Wikileaks. Any comments?

[IDB87]

With the clear identification and/or markings that identify one as medical personnel and/or equipment (i.e.-red cross/crescent).

-Former U.S. Military medical personnel

Right. With any conventional army it is not difficult to distinguish between medical and combat personnel.

Is it possible to apply these RoEs to any form of insurgency?

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Right. With any conventional army it is not difficult to distinguish between medical and combat personnel.

Is it possible to apply these RoEs to any form of insurgency?

Well, that's the issue we struggle with as a nation. I recognize and accept that it is extremely difficult, but that is also my point. This difficulty and the grey areas it creates are abused daily, and with full knowledge, by members of our armed forces. There are all sorts of justifications that can be thrown around for it, but in my opinion, the fact is that the abuses occur, regardless of the excuse.

 

[IDB87]

This is correct, which is why I brought up the issue that we face. This is clearly not a uniformed military, for various reasons (it's not a national military we are fighting, but an insurgency fighting an occupying force--similar to guerilla warfare we faced in Vietnam and that the British military faced in the United States), and we have created a new set of rules to allow us to shoot people more freely. We may have (I don't know, and would love if someone could tell me) created new rules regarding who counts as medical personnel. It would make sense that we should, given that we have readily acknowledged that we are fighting a new kind of war against a new kind of enemy, so it would follow that we are also facing a new type of medical personnel. Whether we have, however, is something I do not know and cannot comment on.

While it would be prudent to mitigate as much collateral damage as possible with evolving RoEs, I do think we are missing a small detail here (or perhaps a big one, or even a non-existing one I don't know!) in that these insurgencies may not have a trained base of medical personnel outside of local and international agencies, but have a greater need of fighters. Meaning, they may very well have multi-purpose resources, if they have any kind of doctors at all. At one point a fully qualified doctor or surgeon could at another point be a rifleman. Absent any official markings, it would be impossible to tell the difference. There could be any number of variations amongst the fighters of this insurgency.

 

[Hellbound]

Right. With any conventional army it is not difficult to distinguish between medical and combat personnel.

Is it possible to apply these RoEs to any form of insurgency?

Actually, with conventional armies, we typically forego our protection as medical personnel and do not wear the red cross, because it can give away position and makes you a target. About the only identification I would carry as a medic was my Geneva convention card, which would only come into play if captured.

ETA: That, and the term for my job was Soldier Medic or Combat Medic. I carried a rifle for most of the time, myself.

 

[IDB87]

Actually, with conventional armies, we typically forego our protection as medical personnel and do not wear the red cross, because it can give away position and makes you a target. About the only identification I would carry as a medic was my Geneva convention card, which would only come into play if captured.

ETA: That, and the term for my job was Soldier Medic or Combat Medic. I carried a rifle for most of the time, myself.

Isn't that the reaction to the people who violate that particular law, though? In this case, doing the above would have possibly saved lives and/ or caused a much greater uproar had U.S. soldiers fired on clearly identified medics.

 

[TraneWreck]

While it would be prudent to mitigate as much collateral damage as possible with evolving RoEs, I do think we are missing a small detail here (or perhaps a big one, or even a non-existing one I don't know!) in that these insurgencies may not have a trained base of medical personnel outside of local and international agencies, but have a greater need of fighters. Meaning, they may very well have multi-purpose resources, if they have any kind of doctors at all. At one point a fully qualified doctor or surgeon could at another point be a rifleman. Absent any official markings, it would be impossible to tell the difference. There could be any number of variations amongst the fighters of this insurgency.

We're sliding past the essential elements with regard to the rules of engagement. It's not simply a matter of identifying medical personnel from insurgents, it's how they started firing in the first place:

None of the men move to engage the helicopter, though; they're not "committing hostile acts" or "exhibiting hostile intent," the two conditions under which U.S. forces were authorized to use lethal force in 2007.

Clearly the second condition includes a lot of wiggle room -- but I've watched the video twice, and I'm hard-pressed to identify anything in the video that appears to be hostile intent. The Apache also made no attempt to "use graduated measures of force" -- warning shots, for example -- as required by the rules of engagement that were in effect in 2007.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=6616028

As for the van:

•The second shooting -- when the Apache opens fire on an ambulance -- is pretty much indefensible, though. It's true, as a military friend of mine pointed out, that the van is not an ambulance; it's black, it's unmarked, so we're not talking Geneva Conventions protection-of-the-Red Cross territory here. But the men who jump out don't show the slightest hostile intent, nor do they brandish any weapons; they're solely focused on retrieving the wounded. I cannot possibly imagine the Army was operating under such lax ROE that the second shooting was authorized.

