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Hey everyone, this page is in need of some help! There's a plethora of information on this incident I haven't been able to integrate yet. Most of it can be found at collateralmurder.com and wikileaks.org, and is mirrored on all of the major news websites. The Washington Post also has some info. I'm pretty new to editing, so any help with formatting is much appreciated! WhisperingWisdom T C 02:29, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Whew this grew quick. Work needed: "Incident" section should be expanded - with evidence from the video, a detailed description of the incident can be created, and referenced back to the video. WhisperingWisdom T C 05:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
In the article, it states the the little girl in the van suffered gunshot wounds. Does that mean she was hit by the 30mm apache cannon, or by small-arms later? Just seemed unlikely that a small child survived multiple hits with something that large... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.153.29.23 ( talk) 03:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I've heard that the pentagon has denied that this ever took place and that in fact also tried to get wikileaks taken down before April 5th to prevent the video from leaking. Does anyone know if this is true? If so, does it sound like something that should be mentioned in the article? Rafael 06:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The 'transcript' here is not complete in any way, and does not claim to be. However, there are selected quotes here that are not a fair representation of the video. Adding things like: One small child wounded. Over." - "Roger. Ah damn. Oh well." and 07:25:27 "There it goes! Look at that bitch go!" but not including the full text really doesnt seem right. Someone should do a full text (of the full 40 minute video not the short one with comments on it) to really show what is going on in the video. The selective quotes are not enough. This is an important incident, and many many people should see the video in its entirety. We all know this video is useless if its edited to support your point of view or only show selective parts of it
There clearly wasn't a media blackout, as the incidenct was covered by CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Huffington Post, the BBC, amongst others only a few hours after the incident. It wasn't exactly speedy, but it seems unlikely that they were pressured into not running the story (whether they were pressured into omitting facts is a different matter). The media blackout controversy seemed to have started on reddit soon after the release because it took the MSM a few hours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.177.67.97 ( talk) 07:47, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Agreed - reddit has a tendency to hype the conspiracy side of things. I think the section in "Publicity" on the so-called media blackout should be rewritten more neutrally. WhisperingWisdom T C 09:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I just deleted all the media blackout stuff, since, you know, it didn't exist.-- 132.177.67.97 ( talk) 12:57, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
good call, reddit's BS self-posts are not a legitimate source. this was definitely on tv yesterday Plastichandle ( talk) 17:16, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know why the helicopter crew were suspicious of people walking around? Had people been told to stay indoors or leave the district, for example? New Thought ( talk) 12:05, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Is it possible to work out either from the video or from the gap between the gun firing and rounds arriving in the target area how far the helicopter was from the target area? New Thought ( talk) 12:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Also two questions that should be answered in the article: Is it allowed to shoot people caring AK-47 in a non-threatening manner? Some people mentioned that owning and carrying a AK-47 is perfectly legal in Iraq (but maybe not at the time and location of the incident?). Also some people mentioned that the video quality inside the helicopter is substantially better then what we see in the recorded video, is that the case? Does anybody have an example for comparison? -- Grumbel ( talk) 12:24, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The range is ~1050m as the helicopter comes around the building, immediately before they open fire. They close to 940m by the time the burst impacts. The range, coupled with their altitude of ~1000ft syncs up pretty well with the gun's muzzle velocity Apacheguy ( talk) 15:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The range can be read off the video in units of 10 metres. It is displayed just to the top right (outside) of the rectangle at the bottom centre of the screen. The main difficulty is that the video resolution (480p) is probably below the native resolution of the gun camera, so it's hard to read. I make the range 1000m when they start firing and about 850m at the end of the first burst. This range (calculated via laser rangefinder ?) is of course used to calculate a firing solution. Galerita ( talk) 02:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Also the projectile velocity will fall rapidly once it leaves the muzzle due to air resistance. Page 8 of this document ( http://www.docstoc.com/docs/28824935/30mm-x113-Spotter-Charge-Prototype) suggests it is only about 340 m/s at 1000m (It's unclear if this is fired at ground level or 500 feet). If this was constant deceleration (with time) we could just take the distance divided by the average velocity (1000m/570m/s) to give time (1.75 sec). (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equations_of_motion) However, the projectile decelerates more rapidly initially, so 2.1 seconds is a reasonable time of flight over 1000m. Galerita ( talk) 02:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The article states that 'Both children were evacuated to forward operating base Loyalty'. However, both the chatter (transcript) and Wikileaks claim the children were simply dumped at a local facility, suggesting a different standard of care. I do not consider the source is credible as it has been established that the official statements were inaccurate. As the video is deemed genuine by all parties involved it should be assumed that it was a local hospital and not military care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rernst2 ( talk • contribs) 23:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I've moved this off the article for further discussion:
This quote is accurate but calling it a pretext implies it happened before shots were fired, whereas actually it comes later. I'm not sure if it should be in the article. 33° ( talk) 12:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't believe the American gunners showed an 'eagerness' or 'indiscrimination' at all. These comments degrade the skill of US troops in combat. Please remember this is video shot during WAR- where it is the JOB of soldiers to kill. Because US troops do that job very well is not an indication of 'desensitization'. At min3:40 of the video the targets are clearly seen holding weapons. The Rueters crew surely knew they were embedded with beligerent fighters and that fact doesn't seem to be raised in these discussions. Haamerhed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.188.141.252 ( talk) 18:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
[NC in LB, CA here] I am curios why the original author of this article chose to write: "During their surveillance of the group, the crewmen identified weaponry in the hands of the Iraqis..." when in fact, the object(s) in the hands of one- or more of the persons on the ground would later be acknowledged to be cameras? It would be more accurate to state that crew-members "mistook" one object for another (if that is, in fact, what occurred). I am all for dispassionate reportage of passion-rousing events, but the original author appears to have intentionally omitted a vital - and admitted fact from their recounting of the event.
At 3:45 in the 17 minute video, the behaviour of the guys in the top centre of the video looks very suspicious indeed - and the item they are carrying looks very much like an AK-47 or RPG to me. Are we 100% stone cold certain that they are civilians? New Thought ( talk) 13:00, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The footage clearly shows that several of the "civilians" are carrying AK-47s. The rather biased description in this article needs to be changed whok ( talk) 00:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The Publicity section appears to be completely original synthesis. We need external sources connecting all the dots. It's not our task to do that. __ meco ( talk) 13:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
someone should include a section for how it was reported in 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?_r=4&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
this article says the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed. which turned out to be a complete lie.-- 86.133.232.107 ( talk) 15:05, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
This should also go here. It's a contemporary report published on Friday, July 13, 2007 in the Washington Post about that day's events. Reporter David Finkel as an "embedded journalist" also participated in writing it to cover [up] what really happened.
