Wikileaks about to drop "the bombshell"

[Shroom Man 777]

Things "clearly look like NOT weapons" when you are in a comfortable, secure armchair-quarterback mode at your innernet connection. Things are not so clear when you're in a zone where there are supposed to be people packing weapons, you are expecting just exactly that, and you have to look at them while also keep an eye out for all the places around where a Muj with a rocket could try to take a potshot at you while you're concentrating. In the back of your mind is the notion that maybe the whole event is something for you to look at while a guy draws a bead on you.

Sitting in front of your monitor, Cheetos-orange fingertips flying across the keyboard, with only this to worry about, takes a lot of pressure off.

But again, nothing is being excused. True, ambulances were suspected of being used as troop and weapons transports in both Palestine and Lebanon recently, but better ROE and EOF discipline should be drilled into everyone's heads over there since this sort of carelessness makes everyone else's jobs harder... and only gives propaganda to the enemy.

You're running an occupation of a populated place where lots of people will be carrying stuff that can be mistaken as weapons. While I have already acknowledged that mistaking these guys for RPG-totting insurgents is a mistake that can be made, you have to acknowledge that "Muj" with rockets aren't the only ones who're crawling around Iraqistan. Your troopers are going to have to be likewise paranoid and/or aware that there'll be craploads of non-combatants who can easily be mistaken for combatants.

It's not about "only giving propaganda to the enemy", it's about avoiding getting journos, bysanders, Good Samaritans coming to help in vans, and goddamn fucking little children, from getting ripped to pieces by gunship fire and ending up having troops in Bradley hauling them to hospitals or whatever where they'll end up dying miserably anyway.

This ISN'T a conventional war, this is an occupation of a country and a half-assed attempt at nation-building and winning "hearts and minds". So, yeah.

You are not, however, allowed to shoot at a pilot who has bailed out of his damaged airplane, because he is not coming to attack you, but trying to perform self-evacuation from a personal danger (the burning, plummeting, now-useless aircraft).

Are they allowed to shoot at people, undesignated and without uniforms, coming in to give aid to injured people? Are they allowed to do this in places that aren't formally-declared warzones or whatever, but are occupied cities populated by civilians living their lives and doing ordinary things? If I found some guy bleeding on a street, and I went to help him not knowing that he's bleeding because the Americans shot him, would I end up getting my face shot off by some American gunship armed with SLAMRAAM-ER-LAWMANPADOICWFCSMRAPs?

There's a reason you know, why military ambulances have camouflage defeating markings all over them; consisting of white squares with red crosses in them at just about every angle possible.

Hey Shep what if the place is also crawling with civilians since the place is NOT a conventional battlefield but is actually an occupied city with people actually living in it, and then we have civilian people coming in to help some guy who's bleeding and dying?

[Shroom Man 777]

Still not an atrocity, Corporal K. Dumbass keeps tossing the word "atrocity" around like a CNN talking head that things every car crash is a "tragedy". Fucked up that it happened, but still not an atrocity.

Is atrocity some kind of concise and specific definition of something exact, or is it just a fancy word for "pretty darn horrible"? Because, if you ask me, some people coming in to help some wounded guy ending up getting themselves shot and killed along with little kids, is pretty darn horrible.

[ray245]

Still not an atrocity, Corporal K. Dumbass keeps tossing the word "atrocity" around like a CNN talking head that things every car crash is a "tragedy". Fucked up that it happened, but still not an atrocity.

Is atrocity some kind of concise and specific definition of something exact, or is it just a fancy word for "pretty darn horrible"? Because, if you ask me, some people coming in to help some wounded guy ending up getting themselves shot and killed along with little kids, is pretty darn horrible.

I think that most people will view things as an atrocity when a horrible thing happened as a result of a very deliberate action.

If the pilot is quite clear that the people who are helping the wounded are innocent civilians, and choose to kill them regardless, then it will be fair to call this as an atrocity.

[Aaron]

Atrocity to me conjures up images of things like Srebrenica, Rwanda and the Kurdish massacres. In other words something that requires planning and intent.

[Shroom Man 777]

So even if innocent bystanders get slaughtered for trying to help some injured guy, it's still not an atrocity as long as the American gunship pilots didn't mean to hurt those poor widdle innocents, pinky-pwomise pwetty pwease? Okay. It's not an atrocity. They just killed a whole bunch of innocents and children, but it's still not an atrocity.

