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| 7/8 |
| 2004/5/5-6 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq, Politics/Foreign/Europe] UID:30032 Activity:high Edit_by:auto |
5/5 Drudge scoops the big boys again:
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm
\_ keywords: Apache gunship helicoptor war video footage
\_ That's because he posts 'scoops' without confirming them and often
gets burned. And he never posts retractions, of course. Its a
good thing for him that US libel law is so pathetically weak,
otherwise he'd have to do actual research to back up his claims
like them damn furrin papers do. As for this latest claim, the
video described sounds almost "too bad to be true" but meanwhile
we shall see. You may want to try some more reputable sources
for your news, like one of the British papers.
\_ 1) often? prove it. 2) British? Reputable? You're better off
with Drudge. It's ridiculous to claim you'll get reputable news
months ago:
from "one of the British papers" unless you're some sort of
freakish Anglophile who thinks anything British is automagically
better than anything American.
\_ It's an old video. I downloaded and saw the whole thing (including
the part where one of them is dumping an RPG in a field) several
months ago. ABC News was the first to run it on TV I believe.
Part of the controversy was that they didn't show the part where
they were dumping the RPG; only the part where they were getting
blown to pieces. You can go download the avi from the last URL I
believe. Finally, I did see this Drudge URL yesterday, but ignored
it. I notice it's not up on Drudge now, probably because someone
pointed him to the snopes URL, and he realized it was "old news":
http://www.warblogging.com/archives/000787.php
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/US/apache_video_040109-1.html
http://www.snopes.com/politics/military/apache.asp
\_ There were others along this line on CNN. I was shocked at the
lack of feet on it. There was one with footsoldiers on patrol and
\_ ob: You're an idiot.
they come upon a wounded man on the road, sink a few more rounds
into him just for kicks. I thought I must have seen it out of
context, but I don't think so.
\_ I saw that too, but it was more like the guy was being put
out of his misery, and the guy had been shooting at the soldiers. |
| 7/8 |
|
| www.drudgereport.com/flash8.htm The show "Merci pour l'info" (Thanks for the news) obtained the footage, seen by an AFP correspondent, from a "European working as a subcontractor for the US army" who left Iraq two weeks ago. The man claims to have hidden the tape, dated December 1, 2003 and filmed at an unidentified location in Iraq, at the US base where he lived and worked. The three-and-a-half minutes of footage were taken from the helicopter firing at the three individuals, who were considered by the US military to be suspicious. Conversations between the helicopter pilot, the sharpshooter and their commanding officer -- who had a video link and is giving orders in real time -- can be heard on the tape. The footage shows how the three men were killed one after the other. After the deaths of his two companions, the third attempted to hide under a truck, but was hit by helicopter gunfire. |
| www.warblogging.com/archives/000787.php The video is in MPEG format and should be viewable by anyone using Real Player, Windows Media Player or QuickTime. It should be noted that Warblogging has not verified the providence of this video -- the video may in fact be of an Apache engaging Afghans. I originally received the Apache gunship video from a friend, but it has been posted publicly by 11 Ernie's House of Whoopass. UPDATE: Before posting this story I did a Google News search to try to find any news articles mentioning the video. While that search didn't find anything, it turns out that an 12 ABCNews story from January 9 does carry the video. At no point in the video can we see any weapons in the hands of the Iraqis. They walk around a bit, get out of a truck, and walk over to some kind of structure. It's possible that they're planting an explosive device of some kind, but I can't make one out in the video. With that said, however, I'm not used to viewing thermal video and I don't know how weapons or IEDs would appear in infrared. At one point the Apache has killed all but one member of the Iraqi group. The gun crew then looks around to see if there's any more movement. The video shows the man writhing around on the ground, clearly in serious pain. We don't know who these men are or why the Apache is killing them. What we do know, however, is that there don't appear to be any people around the group of Iraqis. It's never clear why the Apache crew and their commander don't send ground forces to engage and possibly capture these Iraqis. It's never clear why, once all but one Iraqi is dead and the last one is writhing on the ground wounded -- and clearly not a threat to anyone anymore -- they don't send ground forces to capture, treat and interrogate the wounded Iraqi. At the same time, however, we don't know who these people are. They could well be planting an IED or even preparing to shell American forces with a mortar. I'm not willing to sit here and second guess the initial actions of the helicopter crew. At the same time, however, I'm not sure that it's proper to shoot and kill a wounded man. In fact I'm rather sure that the shooting of the wounded man is a violation of, at the very least, the spirit of one or more Geneva conventions. Despite this, please help us get the word out by 16 donating to Warblogging. Highlights Read 17 War Stories -- links to hundreds of articles about war and civil liberties from around the Web, brought to you by Warblogging. JMFeeney (USA): Dave and migs: Well said, on both sides. Search Warblogging Enter your search terms below and click "Search" Search Stay Informed Enter your e-mail address below to be notified of new articles as they're posted to Warblogging. You can unsubscribe at any time and you won't be sent more than one e-mail per day. Subscribe Praise The very model of a communications revolution. This is the place to find any and ALL information about the current threat to our civil liberties. UK, The Village Voice, Comunicazione Politica, The Guardian, New Hampshire Public Radio, at the American Bar Association, Poynter Online and elsewhere. Essential Reading -- 64 Warblogs:CC -- 65 Back to Iraq -- 66 DNC: Kicking Ass -- 67 The Week -- 68 Daily Kos -- 69 Talk Left -- 70 Who Dies -- 71 Hit and Run -- 72 Antiwar -- 73 Whiskey Bar -- 74 Epistolary -- 75 Add To Blogroll Thanks to: -- 76 Mike Hudack Copyleft 77 Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a 78 Creative Commons License. |
| abcnews.go.com/sections/WNT/US/apache_video_040109-1.html Apache helicopter shows two suspected Iraqi insurgents handling what the helicopter pilots believe is a weapon. Apache helicopter provides a window into the rules of engagement that often determine life and death in Iraq. The pilots, from the Army's 4th Infantry Division, ask their commanders for permission to engage, then take the three men out one by one, using the Apache's devastating 30 mm cannons. Nighttime Scene The video opens with the helicopter tracking a man in a pickup truck north of Baghdad on Dec. The pilots watch as the man pulls over and gets out to talk to another man waiting by a larger truck. He drops the object in the field and heads back to the trucks. When they tell him they are sure the man was carrying a weapon, he tells them: "Engage. Then, within minutes, the Apache pilots open fire with the heavy 30 mm cannon, killing first the Iraqi in the field, then the tractor driver. The pilots then fire at the large truck and wait to see if they hit the last of three men. |
| www.snopes.com/politics/military/apache.asp The men are Iraqis shown handling a long cylindrical object; All we know so far is what ABCNews (presumably the source of the video) reported: the action depicted took place north of Baghdad on 1 December 2003, the soldiers heard on the tape are from the Army's 4th Infantry Division, and the men on the ground were fired upon because the helicopter crew believed them to be armed with rocket-propelled grenade launcher. According to ABC: A senior Army official who viewed the tape said the pilots had the legal right to kill the men because they were carrying a weapon. He said there were no ground troops in the area and if the Apache pilots had let the three Iraqis go, the men might have gone on to kill American troops. Anthony Cordesman, an ABCNEWS defense consultant who also viewed the tape, said the Apache pilots would have had a much clearer picture of the scene than what was recorded on the videotape. He also said they would have had intelligence about the identity of the men in the vehicles. The video clip described above can be found on a variety of web sites. |