On April 06 2010 20:24 meegrean wrote: i wouldn't consider this to be "murder" because these kinds of mistakes happen during war time. being a war journalist is risky business and there are just so many ways for you to die.
Its not just journalists. Most of the time its civilians who've had nothing to do with the war.
On April 06 2010 05:01 Jibba wrote: [quote]Yes, it makes perfect fucking sense when unmarked vans are often used to ram through barriers while carrying explosives.
I dont think there was any danger of that van smashing into the helicopter.
Also why would they put a wounded man in a van filled with explosives if they were going to blow it up in the near future?
On April 06 2010 05:04 mdb wrote:
On April 06 2010 05:01 Jibba wrote:
On April 06 2010 04:58 FortuneSyn wrote: [quote]
Oh ok, so next time you're helping a fellow citizen of yours wounded on the street almost dieing, make sure you go paint your car white and red and put a blinking light on top of it.
[quote]
Oh right, so if in doubt, shoot? Great protocol for engagement these americans have.
Yes, it makes perfect fucking sense when unmarked vans are often used to ram through barriers while carrying explosives.
I dont think there was any danger of that van smashing into the helicopter.
On April 06 2010 05:03 FortuneSyn wrote:
On April 06 2010 05:01 Jibba wrote:
On April 06 2010 04:58 FortuneSyn wrote: [quote]
Oh ok, so next time you're helping a fellow citizen of yours wounded on the street almost dieing, make sure you go paint your car white and red and put a blinking light on top of it.
[quote]
Oh right, so if in doubt, shoot? Great protocol for engagement these americans have.
Yes, it makes perfect fucking sense when unmarked vans are often used to ram through barriers while carrying explosives.
Oh I'm sorry, I didn't know your chopper was in danger of being rammed by that van.
did any of you watch???
when the van rolled up, ground troops were already closing in to secure the area. unmarked van, suicide bombers.....
Well, that must have been the fastest ever suicide truck preparation.
so there's no conceivable way that the truck could have been rigged in advance, and when troops come near, it detonates? Come on.....
I think that the war is fucking retarded, as do most of the people here, but you have to be incredibly fucking stubborn to find anything wrong in the way the soldiers acted here. Take it in a vacuum—it's all by the books.
WOW.
I cannot believe how many people are defending this. This is ridiculous.. finding all sorts of stupid excuses to defend this makes me sick. Of course almost all of you are American, probably too proud to admit a mistake committed by fellow countrymen.
"so there's no conceivable way that the truck could have been rigged in advance, and when troops come near, it detonates? Come on....."
Seriously? Is that your argument? It was obvious that these people were no threat to anyone. There were people trying to hide from the firing helicopter and saving wounded people into a truck. Yes, there is probably a 1:10000000 chance that this truck can be harmful. But there will always be a chance equal to that or greater that ANYONE who looks like a civilian can be harmful. And the whole point is that THAT IS NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE THE DECISION TO KILL PEOPLE WHO MOST LIKELY ARE INNOCENT.
And stop the bullshit about this being a situation where there is a lot of stress etc to defend their behaviour. Their decisions are really really poor and based on what they obviously wanted to believe, just assuming everyone is holding a gun without being certain and rapidly begging for permission to fire without having any more proof at all or them being under any threat at all. All the "what if he had an RPG that has a 1:1000 chance of killing them" bullshit shouldn't be enough to grant them permission to fire upon someone who they're not even certain has this weapon. Not to mention that there is an obvious lack of professionalism in the way they communicate and base their decisions for opening fire. The decision on whether they get to live or die is so easy to them, its really disgusting how you can defend that.
Some of you say they were just following orders, however, the reason they received the order to engage was because they told the people who issued the orders that they saw multiple hostiles with AKs and RPGs and whatnot. The way they made this sound 100% certain (they never ever questioned whether they were civilians or not, as if they were either stupid or just didn't care) obviously was the reason they were granted permission to open fire so quickly..
Honestly, take your European pretentious attitude elsewhere, it's not that we're "too proud" to admit that someone from our country made a mistake. Just because they're American doesn't mean we have some stubborn drive to protect the U.S.'s dignity at any cost. We're playing devil's advocate so that it doesn't turn into a 100% hate America discussion.