[Aaron]

Shroom, I'm not sure what your getting at here. Whether it's an atrocity or not, someone fucked up big time and gunned down a bunch of unarmed civvies. No one here besides Shep is excusing any of this.

[Pint0 Xtreme]

This is the New York Times article that covered the incident in 2007

2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as U.S. Forces Clash With Militias

BAGHDAD, July 12 — Clashes in a southeastern neighborhood here between the American military and Shiite militias on Thursday left at least 16 people dead, including two Reuters journalists who had driven to the area to cover the turbulence, according to an official at the Interior Ministry.

The two Reuters staff members, both of them Iraqis, were killed when troops on an American helicopter shot into the area where the two had just gotten out of their car, said witnesses who spoke to an Agence France-Presse photographer who arrived at the scene shortly after their bodies were taken away.

The Reuters employees were Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, a photographer, and Saeed Chmagh, 40, a driver.

“When we reached the spot where Namir was killed, the people told us that two journalists had been killed in an air attack an hour earlier,” said Ahmad Sahib, the Agence France-Presse photographer, who had been traveling in a car several blocks behind Mr. Noor-Eldeen but was delayed by the chaos in the area. He said he was in touch with Mr. Noor-Eldeen by cellphone until his colleague was killed.

“They had arrived, got out of the car and started taking pictures, and people gathered,” Mr. Sahib said. “It looked like the American helicopters were firing against any gathering in the area, because when I got out of my car and started taking pictures, people gathered and an American helicopter fired a few rounds, but they hit the houses nearby and we ran for cover.”

The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.

“There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.

The military command offered condolences to the families of the civilians who were killed during the combat action, the statement said.

Officials at the Interior Ministry and at a Baghdad bank drastically revised their account of a large robbery at the Dar Es Salaam bank on Wednesday, saying that there had been confusion about how much of the stolen money was Iraqi dinars and how much was United States dollars. The robbers made off with 282 million Iraqi dinars, equal to about $225,000, and $366,000 American dollars; on Wednesday the police reported that $282 million had been stolen.

In Baghdad, violence racked the southern neighborhood of Saydiya, where the police picked up 17 of the 28 bodies found in the capital on Thursday. The neighborhood has become a battleground over the past several months, with Sunni Arab extremists controlling many of its streets and killing people who refuse to help them.

Shiite Mahdi Army militiamen allied with the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr have been attacking the area as well, residents said. They described sometimes arriving home after work and being unable to approach their front doors because of gunfights in the streets.

A suicide bomber attacked a wedding in Tal Afar, a town 30 miles north of Mosul, killing four people and wounding six, said Brig. Gen. Mohamed al-Wakaa of the Mosul police. The groom was an Iraqi policeman. A car bomb targeting a police patrol in central Mosul killed one policeman and wounded eight, General Wakaa said.

And in central Iraq, gunmen opened fire on a police checkpoint on the road near Samarra, killing four policemen and two Iraqi soldiers.

In Diwaniya in southern Iraq, American helicopters fired on six men burying a roadside bomb, killing five of them, said Maj. Marc Young, a spokesman for the Multinational Force-Iraq. A hospital worker in the city said the five men were connected to the movement allied with Mr. Sadr. Later in the day, Mr. Sadr’s supporters walked through the streets mourning the death of their colleagues, chanting anti-American slogans and promising revenge, said witnesses who watched the procession.

An American soldier was killed Thursday east of Baghdad while involved in combat operations, the military said in a statement.

The two journalists who were killed Thursday had been gathering information for a report on weightlifting early in the day, and then they heard that something was happening in the Ameen neighborhood and drove there to learn more about it, according to a Reuters official.

According to a Reuters report after the incident, some people at the scene said that American troops fired into the area from a helicopter, and a police report stated that the American attack killed the two journalists and nine other people.

Mr. Noor-Eldeen, who was not married, was originally from Mosul and first worked for Reuters there, moving on to Baghdad after receiving threats. Mr. Chmagh had worked for Reuters since before the United States-led invasion in 2003 and had four children. He also supported his sister’s family after her husband was killed by insurgents.

“Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh’s outstanding contribution to reporting on the unfolding events in Iraq has been vital,” said the chief executive of Reuters, Tom Glocer, in a statement.

“They stand alongside other colleagues in Reuters who have died doing a job that they believe in,” he added. Six Reuters employees have been killed in Iraq since the invasion.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees made an urgent plea on Thursday for money to help it increase aid for Iraqi refugees, whose numbers continue to rise. Nearly two million Iraqis are displaced within the country and nearly two million more have left, fleeing primarily to neighboring countries. About 2,000 Iraqis a day flee their homes, according to the United Nations appeal.