Now, the author adds the caveat that the specific rules of engagement aren't known, but it would be fairly unusual for them to not require hostile acts. That's basically saying the helicopter can flutter around and shoot at anything that moves, which, I think we can all agree, would be worse than what we currently think.

The point, then, is that whatever that van was and whoever those people were, they did nothing to invite the attack. There were children in the van and news reporters with cameras. The best thing that can be said of the American soldiers is that they were caught up in confirmation bias, but that's not really an excuse. As the article I'm about to quote from mentions, the My Lai massacre happened because of confirmation bias.

But here are two points about that incident:

we have this video because two of the people who were killed were Reuters employees. How many other civilians were killed in similar circumstances whose names we will never know, because they had no powerful Western employers to publicise their deaths and file FOIA requests?

at 15:29 of the Wikileaks video, when someone, a pilot, gunner, or controller, says, "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle." Another voice answers, "That's right." No. Nothing could be more wrong. When you see children being evacuated from a van you've just destroyed, the thought running through your mind should be: What did I just shoot at? Who was in that van? Acknowledging the possibility that you have just killed a party of civilians for no good reason is, of course, terrifying. That is why the soldiers leap to find an excuse to evade the guilt, to blame the parents for their children's deaths. And the military is more than happy to help them find an excuse. (In the after-action interviews, one soldier mentions a report, corroborated nowhere else, that a dark van had been dropping off militants in the area. The military interviewer replies: "That's good information." Good for what? Good for exonerating the military, of course.) Because, if soldiers were to accept the guilt for catastrophes like this one, they might be unable to continue to perform the mission at all.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/04/iraq_collateral_damage

We can rationalize our way around this all day, but since every other rationale for the war turned out to be false or a lie, we're left with bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. Mowing down groups of humans without really knowing who they are or without them doing anything that would lead one to believe they were a threat doesn't help the cause.

If the troops are doing that by choice, it's horrible. If they're doing it because that's what we have to do in Iraq, we really shouldn't be there.

 

[BeAChooser]

I'm literally shocked that you so completely missed the point.

They radio in requesting clearance to engage. This occurs before the guy says, "He's got an RPG."

No, YOU miss the point. Whether they had an RPG or not had nothing to do with the decision to engage and kill them. They were a large group of armed people in an area from which US forces had been taking fire. Ergo, they were a legitimate target. The *journalists* made a bad decision in being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people (i.e., terrorists).

And Assange LIED in initially calling those "civilians" "unarmed". The video he presented clearly showed they were armed. And he claimed the attack was "unprovoked" and "indiscriminate", when it clearly was not. The pilots had good reason to be concerned about the group, and even more reason when they saw what looked like an RPG sticking out around the corner of a building. It's called the fog of war, TraneWreck. At the time he did that, there were US forces less than a 100 meters away in the direction that *cameraman* was *looking*. His movements looked like someone about to fire an RPG. JAWA (see link below) even has a photo taken from the dead cameraman's camera showing Humvees coming around a corner into line of site of where the RPG armed terrorists were located.

And they found the RPG's in the van that pulled up later. They did not find them with the original group.

Like I said, you can CLEARLY see an RPG in that video. Here, maybe this will help you: http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201889.php . Even Assange, when confronted with those images finally admitted that "It does look a little bit like an RPG.” So why can't you admit it? Are you an even more extreme America hater than Assange?

And by the way, you are wrong. The military report stated they found RPGs and RPG rounds at the site. And a "loaded RPG" "that had been dropped by fleeing" insurgents. The report (see the link above) has pictures of RPGs as they were found on the ground (not in a vehicle), lying right next to a camera, rifle and dead body. Now maybe they found more RPGs in the van, but that would only confirm that was a hostile vehicle as well and was legitimately targeted.

 

[Piscivore]

I wouldn't mind a government where every meeting is taped and transcribed, whether committees, office visits, or donor fundraisers.

I wouldn't mind a government where diplomatic cables are almost always public knowledge.

I wouldn't mind a government where the absolutely only information that wasn't completely transparent and accessible to citizens were wartime documents relating to current/impending troop movements/dispositions and similar immediate security concerns.

I'm with the right in that I don't trust the government, but I think they tend to try and destroy the helpful parts and keep the authoritarianism and corporate welfare state alive.