It is not an "attitude", I am using examples to show you that arguments some of you have used make no sense and are completely ridiculous. That is why I believe many of you might be too proud to admit that the decisions made by the people in this video were wrong. You have to admit though, that everyone is obviously not being 100% objective when obviously this is pretty much a thread where most Americans defend the soldiers and the rest are against them... (of course there are exceptions). And I also have to add that even though I admit my statement is a little too generalized, it would be naïve to believe that everyone who has posted in this thread has watched the video and given a completely objective unbiased opinion regardless of the nationality of the soldiers. That is very hard to do, and your opinion most likely automatically leans towards the defense of your own countrymen in the subconscious mind..
On the other hand, to stay on topic, what you are referring to was only the first paragraph in my post. I follow up by using valid arguments which should be pretty on-topic, so lets stick to that instead of starting a completely different discussion.
Nothing in your post was valid. You made a bunch of uneducated, civilian based judgments on the level of threat and the general situation without being there, all while exhibiting that you have almost no concept of what goes on during warfare or what rules of engagement actually are.
Every single military personnel in the world is going to react similarly in that situation. When an unidentified vehicle enters your sector, while a hostile target is being called, you stop it before it reaches you. Any soldier from a NATO country should react that way because it's in their RoE. FAF, SAF, all of them. Can you warn first? Sure, when it's at a certain distance but at some point you just have to stop it.
Do you know why these videos exist? It's not some slip up that someone was recording or so that Dick Cheney could put together an awesome kill clip video set to "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor." Engagements are always recorded so that they can be reviewed and true mistakes, mistakes that were out of line and truly purposeless, can be corrected and punishment can be served.
And that's exactly what I thought, there came the great argument of "your arguments are invalid and you don't know anything about RoE" without referring to anything I posted.
So tell me then, what kind of argument is invalid? I start referring to this statement, made by Hawk:
so there's no conceivable way that the truck could have been rigged in advance, and when troops come near, it detonates? Come on.....
Do you believe that my statement about this not being good enough reason to attack the van to be invalid? How?
Something about this situation is not right. If the correct RoEs have been applied in this circumstance, and the soldiers in fact did not make any mistake, then I believe these procedures should seriously be reconsidered. For gods sake, at least they must have another way of identifying weapons at that range instead of just saying "yeah he has a weapon lets shoot" when the people who look like, and are likely to be civilians just walk around without seeming to be any threat at all. And this is just the first part of the story...
What is much worse and cannot be defended IMO (and yet has to be defended by some better argument than "there is a slight chance there are explosives in the van" (by which standards no one can survive because there is always a slight chance someone has a bomb in their pants and wants to kill you) is them shooting at the van.
When an unidentified vehicle enters your sector, while a hostile target is being called, you stop it before it reaches you.
The van was STOPPED and the driver was out of the vehicle on the ground helping a wounded man. Oh wait, there is probably a slight chance this 20 year old van had some autopilot configuration so it could drive without a driver and blow up American troops. There is also probably a slight chance that the van has some built in donatello-technology style wings that can be folded out and that the van can travel at the speed of light and strike the helicopter......... Seriously, stop telling me this van was a threat, the arguments for this are ridiculous, and they are far from solid enough to justify the shooting on the van and people around it.
Wake up guys. If you can't admit the shootings of the people who supposedly had AKs and RPGs is wrong, at least be able to admit shooting the van wasn't justified.