Quite honestly, seeing how the US military failed to report that they accidentally fired on civilians makes most of whatever they say quite questionable. You have to wonder if at some point in the video, whether or not someone realized that they had just fucked up big time.

[ray245]

So even if innocent bystanders get slaughtered for trying to help some injured guy, it's still not an atrocity as long as the American gunship pilots didn't mean to hurt those poor widdle innocents, pinky-pwomise pwetty pwease? Okay. It's not an atrocity. They just killed a whole bunch of innocents and children, but it's still not an atrocity.

No one is saying that such an event is something that is tolerable or forgiveable. Just that describing it as an atrocity is not really the right way to describe it.

If you think that this event is enough to be considered as an atrocity, what would will call an event when the pilot deliberately shot some civilians to death, even when he is extremely clear that those people are not insurgents?

[Dominus Atheos]

So even if innocent bystanders get slaughtered for trying to help some injured guy, it's still not an atrocity as long as the American gunship pilots didn't mean to hurt those poor widdle innocents, pinky-pwomise pwetty pwease? Okay. It's not an atrocity. They just killed a whole bunch of innocents and children, but it's still not an atrocity.

Guess what they'd call it if it was brown people manslaughtering a whole bunch of American innocents and children, including some people who had stopped to help the wounded.

[Shroom Man 777]

So even if innocent bystanders get slaughtered for trying to help some injured guy, it's still not an atrocity as long as the American gunship pilots didn't mean to hurt those poor widdle innocents, pinky-pwomise pwetty pwease? Okay. It's not an atrocity. They just killed a whole bunch of innocents and children, but it's still not an atrocity.

Guess what they'd call it if it was brown people manslaughtering a whole bunch of American innocents and children, including some people who had stopped to help the wounded.

Terrorism.

[Gil Hamilton]

By that stage they've already been assuming that they're hostile insurgents for several minutes, and iirc one of the dudes mistakenly reported that they were "going for the bodies and the weapons". They didn't even get a good look at that happening before they reported it, which is a fuckup of course, but I'm thinking the gunners were paranoid that they would get away with the "wounded insurgents and their weapons" and was trying to rush the people into giving permission to fire.

Except that it doesn't logically follow that they are insurgents. That's a leap in logic. Even if you think the guys before were bad guys, there is no logical connection between those guys and the guys in the van. However, if I were driving and I saw someone by the side of the road, clearly injured, I'd stop to help him and I'd expect any moral person to do the same.

Note, even after the fact, when they pulled children out of that van, they were joking about it! "That's what they get for bringing their children to a battle" was the line, not "Oh, shit, we may have fucked up here."

You may be right about the type of camera there, but the way it's slung over their shoulders and they'er walking with them defienately looks like they've got a rifle on them, and those "tripods" look a shitload like guns too. IDing them as AK's specifically is irrelevant, it doesn't matter what make of gun they have. It's as good a guess as any, and all that matters is that they're armed. These people are on the prown for insurgents, and they projected the typical insurgent model on top of them.

Given that they didn't have guns, the people gunners clearly did not have a positive ID on anything. The issue is they were out looking for people with guns, so that's what they "found".

The behaviour of all the individuals involved is easily interpeted under this filter. They look like they've got guns, and one of them carefully checks around the corner. Yes, he was just seeing if the street was clear, but they already think they're armed insurgents, so it gets intereted as them concealing themselves to do something nefarious and terroristy. FUcking look at it again, it looks like the dude's holding an RPG sans the warhead when he's peeking around the corner. I have no idea what it even was really.

Everybody here knows they weren't insrugents and knows they were carrying camera gear, so we all have coloured expectations and are projecting this onto the images we're seeing. We expect to see it all, so we see it all, and people are going to get outraged at this because "OH THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY CAMERAS AND NOT WEAPONS", when the exact opposite effect (the assumption that they're insurgents since they do kind of look that way, they're expecting insurgents, and they don't have the privelidged knowledge that we do) was happening to those people in the helicopter.

I'm not familiar with the makes and models of RPGs. However, I am very familiar with video equipment. So if you would, could you post photos of these weapons that look so much like video cameras that a person reasonably familiar with one or the other could confuse the two?