I'm with the left in that that I see the government as a series of expressions of the will of the citizens, in whole and in parts, but I can't decide if it's gutlessness or hypocrisy that keeps them from actually delivering on any of the hope and change that is often promised and never delivered.

I like representative democracy, but I don't feel like there's anyone in state or federal government right now that represents me or the interests of me and people like me.

I think it would help if we could shine a bright light on everything that happens in government. The citizens should know what America is saying, doing, planning, and who it's doing it with. Why? Because it's our country and we need more of a say in it than we're getting right now.

This.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

You're switching back and forth between "looked like they were armed, therefore justified" and "were armed, actively in battle, justified." Which was it?

Also, care to explain how insurgents=terrorists? Or is that just word association? Please give your answer relative to the United Nations Security Council's definition of terrorism:

...criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act, which constitute offences within the scope of and as defined in the international conventions and protocols relating to terrorism, are under no circumstances justifiable by considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or other similar nature...

edit: remind me not to do quote tags wihle writing sql code.

 

[Skeptic]

That's cool. Now spin away the firing upon the vehicle of the guy who pulled up to help the dying.

Not at all difficult. In most cases medical personnel do NOT have any sort of special protection and are just as legitimate targets in combat as other soldiers (I'm a medic in the IDF, so I should know). The one major exception is them being marked clearly with a red cross / crescent as well as not carrying arms, which was not the case here. Other special circumstances (e.g., cease-fires declared for the purpose of evacuating the wounded) are also possible, but again not in this case.

 

[TraneWreck]

No, YOU miss the point. Whether they had an RPG or not had nothing to do with the decision to engage and kill them. They were a large group of armed people in an area from which US forces had been taking fire. Ergo, they were a legitimate target. The *journalists* made a bad decision in being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people (i.e., terrorists).

[...]

And by the way, you are wrong. The military report stated they found RPGs and RPG rounds at the site. And a "loaded RPG" "that had been dropped by fleeing" insurgents. The report (see the link above) has pictures of RPGs as they were found on the ground (not in a vehicle), lying right next to a camera, rifle and dead body. Now maybe they found more RPGs in the van, but that would only confirm that was a hostile vehicle as well and was legitimately targeted.

Once again, the order to engage was granted before discussion of the RPG. They merely relayed that some of them looked armed.

That item in the video could just as easily be a camera tripod.

The thing identified as an RPG aimed at the helicopter was a camera.

The van was knocked around pretty well. THe RPG's on the scene could have come from anywhere.

The rules of engagement don't say, "Kill anyone with an RPG."

You literally can't pack more nonsense into a post than you just did. Provide the rules of engagement and we can go forward, otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time.

 

[gumboot]

Since we've dredged up the Apache shooting video, I just thought I'd point out something that was often ignored in the previous discussion and is also being ignored here, which I think is central to why this shooting occurred.

The Apache was called in as close air support for a military ground unit actively engaged in combat operations. A group of people, some armed, were identified approaching the area of combat. This was (understandably) interpreted as hostile intent (i.e. reinforcements for the gunfight) and the helicopter crew were given permission to fire by the ground commander at the time engaged in combat.

As it turned out a couple of Reuters reporters were with this group. They had been in the area covering unrelated matters, but when they heard of the gunfight, like all good reporters, they decided to go check it out. A dangerous move, no doubt - reporters in warzones are a particularly brave or foolhardly sort (depending on how you see it).

Were the reporters actually approaching with insurgent reinforcements? Did they run into them and think "Oh neat, we'll get some great "in the battle" action here"? Did the insurgents try to exploit the reporters as cover to approach the battle zone?

Were they not insurgents interested in battle at all but just locals who had armed themselves for protection? (A move that frankly sounds nothing short of suicidal given the circumstances, but one I can imagine actually happening). Heck, maybe as good loyal Iraqis they felt it their duty to go join the Iraqi and US military forces in getting rid of those pesky foreign insurgents?

Likewise the people rushing up in the van to recover the dead and wounded. Citizens simply helping their fellow man? Insurgents looking to retrieve bodies so the authorities couldn't use them as evidence?

Who knows.

The fact is, terrible outcomes can come from the best intentions. Never moreso than war. Which is precisely why the Iraqi Government has told its citizens to never get involved in any combat, but to get the heck out of the way. It's not cowardice, but mere prudence. When the enemy look like everyone, everyone's liable to be mistaken as the enemy.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Now, tell me where I am wrong.

