Wikileaks: US troops killed journalists in Iraq

If I missed the point, I apologize.

I'm not taking the video at face value. At BEST, I'm ambivalent about this situation. At BEST, this is the perfect example of a necessary evil.

Anyhow, I apologize for singling you/your post out as THE indictment of shallowness. Sincerely.

 

No problem at all.

That's what I get for being a sarcastic prick.

 

After waiting several hours for the video to download, I finally got to watch it all.

While disturbing that children were wounded and innocent people died, I cannot condemn the pilots for their actions. I cannot speak for their rules of engagement (which play a HUGE role), their mission or any situational context. We don't know if they had been engaged prior to this. We don't know if there were any other operations going on at the time. We do know a ground unit was nearby, but don't know anything about the situation.

There are two kinds of pilots in the Army. The first is what we call a PI, regular old Joe Co-pilot, who is pretty new to flying and has not been trained to lead the cockpit. That's what I am.

Then, there's a PIC, pilot in command. She is the person who is ultimately responsible for everything that happens in and around the helicopter. Pilots in command are not chosen, willy nilly. They are carefully vetted by every other pilot in command in the unit and then voted on in a board made up of those same pilots in command. After that, they are given what's called a "PIC Ride." They are evaluated under the toughest conditions imaginable. These guys are set up to fail. They are put in impossible situations so the senior instructor pilot giving them the evaluation can evaluate their decision-making skills and demeanor under pressure.

These guys are senior pilots who understand not only the helicopter, but the mission better than any other pilots. After they're boarded and given their evaluation, it's still up to the brigade commander, a colonel, to decide whether they actually receive orders to become a PIC, or PC, for short.

My point is, the pilot in command generally isn't wrong about things that go on in that cockpit, whether we're talking about helicopter operation, or employment.

And you have to think, these guys are Apache pilots (Black Hawk, pilots insert joke here ). They see what you saw nearly every fucking day. They're primary mission is to find bad guys and kill them. Period.

How do you think you'd react seven months into your fourth deployment doing the same shit? Would you be a little less than sensitive? I probably would.

The video was very well done. The only criticism I have is that they actually zoomed in much farther than the pilots could see, when pointing out the children in the window of the van, while insinuating the pilots saw the children and fired anyway.

Did I think they men were carrying weapons? No, with the exception of the first man shown with a "weapon" slung beneath is arm. That's the way most men carry their weapons, not out for everyone to see like we do.

Last thing. Put into reference when this incident happened. 2007. The middle of the surge and one of the most violent times the war has seen (with the exception of 2004).

 

Can't add much to what T_B_F has to say, as he knows the score.

Pretty good blog post from the NYT, though, that samples expert blogger opinion:

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/07/reaction-on-military-blogs-to-the-wikileaks-video/

 

More out today in the Times & the Guardian among others: