As a rule, I never trust voluntarily published internal investigation/evaluation reports and no internal reports in general that have a pleasant or neutral conclusion.Originally Posted by Uboat509
I've been on the writing side of such reports and have zero respect for such reports. I eventually got removed from such a project because I couldn't stand what I saw without raising my voice and superiors weren't able to stand what I uncovered and wrote.
The final reports had no meaningful familiarity with reality and I generalize this because I saw certain mechanics at work that seem to be quite universal. Internal reports are as unreliable as is the yellow press.
So no, I won't waste my time on a non-independent report.
By the way; taking a photo of a military truck is no capital crime. Do you want to tell all journalists that holding a camera in a war zone turns them into fair game? Do you want to tell millions of Iraqis (whom you're supposed to give security) that holding large dark objects turns them into fair game if somewhere has shot or photographed a soldier in a radius of one mile?
There was still a reason NOT to fire; the simple fact that there was no justification for firing.
And don't get me started on the later parts of the video, such as the obvious war crime of shooting at the de facto medevac by civilians.
I understand that this kind of crap is bound to happen when many thousands of soldiers patrol a foreign country for years. It certainly happened quite often, probably weekly or monthly on average.
The problem is that this is no excuse for those who did it. To excuse their behaviour would create excuses that would be applicable to cases where you don't want to excuse the behaviour.
The border between wrong or not wrong is drawn, and it says that you must not kill civilians if it's avoidable. In case of uncertainty - don't fire.
I know, uncertainty is part of life, but the last years should have taught the lesson that you aren't really successful the way that the job was done. That should be food for thought.
This isn't an isolated incident. There were many actions from foreigners (troops and PMCs) that added up and gave many Iraqis the impression that those forces aren't exactly forces of good. That was certainly not helpful for the overall mission - adding to the problem was thus unprofessional and in violation of the theatre commander's intent.
What would you think of a police department in your city that regularly kills civilians because policemen felt threatened by a firefight at the next block? I'm sure you'd stop to buy their slogan of "To protect and serve" pretty quickly and be outraged, demand a criminal prosecution of the homicides. You wouldn't be impressed by any "you've never been a policeman in a firefight, don't know how it is" responses, right?
The Iraq occupation wasn't enough of a war to justify a wartime attitude that tolerates the shown behaviour. The attrition rate was a joke in comparison to real wars. The U.S. had more KIA on certain single days of both WWI and WWI than during whole years of the Iraq occupation.
The ratio of civilians to insurgents was hundreds to one. The assumption in case of doubt should have been "suspect", not "insurgent who needs to die".
You can call me a German without combat experience.
I can call myself a man who has grown up with the acceptance of the idea that his nation's military force is not necessarily a force of good and not all military actions are justifiable, not all orders must be followed and military attacks on civilians are simply murder.
Maybe some people are missing some cultural background facets more badly than I'm missing combat experience.
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