freekyE

I did a search to see if I was killing a kitten but couldnt find anything.

Heres a clip a freind sent me today. I figured Id spread it around.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=-ylB8NLQxVw

If you're going to comment please watch the entire thing.

leejo

I watched the entire thing. I disagree entirely with that video's conclusions and interpretations of the facts.

CingularDuality

Ha! That was entertaining! Was that from the Colbert Report or something?

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Pokerface

I don't know about ALL of the conclusions, but stuff like "There's a tractor" and "they aren't holding weapons" seem like fairly solid facts.

I'd like to know a bit more context, such as "Why was an Apache watching a farm?" and "How close were these people to anyone or anything else they might want to harm?" I mean, even if that were a weapon dropped on the ground, it seems kind of silly to smoke three unknowns in (seemingly) the middle of nowhere in particular.

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CingularDuality

They were also being watched by a specops team on the ground. This was a preplanned operation, IIRC.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

Pokerface

Stuff like that would provide much-needed context.

Honestly, from what was shown, I don't think that the conclusions reached were farfetched at all. If there's vindication from those conclusions, it's in the broader view and not anywhere in the video shown, though.

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USN_Squid

Personal comments from the maker of the first video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdUesD9jQm4

Silly conjecture and assumptions. He's an armchair intelligence analyst and it shows.

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CingularDuality

If you listen to the chatter, you can hear that they're confirming the fact that they saw the weapons with a team on the ground. The narrator carefully glossed over that and chose to instead emotionally replay the "go" phrase.

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TacticalGamer TX LAN/BBQ Veteran:

xTYBALTx

That video is sooo old. New analysis though.

The final conclusion the narrator reaches - namely that it doesn't seem to make much sense to pull the trigger from the information we have available - is pretty much what I thought the first time I saw this video ages ago. I enjoyed the analysis.

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freekyE

Can you even think of a reason to throw a canvas wrapped rifle in front of a plowing tractor? Besides to destroy it?
I watched the video again listening for different voices besides the gunner and pilot, i couldnt tell.

All i know is, they killed these people while they were unarmed and doing zero harm to anyone. I would dare to call that murder. The same as anyone would call it murder if any other countries military sent an attack helocopter and killed three men in a cornfield here in indiana, regardless of thier criminal status.

If there was a specops team so damn close why didnt they just capture them?
I would think three more poeple to torture information out of would be a benefit for T.W.O.T.

icky

None of this means anything without a massive amount of context, and we will never see that context.

As an example, here are some bits of info that I dreamed up in about 3 seconds which would change the scene completely:
- Suppose there is a known MO for these insurgents, where they drop weapon caches in fields. These guys may have played out this same scene a dozen times before.
- Suppose the farmer was identified by a solid informant as an insurgent, and he was under investigation

I can only assume that there is some similar information out there that we don't have, otherwise these apache pilots would be very busy shooting at people who were putting out their garbage or bringing home their groceries. You can't possibly get the whole story from just that one video.

Of course, if they told us what they found on the ground in the aftermath, we would be much closer to knowing.

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Ferris Bueller

The logic is simple. The men were armed. It's not the united states. In our country, you see someone, or a group of people walking toward you with automatic weapons aimed at you demanding that you drop your weapons and hit the deck, you DO IT. But we're talking about a different country with different customs and mores, we're talking about a group of people who would rather plant remote explosive devices to kill our troops, who at this point are on a peacekeeping mission, than engage in honest combat. You really think the SF team is going to recieve a positive response if they approach them and demand they drop weapons? Chances are slim to none, so instead of taking unneccessary risk, they eliminated the threat.

I dont mean to call you a crybaby based on the context of what you said, but technically, we're still at war, and this is the reality of war. If there is a threat and we have the means to eliminate that threat while keeping our own troops safe, we DO IT. Sure, it may be like swatting a fly with a sledgehammer, but it's effective and makes sure our men and women come home alive. Call me biased, but my wife is an army nurse who is deployed to the sandbox. Every time she calls me, i get to hear stories about people's wounds and deaths from being ambushed, or booby trapped. She said they attempted to blow up a car bomb outside the hospital she's at, less than 50 feet away from her.

So if it takes what some people would view as "unnecessary" or "extreme" measures to eliminate the threat derived from people we're at war with to bring my wife, not to mention the other 130,000 brothers, sisters, wives, husbands, sons and daughters home alive, I'm all for it. Anyone who disagrees has never had anything at risk, or is simply ignoring the reality of war.

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El_Gringo_Grande

And that is sad if you stop to think about it.

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xTYBALTx

There could be countless mitigating items, and there is most certainly something we don't know. I'm assuming that when this video was filmed our Apaches had better things to do than hang around watching farms for people tossing rod shaped objects around.

The Apache was there watching the farm for a reason, maybe there were eyes on the ground as well - we don't know from the video - and maybe the insurgents in that area had an MO of hiding items in the fields. It seems entirely possible that mortars were fired from that field at some time from that field, the launch location of the mortars was triangulated, and then recon on that spot commenced.

But that's really just conjecture. We don't know the surrounding circumstances and as such can't draw any firm conclusions. But we sure as hell can say that, from the extremely limited amount of information available to us that something seems awry. I'm not comdemning anyone here, just drawing a tentative conclusion based on the limited and incomplete information available.

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Ferris Bueller

and why is it sad? it makes perfect sense. if you put yourself in a position in our country where men with automatic weapons are bearing down on you, you should be smart enough to know that you have screwed up, and that you now have two choices: resist and die by force, or surrender and deal with the consequences of your actions.

I completely agree. People with no military experience dont seem to understand that we dont commit forces for no reason. War is an expensive thing. To fly that apache, you have to fuel the aircraft, maintain the aircraft. To conduct an operation of that magnitude, the time required is much too great to assume that they were there for no reason. Understand that for an operation such as that one, the team on the ground has to be briefed, gear uop, transported to the site, get eyes on the target, gather intel, recommend operations and take action. The pilot and copilot of the apache have to be briefed on the situation (usually after groundside intel has been recieved from the field), the aircraft has to be prepped and armed, then the flight crew has to take the aircraft to the engagement area, gather their own intel and make an operational call from the field whether or not to act.

So assuming that this is a typical operation of the type and there are eyes on the ground, you're functioning on the judgment of the flight crew of the apache, the judgment of the soldiers on the ground, the judgment of the commanding officers of the various people involved in planning and deciding to execute the action. There was a reason for it. As tybalt said, there is insufficient data to draw a conclusion as to what exactly the motive was to light them up, but I can guarantee that there was a reason. People dont just fly around and shoot stuff. Especially pilots. With aircraft, every round of ammunition, every piece of ordinance is accounted for, and if a pilot decides to pop off, he has to explain why. Contrary to popular belief, people in the military are held accountable for their actions.

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