Further, the argument goes both ways. You say people watching the video are biased because we know that's video equipment and not weapons, but does the argument not cut the other way as well? If you start with the assumption that they MUST be armed, then you can justify any action they take as nefarious. Those soldiers in the video STARTED with the notion that that group must be insurgents, so they identified insurgent behavior and insurgent weapons. They were chomping at the bit too shoot them up to the point that one soldier got frustrated and actually said "Fuck, let us shoot!" Aside from the discussion of what sort of psycho says something like that, they flew into the situation with their own filter and that's what lead to the tragedy here.

When you have a hammer, you should never get into the mindset that all problems consists of nails, because that's a good way to ruin a screw. That's why the gunners are responsible.

Keep in mind I ain't saying this is all justified, but it's damn easy to see how it happened and why they made those mistakes.

I hate these comments. Agree or disagree, but don't try to have your cake and eat it too by justifying their actions and then saying that you don't think its justified as a cavaet so no judgment is reflected on you. Take a stand. If you think what the gunners did was reasonable, then say so, don't try to defend them but stay on the fence.

[ray245]

So even if innocent bystanders get slaughtered for trying to help some injured guy, it's still not an atrocity as long as the American gunship pilots didn't mean to hurt those poor widdle innocents, pinky-pwomise pwetty pwease? Okay. It's not an atrocity. They just killed a whole bunch of innocents and children, but it's still not an atrocity.

Guess what they'd call it if it was brown people manslaughtering a whole bunch of American innocents and children, including some people who had stopped to help the wounded.

Well, considering that it is highly unlikely that such a thing will ever to happen to begin with, it is easier to believe that the people who shot them to death might be doing it in an deliberate manner. It doesn't matter what is the skin colour of the pilot. Hell, people would want to call it an atrocity even if the pilot is British!

If USA is really a fucked up third world nation that got bombed on a daily basis, then I think it isn't right to use the word "atrocity" to describe such an event.

[Teleros]

Looks mostly like one hell of a screw-up due to mistaken identity to me, although I think I'd call it a tragedy, not an atrocity. The thing about the van... I guess if you're the pilot & already assume that these guys are bad guys, then you don't want anyone you can't even ID properly taking the wounded away (was that an important guy who got away?). Plus, is there anything in that van besides people willing to help? RPGs perhaps?

No excuse for the line about bringing kids to the warzone though. That's just wrong.

Can't really comment much more on it because quite frankly I don't know what internal steps US forces took afterwards with regards to the incident. Certainly something to try & cut down on the chances of this happening again I hope.

[Coyote]

I think some of you are of the impression that just because we aren't using the word "atrocity" means that we condone what happened. This is not the case. I don't see anywhere someone has said this was OK.

The point where we're not meeting up is where people say "this was a stupid and ignorant accident that got out of control" and where others are saying "this is an atrocity" that may or may not be proof of intentional attempts/policies to wipe out civilians.

Attaching "atrocity" to every battlefield fuck-up is like those people who toss around terms like "Holocaust" to describe, say, ordering a steak (ie, PETA vs. meat) or like that one wierdo in San Francisco a few years ago who said that allowing homeless people to sleep on the street overnight was "genocide".

Shroom, it's true that this is an unconventional battlefield and an unconventional battle situation, and there are harmless civilians mixed in everywhere-- that is true. It is also worth remembering that the people doing the fighting dress like civilians themselves, act like civilians, and in fact largely are civilians doing the fighting. They hide among civilians so that any collateral deaths can cynically be used as propaganda. They may have regular jobs, homes, and families and only participate in fighting as a "part time" affair. They have also shown a tendency to commit suicide in order to carry out an attack, even if other civilians are around them-- the very people they claim to be "protecting".

[Dominus Atheos]

So even if innocent bystanders get slaughtered for trying to help some injured guy, it's still not an atrocity as long as the American gunship pilots didn't mean to hurt those poor widdle innocents, pinky-pwomise pwetty pwease? Okay. It's not an atrocity. They just killed a whole bunch of innocents and children, but it's still not an atrocity.

Guess what they'd call it if it was brown people manslaughtering a whole bunch of American innocents and children, including some people who had stopped to help the wounded.

Terrorism.

Point conceded.

Of course that begs the question, why haven't the people involved been thrown in Gitmo and waterboarded?