In my opinion, if you think the wikkileaks thing is a good thing because we need to move to a more open society and have all discussions in the whitehouse open and all that wonderful goodness, then you do not live in the real world.

You dream of a world that cannot exist because human beings are not that nice.

In all fairness, if you are going to read all the secrets of Western Civilization openly, let's also have openness of the Muslim Militant societies. For starters, tell us were Osama bin Laden is . Otherwise, the Wikkileaks leaks are not fair.

9-11-2001 taught me that part of humanity is still horse feces and some of the more stinky feces needs to be scooped up and buried as soon as possible.

After that we can all join hands and sing “kom bi ya” and rejoice in the openness of the highest levels of government.

But for now, the world is not fair and people, I mean huge, vast portions of humanity, are thugs, murders, and thieves that delight in bringing down another more advanced culture just to make themselves feel better. And there are more examples than just Al Qaeda. China and North Korea and even Pakistan are examples.

And the threat is not just theological or political. It is also economic. There are still secrets at several sites in the USA that are well protected. And that protection is because we do not want others getting information for free that took us decades of investment to produce. It is only fair.

In that sense, it is just like keeping the KFC recipe a secret. On some levels, it is just that simple.

Now, tell me where I am wrong.

 

[RobDegraves]

But for now, the world is not fair and people, I mean huge, vast portions of humanity, are thugs, murders, and thieves that delight in bringing down another more advanced culture just to make themselves feel better.

Hmmm.... does that apply to the US as well or just other countries?

Anway...

I think a lot of this is remarkably misled as far as the philosophy of war is concerned.

War is a natural part of our existence. It is the final extension of political and social processes. It's not war that bothers me with all these leaks and arguments about rules of engagement .. it's that war is so badly run.

You cannot go in to a foreign country as both the good guy and the bad guy. You have to pick one or they will interfere with each other.

If you have polite and honorable rules of engagement, everyone has to follow them. If you go in there and build schools, then the next week you bomb a village and kill kids... you wasted your effort on the schools. If you go in there to defeat an enemy at all costs and then hamper your military with complex rules designed to make you look good, you will also fail.

The US has more than enough power to win all the battles, but it's wars are run half by the military and half by the government.... sometimes for purposes that have nothing to do with good tactics but rather towards political, economic or theological aims.

Just like Vietnam, the US can win all the battles, but it will continue to lose the wars.

 

[Bill Thompson]

Hmmm.... does that apply to the US as well or just other countries?

Sadly, I know you are not joking.

It has been my experience that the problem with the world is not The United States. The problem with the world, in the end, is envy.

May I also suggest you read this book
http://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-War-D...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291360841&sr=8-1

As far as your "honorable rules of engagement" comment, I also suggest you read this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Bin-Lade...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1291361056&sr=1-1

As I said, sadly, I know you are not joking. I know you want to believe that the United States is a nation of evil thugs out to take over the world. But this is because you want to believe this or because you have been told that this is true. You have to go outside the lines and find the truth for yourself. You will not believe some guy on the internet. So I will not waste our time.

 

[RobDegraves]

I know you want to believe that the United States is a nation of evil thugs out to take over the world.

It's probably best if you don't delude yourself that you know what I believe.

I am from Canada, I hardly envy the US.

However, you misunderstood my statement. I was not saying that the US is different from other countries... quite the opposite actually.

Your links don't make an argument, they are just books. If you have something to say, fine. Other than that, I think I can safely ignore your bouts of pointless patriotism.

 

[Bill Thompson]

I do not know what you are getting at. You seem to think that some "Bad Guys" should loose a war like a movie or something. This is not the real world. It is a fight for survival. Since reason science, critical thinking and logic are on the side of Western Civiliation; and since brutality, human rights abuse and Magic World thinking are on the side of the Islamasists, then The West should win.

"Good guys VS. Bad Guys" is your expression. This is not 1940. And even then it was a fight for survival in World War II. War is and war was not a game. It was not a MMA or WWE smack-down where there is a referee.

I don't know how we got from discussing WikkiLeaks to discussing war. But since we are discussing war, today's war is a different kind of thing. The United States is not fighting another nation. (unless your psychic powers foresees North Korea). The actual current shooting war is with literally a self-described base (that is what "Al Qaeda" means) that is not in any control of any nation. They are outside all laws.

Since Western Civilization is at stake, (another book I have read that I invite you to read: http://www.amazon.com/Obamas-Wars-Bob-Woodward/dp/1439172498/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291362727&sr=8-1 if you doubt that) we have to fight them on their turf in their way that they fight. Otherwise, they have the upper hand.