Johannjs ( talk) 12:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
These are images to be added when the article has enough text to hold them.-- Diaa abdelmoneim ( talk) 17:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I propose a section evaluating the video in light of the Rules of Engagement in effect at that time, which are available at http://www.collateralmurder.org/en/resources.html. WhisperingWisdom T C 23:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I have commented out the timeline section until a more neutral (less selective) version can be implemented. — C M B J 23:49, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The incident is not too complicated to represent with a timeline and I for one think the addition of a timestamped, sequential list of events adds a lot to the article. If this is unrealistic or incorrect, please explain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ButOnMethItIs ( talk • contribs) 00:09, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
100px|left|thumb Non-free image removed. fetch comms ☛ 02:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC) The Army report states that the van was "black" (Captions to Exhibits F, H, I), yet the color image of the van after the attack shows a (sky-?) bluish van, with possibly a white roof, and white "skirts". Maybe Apacheguy can enlighten us if this is due to the fact that the spectral sensitivity of the gunsight is shifted to the infrared (of course assuming that this information is not restricted)? Do all the other facts in the report hold up? -- Enemenemu ( talk) 00:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Whoever modified the intro, it is now in need of references. WhisperingWisdom T C 00:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The lead, which I edited a bit, currently says "... A subsequent investigation of the incident by US forces determined that although the helicopters had engaged a number of armed insurgents, the engagement left two reporters for Reuters dead in an apparent case of friendly fire. ..." However, the Friendly fire article says "... inadvertent harm to non-combatatants[sic] or structures, usually referred to as "collateral damage" is also not considered to be friendly fire. ...", and I'm fairly sure Reuters employees are non-combatants. Perhaps the two articles should be reconciled? -- an odd name 00:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The name of the video file is "CollateralMurder". Murder is a crime that needs to be proven in a court of law and I don't think that's happened yet. The name clearly reflects bias. Also, the Author of the video is listed as "US Apache helicopter" when clearly the real author has drastically altered the original feed. This needs to be remedied immediately as it appears that the video is in violation of BLP rules (it gives the impression that the pilots have been convicted of murder and that this might be the conclusion of the US government which is not true). If this isn't fixed, the video file should be removed.-- Cdogsimmons ( talk) 01:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Cdogsimmons, the video presented in the article should be as uneditorialized as possible. For example, the resolution that you see on the wikileaks version makes it harder to see the difference between an RPG versus a camera. The actual resolution of the TADS equipment in the helicopter is much better. Other problems with the Wikileaks version (and these problems do fall under BLP when you are calling individuals complicit in murder, regardless or not whether that is "true") can be seen here: http://blog.ajmartinez.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-collateral-murder/ Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 01:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
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Since the article is about the controversy, I don't think that there is a problem with hosting Wikileak's main edited video, as long as it is properly described as such. If the longer, unedited version is available, then why not post both? PS, all Wikileaks statements (such as alleging murder) shouldn't have BLP problems as long as they are properly attributed. - M.Nelson ( talk) 02:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The video size should be made larger in the article. It's a 480×384, 100mb video that's shown in a tiny 180px square. Awful waste of bandwidth and it's just unviewable. Mahanga Talk 03:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.226.212.189 ( talk)
The article is unclear about the nature of the two Reuters employees, alternately referring to them as staff, reporters and photographers. There is a tendency in the media lately to consider anyone affiliated with newsgathering to be a "journalist" of some degree, even if they are drivers or interpreters. This article could use clarification of the exact nature of the two men's relationship to Reuters.
^As well as their relationship to the armed men in the video. The blunt statement they worked for Reuters ignores their assignment and what perspective they were covering. Haamerhed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.188.141.252 ( talk) 18:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The Reuters inquiry about why two cameras were confiscated is unclear - I trust that is a reference to two cameras confiscated from the deceased Reuters employees. At that point the article had referred to the employees as "staff" and as "reporters," though, so the reference to cameras comes out of the blue - we had not yet been told whether they were actually photographers.
Jnmwiki ( talk) 02:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Is it normal for (American) journalists to be around insurgents? Maybe WP can provide some context for readers? 96.226.212.189 ( talk) 02:39, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Stop trolling. Reuters is a British (UK) based company, and the "Journalists" were Iraqi. The only thing American was the Apache Crew that engaged armed targets within a pre-designated target zone. 24.21.11.36 ( talk) 02:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I've seen other examples on Wikipedia before, maybe it's to create drama or push a certain viewpoint, but there is no reason the article title should have the word "controversy" in it, which forces the direction of the article. This is an article about the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and that should be the article title. We can detail the publication and response to the details and let the reader decide as to how "controversial" this is without telling him outright via the URL. - 92.17.45.6 ( talk) 02:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Currently, the article is under category "Reuters Group plc". However, given that its main article is Reuters, I think this and the category's other articles should be moved to category "Reuters". I'm not a category wonk, so I'm not keen to boldly changing every article from the long name to the short, but the short one seems better to me. -- an odd name 02:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
This article is not biased in any way. The article is simply reporting the facts. American soldiers killed civilians whom they mistook for Iraqi freedom fighters. 63.115.34.34 ( talk) 15:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC) Deadman909
This article is extremely biased. Furthermore, the individuals in this video are clearly insurgents and this whole claim of "war crimes" is just people trying to stir up international anger at the US military. At 1:20 you can clearly, obviously see a man with a RPG7 leaning out from around the corner of a building observing the Apache (or possibly responding to the noise of its rotors). At 2:01 before the AH-64 begins to fire you can clearly see one individual with an AKM on his shoulder and another holding to me what looks like a RPG warhead. Another is holding what some think is a camera, but it looks much more like a black case for carrying grenades or mortar rounds to me. When they zoom in at 4:03 after engaging the targets you can clearly see a Kalashnikov lying on the ground next to one of the bodies. Then a van shows up and starts loading the bodies up. Seriously, how much more clear could this be people? Why would news reporters move a van to a location they had just been SHOT AT and start loading up the bodies of insurgents they've never met before as well as two "reporters"?
