Earlier today, by a somewhat circuitous route, I stumbled across a conversation at Reddit about the WikiLeaks video I’ve written about here. The thread is extraordinary. It’s an article about the July, 2007, helicopter incident posted by someone who is in the military — and 200 comments responding to the article. Many of the comments are also from people who either currently serve or formerly served in the military.
Here is the article (most of it; the whole of it is here):
I’m military and been right over that neighborhood at a different time; the video may be disturbing but doesn’t strike me as unjustifiable. The coverup is what we should save our real vitriol for. I know some of you will immediately dismiss this as you view everyone in the military as inherently evil. I find that silly. (There are also people who think I can do no wrong because I AM and I find that dangerous). Give it a read anyway.
War is an ugly, atrocious action. Bad things happen every day; good things only rarely. …
… This video is from a period of increasing, and increasingly violent, action by insurgents. Mortar and rocket attacks, IEDs/EFPs, executions in the most grotesque manner, were all becoming the norm.The men you hear are reacting to stress from a variety of sources: lack of sleep because of indirect fire attacks, stress from friends being WIA/KIA, stress from feeling little support from the Iraqis at that time, from being away from home and family. In all that stress, they still behaved according to the rules of engagement. They positively identified small arms (which are a threat) and misidentified an RPG. Had I not known, I would also have called out RPG. It unfortunately looks like it, and that was amplified by the pose he took. WL added in captions to let you know there were cameras to amplify outrage, but having flown around Baghdad in helos everything looks like a threat after they shoot at you.
Shooting the van was also justifiable because the “insurgents” were going to collect their wounded and weapons. Clearly the aircrew were wrong, but not unjustifiably and probably only in hindsight. They followed the ROEs, received approval to fire, and did so efficiently. Further, the initial statements that said they were engaged with a violent group also does not strike me as “cover up.” If you’ve ever been involved with an emergency situation you know the first reports out are usually wrong. The later reports, however, I find repugnant. Events like this make me want to stay in the military because I don’t want the bastards trying to cover up what was a horrific mistake thinking I won’t be right over their shoulder next time.
I have found virtually all the military members I was with in Iraq serious, professional (at least on duty!), and genuinely concerned for civilians. You saw the soldiers running out with the kids. Genuine concern there, from fathers, older brothers, cousins that know kids like that back home. The amount of work we did to keep civilians out of harms way was breathtaking sometimes because it put us in much more vulnerable situations. I’m good with that. I signed up, they didn’t. As for the attitude and demeanor of the aircrew, yep, it’s stomach-turning. I did see this on occasion, and it’s not something I’ve seen many redditors say they teach you in training. It’s a defense mechanism to deal with the privations and violence you see. Dehumanizing the enemy makes it easier to deal with it. If you’ve never read or seen a synopsis of On Killing you absolutely should. That’s why running over a body was seemingly funny. I’m ashamed to say I’ve had similar gut reactions of really terrible things, and like those guys I feel awful about it when I reflect.
This post isn’t to justify the killings, but hopefully to tone down some of the hyperbole. It’s a terrible tragedy; it’s a waste; I’d love to see us out of Iraq as soon as feasible. It’s not a war crime. It’s not 18-year-old kids just wanting to kill people for the fun of it. Now, let’s all be pissed together that it took this long to get the real story out. OK, too long of a ramble but I needed to get it off my chest. Ask away if you have questions; I’ll tell you what I can.
I don’t buy everything this guy is saying — I disagree with his take on shooting up the van, for example (and from what I saw in a quick scroll, most of the commenters did, too). But the point is that this individual — who, again, is in the military and has been in that same area where the killings occurred — is not attempting to justify the unjustifiable. He is simply trying to help us understand the incident from the perspective of the American forces in that helicopter — a perspective he knows from experience. He feels the lion’s share of the blame should be placed on these pilots’ superiors in the military who whitewashed the incident and covered up (or tried to cover up) the serious mistakes made that day. Perhaps most important from my point of view, the man (I assume he’s a man) who wrote this piece obviously does not feel he has to put his heart behind padlocked steel bars or place his conscience on sabbatical in order to empathize with those pilots.
The 200 comments that follow are even more extraordinary. As I said, I think many of them were written by individuals with military experience, and the range and diversity of opinions and reactions — not so much to the article, although that, too, but more to the incident itself and what the video showed — astonished, moved, inspired, and educated me.
This is a must-read. The whole thing — article and all 200 comments.
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