[Phantasee]

Atrocity:
# the quality of being shockingly cruel and inhumane
# an act of atrocious cruelty
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
An extremely cruel act; a horrid act of injustice
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/atrocity
atrocities - are acts that are shockingly cruel.
highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0073531936/399662/Feldman8_esl_mod55.doc


a·troc·i·ty /əˈtrɒsɪti/ [uh-tros-i-tee]
–noun,plural-ties.
1.
the quality or state of being atrocious.
2.
an atrocious act, thing, or circumstance.

a·troc·i·ty (ə-trŏs'ĭ-tē)
n. pl. a·troc·i·ties

1.

Appalling or atrocious condition, quality, or behavior; monstrousness.
2.

An appalling or atrocious act, situation, or object, especially an act of unusual or illegal cruelty inflicted by an armed force on civilians or prisoners.


Who is going to tell me that what I just saw wasn't an atrocity? Learn some fucking English, you shit heads.

[Plekhanov]

Can't really comment much more on it because quite frankly I don't know what internal steps US forces took afterwards with regards to the incident. Certainly something to try & cut down on the chances of this happening again I hope.

Oh you mean the US forces which put out the following statements to the press concerning the "fight":

“When we reached the spot where Namir was killed, the people told us that two journalists had been killed in an air attack an hour earlier,” said Ahmad Sahib, the Agence France-Presse photographer, who had been traveling in a car several blocks behind Mr. Noor-Eldeen but was delayed by the chaos in the area. He said he was in touch with Mr. Noor-Eldeen by cellphone until his colleague was killed.

“They had arrived, got out of the car and started taking pictures, and people gathered,” Mr. Sahib said. “It looked like the American helicopters were firing against any gathering in the area, because when I got out of my car and started taking pictures, people gathered and an American helicopter fired a few rounds, but they hit the houses nearby and we ran for cover.”

The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed.

“There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad.

The military command offered condolences to the families of the civilians who were killed during the combat action, the statement said.

Yeah I'm sure those forces went through all manner of "internal steps" "to try & cut down on the chances of this happening again"

[Siege]

Shroom, it's true that this is an unconventional battlefield and an unconventional battle situation, and there are harmless civilians mixed in everywhere-- that is true. It is also worth remembering that the people doing the fighting dress like civilians themselves, act like civilians, and in fact largely are civilians doing the fighting. They hide among civilians so that any collateral deaths can cynically be used as propaganda.

Yeah, all of which is another argument for making sure the people you're shooting at are actually insurgents. Rather than, you know, random people walking about minding their own business and clearly not shooting at anybody. You can keep repeating the mantra that mistakes can happen all day long, but I don't think that anyone is disputing that so I'm not sure what your point is there. Fact is that unlike Iraqi insurgents the gunship crew are supposed to be full-time professionals in charge of a highly dangerous weapons platform, but they sure don't act like I'd expect of such professionals. In point of fact, they look far more like gung-ho assholes entirely too eager to shoot up a gaggle of people, and apparently they're allowed to get away with such behaviour by the US military. So if you don't condone what happened, what do you think ought to be done about it?

[Shroom Man 777]

Who is going to tell me that what I just saw wasn't an atrocity? Learn some fucking English, you shit heads.

It is not atrocity if they didn't mean to kill innocent civilians and children. It is not an atrocity. It is just a bunch of dead civilians and children (and not an atrocity). Because they didn't mean it.

Attaching "atrocity" to every battlefield fuck-up is like those people who toss around terms like "Holocaust" to describe, say, ordering a steak (ie, PETA vs. meat) or like that one wierdo in San Francisco a few years ago who said that allowing homeless people to sleep on the street overnight was "genocide".

I am using the word atrocity to describe some innocent bystanders and children who got torn to pieces by American gunship fire. Does it need to be intentionally tearing innocent bystanders and children to pieces with American gunship fire to make it an atrocity? Or is a bunch of innocent bystanders and children torn to pieces by American gunship fire an atrocity irregardless? If it wasn't intentional, then is a bunch of innocent bystanders and children torn to pieces by American gunship fire not an atrocity?

Shroom, it's true that this is an unconventional battlefield and an unconventional battle situation, and there are harmless civilians mixed in everywhere-- that is true. It is also worth remembering that the people doing the fighting dress like civilians themselves, act like civilians, and in fact largely are civilians doing the fighting. They hide among civilians so that any collateral deaths can cynically be used as propaganda. They may have regular jobs, homes, and families and only participate in fighting as a "part time" affair. They have also shown a tendency to commit suicide in order to carry out an attack, even if other civilians are around them-- the very people they claim to be "protecting".

Well, more incidents like these might encourage more people who have regular jobs, homes and families to participate in fighting part time.