And no matter how you view it, even if say the soldiers were completely right in their decision (which I still believe they were not), then there is still something to be learned from this incident. This is not acceptable. Yes, it probably happens all the time, but that doesn't make this incident meaningless. Something must be learned from this to prevent this in the future, be it different RoE or just better equipment to distinguish a camera from an RPG, which with technology should be pretty easy. Think about how ridiculous it is, we are gambling with human life because we don't use a tool as simple as binoculars to distinguish two completely different objects. And also, maybe taking more than 3 seconds to make the decision to fire when there is no immediate threat could help!
estherolle:
They got clearance to fire on a questionable target. There is no way at all to verify that there was children in the van. Everything checks out here and it's an unfortunate circumstance. Anyone who says otherwise isn't even trying to be objective
So just because they got clearance to fire this is just an "unfortunate circumstance"? So just because there is a clearance involved everything is OK? Obviously that is not necessarily the case. Also, watch the video and see the process through which the clearance was issued, it wasn't as if someone analyzed the situation and made a decision. The guys in the helicopter asked for it a split second after they thought they saw hostiles on the ground, and someone else (who as far as I understand didn't even see the situation) gave them the clearance.
Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
In the end, does it really matter whether or not the ROE were followed? If they were followed, that means there's a systematic flaw in how the US conducts its occupations. Trying to win over a general population won't happen if this kind of incident repeatedly happens. There are no good results that can come out of something like this for anyone really; a 10 year old kid gets wounded and in 8 years grows up to blow himself up on a train in the West, a reporter just trying to do his job gets killed for no real reason, the entire region loses what little bit of faith it had in the US trying to help. You don't win an occupation by having trigger happy troops that lol about shooting some random ass guys walking around because they think they can get a double kill, and LETTING them do it without reprimanding them and covering their asses.
If the ROE were followed in that situation I can't imagine how anyone can believes the US will actually accomplish anything in the Middle East. The way I see it, the only way to really win an occupation is to have much stricter controls on when and where you can engage which will unfortunately result in more US troops getting killed. The payoff is that after 6 years of fighting there will hopefully be a populace that has a change of heart towards the occupation rather than having no real progress at all.
Watch the video again and try to empty your mind of the preconceived notion that the people were journalists. I see several people with weapon-like objects and the tell-tale shoulder-straps of AK-47s. It doesn't help that they're partially covered by a building and some tricks of lighting and perspective seem to push reasonable doubt over the edge. When the helicopter is about to lose sight of them, a guy leans over and a long cylindrical object can be seen just past the end of the house, and when he cries RPG, I can understand how any doubts that these are enemies of the free world left his mind.
When the van entered the battlefield, it was presumably to offer aid and comfort and recover the injured enemy combatants. Even if that was all they were going to do, it is reason enough for the helicopter to engage the van. And as Zeal said, it is pretty much understood by the Iraqi people at this point that you don't go near engaged military personnel, especially in an unmarked vehicle.
The entire scenario seems to be something of a freak accident in that the timing, perspective and lighting conspired to make a 'perfect storm' of confusion that led to this tragic result. To me the only really fundamentally 'wrong' thing the Americans did was to not send the children to the American hospital after they'd realized their mistake. And that truly is a shame.
On April 06 2010 22:01 Jibba wrote: Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
It's apparently a hard concept to grasp
An unmarked van (not an ambulance) rolling on to the scene of a fresh battle will be engaged by troops of any military every single time, and that's about 100x moreso when it's in a war filled with non-uniformed militia. Honestly, talk to ANYONE with military experience in situations like that—what jibba's saying is true. There's about a million ways that could be booby trapped. With ground forces coming in, the heli isn't taking a chance and that's the right call.
On April 06 2010 22:27 Hawk wrote: It's apparently a hard concept to grasp
An unmarked van (not an ambulance) rolling on to the scene of a fresh battle will be engaged by troops of any military every single time, and that's about 100x moreso when it's in a war filled with non-uniformed militia. Honestly, talk to ANYONE with military experience in situations like that—what jibba's saying is true. There's about a million ways that could be booby trapped. With ground forces coming in, the heli isn't taking a chance and that's the right call.
On April 06 2010 22:01 Jibba wrote: Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
I am amazed once again. Seriously, is this the logic by which you think it is OK to open fire at someone? If that's how it works I do not understand how US troops are able to let anyone live over there. These situations you use to justify shooting the van are completely ridiculous, the way the situation looks there is no way that is what is going to happen. If there is the slightest chance what you are saying will happen, it is still far from enough to justify the firing of that van, since circumstances show that very most likely this is only someone trying to help the wounded.
