DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians

**Veronnisa** · 05-04-2010, 09:19 PM

I've seen this video. It's worth mentioning that this happened in 2007 when things were much more unstable and violent in Iraq then they are now.

I can't be certain from viewing this on the internet whether any of these guys were armed with an RPG. I would assume that the helicopter had higher resolution optics available than the grainy vid that we have been presented with. And we don't know the context.....did they just spot these guys from the air or did they have intel from the ground that alerted them to look for the group?

On the other hand...when they "cleaned up" after the initial strike, it seemed pretty excessive.

This is war....this is tragic whether those were legitimate armed insurgents in that group or not. An RPG is specifically used to take out ground vehicles or helicopters and helicopters have been lost to rpg fire......if they indeed had one, I would grant the helicopter crew a bit of slack in the expressions of satisfaction b/c they likely perceived that they just defended/protected themselves.

The thing is...we simply can't draw a solid conclusion from this video. What it looks like to any particular person likely isn't exactly what it is.

05-04-2010, 09:19 PM	#3
Veronnisa Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 342 Senior Member	I've seen this video. It's worth mentioning that this happened in 2007 when things were much more unstable and violent in Iraq then they are now. I can't be certain from viewing this on the internet whether any of these guys were armed with an RPG. I would assume that the helicopter had higher resolution optics available than the grainy vid that we have been presented with. And we don't know the context.....did they just spot these guys from the air or did they have intel from the ground that alerted them to look for the group? On the other hand...when they "cleaned up" after the initial strike, it seemed pretty excessive. This is war....this is tragic whether those were legitimate armed insurgents in that group or not. An RPG is specifically used to take out ground vehicles or helicopters and helicopters have been lost to rpg fire......if they indeed had one, I would grant the helicopter crew a bit of slack in the expressions of satisfaction b/c they likely perceived that they just defended/protected themselves. The thing is...we simply can't draw a solid conclusion from this video. What it looks like to any particular person likely isn't exactly what it is.
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