This whole thing is ridiculous. There are plenty of real gun camera captures where questionable engagements take place, but this is not one of them. You all just want to see something that isn't there. Vayne ( talk) 05:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry you see it that way, Toby. I wasn't asking anyone to edit the article, I was simply providing what I saw! You can call it my opinion if you want, but I know what I saw and once I know what I've seen it becomes a fact personally *to me*. By saying, "I provided the honest facts" I was simply stating that what I had seen was enough to convince *me*. If you want to interpret that as me saying that it's the "100% honest and complete truth and you are all wrong and not entitled to your opinions" then by all means, go ahead. Personally, I'm out of this conversation. Nothing good can come of it at this point. There's my opinion, like it or leave it. Vayne ( talk) 05:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps you should question what you believe to be a fact in this matter. This is exactly what we all try to do. When you say, "... is holding what some think is a camera, but it looks much more like a black case for carrying grenades or mortar rounds to me...", clearly there is enough doubt in your sentence to say that it is not a definite statement. I agree, it is difficult enough (for those of us who do not have extended military knowledge or an experience in analysing these videos) to see the difference between a camera and other types of equipment. RPG's can be mistaken for cameras. Cameras can be mistaken for RPG's.-- DragonFly31 ( talk) 08:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
After reading the entry, I have to question if the incident, as it stands, should be in Wikipedia. Basically, it comes down to a military operation, among thousands, that killed some civilians. There's no credible evidence of misbehavior. There's no evidence of any more coverup than routine OPSEC. So far, there's no real backlash. I think we jumped the gun by posting it before seeing if there was even another shoe to fall. I won't tag the entry just yet, since I want to see what y'all think. But, as of now, I don't think it's sufficiently encyclopedic. Izuko ( talk) 10:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Can someone place this edit in paragraph 4: On April 5, 2010, the Internet leak website Wikileaks released a[n editorialized version of a] classified video of the incident entitled Collateral Murder...
Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.15.153.108 ( talk) 13:29, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
This disappeared again. it doesnt say anywhere wikileaks released not only a 40 minute original video but also a shorter editorialized video as the main release. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plastichandle ( talk • contribs) 19:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Is it just me, or is there no AK-47 or RPG in the Exhibit O photos? There's some piece or wood or scrap metal in the AK-47 photo, but it's definitely not a gun. And the RPG photo just shows some dirt. Why don't they just go ahead and label one of the bodies "Osama bin Laden" and call it a day. Anyway, I've changed the label on the photo to reflect the ambiguity of the photos. Kaldari ( talk) 16:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I changed the photo captions again to be as close to the original titles in the Army report. Yes, those titles were self-serving, but I think the best way to handle that is by phrasing in the body of that subsection something to the effect of "included in the report were photos which the Army stated showed insurgents carrying weapons" Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 03:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
After adding the initial summary of the US Army report to the article, I wonder: can we write that one person visible in the video was carrying an RPG, or do we have to write that the US Army claims that one person in the video was carrying an RPG? How many users can see an RPG (1) in the video, (2) in the stills of the video, but (3) excluding any post-incident photographs? Who doesn't? And who's not sure? To me, it's a clear
{{Contra}}
- after viewing the video several times at high magnification, as well as the stills in the report, I fail to make out anything remotely resembling an RPG. --
Seelefant (
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16:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)The rules of engagement, as suggested above, are very important - but they are cryptic, and what I really want to see is some explanation of the policy behind the events at 7:30-8:15 or so on the video, where the soldiers see a van pull up and people try to pick up the wounded reporter. I don't think there's any doubt from looking at it and hearing the transcript that they attacked the van solely for this action. Now I don't know if the Geneva Convention offers any protection whatsoever to an impromptu, unmarked ambulance, but how can anyone identify two people with their hands on a wounded person to carry him (or their children) as "combatants"? Wnt ( talk) 16:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
" ... Something that has been missed in some of the press reportage about this is that there is a third attack, just twenty minutes later, by the same crew, involving three Hellfire missiles fired onto an apartment complex where the roof was still under construction. We have fresh evidence from Baghdad that there were three families living in that apartment complex, many of whom were killed, including women. And we sent a team down there to collect that evidence. So that is in the full video we released, not in the shortened one, because we didn’t yet have that additional evidence. Innocent bystanders walking down the street are also killed in that attack. ..."
" ... But we also see that the total death count is wrong. There were people killed in the buildings next to this event who were just there living in their houses. There were additional bystanders killed in the Hellfire missile attack, and those people weren’t even counted, let alone counted as insurgents. So you cannot believe these statements from the military about number of people who were killed, whether people are insurgents, whether an investigation into rules of engagement was correct. ... "
Julian Assange, Massacre Caught on Tape: US Military Confirms Authenticity of Their Own Chilling Video Showing Killing of Journalists, www.democracynow.org, 6.4.2010
If this article is about full video (39min) then "Death of ~12 individuals including 2 civilian reporters" (in infobox) is not good estimation. -- mj41 ( talk) 21:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Cited from "Wikileaks?" I looked at their website... Wow. Really guys? We can't get a more neutral and a "just the facts, ma'am" source this? I'm not going to start that old can of worms about mistakes happen in wars and turn this into a big shitstorm, but really why is this so clearly slanted towards the "the american military is full of murderers" school of thought? There's been no definitive ruling on this incident yet, but already this piss-poor, agenda oriented article has decided the tragic accident is actually just cowboyism by "those awful Americans." I suppose the worldwide fanbase probably likes that thought, and I'm sure whoever is the guiding hand behind this article is simply playing to a crowd, but for Christ sake people..! Enough of this! Jersey John ( talk) 22:19, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I have seen the video. Some of these guys had AK-47s and the guy with the "camera" appears in reality to be a guy with an RPG. At least, at first glance that is exactly what it appears to me to be. Fair is fair and the anti-American soldier bias of Wikisource is obvious. These actions of the American soldiers were lawful.
It is fine to say the United States should not be in Iraq, (I do not think we should be there) but falsely accusing Americans of atrocity is another matter. The recording shows the Americans were doing their best to protect bystanders. The reporter who drove up to the scene while battle was hot was an idiot who brought his death on himself; and I suspect one or both of these reporters were in fact also also insurgent agents or at least a little too friendly to them.
This will be exactly like the Vietnam era protesters who blamed the war on the individual American soldier and spat on him when he came back to the States. I assure you, if Wikipedia executives and Wikisource thinks this is the protest tactic to use it will backfire on them badly. Doing this to individual American soldiers is despicable. And if these Iraqi guys were innocent, tell me just what hot war in history did not include innocent people caught in the crossfire? This is part of the nature of war.
If you guys want anyone to blame, blame the cozy relationship of a lot of American politicians to Israel. Without our support of Israel we would not be embroiled in Middle Eastern affairs at all, there would have been no 9-11 attack, and no clumsy Bush reaction to it. Unfortunately getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a mistake. If we leave Iraq, Iran will absorb most or all of it, as Iran has a legitimate claim to the area. Watch tensions mount after that happens, my friends. Mtloweman ( talk) 14:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I disagree. There were some people in front of the building and on passerby-pedestrian. But this is war. In WWII there were plenty of German civilians killed as they simply went about their business. Had the United States fought with the rules of engagement you evidently want, Hitler would have won the war on the Western front. If you want us out of Iraq, do so through the politicians that got us there. Do not trash the individual American soldier. Mtloweman ( talk) 15:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
WikiLeaks has provided copies of the video at 360p and 480p. Even at 480p the image text is hard to read, yet in the leaked army report ( http://cryptome.org/reuters-kill.zip) the investigating officer has no trouble reading the time and other details from the video. This suggests to me that even the 480p copy of video is not at its original resolution.