Let me try to make myself more clear: it is not hard to understand what you are saying is possible, however, the question is whether this is likely enough that it is worth killing them. Do you even agree that given the circumstances it is more likely that this van is just helping wounded people and is no harm? Or do you really believe that it being a bomb is more likely given the situation? If it is the latter, then there is no point in continuing the discussion, because such a belief would be (in my opinion) completely without logic and down right stupid, simply because there is NOTHING that points towards it, and how can I convince you if you don't agree with what is logical?
If you DO believe that the van most likely is innocent, but that there might be a slight chance that it can be harmful, then it is all a question of judgment and how likely it is the van can be dangerous. Is it likely enough that you are willing to kill several peoples' lives for your allies' safety? Where does the line go? Do you kill someone if there is a 1:1000 chance some of your allies will die if you don't? 1:100 chance? 1:10 chance? To me in that situation the chances are so slim given the situation and what it looks like that I would not fire. At least you can wait a little at no risk considering the guy is outside the vehicle trying to help wounded and see what he does, because chances are he is just helping (which he was, obviously) and waiting a little to confirm that the van was harmless instead of just firing away without thinking, which it seemed like they were doing.
Also I have to say I don't quite understand your logic. Are you saying that he was planting a bomb on the corps, and that he was then going to hop back in the car and go kill someone? Seriously, this is just getting more and more silly, give me a break. If you have any common sense you see that this is obviously not the case. It is mind-boggling to me how you cannot realize that everything points towards this as being someone who is trying to help the wounded, and contrary to your beliefs, to me it does make sense to go help someone after they have been shot.
On April 06 2010 22:01 Jibba wrote: Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
It's apparently a hard concept to grasp
An unmarked van (not an ambulance) rolling on to the scene of a fresh battle will be engaged by troops of any military every single time, and that's about 100x moreso when it's in a war filled with non-uniformed militia. Honestly, talk to ANYONE with military experience in situations like that—what jibba's saying is true. There's about a million ways that could be booby trapped. With ground forces coming in, the heli isn't taking a chance and that's the right call.
It's apparently a hard concept to grasp that there is a much greater chance these people are civilians trying to help the wounded and not carrying bombs. I do grasp that there is a slight chance the van could be harmful to ground troops though, but as I just wrote in my reply to Jibba (yours came as I posted) there are probably many other ways this can be solved than to instantly open fire at a van when there is no evidence it can be harmful, especially when the driver is OUT of the vehicle, the vehicle is STOPPED, and he is on the ground OBVIOUSLY trying to help a wounded person.
Don't tell me I can't grasp the fact that the van might have been dangerous if you can't even grasp the fact that it might not have been dangerous.
On April 06 2010 22:01 Jibba wrote: Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
I am amazed once again. Seriously, is this the logic by which you think it is OK to open fire at someone? If that's how it works I do not understand how US troops are able to let anyone live over there. These situations you use to justify shooting the van are completely ridiculous, the way the situation looks there is no way that is what is going to happen. If there is the slightest chance what you are saying will happen, it is still far from enough to justify the firing of that van, since circumstances show that very most likely this is only someone trying to help the wounded.
Let me try to make myself more clear: it is not hard to understand what you are saying is possible, however, the question is whether this is likely enough that it is worth killing them. Do you even agree that given the circumstances it is more likely that this van is just helping wounded people and is no harm? Or do you really believe that it being a bomb is more likely given the situation? If it is the latter, then there is no point in continuing the discussion, because such a belief would be (in my opinion) completely without logic and down right stupid, simply because there is NOTHING that points towards it, and how can I convince you if you don't agree with what is logical?
If you DO believe that the van most likely is innocent, but that there might be a slight chance that it can be harmful, then it is all a question of judgment and how likely it is the van can be dangerous. Is it likely enough that you are willing to kill several peoples' lives for your allies' safety? Where does the line go? Do you kill someone if there is a 1:1000 chance some of your allies will die if you don't? 1:100 chance? 1:10 chance? To me in that situation the chances are so slim given the situation and what it looks like that I would not fire. At least you can wait a little at no risk considering the guy is outside the vehicle trying to help wounded and see what he does, because chances are he is just helping (which he was, obviously) and waiting a little to confirm that the van was harmless instead of just firing away without thinking, which it seemed like they were doing.
