Collateral murder

[Guest Goose]

BTW, does anyone consider what Russia just did in Kyrgystan, an alternative to starting wars?

Russia is not a very good example for the non-starting of wars. They have done their bit to make this world more dangerous than it actually needs to be. I'm not sure what happened in Kyrgystan however I'm guessing that it wasn't a peace movement?

[NeuroTypical]

Trying to be funny? sarcastic? didn't work!

Neither. Just genuinely clueless.

Carry on.

[Elphaba]

Sorry, I wrote the last comment before reading this by elphaba, who seems to know the law (which I admit that I don't understand well by the way)

But,

Just_a_Guy, you may want to go to law school first? :)

I am not a lawyer, while JAG is. I don't claim to know the law better than he does, because I don't.

Elphaba

[Just_A_Guy]

Hmmm....

"You do not bring children into a combat zone. Period. "

1) Just about every city in Iraq was a combat zone. children couldn't escape that.

Yeah, because being--say--indoors, wasn't really any safer than a place where a), a dozen insurgents who were setting up an ambush just got shot to pieces, b) the choppers that did it were still circling, and c) US ground forces were moving in.

Moreover, as per this interview with a WaPo staffer who was there, the Mahdi Army had set up this particular sector of Baghdad as a hotbed of resistance.

2) Ambulances, as with every other public service in Iraq, were in short supply. Short of 'official' vehicles they'd obviously grab anything that had a working engine, therefore we arrive at a van used as an ambulance which any sane normal human being would realize.

Who would have grabbed that vehicle, and why were there children in it?

Bona fide medical personnel? If so, you'd think the hospital they worked with would have made some kind of public statement.

Or is it more likely that these were insurgent sympathizers?

The guys admitted that they saw they were picking up 'bodies'

"And weapons"

with clearly a driver dressed as a medic.

That's seriously overreaching. How, pray tell, do you even know how Iraqi medics "dress"? Is any guy wearing light colored pants and a light-colored, button-down long-sleeved shirt bearing no insignia, a medic?

If you don't want to just kill civilians (as these officers did) you'd keep an eye on them and make sure they're just picking up the wounded, which they were.

If civilians are running around with combatants, all bets are off.

3) "Looks a lot like an RPG, though, doesn't it?" No. its too small, could be anything,

Too small for a launcher, but not for the explosive itself. See this photo (launcher plus explosive held by soldier, for scale) and this picture (launcher and explosive broken down, showing proportional sizes).

Moreover, the WaPo reporter whose interview I already linked to above, confirms that an RPG was recovered from the scene by ground forces.

Just_a_Guy, you may want to go to law school first?

Oh, lawyers are horrible people.

But one doesn't need a law degree to understand the relevant text of the Second Geneva Convention. It's pretty straightforward.

[rameumptom]

By the time the van had arrived to help the wounded man, it was clear the soldiers knew they had killed all of the people in the group, except the one wounded man, who was clearly incpacitated.

How the Geneva Convention actually would be applied is as follows.So, when they attacked the van, there were no people in, or near, the van holding a RPG, as they were all dead. Nor does anything on the video, which is pretty clear, indicate the dead man's RPG was being used by any other bad guys.

I disagree that the specific rule you cite from the Geneva Convention applies in this case.

Elphaba

Having spent 20 years in the Air Force, I can say that the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists nor to those who attack in civilian attire. One must be clearly identified as a legal combatant in order to be covered under the Geneva Convention.

We had this same problem in Vietnam, where Viet Cong infiltrated as civilians and blew up many locations, etc. They did not fall under the Geneva Convention, as the North Vietnam Army did because they were dressed in uniforms, etc.

An ambulance or hospital is only designated as a non-target as long as they are strictly used for that purpose. If a hospital or mosque has insurgents shooting from windows or the roof, guess what? It is now a legal target according to the Geneva Convention. This is established to encourage nations to fight fair in war, and not use ambulances, etc., in such a way.

Remember, Saddam Hussein filled his palaces and weapons sites with children and women, so either he could stop us from attacking those places or so he could show the world the cruel destruction of innocent lives afterward. Guess what? Under the Geneva Convention, they all become legal targets and are no longer "innocent."

[Guest Godless]

An ambulance or hospital is only designated as a non-target as long as they are strictly used for that purpose. If a hospital or mosque has insurgents shooting from windows or the roof, guess what? It is now a legal target according to the Geneva Convention. This is established to encourage nations to fight fair in war, and not use ambulances, etc., in such a way.

Remember, Saddam Hussein filled his palaces and weapons sites with children and women, so either he could stop us from attacking those places or so he could show the world the cruel destruction of innocent lives afterward. Guess what? Under the Geneva Convention, they all become legal targets and are no longer "innocent."

Technically, this is only partially true. If there are insurgents hiding in a mosque or a hospital, then the potential for civilian loss has to be evaluated before an attack can be made. Small losses are usually acceptable, but if it is determined that the potential loss of innocent life is too great, then the attack probably won't happen.

Basically, military leaders have to weigh the tactical advantages of taking out the target against the potential collateral damage. So if you have three or four insurgents in a hospital filled with a few hundred civilians, it's unlikely that the hospital will be attacked. On the other hand, if you have a radical cleric holed up in a mosque that's being occupied by a hundred of his militant followers and a handful of civilians, then an attack will probably be ordered.

This is how they explain the rules to those of us who pull the trigger and get our hands dirty. The idea is to give the common GI guidance on proper engagement policy without confusing us with page after page of legal jargon. It's not a perfect training system, but it's the best we have right now.

[rameumptom]

Godless, yes, just because a hospital has insurgents firing from it does not mean we automatically attack the hospital. My point was that according to the Geneva Convention, it is no longer considered a hospital/safe zone. The benefits of the GC is to ensure that non-combatants are protected in war. We shouldn't be blowing up ambulances filled with wounded enemies or others. But we can't condone illegal combatants using the GC to protect them in ways it wasn't meant to be used.

[Kawazu]

McCord was captured in a video shot from one helicopter as he ran frantically to a military vehicle with Sajad in his arms seeking medical care. That classified video created its own firestorm when the whistleblower site Wikileaks posted it April 5 on a website titled “Collateral Murder” and asserted that the attack was unprovoked. More than a dozen people were killed in three attacks captured in the video, including two Reuters journalists, one carrying a camera that was apparently mistaken for a weapon.

McCord, who served seven years in the military before leaving in the summer of 2009 due to injuries, recently posted an apologetic letter online with fellow soldier Josh Steiber supporting the release of the video and asking the family’s forgiveness. McCord is the father of three children.

Wired’s Kim Zetter reached McCord at his home in Kansas. This is his account of what he saw.

U.S. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw | Danger Room | Wired.com

[Guest Goose]

And they wrote this too:

Open Letter – Wikileaks The Mormon Worker

[Just_A_Guy]

Looks like we may have caught the leaker.

I'm pleasantly surprised. I really thought the Administration would bury the issue.

[bl8tant]

Looks like we may have caught the leaker.

I'm pleasantly surprised. I really thought the Administration would bury the issue.

I think it's fair to point out that we didn't catch him; one of his confidantes turned him in. Sure, the outcome is the same, but it doesn't seem like TPTB were making much effort to catch the leaker themselves.

And in general, I tend to agree with Tom Ricks. Sure, punish the leaker, but there are bigger fish to fry.