A full resolution version would help to resolve the issue of whether members of the group were armed with AKMs and RPGs. Note that the army report implies the screen in the cockpit is small and would not be as clear as viewing it on a large monitor. Galerita ( talk) 01:38, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I remember reading about this some time ago. My older brother, who is a US Army Ranger, was talking about this with me. Me and him both agree that this illustrates just how messed up the entire situation in Iraq really is. A "normal" war, there isn't the sort of confusion that results in this. I refuse to believe that the Apache pilots saw a bunch of civilians and thought "hey I wanna kill some dudes!" Which is what the tone of this article implies. To be a chopper pilot requires an education that people with murderous tendencies don't really have the psychological capacity to go through, really, and I really, REALLY doubt that they would have fired if they had known exactly what was really happening. This is little more than an example of the horrors the confusion of war causes, it's not outright murder like what is hinted in this article. Neutrality on Wikipedia? It's becoming difficult to see these days on news articles. Yes, this was a tragedy but this also seems more like something slightly politically motivated than an informational article. Leave the political motivations to blogs, please? 71.191.209.143 ( talk) 06:44, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Among the dead were a 22-year-old Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.
I have uploaded the unedited full-length video in two parts at Commons:Baghdad 2007-07-12 airstrike videos. Each video is about 90mb. The quality is not as sharp as the original because it was over 600mb. We can decide if we want to add the videos to the article in place of the edited video. Also, another user has split relevant portions of the video (ranging from 10 to 60 seconds) which may be of use here. They are located in the link above. Mahanga Talk 06:59, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
This link on DefenceTech gives an interesting perspective: http://defensetech.org/2010/04/06/centcom-releases-report-on-apache-gun-camera-video/#axzz0kULrg6JR
Regarding rules of engagement: "There was apparently an extremely permissive ROE in effect during the operation because the statement from one of the Apache pilots says that after the attack that can be seen on the gun camera footage, the pilots spotted an individual(s) carrying an AK-47 enter a 3-story building. The pilots asked for and received clearance to fire and blasted the building with three Hellfire missiles, one in each floor, destroying the building. The statement says between 8 and 11 bodies were subsequently removed from the building."
On the van (excerpt from interview with investigating officer): "LTC: Did you see anything in the van? Pilot: I couldn’t see inside the van, but they ran around right after I had seen them extract weapons and individuals. LTC: As you saw on the tape, they didn’t have any weapons. So, what drove you then? What threat made you want to engage the van? Pilot: Well the friendlies were 300 meters away and from the initial report that a black car, sedan had been coming in and dropping off insurgents, taking them out, moving them to different locations. That was my whole thought process."
Applying ROE on the job : "LTC: Did you think your knowledge of ROE and the law of armed conflict adequately prepared you for this engagement? Pilot: You know, I know we go through ROE a lot, and you’ll be like oh okay, I’m tired of talking about the ROE. I think the heat of the moment is always the one thing that sometimes you might not have control over or you have to actively stop yourself and be like wait, think through it again, you know, and I talked with some of the other guys after the engagement..."
Where the children were sent: "The Wikileaks report is mistaken in saying that the children wounded in the van were not evacuated to an American hospital. The report says both wounded children were taken to the trauma center at FOB Loyalty, and later transferred to an Iraqi hospital."
Reporter's reaction to the language in the video: "The part of the video I had trouble with is the dialogue between the Apache pilots, which almost sounds like a caricature it’s so callous. I spent a lot of time around troops in Baghdad in 2005-06 and never heard anything even akin to that. Soldiers wanted to do soldier stuff and kill the enemy, but there was a basic level of respect for human life and the power of the weapons they carried. Trust me, there was a lot of gallows humor and grim photo collections of piles of dead from the civil war, but there wasn’t the absurd blood lust that’s so apparent in the pilot’s conversation. Perhaps it was because the ground troops saw the grisly aftermath of death and the second order effects on families up close and personal that they had a different outlook than the pilots that buzzed the city in glass enclosed cockpits. Or perhaps they spent so much time in the homes of the Iraqi people that they saw them as fellow human beings."
The original source of the interview excerpts is here: http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/rr/CENTCOM%20Regulation%20CCR%2025210/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fsites%2ffoia%2frr%2fCENTCOM%20Regulation%20CCR%2025210%2fDeath%20of%20Reuters%20Journalists&FolderCTID=&View={41BA1AAF-785A-481A-A630-12470AFCD6FD} Specifically: http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/rr/CENTCOM%20Regulation%20CCR%2025210/Death%20of%20Reuters%20Journalists/2--Sworn%20Statements%20.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Galerita ( talk • contribs) 07:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what is relevant to the main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Galerita ( talk • contribs) 07:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I have changed the lead to make clear there were three separate strikes by the same helicopter force. Someone could change the title too. Gregcaletta ( talk) 07:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Now that his analysis was cited here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100406/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1490 it would be nice to include some of it in this article. http://blog.ajmartinez.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-collateral-murder/ Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 10:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I would like to delete the following the strikeout protion of this sentence: "During the helicopter force's surveillance, the group of men on the ground displayed no obvious hostile behaviour and most were clearly unarmed the crewmen reported seeing weapons: one man carrying an
AK-47 and another man a
rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).
The "no hostile behaviour" is sourced to one reporter's opinion having watched the video, and isn't the best opinion, or the opinion we should include in the article (its silly when you consider one guy is walking round a street with an RPG-7, which is inherently hostile behavior). The second part is just weasely, the article already states that there were 12 individuals, and only 2 were identified and carrying weapons. Repeating that the remaining 10 were unarmed is for POV reasons. Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 10:38, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
OK, got rid of it, its just so unreasonable. The article clearly later states that the crewman misidentified the raising of a camera as the raising of an RPG (hostile intent). Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 11:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
There are many instances of POV-trailing on this article. Right from the start, editors are mixing hindsight with the attack. The incidents should be described dispassionately, without hindsight. That hindsight should be left until later in the article, otherwise you have readers assuming that the pilots purposely misidentified weapons, and behaved in a gung-ho fashion.
While editors are busily inserting text like "the crews then misidentified x, and shot y (who showed no signs of hostile behaviour)", you'll never have a neutral and informative article. What you will have, is an article that seeks to establish blame, before the reader even has a chance to study the mission reports and subsequent media analysis.