Or maybe it won't and it'll just convince Iraqi civilians to not help people who are bleeding and dying (after being inadvertently torn to pieces by American gunship fire), since if they help people who are bleeding and dying then they will also get torn to pieces by American gunship fire.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem I see with "This wasn't an atrocity, it was just a stupid and ignorant accident that got out of control" is a bit subtle.

If this kind of thing is very rare, very exceptional, then it doesn't change the strategic question, because having this happen once is not as bad as having, say, a dozen more car bombs going off in Iraqi marketplaces. But if this kind of thing happens regularly, and is routinely covered up by authorities who don't want to admit that their men are killing random civilians they mistook for enemy troops... that's a different question. Because in that case, we have some problems:

-There is no way in hell that we're going to win Iraqi hearts and minds that way.
-If our troops are regularly killing civilians by accident, then that should affect our decision about how much presence to have in Iraq. Because the innocent deaths directly caused by our presence tends to cancel out the ones that are (presumably) prevented by our presence. In which case we need accurate information about how many civilian casualties we're causing.
-On top of that, IF this kind of thing is happening regularly, it's a sign that our troops are fighting under rules of engagement too loose to use safely in occupied territory. Which is a premeditated decision on our part.

For example, if soldiers in a free-fire zone shoot some civilians they mistook for guys with bazookas, they aren't making a premeditated decision... but the general who designated the place a free-fire zone is. The soldiers may not be responsible for an "atrocity" in the My Lai sense of the word. But you can make a case that their command structure is, for giving them a loose rein that would predictably result in civilian casualties, over and over.

And yes, I know, this city in Iraq has not formally been designated a free fire zone. I am not saying it has been, I am giving an example. You're all smart enough to know what I mean.

[Plekhanov]

Do guerilla fighters habitually stroll about in open squares whilst there are enemy helicopters overhead?

Ok so the guys had a few items that with enough confirmation bias you could see as weapons but were they were just milling about in the open without the slightest concern about being seen from the air. Do guerillas who've just been involved in attacking occupying forces act like that?

[Korvan]

This type of thing happens because the ROE are set up to protect the lives of the armed forces over the lives of civilians. You could reduce these incidents by requiring the pilots to fly closer to get a better look or get guys on the ground to give as close to a positive ID as possible before opening fire. But this would greatly increase the chances of a soldier / pilot being killed.

I'm sure somewhere, there's a number written down that gives an acceptable ratio of civilian causalities to armed forces causalities. If I had to guess, I'd say it's more than 10 and less than 100. But you can see evidence of this number in just about every operation the military carries out. Excessive force being used at long range is SOP and it's the smart thing to do if you care more about the lives of your own men than the lives of those you are supposed to be "liberating".

You just can't fight these insurgencies without significant civilian causalities, not unless you want to start using up the lives of your own armed forces at a faster rate. My own personal solution is to just not get involved with these conflicts in the first place but I don't get to decide these sorts of things. Maybe better technology could help in the future, higher res cameras could allow better identification, etc. But the better cameras could also allow the pilots to shoot from even further away.

[Dominus Atheos]

I think some of you are of the impression that just because we aren't using the word "atrocity" means that we condone what happened. This is not the case. I don't see anywhere someone has said this was OK.

It's true that no one is condoning the act, but very few people are condemning it either. Your side keeps saying things like

How is this an atrocity? Atrocity implies intent. This is just a colossal fuckup.

Fucked up that it happened, but still not an atrocity.

Oh I don't consider it an atrocity. A mistake, yeah and a horrible one at that.

Looks mostly like one hell of a screw-up due to mistaken identity to me, although I think I'd call it a tragedy, not an atrocity.

It was a "screw-up" or "mistake" or "tragedy" or at best a "fuckup". Everybody agrees that it's bullshit when an official calls something "unfortunate" and that they aren't really condemning it at all. Over a page ago I said I'd drop the "atrocity" thing if your side would just state what they believe the punishments over this should be, but no one did.

So yes, we're a little concerned about your opinions on the matter.

[Siege]

Oh, and I don't know about you, but I think comparing the outrage over this incident and the way it's handled to PETA's overreaction every time someone eats a hamburger is pretty fucking tasteless.

[Shroom Man 777]

Oh, and I don't know about you, but I think comparing the outrage over this incident and the way it's handled to PETA's overreaction every time someone eats a hamburger is pretty fucking tasteless.

Now THAT is an atrocity.