qualify as legitimate? I think that in most places it should.

In war zones, I don't think it is unusual for journalists to carry weapons. If war correspondents were to exhibit their fears, they'd probably be deemed unsuitable for the job.

Five journalists, José Bayardo Mairena, Joseph Hernández, David Enrique Meza, Nahum Palacios Arteaga, and Manuel de Jesús Juárez were all murdered in Honduras in March, but you'll see little or no coverage in the U.S. press. The attitude of our government, our military, and our militarily-installed dictators is, 'There are some of those damned journalists who are trying to expose what we're doing here--kill 'em!'

Yes, governments that commit war crimes will kill journalists who try to expose them. What is surreal, unbelievable, and horrifying, is that there are still people who think that governments that commit war crimes might be capable of scruples. You have to jettison irritating things like scruples BEFORE you can commit crimes against humanity.

Excellent reporting, as always, Michael. Thank you.

I dont think these pilots/gunners were looking for press passes.

The cameras seemed clear enough, at least when delineated with the arrows and callouts in the video - but I had to watch the video two times before it was sort of clear that what was being pointed at the helicopter was indeed a camera, and not a RPG launcher.

The helicopters are not close. The video is taken in magnification. The choppers are probably more than 1km away. With all the city noise they won't even hear the choppers, or even realize the choppers are watching them.

The first two scenes of the video are in "New Baghdad," a suburb of the main city. They have just a few hours a day worth of electricity and there is no traffic, to speak of, as can be seen in the video. How did you get the 1km figure? Even if that's so, two Apaches at 1km would attract attention. Any flying object would be noticed in Baghdad, given the history.

Here is the response from the Army quoted above: "The US military issued a statement describing the incident as a firefight with insurgents and said the killings were being investigated." Where was the firefight? Reuters found no evidence of this. It's not present before the people are attacked.

I went to the press conference with an open mind. I wanted to see if WikiLeaks actually had a tape. The did. I wanted to understand the significance of the tape. It was provided by WikiLeaks in the form of the tape, the information obtained on the ground.

I'm interested to hear what the Army says, although they've responded to this incident already. I'm also interested to see how Reuters responds.

The Apache helicopter is designed and operates to engage the enemy at long distances. The max. range of it's gun is 4.5km.

I would most likely notice choppers at about 1km away, since the people in the video don't notice, tells me that the choppers are farther away than that.
On the other hand...choppers over Baghdad are a regular occurrence.You stop noticing them.

I have to correct my statement above. I made an inquiry about this to an anonymous source and was told that the Apache has a 'loiter' mode where the sound is muted and may not have been heard, regardless of the status of traffic and city noise. The source said that it was probably around 2km away. Also, I was told that the dress of the very experienced reporting team can be taken to indicate that they were not expecting a lot of hostilities. There were some more ominous conclusions that I'll leave out until I get some more information.

The decision to invade Iraq was base on lies. Those who engineered that are the ones responsible for all of the incidents like this one, including this Italian journalist of some time ago. Those same people are also responsible for all deaths, since their basis for war was a fraud. That's why I like Vincent Bugliosi's idea of prosecuting Bush for murder. Not likely, but it's good to keep the suggestion alive.

Just finished reading that the Bushmaster has a velocity of around 800 m/sec; there's a minimum two second gap between fire and strike. If that's correct, then x 2 sec = 1.6 km, roughly a mile.

Mind you, with no frame of reference to establish exact sync between radio dialogue and image, the sync could be a little out and we wouldn't know. But not that far - crew reactions are in pretty decent sync with events observed.

The delay between the gunblasts locally at the helicopter and the impact appears to be about two seconds. What's confusing, in light of this, is the rate at which they're able to circle the area - giving the impression that they're closer than one mile.

The pilot's conversation indicates that they've been fired upon, but there were exactly 0 indications of hostility from this group, at least in the cameras which are included in this video.

If they were about 1 mile from target, then doing a 180 degree rotation around the target center would involve traveling about 3 miles. How long would that take on a helicopter of that type?

on the ground. If it were 1 mile straight up, it would take no time...