In short, its an utter mess, and I can see myself becoming very quickly frustrated by the efforts of editors who clearly have an axe to grind against the US military. Let the readers arrive at their own conclusions—don't try to force those conclusions upon them. Parrot of Doom 11:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The only bias I see here is from Lipstick Pig and Parrot
GovernmentWalls (
talk)
10:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I suspect that eventually a reaction section will be appropriate. If you have any comments or items for inclusion, post them here. ButOnMethItIs ( talk) 12:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The article informs that Crazyhorse designates a helicopter unit, but what about the other radio units we hear? __ meco ( talk) 13:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
From Wikileaks twitter NOTE: "permission to engage" (kill) Reuters journalists was given BEFORE Namir took up his camera.
01:33 Hotel Two-Six this is Crazy Horse One-Eight [communication between chopper 1 and chopper 2]. Have individuals with weapons. 01:41 Yup. He's got a weapon too. 01:43 Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight. Have five to six individuals with AK47s [automatic rifles]. Request permission to engage [shoot]. 01:51 Roger that. Uh, we have no personnel east of our position. So, uh, you are free to engage. Over. 02:00 All right, we'll be engaging. 02:02 Roger, go ahead. ... 02:11 All right, we got a guy with an RPG. 02:13 I'm gonna fire. 02:14 Okay.
-- mj41 ( talk) 15:11, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The description of the video, in one Guardian, article, includes the throw-away phrase "it is unclear if anyone was armed". However, a casual review of other articles shows more expert and convincing commentary that, yes, in fact, there were light arms and at least one RPG being deployed. My preference would be to ditch the phrase entirely and let viewers make up their own mind about what the video shows. However, if necessary, we should rely on expert commentary about what the the video shows rather than the view of one journalist. Ronnotel ( talk) 15:32, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Maybe I missed it, but theres nothing I saw in the article that spells out that american soldiers in helicopter were flying around a battle zone, and they see guys they think have RPGs and guns, which the RPGs are a threat to them, and they request permission to fire and carry out an attack. There at a distance, so yes its hard to see things clearly, and stuff is happening quickly. Do they wait for a potential attacker to shot an RPG at them and take them out of sky, or do they fire first? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.99.65.63 ( talk) 21:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that wikipedia's policies around secondary sources are actually poorly serving the accuracy and NPOV elements of this article. Press reports are not competent secondary sources in interpretation of video of military operations (or of the operations themselves), nor necessarily NPOV, but seem to be being used as such to justify editorial decisions in this talk page. Similar competency concerns apply to the interpretation being made by the personnel of wikileaks, who in addition are approaching the interpretation from an adversarial point of view. The release of the video under the 'collateral murder' label is very clearly an adversarial POV that taints the video by association before anyone even looks at it, as are the additional statements made by Julian Assange in various venues. The entire 'Reaction to report' section currently consists of further statements by Julian Assange, the person ultimately responsible for posting the report, so might more accurately be titled 'Further Allegations', it certainly isn't reaction. We need to be very careful to distinguish between fact, opinion, interpretation of video evidence by qualified personnel and interpretation of video evidence by unqualified personnel and whether or not those sources represent NPOV. Equally language used needs to be watched carefully, for instance 'The (army) report claims ' would seem to imply an acceptance of a level of doubt about the veracity of the report, which therefore sides with the wikileaks POV rather than NPOV, 'The report states' would more clearly be NPOV.
77.96.255.55 ( talk) 16:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC) DWG
I felt this complaint was well justified, but I blamed it on a bad outline structure rather than bias per se. So I've changed the section specifically for "reaction to the US Army report" into a general "2010 coverage" section as an independent subheading, and added in the short paragraph naming media sources that covered the video. I hope this will encourage people from all sides to add or expand description of the reliable sources that document their points of view. Wnt ( talk) 20:43, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
This is an unimportant technical point, but I'm going to fact-tag each statement in the article that claims that the video came from the "gunsight". A better term (and preferably a wikilink) needs to be used for the video system; I just don't know what it is. Comet Tuttle ( talk) 17:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/8/exclusive_witnesses_describe_deadly_2007_us
Especially:
"RICK ROWLEY: Yeah, now, I mean, I’m a journalist, and I go and talk to people and report what they said. And these residents came and told me that the man who they drove over was alive, that he had crawled out of the van that had been shot to pieces and that he was still alive when the Americans drove over him and cut him in half, basically, with a Bradley or tank or whatever armored vehicle they were driving in." 206.248.159.113 ( talk) 17:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Whatever the implications of the event, the article, especially its introduction, conveys a conservative and factual story. To those who dislike the implications of the event: please stop turning this talk page into a forum for your opinions. If there are qualified and notable opinions expressed, they can be and have been cited in the article. To those who wish the implications of the event would be made explicit or exaggerated for a good cause: that's never Wikipedia's job, and the commentary of passion that doesn't go on the articles is not meant for Wikipedia talk pages either.
The many sections here expressing a) clearly the people on the ground are insurgents or b) clearly the gunners are murderers, are misplaced and should not be on Wikipedia. An article about an event, regardless of its implications, should not be accompanied by the sentiments those implications arouse.
Thank you. Flipping Mackerel ( talk) 19:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'll start with the very first inconsistency I encountered in the sworn statements available from the CENTCOM website one of the members of the AWT says:
He says he saw them extract weapons, however note that in the video the pilot says:
And as is clear from the video nobody ever tries to pick up any weapons, they're completely focused on trying to get Saeed Chmagh out of there.
Note that LTC and CW3 are ranks, Lieutenant Colonel and Chief Warrant Officer Three respectively.
-- Bruce ( talk) 19:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm reading the sworn statements and it contains some information regarding the footage missing, specifically:
I'd be very interested in seeing all the footage taken and don't see any reasons DoD/CENTCOM shouldn't release it (last I heard they had some trouble "locating" any footage though).
-- Bruce ( talk) 20:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
A car bomb a week vs. this? How is this really notable other than it made it to Wikipedia thereby building its own notoriety? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.75.1.2 ( talk) 20:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Another editor privately queried whether both aircraft (CZ18 and CZ19) had engaged, or only one of them. For the avoidance of doubt, the official military reports state:
— Sladen ( talk) 21:05, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
David Finkel's account of the day sheds some more light on the context and should be integrated into the article.
