The destruction of the Van was clearly murder. If I had done that, a Marine Corps Colonel would have had his boot so far up my ass after seeing that video, that there would not be much left of me to execute.
You know what the correct response is from a CO in a situation where a van arrives to pick up bodies? Hint: It's never 'Roger. Engage.'
Your guys told you that a van arrived to pick up bodies, and they ask for permission to engage. Correct response: 'Do they have any weapons?' or 'Negative.'
Now sometimes there is so much trust between a CO and a particular guy, that clarifying information will not be asked for. This is rare, but it may have been the case here. Which still calls that CO's ability to judge character into question.
Bottom line. In the Marine Corps, there would have DEFINITELY been consequences for this action. (the destruction of the van).
Also, I noticed that the individual who said they 'had no idea how the children were hurt' was a Major. Now I know there is no way a Marine Corps Officer would tell a lie like that. They would just not say anything. You lose a lot of respect for Army Officers after seeing something like that.
It's funny, but when I was watching the video, I was actually waiting for "Engage what, exactly" or "Negative, check fire" from the ground commander.
He was doing something else and these guys were a piss off that he trusted to actually be responsible. They weren't, and because of that his failure is highlighted as well.
It seems plausible to me that these guys are seeing this situation all the time: they fire on a group of people, some are left wounded, and vans show up to collect weapons, but also grab wounded/bodies to try and look legit from the sky. Being used to tactics like these, I can understand how anxious they were to get clearance to fire on the van; who knows if they are going to fire on the helicopter or speed off. It wasn't clearly marked as a medical vehicle, and it sounds like everyone over there knows that you will be fired on if you do something like this.
It seems extremely unlikey that the van occupants would fire on the chopper, do you think they would pull up and try to grab a wounded guy if they thought a chaingun was aimed at them? And who says they are grabbing weapons? All that that was visible was a guy pulling a wounded man off the street, who got turned into a human rag doll for his trouble. Do you think any sane person would intentionally go into a combat scenario with a little girl in the back of his vehicle? That unfortunate man was probably nothing more than a good Samaritan. Iraq does't exactly have a highly organised ambulance service.
Also, the original group of Iraqis didn't notice the chopper at all, even though it was circling for a while. They surely would have had a potshot at it had they seen it, as they were supposedly all armed with AKs and RPGs. It's probably quite a distance from the target, with the camera zoomed in creating the illusion its a lot closer than it would appear. Notice the amount of time it takes for the rounds to strike the target. That's why I reckon the van pulled up, he thought the street was empty.
I don't know firsthand, but I can imagine that the gunner seat in a chopper like this is pretty high anxiety. Your life could depend on shooting the right people at the right time. Not only your life, but the lives of all your buddies flying with you, not to mention the fact that you're protecting a piece of machinery that cost your country millions.
All I was saying before was that gunners like this are used to facing insurgent tactics. When they see vans like this, they aren't looking to give them the benefit of the doubt. They have been trained that, if they do, they may be putting their lives and the mission at risk. This guy is probably scared out of his mind. He has a huge responsibility, and screwing up - as we've seen today - has enormous consequences.
To me, the laughing and joking isn't making light of slaughtering the enemy, it's nervous laughs and desperate attempts to bring everyone out of it. We're human, we don't deal with this shit well. The comments here are good proof of that.
None of this excuses slaughtering innocent unarmed civilians, it's just my attempt at bringing some perspective.
From reading the sworn statements of the helicopter crew (http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/rr/CENTCOM%20Regulation%2...) it sounds like that van had been active dropping off and picking up insurgents earlier in the day, so they're not necessarily non-combatants. True, they wouldn't have been able to do much to an Apache, but there were other units who it could've fired on.
Not that it makes the situation any more right, but it does make things a lot less clear cut...
Yeah I certainly wasn't trying to justify the shooting, as I disclaimed. It's morally wrong, and certainly SHOULD violate laws. I'm just pointing out that you can't criticize it using outdated conventions.
Out of curiosity suppose you're the soldier in that situation and your CO says to engage. Do you refuse to do so? That itself has to violate military protocol right? Do you say "but they're unarmed, are you sure?" then follow whatever instructions you're given?
From what I've read/heard of Marines, the people in the field are expected to make more of their own decisions than in other branches of the military. There's less micromanagement I suppose would be a good way of summing it up, and as a result this would have been less likely to have happened in the first place in that branch. Is that true?
Outdated or not, that's the law.
The destruction of the Van was clearly murder. If I had done that, a Marine Corps Colonel would have had his boot so far up my ass after seeing that video, that there would not be much left of me to execute.
You know what the correct response is from a CO in a situation where a van arrives to pick up bodies? Hint: It's never 'Roger. Engage.'
Your guys told you that a van arrived to pick up bodies, and they ask for permission to engage. Correct response: 'Do they have any weapons?' or 'Negative.'
Now sometimes there is so much trust between a CO and a particular guy, that clarifying information will not be asked for. This is rare, but it may have been the case here. Which still calls that CO's ability to judge character into question.
Bottom line. In the Marine Corps, there would have DEFINITELY been consequences for this action. (the destruction of the van).
Also, I noticed that the individual who said they 'had no idea how the children were hurt' was a Major. Now I know there is no way a Marine Corps Officer would tell a lie like that. They would just not say anything. You lose a lot of respect for Army Officers after seeing something like that.