[worth]

I didn't comment in this thread the other day because I didn't want to watch the video at work. So I’m looking on here now and the video seems to be gone, so I went searching for it and I found it here:

(If you click on the video it takes you to a page where the video is larger and it's easier to make out some details)



I'm not sure if that is the same video that was posted before, and I don't really know too much about the story, so I’m looking at this through the view of the gunner for the first time, and the group of 8 people they engage I have no problems with.

It clearly looks like that one guy is carrying an RPG.

I have no problem with the engagement of the 8 people at the beginning. In my opinion, that was the right call made, and those targets should have been engaged from what I can see.

"Look at those dead basts"

I have no problem with this comment. These guys are going into a hostile environment every day. Their friends and fellow servicemen are getting blown up every day. They should want to engage and kill the enemy that are killing their own people. By engaging these targets, these guys are thinking to themselves "we're getting 8 guys off the street that maybe tomorrow would have killed some of our guys." I have no problem with that.

Engaging of the van:

This is a tough one. I'm not familiar with the ROE in Iraq. They were waiting for the wounded man to pick up a weapon before engaging. Therefore, clearly there needs to be a threat to engage. The van comes to pick up the wounded men and they ask permission to engage which is granted, and they do so without visually seeing any weapons.

I would venture to guess that from watching that, if the first group of people were insurgents, the people coming to pick them up would be insurgents as well.

If you were a peaceful citizen of Iraq, you wouldn't risk your life to help the insurgents that just got blown up. Who would help? Other insurgents fighting for the same cause. If they are able to make this parallel and engage in Iraq, then so be it I suppose, but again, I’m not sure on ROE.

"Their fault for bringing their kids to a battle." - I see this basically as a coping mechanism. I'm pretty sure those guys feel bad for wounding a kid. There was no evidence of kids in any of the video from the gunner. Reality of war.

"Drove over a body" - same thing. Coping mechanism. Kind of seemed like nervous laughter.

I feel terrible for those guys on the ground though. What a mess to have to see every day. No wonder PTSD is so prevalent.

I did not see any of their actions as intentionally engaging civilians. I did not see any of their actions out of line with the possible exception of engaging the van. I have no problem with them engaging the 8 people at the beginning.

The video also shows them engaging a building. They say 6 people went inside with weapons. The video is out of context because we never see the 6 people that they saw. I don't like engaging buildings because you don't know what's inside the building. But you know what? I had a Sergeant say this to me once during FIBUA training. We were stacking up and assaulting the room. You can't use grenades in some places because the walls are made of drywall and shrapnel would just carry right through them and get your own guys. So he said he's just assume put a 84mm Carl Gustav round through the wall and assault it that way instead of stacking up where the enemy is expecting you to come in and waiting there to cut you down.

These guys are following the same procedure. They're sick of losing their friends. The lines between civilian and insurgent are clouded. The ROE may have loosened up a bit in order to prevent more allied deaths.

It's a very hard thing to do. If they don't engage because they are not 100% sure, then the bad guys get to live. They need to be able to make the call in the heat of it and they did that.

I'm going to go read some articles about what supposedly happened at this location, but from just viewing the gunners tape, I really don't have a problem with this engagement and would most likely have reacted in the same way.

Perhaps 12 civilians did die that day. If that is the case, it's a horrible accident. But I don't see anywhere in this video an intent to murder civilians. I see intent to engage insurgents carrying weapons in order to keep the troops on the ground a little bit more safe.