Links:
-- Bruce ( talk) 21:29, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Maybe this one link should be added. It's a contemporary report published on Friday, July 13, 2007 in the Washington Post about that day's events, and in which Finkel also participated
Johannjs ( talk) 12:40, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
The third attack is definitely the same helicopter and crew. It's shown at the end of the unedited version of the video and the crew use the same call-sign througout. The New Yorker explicitly links the the third attack with the earlier ones: "...earlier portions of the video suggest that Crazy Horse One-Eight is not an entirely reliable narrator.".-- MoreThings ( talk) 21:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I couldn't think of a single non-awkward way to point out that Wikileaks has nothing to do with Wikipedia in the text. But I wish there was some way to make this clear in the article lead, as I think some of the hostile reactions we've seen here might be based on the false but not particularly unforeseeable assumption that Wikileaks would have some relationship to the people behind Wikimedia/Wikipedia/Wiktionary/Wikisource/Wikibooks/etcetera. Wnt ( talk) 22:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Wow Parrot, you're a bit arrogant. IT's not "catering to the lowest common denominator." It wouldn't be unreasonable for someone with no prior experience with WP or Wikileaks to make the assumption, off the name, that there could be some connection. I personally knew from the start that there is not, however it is not nonsensical for one to make that assumption initially, and certainly not just because YOU say so. Having a disclaimer to make clear that "Wikileaks" is not somehow linked with Wikipedia.org is not a bad idea at all. I get the idea you believe many to be the "lowest common denominator."
Jersey John (
talk)
00:04, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
The geography of this incident might be of some interest. For example, after following the Coordinates link, and assuming the morning sun is in the east, I was able to determine that the van came out of the road at the western side of the open square. What's interesting about this is that this area was the eastern edge of a combat zone that day, with some of the heaviest fighting near the east edge. So I'm inclined to think that the parents and children were actually fleeing the combat zone rather than entering it, when they stopped to pick up the wounded person. They were headed toward the edge of the city, about 0.4 miles away. Does this make sense? It'll be interesting to see if I can find discussion of the landscape. Wnt ( talk) 23:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
We first state that the children we denied medical treatment at an American facility (per Wikileaks) and later that they were evacuated to FOB Loyalty by the Americans for medical treatment (as per the CENTCOM report). We should figure out a good way to present this discrepancy. Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 23:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Are you all OK with making the presentation of the references the same? I prefer simpler, without the extended quotes embedded in them. Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 00:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Can someone fix this up: "While US ground forces were en route to the scene, an unmarked van arrived, from which two men disembarked. " Close inspection of the short video from 9:04/17:47 to 9:22/17:47 reveals that neither of the two additional men disembarked from the van, but rather arrived separately on foot from the same direction as the van. Galerita ( talk) 02:35, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Some of these have been mentioned in passing above.
The 'Full Version' of The Wikileaks Video Is Missing 30 Minutes of Footage, gawker.com, 9.4.2010 -- mj41 ( talk) 11:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I find it distressing that the neighborhood where the attacks occurred isn't documented at all in our List of neighborhoods and districts in Baghdad or in our Administrative districts in Baghdad.
I have gathered material to make a stub article, but I would prefer if someone else would make the article.
Variant spellings and namings:
Google searches: I find it helpful to include the word "district," e.g.
baghdad "al-amin district".
Thanks and best wishes, JD Caselaw ( talk) 15:54, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
Hey everyone, this page is in need of some help! There's a plethora of information on this incident I haven't been able to integrate yet. Most of it can be found at collateralmurder.com and wikileaks.org, and is mirrored on all of the major news websites. The Washington Post also has some info. I'm pretty new to editing, so any help with formatting is much appreciated! WhisperingWisdom T C 02:29, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Whew this grew quick. Work needed: "Incident" section should be expanded - with evidence from the video, a detailed description of the incident can be created, and referenced back to the video. WhisperingWisdom T C 05:22, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
In the article, it states the the little girl in the van suffered gunshot wounds. Does that mean she was hit by the 30mm apache cannon, or by small-arms later? Just seemed unlikely that a small child survived multiple hits with something that large... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.153.29.23 ( talk) 03:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I've heard that the pentagon has denied that this ever took place and that in fact also tried to get wikileaks taken down before April 5th to prevent the video from leaking. Does anyone know if this is true? If so, does it sound like something that should be mentioned in the article? Rafael 06:44, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The 'transcript' here is not complete in any way, and does not claim to be. However, there are selected quotes here that are not a fair representation of the video. Adding things like: One small child wounded. Over." - "Roger. Ah damn. Oh well." and 07:25:27 "There it goes! Look at that bitch go!" but not including the full text really doesnt seem right. Someone should do a full text (of the full 40 minute video not the short one with comments on it) to really show what is going on in the video. The selective quotes are not enough. This is an important incident, and many many people should see the video in its entirety. We all know this video is useless if its edited to support your point of view or only show selective parts of it
There clearly wasn't a media blackout, as the incidenct was covered by CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Huffington Post, the BBC, amongst others only a few hours after the incident. It wasn't exactly speedy, but it seems unlikely that they were pressured into not running the story (whether they were pressured into omitting facts is a different matter). The media blackout controversy seemed to have started on reddit soon after the release because it took the MSM a few hours. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 132.177.67.97 ( talk) 07:47, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Agreed - reddit has a tendency to hype the conspiracy side of things. I think the section in "Publicity" on the so-called media blackout should be rewritten more neutrally. WhisperingWisdom T C 09:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I just deleted all the media blackout stuff, since, you know, it didn't exist.-- 132.177.67.97 ( talk) 12:57, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
good call, reddit's BS self-posts are not a legitimate source. this was definitely on tv yesterday Plastichandle ( talk) 17:16, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know why the helicopter crew were suspicious of people walking around? Had people been told to stay indoors or leave the district, for example? New Thought ( talk) 12:05, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Is it possible to work out either from the video or from the gap between the gun firing and rounds arriving in the target area how far the helicopter was from the target area? New Thought ( talk) 12:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
Also two questions that should be answered in the article: Is it allowed to shoot people caring AK-47 in a non-threatening manner? Some people mentioned that owning and carrying a AK-47 is perfectly legal in Iraq (but maybe not at the time and location of the incident?). Also some people mentioned that the video quality inside the helicopter is substantially better then what we see in the recorded video, is that the case? Does anybody have an example for comparison? -- Grumbel ( talk) 12:24, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The range is ~1050m as the helicopter comes around the building, immediately before they open fire. They close to 940m by the time the burst impacts. The range, coupled with their altitude of ~1000ft syncs up pretty well with the gun's muzzle velocity Apacheguy ( talk) 15:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The range can be read off the video in units of 10 metres. It is displayed just to the top right (outside) of the rectangle at the bottom centre of the screen. The main difficulty is that the video resolution (480p) is probably below the native resolution of the gun camera, so it's hard to read. I make the range 1000m when they start firing and about 850m at the end of the first burst. This range (calculated via laser rangefinder ?) is of course used to calculate a firing solution. Galerita ( talk) 02:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Also the projectile velocity will fall rapidly once it leaves the muzzle due to air resistance. Page 8 of this document ( http://www.docstoc.com/docs/28824935/30mm-x113-Spotter-Charge-Prototype) suggests it is only about 340 m/s at 1000m (It's unclear if this is fired at ground level or 500 feet). If this was constant deceleration (with time) we could just take the distance divided by the average velocity (1000m/570m/s) to give time (1.75 sec). (See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equations_of_motion) However, the projectile decelerates more rapidly initially, so 2.1 seconds is a reasonable time of flight over 1000m. Galerita ( talk) 02:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The article states that 'Both children were evacuated to forward operating base Loyalty'. However, both the chatter (transcript) and Wikileaks claim the children were simply dumped at a local facility, suggesting a different standard of care. I do not consider the source is credible as it has been established that the official statements were inaccurate. As the video is deemed genuine by all parties involved it should be assumed that it was a local hospital and not military care. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Rernst2 ( talk • contribs) 23:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I've moved this off the article for further discussion:
This quote is accurate but calling it a pretext implies it happened before shots were fired, whereas actually it comes later. I'm not sure if it should be in the article. 33° ( talk) 12:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't believe the American gunners showed an 'eagerness' or 'indiscrimination' at all. These comments degrade the skill of US troops in combat. Please remember this is video shot during WAR- where it is the JOB of soldiers to kill. Because US troops do that job very well is not an indication of 'desensitization'. At min3:40 of the video the targets are clearly seen holding weapons. The Rueters crew surely knew they were embedded with beligerent fighters and that fact doesn't seem to be raised in these discussions. Haamerhed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.188.141.252 ( talk) 18:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
[NC in LB, CA here] I am curios why the original author of this article chose to write: "During their surveillance of the group, the crewmen identified weaponry in the hands of the Iraqis..." when in fact, the object(s) in the hands of one- or more of the persons on the ground would later be acknowledged to be cameras? It would be more accurate to state that crew-members "mistook" one object for another (if that is, in fact, what occurred). I am all for dispassionate reportage of passion-rousing events, but the original author appears to have intentionally omitted a vital - and admitted fact from their recounting of the event.
