wikileaks collection

[Seabee]

Ignoring all facts, photos and runups....

IMHO the excited tone of the gunner says it all... he had tasted blood and would have fired on the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders if they had been there...

I observed this in soldiers (myself included) when they had attacks of frustration and fury when someone else "got one" and they did not... insane jeasousy of those who did not, "I'mtheman-I'mthe man-I'mtheman" playing in the back of the head of the guy who did....

This guy probably high fived himself menatally.

I suspect when he is older, married and has kids of his own he will see the light, especially as far as the kids are concerned....

[Fuchs]

Discipline is supposed to keep such phenomena sufficiently in check.

[Polarbear1605]

I am a little surprised by the general comments on this one. I think most of you should go back and read the Rules of War (FM27-10) and then the ROEs. (You might also want to get jmm99 involved in this one.) If I am a civilian and pickup a weapon on the battle field I become a combatant and btw, if I drop the weapon, I do not become a non-combatant again. This group of Iraqi "civilians" engaged our troops with AK-47s and RPGs. They were then treated like insurgents. They were tracked down and they were killed. If they are not tracked down and killed, they will reture to kill you (or Iraqi civilians, usually the ones on our side) later. The war crime was not US soldiers killing civilians but the war crime was insurgents using civilians as shields.

[Fuchs]

The war crime was not US soldiers killing civilians but the war crime was insurgents using civilians as shields.

Maybe you should go read the GC IV and the additional protocol I.


You better not argue that the GC is applicable, for article 51 and 57 of the additional protocol I pretty much declare the Apache gunners to be war criminals while articles 28, 34 and 35 of GC IV and article 51 GC IV additional protocol I could teach you what illegal human shields are in reality (and there were none in the video).

The popular understanding of "human shields" is badly blurred because the topic has been used too often for (often wrong) accusations in IO/propaganda since Desert Storm.


So better leave out the international law; it damns only the uniformed side of that video.

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5

http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/FULL/470?OpenDocument

Finally the GC III text for completeness' sake (only relevant to POW "human shields")
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/7c4d08d9...25641e004a9e68

(I happened to have a closer look at the topic last year, that's why I have these links and articles that readily.)

[Polarbear1605]

I love the military mind, it automatically fires before it is aimed by turning doctrine into dogma.
Hey Fuchs, FM 27-10 is a US Army Field Manual that applies to all US Militray personnel and I agree you need to stay away from the GC because it is basically setup for state-on-state affairs and therefore rewards treachery. Like it or not combat is always governed by rules of war and they are clear on insurgents and combatants. If you want to debate GC and treachery go back and read the Lieber Code...no reward for treachery there..and you might want to read up on "strategic legalism".

[Fuchs]

Who cares about a field manual? It's been approved by soldiers (at most "by order of the secretary of the army"), not by a parliament.
The GC ranks much higher than any FM. It's been signed by the POTUS and ratified by congress. It has the force of a law.

FM 27-10 is pretty much an interpretation guidance booklet, not the rule book itself.


We can stay away from the (usually highly unpleasant, for various reasons) GC in this discussion.
It's not legal to ignore it in a war zone, though.



By the way; the GC III is relevant to the Iraq War 2003-201x:

Art 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following
provisions:
(1) Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria. To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(...)

(Iraq ratified.)

[Ken White]

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.

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.

Fuchs also said:

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:

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.

[jmm99]

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).

[Uboat509]

Many people have been sent to jail based on nothing but a video.

And I would be willing to bet that it was much more clear that a crime had been committed. There is a world of difference between a video that shows a civilian walking up and shooting someone and a video that shows part of the actions taken by the crew of a military aircraft during a fire fight.

Again; do you accept that you should shut up about Wall St affairs because you never traded derivatives and voicing your opinion would thus be of "bad taste"?

Since dirivatives are rarely life and death matters, I'm not sure that bad taste is the appropriate term but if you don't know anything about derivatives keeping your mouth closed around experts might save you some embarrassment.