Also I have to say I don't quite understand your logic. Are you saying that he was planting a bomb on the corps, and that he was then going to hop back in the car and go kill someone? Seriously, this is just getting more and more silly, give me a break. If you have any common sense you see that this is obviously not the case. It is mind-boggling to me how you cannot realize that everything points towards this as being someone who is trying to help the wounded, and contrary to your beliefs, to me it does make sense to go help someone after they have been shot.
Do you know what this is, yes or no?? This shit is incredibly common, and while it's all nice for someone sitting comfortably in there room to scream WHAT AN ASSHOLE, HE WAS PROBABLY JUST HELPING! the fact is, any uniformed guy who comes in with that mentality is going to have his guts blown clear across the desert. There are literally several hundred TONS of unaccounted ammo that is being used as IED munitions. The guy helping could have been rigged, he could have been rigging the truck (which, if completely loaded, would easily flatten that area) rigging the body.... a ton of things. That is FAR more likely than an someone honestly trying to hlep
'According to the Washington Post, 63% of U.S deaths in Iraq occurred due to IEDs.'
'Vehicles may be laden with explosives, set to explode by remote control or by a passenger/driver, commonly known as a car bomb or vehicle-based IED (VBIED, pronounced vee-bid). On occasion the driver of the car bomb may have been coerced into delivery of the vehicle under duress, a situation known as a proxy bomb. Distinguishing features are low-riding vehicles with excessive weight, vehicles with only one passenger, and ones where the interior of the vehicles look like they have been stripped down and built back up. Car bombs can carry thousands of pounds of explosives and may be augmented with shrapnel to increase fragmentation. The U.S. State Department has published a guide on car bomb awareness.[21]'
On April 06 2010 22:01 Jibba wrote: Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
It's apparently a hard concept to grasp
An unmarked van (not an ambulance) rolling on to the scene of a fresh battle will be engaged by troops of any military every single time, and that's about 100x moreso when it's in a war filled with non-uniformed militia. Honestly, talk to ANYONE with military experience in situations like that—what jibba's saying is true. There's about a million ways that could be booby trapped. With ground forces coming in, the heli isn't taking a chance and that's the right call.
So a helicopter guns down some possible enemies. There may be US troops around. A van comes and tries to give the injured people aid. The rational solution is to shoot the people in the van? Can't they just.. I dunno watch them? And then tell the ground forces to stay the fuck away or be careful if its booby trapped or something? Or that somehow the van is going to fly into the air and blow up the heli? How does a van driving up to some wounded people indicate that omg in srs danger gotta kill em.
In a very plausible situation that the terrorists stole a Iraq ambulance and armed it with explosives and drive straight into the us soldiers, it is against their rule of engagement to shoot the van just because it has a red cross on it?
I would rather believe it is the misconduct of those individual soldiers that caused this tragedy than to believe there are many more such occurrences just because this is so common during war. If couple more of such "commonly" occurrences are caught on video, it is going to make people more angry, and not just Iraqis.
On April 06 2010 22:01 Jibba wrote: Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
It's apparently a hard concept to grasp
An unmarked van (not an ambulance) rolling on to the scene of a fresh battle will be engaged by troops of any military every single time, and that's about 100x moreso when it's in a war filled with non-uniformed militia. Honestly, talk to ANYONE with military experience in situations like that—what jibba's saying is true. There's about a million ways that could be booby trapped. With ground forces coming in, the heli isn't taking a chance and that's the right call.
So a helicopter guns down some possible enemies. There may be US troops around. A van comes and tries to give the injured people aid. The rational solution is to shoot the people in the van? Can't they just.. I dunno watch them? And then tell the ground forces to stay the fuck away or be careful if its booby trapped or something? Or that somehow the van is going to fly into the air and blow up the heli? How does a van driving up to some wounded people indicate that omg in srs danger gotta kill em.