They do not comply with conventions.

 

[slingblade]

Pardons if this has been mentioned. I scanned the last few pages, but didn't see it.

WikiLeaks goes off-line after 'multiple' attacks
U.S. firm says denial of service attacks on site threatened nearly 500,000 others

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40486718/ns/us_news-wikileaks_in_security/

 

[RobDegraves]

OK.. maybe I'm not being clear.

I'm not saying the US is bad .. or good.. or anything of the sort.

I am commenting on the fact that they are fighting a war with conflicting instructions to their military.

 

[BeAChooser]

Once again, the order to engage was granted before discussion of the RPG.

Once again, so what?

That item in the video could just as easily be a camera tripod.

The military report doesn't mention a camera tripod at the site.

But it does mention several RPGs and contain a photo of one lying right next to a camera on the ground.

By the way, I'd like to see your source for your claim that the RPGs were found in the van.

You can back that up, can't you?

Or were you just making things up, like Assange did?

The thing identified as an RPG aimed at the helicopter was a camera.

What a shame the *journalists* didn't notify the military that they were operating in the area. Might have saved their lives.

THe RPG's on the scene could have come from anywhere.

Yeah. Maybe Santa dropped them from his sleigh as it passed overhead.

Or perhaps they were planted by those nasty Americans. Right?

The rules of engagement don't say, "Kill anyone with an RPG."

The rules of engagement don't require RPGs be used before responding.

You literally can't pack more nonsense into a post than you just did.

You literally can't spin more than you have here, TraneWreck. You should learn to stop digging when you find yourself in hole.

Provide the rules of engagement

Sure thing.

Here were the ROEs in effect at the time of the engagement in 2007 (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jan/25/20070125-091730-8692r/ ):

(1) You must feel a direct threat to you or your team.
(2) You must clearly see a threat.
(3) That threat must be identified.
(4) The team leader must concur that there is an identified threat.
(5) The team leader must feel that the situation is one of life or death.
(6) There must be minimal or no collateral risk.
(7) Only then can the team leader clear the engagement.

Looks to me like the military followed every one of those rules in this case as detailed in the military's report (http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/...nd Brigade Combat Team 15-6 Investigation.pdf ) and as seen in the video of incident. Let's go over them:

(1) As indicated in both report and the video, US forces had been taking fire from the area and location where these insurgents were seen all day. Thus, insurgents in the area posed a direct threat.

(2) The insurgents were clearly visible and clearly armed. Even YOU should be able to admit that given what the video shows.

(3) Given the ongoing combat in the area, the fact that Reuters had not told the military they had a camera crew there, the manner in which the group of men were armed, and their suspicious behavior, it was entirely reasonable to identify those people as "insurgents".

(4) The team leader concurred this was an identified threat. That's what the audio on the video proves.

(5) Armed insurgents 100 meters from US forces definitely posed a immediate threat to the life of our soldiers. An RPG a 100 meters from a HMMWV (which is what photos found in the camera showed) definitely posed a immediate threat to that vehicle.

(6) I see no one beside armed people or people that look like they might be armed in those camera frames. I see no innocent women and no children, nor shopkeepers. I see no photographers trying to identify themselves to the US forces. I only see people with AKs and RPGs behaving suspiciously and standing around behind a building waiting to, it appears, ambush American soldiers. Thus collateral risk would be minimal given the weaponry employed by the aircraft.

(7) And the team leader did not give the order to fire until all of the above was determined.

Later, I see an unmarked van also acting suspicious. Trying to load insurgents into it and escape. Again, seeing this, and following the ROE, US forces engage.

And finally, note that the report states (contrary to your earlier ... I think completely bogus ... claim) that the first elements of US infantry on the scene "discover two RPGs and an AK-47 or AKM among the group of insurgents clustered near the wall (i.e., nowhere near where the van was disabled). In fact, the report states that "the body lying closest to the camera had an additional RPG round underneath it". The report also states that "as Bravo Company secured the scene, they continued to take small arms fire". So clearly, this was an area where *journalists* (and children) had no business being …. especially in the company of insurgents (and what else would people be who carried RPGs?). Hmmmmmm?

So there.

and we can go forward, otherwise you're just wasting everyone's time.

LOL! No, I think you're the one wasting everyone's time. And it must be upsetting to realize that everyone can now see it clear as day.