Is that your understanding of the value of opinions in a democracy?

Ah, so now I am anti-democracy because I don't believe that you should attempt to speak authoritively about a subject that you have little to no direct knowledge or experience with. I get it. My mistake.

It may be very, very unpleasant to you, but the 39 minute video leaves very little (if any) room for good excuses. You don't need to reach 100% information if the first 30% are already very damning.

And it may be very unpleasant to you but why don't you try reading the results of the 15-6 investigation.

Again; judge and jury at court are not expected to have in-depth knowledge of the job of the defendant, or his history or how things usually turn out. No society on earth has ever had required such a high standard before it values opinion.

Any attempt to set the bar that high and to reject less well-informed opinions is futile. It's an insiders vs. the rest-of-the-world effort and destined to fail. Eventually, the insider's reservations are irrelevant if the insiders are a marginal minority - the Western world chose to prefer majorities over insiders long ago.

I never once said that a judge or jury should be required to have "in-depth knowledge of the job of the defendant, or his history or how things usually turn out." What I said was they should be making their judgements while in full possession of the pertinent facts. That is why we have trials, so that both sides are afforded the chance to present the pertinent facts to the jury. If it is pertinent to the case, you can be sure that witnesses with knowledge of the job or history etc. will be called at trial, so that the jury has that information in order to render judgement.

My comment about those who have and have not served in combat was not aimed at the legal system. It was aimed at the arm chair commandos who, despite having never personally experienced combat, are fully prepared to provide their expert opinion and criticize the actions of those who are or were in combat.

[glaterza]

I am a little surprised by the general comments on this one. I think most of you should go back and read the Rules of War (FM27-10) and then the ROEs. (You might also want to get jmm99 involved in this one.) If I am a civilian and pickup a weapon on the battle field I become a combatant and btw, if I drop the weapon, I do not become a non-combatant again. This group of Iraqi "civilians" engaged our troops with AK-47s and RPGs. They were then treated like insurgents. They were tracked down and they were killed. If they are not tracked down and killed, they will reture to kill you (or Iraqi civilians, usually the ones on our side) later. The war crime was not US soldiers killing civilians but the war crime was insurgents using civilians as shields.

Imagine this is in Afghanistan today and go tell McChrystal...

[walrus]

First let me commend Small Wars Journal for having the guts to post a thread about this.

Glen Greenwald at Salon.com has made the obvious deduction; this is how America makes war; all the time. Each time an incident of this nature makes it into the media, we are first asked to believe that what happened was unfortunate but completely justified and when that excuse is shredded, we are told that the event was an "isolated incident".

It is quite obvious that these incidents are not "isolated"; there have been too many of them for that. They are a direct result of policy, training and culture. The suppression of the video by the military, the refusal of the Obama Administration to release photographs of torture victims, the deliberate targeting of journalists, the "whitewash" investigations and trials that always seem to lead to acquittal, all point to the same thing; this is standard operating procedure.

I know at some stage someone will explain the rigorous rules of engagement and controls in place that are supposed to prevent these incidents, however it is quite obvious that they are honoured in the breach. The military don't give a damn about brown people getting killed, they just don't want it to get into the media, and if it does, they want a defence to limit career damage. There is no technical (in the widest sense) solution to this problem. To put it another way, the military would not have suppressed this video if it did not show a shameful act.

The heart of the American problem is the basic hypocrisy at it's core; when challenged over an incident like this, the ultimate fall back position is; "Well, these are little brown people, and we don't live here, so we do what we have to do." This is the same attitude that gave all of us the banking crisis and numerous other disasters; "Yeah, I know we said we were trustworthy, but we gotta make a buck". "Yeah, I know we have a Constitution, but waterboarding works".

Let me ask the obvious question. What is the point of "Hearts and Minds" campaigning at all when you also do this? How much goodwill has just been lost? How many recruits to jihad has this and similar incidents created?

To borrow a quote; ""Aiding the enemy? If the truth aids the enemy then we are in the wrong war."



http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/