Because after a firefight, you secure the area, and an unidentified vehicle kind of prohibits you from securing that area?? Telling people to 'watch out, it may be booby trapped!' ain't gonna save their ass when this happens:
if a van like that is fully loaded, it can easily approach the size of that third video without a problem.
On April 06 2010 22:01 Jibba wrote: Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
I am amazed once again. Seriously, is this the logic by which you think it is OK to open fire at someone? If that's how it works I do not understand how US troops are able to let anyone live over there. These situations you use to justify shooting the van are completely ridiculous, the way the situation looks there is no way that is what is going to happen. If there is the slightest chance what you are saying will happen, it is still far from enough to justify the firing of that van, since circumstances show that very most likely this is only someone trying to help the wounded.
Let me try to make myself more clear: it is not hard to understand what you are saying is possible, however, the question is whether this is likely enough that it is worth killing them. Do you even agree that given the circumstances it is more likely that this van is just helping wounded people and is no harm? Or do you really believe that it being a bomb is more likely given the situation? If it is the latter, then there is no point in continuing the discussion, because such a belief would be (in my opinion) completely without logic and down right stupid, simply because there is NOTHING that points towards it, and how can I convince you if you don't agree with what is logical?
If you DO believe that the van most likely is innocent, but that there might be a slight chance that it can be harmful, then it is all a question of judgment and how likely it is the van can be dangerous. Is it likely enough that you are willing to kill several peoples' lives for your allies' safety? Where does the line go? Do you kill someone if there is a 1:1000 chance some of your allies will die if you don't? 1:100 chance? 1:10 chance? To me in that situation the chances are so slim given the situation and what it looks like that I would not fire. At least you can wait a little at no risk considering the guy is outside the vehicle trying to help wounded and see what he does, because chances are he is just helping (which he was, obviously) and waiting a little to confirm that the van was harmless instead of just firing away without thinking, which it seemed like they were doing.
Also I have to say I don't quite understand your logic. Are you saying that he was planting a bomb on the corps, and that he was then going to hop back in the car and go kill someone? Seriously, this is just getting more and more silly, give me a break. If you have any common sense you see that this is obviously not the case. It is mind-boggling to me how you cannot realize that everything points towards this as being someone who is trying to help the wounded, and contrary to your beliefs, to me it does make sense to go help someone after they have been shot.
Do you know what this is, yes or no?? This shit is incredibly common, and while it's all nice for someone sitting comfortably in there room to scream WHAT AN ASSHOLE, HE WAS PROBABLY JUST HELPING! the fact is, any uniformed guy who comes in with that mentality is going to have his guts blown clear across the desert. There are literally several hundred TONS of unaccounted ammo that is being used as IED munitions. The guy helping could have been rigged, he could have been rigging the truck (which, if completely loaded, would easily flatten that area) rigging the body.... a ton of things. That is FAR more likely than an someone honestly trying to hlep
'According to the Washington Post, 63% of U.S deaths in Iraq occurred due to IEDs.'
'Vehicles may be laden with explosives, set to explode by remote control or by a passenger/driver, commonly known as a car bomb or vehicle-based IED (VBIED, pronounced vee-bid). On occasion the driver of the car bomb may have been coerced into delivery of the vehicle under duress, a situation known as a proxy bomb. Distinguishing features are low-riding vehicles with excessive weight, vehicles with only one passenger, and ones where the interior of the vehicles look like they have been stripped down and built back up. Car bombs can carry thousands of pounds of explosives and may be augmented with shrapnel to increase fragmentation. The U.S. State Department has published a guide on car bomb awareness.[21]'
I do now what an IED is, and I am aware of a lot of what you wrote. However that was a pretty informing post, so I thank you for that. However, you fail to address a lot of my counter arguments in my post. As I said, there are still many ways this could have been avoided.
First of all, as far as I can tell the van is pretty much harmless where it is right there and then as it is stopped with the driver outside the van, and there are no US troops close to it. If the purpose was to blow it up there, then why would the driver step out of the van and get on the ground next to a wounded person's body?
If the driver didn't stop, and continued rushing towards US troops then of course there is no doubt that a quick decision to open fire on the van is unquestionable. But the van is STOPPED (how many times do I have to right this word in capital letters to point it out?) and the driver is OUT of the vehicle. What is the sense in that if the van is armed with explosives?