At 3:45 in the 17 minute video, the behaviour of the guys in the top centre of the video looks very suspicious indeed - and the item they are carrying looks very much like an AK-47 or RPG to me. Are we 100% stone cold certain that they are civilians? New Thought ( talk) 13:00, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The footage clearly shows that several of the "civilians" are carrying AK-47s. The rather biased description in this article needs to be changed whok ( talk) 00:22, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The Publicity section appears to be completely original synthesis. We need external sources connecting all the dots. It's not our task to do that. __ meco ( talk) 13:18, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
someone should include a section for how it was reported in 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/world/middleeast/13iraq.html?_r=4&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
this article says the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed. which turned out to be a complete lie.-- 86.133.232.107 ( talk) 15:05, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
This should also go here. It's a contemporary report published on Friday, July 13, 2007 in the Washington Post about that day's events. Reporter David Finkel as an "embedded journalist" also participated in writing it to cover [up] what really happened.
Johannjs ( talk) 12:55, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
These are images to be added when the article has enough text to hold them.-- Diaa abdelmoneim ( talk) 17:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I propose a section evaluating the video in light of the Rules of Engagement in effect at that time, which are available at http://www.collateralmurder.org/en/resources.html. WhisperingWisdom T C 23:25, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I have commented out the timeline section until a more neutral (less selective) version can be implemented. — C M B J 23:49, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The incident is not too complicated to represent with a timeline and I for one think the addition of a timestamped, sequential list of events adds a lot to the article. If this is unrealistic or incorrect, please explain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by ButOnMethItIs ( talk • contribs) 00:09, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
100px|left|thumb Non-free image removed. fetch comms ☛ 02:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC) The Army report states that the van was "black" (Captions to Exhibits F, H, I), yet the color image of the van after the attack shows a (sky-?) bluish van, with possibly a white roof, and white "skirts". Maybe Apacheguy can enlighten us if this is due to the fact that the spectral sensitivity of the gunsight is shifted to the infrared (of course assuming that this information is not restricted)? Do all the other facts in the report hold up? -- Enemenemu ( talk) 00:15, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Whoever modified the intro, it is now in need of references. WhisperingWisdom T C 00:36, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The lead, which I edited a bit, currently says "... A subsequent investigation of the incident by US forces determined that although the helicopters had engaged a number of armed insurgents, the engagement left two reporters for Reuters dead in an apparent case of friendly fire. ..." However, the Friendly fire article says "... inadvertent harm to non-combatatants[sic] or structures, usually referred to as "collateral damage" is also not considered to be friendly fire. ...", and I'm fairly sure Reuters employees are non-combatants. Perhaps the two articles should be reconciled? -- an odd name 00:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The name of the video file is "CollateralMurder". Murder is a crime that needs to be proven in a court of law and I don't think that's happened yet. The name clearly reflects bias. Also, the Author of the video is listed as "US Apache helicopter" when clearly the real author has drastically altered the original feed. This needs to be remedied immediately as it appears that the video is in violation of BLP rules (it gives the impression that the pilots have been convicted of murder and that this might be the conclusion of the US government which is not true). If this isn't fixed, the video file should be removed.-- Cdogsimmons ( talk) 01:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with Cdogsimmons, the video presented in the article should be as uneditorialized as possible. For example, the resolution that you see on the wikileaks version makes it harder to see the difference between an RPG versus a camera. The actual resolution of the TADS equipment in the helicopter is much better. Other problems with the Wikileaks version (and these problems do fall under BLP when you are calling individuals complicit in murder, regardless or not whether that is "true") can be seen here: http://blog.ajmartinez.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-collateral-murder/ Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 01:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
{{
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NW (
Talk)
02:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the article is about the controversy, I don't think that there is a problem with hosting Wikileak's main edited video, as long as it is properly described as such. If the longer, unedited version is available, then why not post both? PS, all Wikileaks statements (such as alleging murder) shouldn't have BLP problems as long as they are properly attributed. - M.Nelson ( talk) 02:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The video size should be made larger in the article. It's a 480×384, 100mb video that's shown in a tiny 180px square. Awful waste of bandwidth and it's just unviewable. Mahanga Talk 03:06, 7 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.226.212.189 ( talk)
The article is unclear about the nature of the two Reuters employees, alternately referring to them as staff, reporters and photographers. There is a tendency in the media lately to consider anyone affiliated with newsgathering to be a "journalist" of some degree, even if they are drivers or interpreters. This article could use clarification of the exact nature of the two men's relationship to Reuters.
^As well as their relationship to the armed men in the video. The blunt statement they worked for Reuters ignores their assignment and what perspective they were covering. Haamerhed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.188.141.252 ( talk) 18:46, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
The Reuters inquiry about why two cameras were confiscated is unclear - I trust that is a reference to two cameras confiscated from the deceased Reuters employees. At that point the article had referred to the employees as "staff" and as "reporters," though, so the reference to cameras comes out of the blue - we had not yet been told whether they were actually photographers.
