A few points about that video and the rules of engagement.
I was going to post it in a comment but it was too long.
The rules of engagement (ROE) state that these people were enemy combatants. The evacuation of wounded enemy combatants from the field was going to lead to the continued deaths of u.s. military troops.
This in no way justifies the illegal war crime of the Bush/Cheney group and the Office of Special Plans (OSP) also known as "The Cabal" who goosed the intelligence to get us into Iraq.
In the video a series of things happened.
- Two Reuters cameramen were seen walking with a group of people, it appears that they were discussing a battle and had seen a weapon on the field.
- Within the group of people there were two men carrying cameras who were then followed by two men (presumably insurgents) who had an AK-47 and an RPG in their possession.
- when the group of men gathered behind a wall, one of the cameramen knelt down behind the wall and peaked out with the tip of his camera sticking out from behind the wall. At this point the Apache pilot called out an RPG and that the individual was preparing to fire.
- The apache pilot received clearance to engage the target, he did.
- A van pulled up to remove a wounded individual.
- The apache pilot received clearance to engage the target, he did.
- When ground troops made it to the scene they realized that they had targeted a civilian group.
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Questions:
Was the fact that two men had AK-47s enough to justify engaging the target based on the Rules of Engagement (ROE) being maintained at that time?
Did the Rules of Engagement at the time allow for someone giving aid to a wounded combatant (attempting to remove them from the field of battle) to be attacked?
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based on the video, it was obvious that the Apache pilot was justified in his attack as he clearly saw what he thought was an RPG and a person preparing to fire on u.s. troops.
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what is not clear is,
- if he had not misjudged the camera as an RPG, would he have still received permission to engage based on the AKs in the group?
and
- did the rules of engagement allow for him to engage the people giving medical assistance to the wounded?
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other than that, this is just another example of the tragedy of war.
this war was orchestrated from the beginning, even before bush became president, as evidenced by the Cheney energy task force, in which cheney divulged that they would be invading Iraq.
and the mechanism of the invasion crafted by Feith and Wolfowitz under the office of special plans.
Why are there no criminal charges being filed against the bush neocons???
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Update: according to this report, a "retired intel officer" says that the rules of engagement were broken.
Now, he doesn't know specifically the rules of engagement that were being maintained at the time. He only stated general "laws". It is unclear if he even served in the Iraq or Afghanistan theaters.
he states that,
"First rule is, you may engage persons who commit hostile acts or show hostile intent by minimum force necessary," he said. "Minimum force is necessary. If you see eight armed men, the first thing I would think as an intelligence officer is, 'How can we take these guys and capture them?' We don't want to kill people arbitrarily; we want the intel take.
which is just stupid because the apache pilot thought that they were preparing to fire an RPG at troops, at that point maximum firepower was dictated by the conditions in the field.
he also says,
"Now, most importantly, when you see that van show up to take away the wounded, do not target or strike anyone who has surrendered or is out of combat due to sickness or wounds. So, the wound part of that I find disturbing, being that you clearly have people down, you have people on the way there. Speaking as an intelligence officer, my intent is to capture people, to recover them. That is the idea here. If you're not really doing that, you're not really doing precise combat."
and this is the most disturbing part. They received permission to engage the enemy, but it is unclear if that permission was given in violation of the standing orders of Rules of Engagement at the time.
if it was then an investigation must be held. If not, then the policy should be examined, but it cannot be fixed, not without persecution of the Bush/Cheney war criminals.