Update to "Collateral Murder"

Okay, I'm back again to keep talking about the video I mentioned in the last post.

A fellow in one of my classes brought up some points about the video, so I wanted to discuss them at length, but first I want to make my case for the actions the soldiers took.

As follows are some still frames from the uncut video (link is in the title of this post), timestamped in the upper right hand corner for your convenience!

Okay, this frame shows the guys with guns. What it doesn't show (and what you'll hear later in the unedited video) is that these guys had just come from an area where there had been an engagement with U.S. troops.

The circled part is what looks a lot like an RPG (though it may well be some camera equipment or something - I certainly can't tell on a picture this size, and likely neither could the gunner - remember the Apache video terminal is quite small).

Here, circled, is the photographer with his rather large lensed camera. Looks like an RPG to the soldiers in the helicopter, and can you blame them? (Also for the record, my self-described as "liberal" friend, who also happens to be a professional photographer, said that this camera lens is insanely long).

An important point - the U.S. ground forces are, from what I can discern from the radio chatter, just down the street from here, and are afraid of coming under fire.

Now, watch these next pictures closely, because what does our photographer friend do?

That's right. He points the camera DIRECTLY AT THE HELICOPTER.

Well, they already had permission to fire on this group of individuals because of the weapons they were carrying, but this really seals the deal. As evidenced from the comm chatter, the soldiers believe that an RPG is being pointed at their chopper.

Now, I'm not going to go into more detail on the first part, but I'll digress to a bit further along here - we'll jump about 5 minutes ahead from where we're at now; 4 minutes after the last shots are fired from the 30mm cannon on the chopper (3:40).

Here we are, at 7:41, and a van pulls up. Unmarked, dark. Could very well contain anything: a bomb, more armed personnel, more RPGs, what have you. It's important to note here as well that there are U.S. ground elements closing on this position, and the helicopter has been tasked with keeping the area safe. This is why they immediately request permission to engage, and are granted such.

Yes, it's a tragedy that people died, and yes it's a shame that children were hurt, but people need to remember that this is war, and things like this happen in war.

Now, to address the entire second half of the video (which I may add, was left out of the edited version).

Note that they find an unexpended RPG - as I understood it, it was found on the group of 8 that was originally shot. Perhaps that was the item I circled above? However, I am not 100% certain that this is where the RPG they mention on the comm came from: if anyone hears something contrary to that, please let me know.

As for the individuals taking fire (the guy in my class said the chopper claimed to be taking fire), that was the ground troops, not the chopper, at least as far as I can tell from the comm chatter. (Crazyhorse, the chopper, says at 30:50: "from what I understand, small arms fire at... [location]") because remember - the chopper is there to provide close air support for the ground troops, so that would jive with someone saying they are taking fire, and then the chopper going after the "triangle building" as they call it.

I think that's all, at least for now. People who refuse to pay attention to the facts in issues like this bother me. A lot.

For those looking for another discussion of the incident, please go here: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/iraq_video/index.html

This article comes at it from the other side of things; please read both their article and mine!

fin.