Never seems to go much over 30 degrees, from my estimates, which narrows the circumference somewhat, but still the time from when there is no clear shot to when they open up on them is less than 30 seconds. At a one mile distance they'd have to cover at something like two miles circumference in that time, placing air speed at over 200mph. This just doesnt jibe with what we see in the camera - they're not going that fast, imho.

At one point the gunner says that he can't fire because he's hitting an azimuth limit. I know what azimuth is, but i'm not entirely sure how the word is used in this context. IIRC, with artillery it's direction of fire, so i assume that he's hit the pivot limit of the cannon turret...whether that's on the X or the Y-axis i don't know. If it's the Y, that would probably give a clue as to altitude and distance.

Typically refers to the Z axis (up from the ground) while azimuth covers the plane of fire (all 360 degrees). I cant find any info on the maneuverability of the turrets on apache deployment but I remain convinced that the hindrance was indeed azimuth, that is the plane adjacent to the ground, and not inclination.

Nevertheless I'm getting out of my element here, just a bit.

Clearly, the strongest focus should remain on the attack on the van, the wounded, and the subsequent rocket attack.

If the helicopter was that far away, guys armed with AK's pose no threat. Maybe the RPG, but if that was there it certainly wasn't shouldered. I don't know what the effective range of an RPG is, but i'd think that hitting a helicopter a mile away comes with pretty long odds.

920 meters

is to provide cover to ground units, the issue wouldn't be the "RPG's" threat to the chopper but its potential threat to the ground units the Apache is covering. The range to the Apache isn't relevant to assessing that.

I don't recall them stating that they're receiving fire from that particular group, just that they're receiving fire.

If not, just shooting is a war crime.

What a pleasure to see msedano! The Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq did more damage to this country and the military than any external enemy could have ever hoped to achieve. And where are they now? Recumbent in their palaces of material meaninglessness. The stain on their names and reputations is indelible. It will never go away.

These WikiLeaks people are very impressive, btw. Very professional.

...excuse me? What?
______________________________________________________
I got two wooden nickels and a rabbit's foot...
Matt King

as heavy irony, myself.

.

...you had me going there...
_____________________________________________________
I got two wooden nickels and a rabbit's foot...
Matt King

Greatly appreciated. What a mess the liars and enablers created with their lies about Iraq and what sad people they are who voted ongoing funding for this. They are the truly guilty and responsible parties.

Gorilla's Guides, By Mohammed Ibn Laith, April 9

Today is the seventh anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to the American invaders. It marks the start of my people’s forced descent into hell in earth. The Americans and their allies brought with them famine, disease, starvation, civil war, looting, death squads, collective punishments of civilians, deliberate bombings of hospitals by American artillery, deliberate use of chemical weapons and incendiary weapons against civilians, forcing children to return to Fallujah so that they could be killed by the American soldiers who were about to use those illegal chemical and incendiary weapons against civilians. Deliberate targeting of ambulances. Use of starvation as a weapon against civilians. Deliberately destroying water purification plants and deliberately contaminating water knowing that so doing was exposing civilians to dangerous water-borne diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Killing so many civilians that there are now 5 million orphans in the country, to say nothing of deliberately fomenting civil war resulting in 2 million refugees fleeing the country and a further 2 million being internally displace.

The story of how Americans have behaved here has been one of cynical viciousness from the outset and of war crime after war crime after war crime.

The invaders brought with them the shameless racist American redneck barbarism for which the American armed forces are now renowned and which resulted in the revolting behaviour by the 372nd Military Police Company in Abu Ghraib.

And so dear reader it is particularly appropriate that the Americans should choose today of all days to announce that the the 372nd Military Police Company is scheduled to be sent back to Irak.

APNewsBreak: Abu Ghraib MP unit to return to Iraq:

The U.S. Army says the reserve unit tarnished by what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has been mobilized for its first deployment since the scandal broke six years ago.

A spokesman said Friday that the 372nd Military Police Company of Cresaptown, Md., is scheduled to go to Iraq, but those plans could change.

He says they will leave April 29 for one to three months of training at Fort Bliss, Texas, followed by deployment overseas.

The 372nd became internationally known in 2004 when seven of its members were charged in connection with the mistreatment of detainees at the prison. All were convicted and six served prison time.

