Maybe you'd be outraged if one of the bullets hit you.

Maybe you'd be outraged if one of the bullets hit you.

People don't like to hear excuses and empty rhetoric especially when ill-considered to the point of being farcical. A person sees someone on the sidewalk hurt and when they try to take them to a hospital they are shot and their children are shot and according to mellestad that sucks. We probably have to revisit the Geneva Conventions in light of that brilliant observation. Don't shoot civilians who come to the aid of the injured cause it sucks.

I'd be outraged if the pilots weren't responding to ground troops calls of being unders sporadic fire from the direction of a group carrying weapons.

I've seen other videos of people attacking and that is what it often looks like.  A group of people, not all armed, milling around then a guy moved around a corner and pops a clip off or launches an rpg.  They clearly saw a group of people, some of which where armed.  One had what looked like an RPG, and one leaned around a corner with what looked like a weapon.

In hindsight?  Sure, it might have been a mistake.  In hindsight at least some of the 'weapons' were actually camera gear.  But with the information they had at the time I can't be outraged.  Hell, the full video even has the men on the ground saying they found an unspent RPG round under a body and they were calling for a possible bomb squad removal so the guy people are saying had a big tripod might have actually been an RPG anyway.  Shooting the van sucked though.

Stuff like this is why war sucks and should be avoided, but I don't see any war crimes.

That makes me curious though, I've talked to some military guys who said it (the van shooting) was not outside the ROE for that situation.  I don't know enough to comment either way personally and research has not been enlightening, all I see are opinions rather than actual quoted regulations.

I'll ask around and see if anyone can give me real info.

mellestad wrote:

 

 

That makes me curious though, I've talked to some military guys who said it (the van shooting) was not outside the ROE for that situation.  I don't know enough to comment either way personally and research has not been enlightening, all I see are opinions rather than actual quoted regulations.

 

I'll ask around and see if anyone can give me real info.

  Even though I am not a pacifist and support military operations as a last resort I can't stand to view the deaths of non-combatants, be they targeted deliberately or otherwise.  In fact I remember a news reel from some Israeli occupied territory that was broadcast a few years back.  A Palestinian father was squatting against a brick wall with his teenage son cowering behind him.  He was freaking out and holding both hands up in the air trying to signal that he had no weapons, pleading for their lives, etc....   A few seconds later they were shot to death with a burst of IDF machine gun fire.  Makes me want to puke.

     

  As for the ROE the modern-day Iraqis should be grateful that this isn't the 1940's.  The Allied powers ( at the urging of the British air force ) eventually overcame any reluctance concerning carpet bombing civilian targets and eventually gave a meaning to "Death From Above" the has never been duplicated in present military operations.  "Collateral Damage" would have been a joke to these WW 2 strategists.  Can you say Hamburg or Dresden ?

  Still I disagree with killing non-combatants if at all possible.

To claim that one cannot distinguish friend from foe therefore they will kill indiscriminately isn't a defense that will garner sympathy from most . If anything it makes the person look insane to ignore the fact that they should not be there or be shooting other people in the first place.

An affirmative defense is a claim of limited culpability based on some justification or excuse. Your blithe comments don't qualify. You made it clear that you don't sympathize with others or care what happens to them. I suppose that's nice for you but it isn't really something for me to address or engage you in discussion about.

Perhaps there's something in your posts I failed to see but I'm pretty sure I got the point. It sucks but it's probably not against the rules and it happens all the time so who cares. If that's your mentality then by all means continue in that way. In my opinion it's a form of degeneracy but there's nothing stopping you, certainly not me.

Your argument is a strawman of my opinion, assumptions about what I feel and what I should feel so you can feel nice and superior while calling me a monster who doesn't care when kids get killed.  I'll remember how much I don't care about kids dying when I kiss my daughter goodnight this evening.  This has been the most unconstructive and reactionary set of posts I've seen from you on this board, and I'm done with you in this thread.  I'll even let you have the last word so you can say some more horrible things about me without a defense.  Have fun with that. 

They are also saying that the military inquiry into the issue years ago found that the ROE had not been violated, and in their opinion, "They don't mess around with ROE, if you break it they will hang you out to dry without a thought."  I'm asking if anyone can confirm the weapons pickup or give a timestamp.  If not I'll watch the video again and check if it clears it up either way.

"I remember one woman walking by," said Jason Washburn, a corporal in the US Marines who served three tours in Iraq. He told the audience at the Winter Soldier hearings that took place March 13-16, 2008, in Silver Spring, Maryland, "She was carrying a huge bag, and she looked like she was heading toward us, so we lit her up with the Mark 19, which is an automatic grenade launcher, and when the dust settled, we realized that the bag was full of groceries. She had been trying to bring us food and we blew her to pieces."