As the poster above me suggests, and like I suggested before (which you never commented on), wouldn't it be better to wait and see what the person on the ground did? If he goes back in to the van and starts rushing towards US troops, then obviously, as I said, I would also fear for the life of my allies and I would not hesitate to open fire. But first of all they don't even wait to see if that happens, and also, how the fuck would that make sense if he stopped the vehicle at the location of a wounded person first? Why wouldn't he just rush on and kill ASAP?
If the shooter waited, he could for example have seen the guy pick up the wounded, put him in the van, and drive away from the scene. This would make it unnecessary to shoot it, as it would be obviously to no harm for any US troops.
How can you tell if an unIDed van is harmless without seeing if the flooring hasn't been ripped up and replaced with C4 or warheads?? And you are wrong—when that thing shows, troops were already enroute and they tell them to stay back because of the van. That van was preventing them from securing the perimeter and searching the scene of the battle. They were within detonation range.
The reason he would get out if he wanted to kill them was to get a sympathetic sucker like yourself to think 'he's just helping' and when you go over, he blows the entire unit to bits. Read that wiki—there's a ton of ways to detonate the things. Hell, it's a movie, but pretty damn accurate... go watch Hurt Locker. It doesn't necessarily have to be the guy on the scene who is detonating. His buddy could be watching from inside his house down the street.
Furthermore, why would the military want to let an injured insurgent get away?? That's intelligence right there. He could have a map to all the IEDs in the area, their weapons cache...
There is a very logical answer for every one of those things you've asked. I don't deny that it sucks that apparently some innocent people were killed and hurt. But the way the war is, these guys did exactly what they had to do.
On April 06 2010 22:01 Jibba wrote: Van stops, picks up guy, then drives forward and detonates when the driver returns. Alternatively, you don't know if someone else is hiding in the van. Hell, the guy could've been planting a bomb on the corpse. Any creative way you can think of setting off an IED is probably standard practice already.
Is that really so difficult to understand? You don't drive an unmarked van into engaged military personnel. This is common knowledge among Iraqis. It's mindboggling how this isn't getting through to you.
It's apparently a hard concept to grasp
An unmarked van (not an ambulance) rolling on to the scene of a fresh battle will be engaged by troops of any military every single time, and that's about 100x moreso when it's in a war filled with non-uniformed militia. Honestly, talk to ANYONE with military experience in situations like that—what jibba's saying is true. There's about a million ways that could be booby trapped. With ground forces coming in, the heli isn't taking a chance and that's the right call.
So a helicopter guns down some possible enemies. There may be US troops around. A van comes and tries to give the injured people aid. The rational solution is to shoot the people in the van? Can't they just.. I dunno watch them? And then tell the ground forces to stay the fuck away or be careful if its booby trapped or something? Or that somehow the van is going to fly into the air and blow up the heli? How does a van driving up to some wounded people indicate that omg in srs danger gotta kill em.
Because after a firefight, you secure the area, and an unidentified vehicle kind of prohibits you from securing that area?? Telling people to 'watch out, it may be booby trapped!' ain't gonna save their ass when this happens:
if a van like that is fully loaded, it can easily approach the size of that third video without a problem.
Okay walk with me through this thought process. My name is Ahmed and I want to kill some US troops cause I hate America. I've spent about 3 months making/procuring the amount of explosives to seriously kill some of those guys, now all I need is a plan to kill some troops. One day, I hear that my friends have been injured by an unseen force that could be miles away, could be American or could be another Iraqi faction or anyone really because they don't know what the fuck is going on, so I drive my fully loaded van that has been sitting there waiting to be used, to the scene of the action where there are an unknown number of enemy forces that have as of yet not been identified. I immediately get out of the van and start helping my friend into the van because he's injured. After that I will use my van to blow everyone up. While its stationary. And no one as far as I know is nearby. I am an imminent threat to any american troops that are nearby and must be killed immediately as I am sitting stationary helping my wounded allies.
EPT
