I'm not sure why the photographer didn't hold up the camera so it could be seen more clearly. Wave perhaps. It's also fairly clear the Apache crew wasn't covering anything up and wasn't aware of the tragedy.Why would he even think to do that? There are probably helicopters flying around all the time.
Time lag between first shots fired from the helicopter and visual evidence of impact in the gun camera: 2-3 seconds.They were shooting at them from 1 to 1.3 miles away.
Muzzle velocity of M230 chain gun (which is the most likely the armament used on that helicopter): 805 m/s
Estimated average speed of 30mm round: 750 m/s
Distance from the helicopter to the crowd of civilians: 1 - 1.3 miles.
The soldiers in the Apache genuinely thought the guys on the ground had weapons so they fired.
When they didn't see a weapon (on the wounded guy still alive) they didn't fire.
"To the list of the enemies threatening the security of the United States, the Pentagon has added WikiLeaks.org, a tiny online source of information and documents that governments and corporations around the world would prefer to keep secret."posted by ericb at 3:48 PM on April 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
"The behavior of the pilots is like they're playing a video game," said Assange. "It's like they want to get high-scores in that computer game."He said it was like playing a video game, but he didn't blame video games, and say that it was because of video games that these guys did this. I actually don't think the statement is that problematic. It was like a video game. But you can't blame games for causing the war.
There's your video game derail. Just have to muddy the waters a bit, eh. Then no one's talking about what they should be talking about. Your anger is a weapon only for your opponent.
For those unaware of my background, I have spent quite a lot of time (a conservative estimate would be around 4500 hours) viewing aerial footage of Iraq. I am certain my voice can be heard on several transmissions with several different Crazyhorse aircraft, as I have called them to assist troops on the ground more times in my 24-months in Iraq than I could even attempt to guess. I need no reassurances to determine the presence of an RPG7 or an AK-variant rifle, especially not from a craft flying as low as Apache (even after the video has been reduced in dimensions to a point at which it is nearly useless).There's more, obviously, but it's kind of long to quote. Worth a read.
The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.I guess the people upset about the van are choked with this:
the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".In that they tend to be arguing that "lighting up" the van was illegal. I dunno.
LTC: Did you see anything in the van?There is tons on the debriefing. They went over the ROE with their superiors a few days after the attack, having watched the video. They determined that it was within bounds and that the video should be used for training purposes.
CW3: I couldn't see inside the van, but they ran around right after I had seen them extract weapons and individuals.
LTC: As you saw on the tape, they didn't have any weapons. So, what drove you then? What threat made you want to engage the van?
CW3: Well the friendlies were 300 meters away and from the initial report that a black car, sedan haad been coming in and dropping off insurgents, taking them out, moving them to different locations. That was my whole thought process.
There was neither reason nor probability to assume that neutral media personnel were embedded with enemy forces. It is worth noting the fact that insurgent groups often video and photograph friendly activity and insurgent attacks against friendly forces for use in training videos and for use as propaganda to exploit or highlight their capabilities. The aircrews erroneously identified the cameras as weapons due to presentation (slung over shoulder with the body of the object resting at the back, rear of the torso) and association (personnel colocated with others having RPGs and AK-47s.6--2nd Brigade Combat Team 15-6 Investigation: Full investigation into killing of reporters. Included everything that the military knew, and how they came to know it. Lots of photos. Summaries from both pilots and ground soldiers. Over 40 pages of juicy details that WikiLeaks thinks is "junk."
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posted by cashman at 8:12 AM on April 5, 2010