The spokesman says the current unit includes few former members. He says the Army has 100 percent confidence in the 372nd.

My grandchildren’s grandchildren will teach their grandchildren to hate and despise America and Americans for what they have done here in the last seven years. Today’s announcement is yet more proof that they will be right to do so.

Mohammed Ibn Laith

If you watch the video you can clearly hear the pilot's intent. Instead of hoping the wounded man will not try to get a gun so that the pilot will not have to shoot a wounded person; the pilot hopes the wounded man will pickup a gun so that the pilot can shoot the man with a 30 mm chain gun from a mile away. This is the tragedy of what we have become.

I mean, after actually shooting at the wounded, it seems that to shoot at this other wounded person they would need a pretext. WTF?

A pro forma ratification of the legitimacy of the action, that's all. The report says that they were seen as armed with the intent of firing on approaching US troops. But where were the visible weapons? There was one guy with a RPG and another with an Uzi. How many men were there? That's the question. Where were their weapons. The report also justifies firing on the van because it was evacuating wounded insurgents. OK, that means they can fire on the wounded, which is another event of that incident that wasn't even mentioned.

I was told that I could see a special database with images etc. on this incident but I'd have to agree on terms of use, etc., and monitoring while on site. How ridiculous. If there's a desire to counter the impression gained from the Wiki tapes and analysis, the means is full disclosure by the military. There are plenty of people out there who can do image analysis, look at the internal logic of events, etc. I said no to the offer.

That were in force at that time. Presumably, any armed person was a valid target - and perhaps still is. Still, no weapons ever appear to be physically aimed at anything by anyone on the ground. Even the camera "threat" had not yet occurred when the order was given to fire.

Despite that, I think I can see at least three weapons (not cameras), including something that appears to be heavier and longer than an AK47 - which was apparently calculated as an RPG before the camera "threat". The order to fire was given based only on the presence of these presumed weapons, apparently.

EOM

I guess there is no point in arguing with you because you see nothing wrong with what goes on in the video, only that it's unfortunate. So, whilst under no treat at all, if pilots see what they 'think' 'might' be a weapon they can engage.
Leave your brolly home if it's raining folks!

Caribdude

Focus on the unarmed men evacuating the wounded person loading him into a van with two children and their father AND focus on the cover-up. That this was covered up is beyond doubt. The initial explanation offered to Reuters, unmodified at this point, is not true, plain and simple. The military has already responded. Now we await a second response.

But the man trying to help was definitely unarmed. That video just show a disturbing level of arbitrariness in the decisions: Shoot the wounded first, then wait upon seeing one wounded guy crawling, but no problem shooting the unarmed guy coming out of the van. These people were not trained properly, definitely not the level of being able to apply rules consistently in a real situation.

is that whatever the details of this particular case may be, this killing occurred within the context of a war crime. The same crime - launching and waging an illegal and illegitimate war, a war of aggression - which formed the first charge on the docket at the Nuremburg War Crimes trials, the same specific crime which every male in my family signed up to risk life and limb bearing arms against in 1939, years before we had any inkling of death camps.

Partial list

I'm looking at rules of engagement, etc., and I'll bet that there was nothing done illegal. It is truly the responsibility of those in the highest command and those who could have stopped it but, rather, chose to fund it.

are a distraction.

There's not one jot of hyperbole in calling the invasion of Iraq both illegitimate and illegal. It was called illegal by the head of the UN, Kofi Annan, and illegitimate by American general Wesley Clark).

We tried people for this specific crime at Nuremburg. It was a capital offense.

Very few folks were enthusiastic about trying the operators of the pillbox machine guns at Normandy after WWII. It was broadly understood by many that they were foot soldiers "legally" performing the actions that the machine had illegally ordered.

Torture, on the other hand, is illegal QED. It doesn't make any difference who orders it or how - a soldier's duty is to refuse.

What's the word for this?

“these people can put anything out they want and are never held accountable for it.” - Gates

What is it the army said about this event, and Tillman and god knows how many other events? Talking about people who can put out anything they want and never be held accountable for it.

BalearicDude (Aka Caribdude)