Jnmwiki ( talk) 02:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Is it normal for (American) journalists to be around insurgents? Maybe WP can provide some context for readers? 96.226.212.189 ( talk) 02:39, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Stop trolling. Reuters is a British (UK) based company, and the "Journalists" were Iraqi. The only thing American was the Apache Crew that engaged armed targets within a pre-designated target zone. 24.21.11.36 ( talk) 02:56, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I've seen other examples on Wikipedia before, maybe it's to create drama or push a certain viewpoint, but there is no reason the article title should have the word "controversy" in it, which forces the direction of the article. This is an article about the July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike, and that should be the article title. We can detail the publication and response to the details and let the reader decide as to how "controversial" this is without telling him outright via the URL. - 92.17.45.6 ( talk) 02:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Currently, the article is under category "Reuters Group plc". However, given that its main article is Reuters, I think this and the category's other articles should be moved to category "Reuters". I'm not a category wonk, so I'm not keen to boldly changing every article from the long name to the short, but the short one seems better to me. -- an odd name 02:55, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
This article is not biased in any way. The article is simply reporting the facts. American soldiers killed civilians whom they mistook for Iraqi freedom fighters. 63.115.34.34 ( talk) 15:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC) Deadman909
This article is extremely biased. Furthermore, the individuals in this video are clearly insurgents and this whole claim of "war crimes" is just people trying to stir up international anger at the US military. At 1:20 you can clearly, obviously see a man with a RPG7 leaning out from around the corner of a building observing the Apache (or possibly responding to the noise of its rotors). At 2:01 before the AH-64 begins to fire you can clearly see one individual with an AKM on his shoulder and another holding to me what looks like a RPG warhead. Another is holding what some think is a camera, but it looks much more like a black case for carrying grenades or mortar rounds to me. When they zoom in at 4:03 after engaging the targets you can clearly see a Kalashnikov lying on the ground next to one of the bodies. Then a van shows up and starts loading the bodies up. Seriously, how much more clear could this be people? Why would news reporters move a van to a location they had just been SHOT AT and start loading up the bodies of insurgents they've never met before as well as two "reporters"?
This whole thing is ridiculous. There are plenty of real gun camera captures where questionable engagements take place, but this is not one of them. You all just want to see something that isn't there. Vayne ( talk) 05:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Sorry you see it that way, Toby. I wasn't asking anyone to edit the article, I was simply providing what I saw! You can call it my opinion if you want, but I know what I saw and once I know what I've seen it becomes a fact personally *to me*. By saying, "I provided the honest facts" I was simply stating that what I had seen was enough to convince *me*. If you want to interpret that as me saying that it's the "100% honest and complete truth and you are all wrong and not entitled to your opinions" then by all means, go ahead. Personally, I'm out of this conversation. Nothing good can come of it at this point. There's my opinion, like it or leave it. Vayne ( talk) 05:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps you should question what you believe to be a fact in this matter. This is exactly what we all try to do. When you say, "... is holding what some think is a camera, but it looks much more like a black case for carrying grenades or mortar rounds to me...", clearly there is enough doubt in your sentence to say that it is not a definite statement. I agree, it is difficult enough (for those of us who do not have extended military knowledge or an experience in analysing these videos) to see the difference between a camera and other types of equipment. RPG's can be mistaken for cameras. Cameras can be mistaken for RPG's.-- DragonFly31 ( talk) 08:31, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
After reading the entry, I have to question if the incident, as it stands, should be in Wikipedia. Basically, it comes down to a military operation, among thousands, that killed some civilians. There's no credible evidence of misbehavior. There's no evidence of any more coverup than routine OPSEC. So far, there's no real backlash. I think we jumped the gun by posting it before seeing if there was even another shoe to fall. I won't tag the entry just yet, since I want to see what y'all think. But, as of now, I don't think it's sufficiently encyclopedic. Izuko ( talk) 10:35, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Can someone place this edit in paragraph 4: On April 5, 2010, the Internet leak website Wikileaks released a[n editorialized version of a] classified video of the incident entitled Collateral Murder...
Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.15.153.108 ( talk) 13:29, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
This disappeared again. it doesnt say anywhere wikileaks released not only a 40 minute original video but also a shorter editorialized video as the main release. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Plastichandle ( talk • contribs) 19:41, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Is it just me, or is there no AK-47 or RPG in the Exhibit O photos? There's some piece or wood or scrap metal in the AK-47 photo, but it's definitely not a gun. And the RPG photo just shows some dirt. Why don't they just go ahead and label one of the bodies "Osama bin Laden" and call it a day. Anyway, I've changed the label on the photo to reflect the ambiguity of the photos. Kaldari ( talk) 16:05, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I changed the photo captions again to be as close to the original titles in the Army report. Yes, those titles were self-serving, but I think the best way to handle that is by phrasing in the body of that subsection something to the effect of "included in the report were photos which the Army stated showed insurgents carrying weapons" Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 03:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
After adding the initial summary of the US Army report to the article, I wonder: can we write that one person visible in the video was carrying an RPG, or do we have to write that the US Army claims that one person in the video was carrying an RPG? How many users can see an RPG (1) in the video, (2) in the stills of the video, but (3) excluding any post-incident photographs? Who doesn't? And who's not sure? To me, it's a clear
{{Contra}}
- after viewing the video several times at high magnification, as well as the stills in the report, I fail to make out anything remotely resembling an RPG. --
Seelefant (
talk)
16:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)The rules of engagement, as suggested above, are very important - but they are cryptic, and what I really want to see is some explanation of the policy behind the events at 7:30-8:15 or so on the video, where the soldiers see a van pull up and people try to pick up the wounded reporter. I don't think there's any doubt from looking at it and hearing the transcript that they attacked the van solely for this action. Now I don't know if the Geneva Convention offers any protection whatsoever to an impromptu, unmarked ambulance, but how can anyone identify two people with their hands on a wounded person to carry him (or their children) as "combatants"? Wnt ( talk) 16:33, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
" ... Something that has been missed in some of the press reportage about this is that there is a third attack, just twenty minutes later, by the same crew, involving three Hellfire missiles fired onto an apartment complex where the roof was still under construction. We have fresh evidence from Baghdad that there were three families living in that apartment complex, many of whom were killed, including women. And we sent a team down there to collect that evidence. So that is in the full video we released, not in the shortened one, because we didn’t yet have that additional evidence. Innocent bystanders walking down the street are also killed in that attack. ..."
" ... But we also see that the total death count is wrong. There were people killed in the buildings next to this event who were just there living in their houses. There were additional bystanders killed in the Hellfire missile attack, and those people weren’t even counted, let alone counted as insurgents. So you cannot believe these statements from the military about number of people who were killed, whether people are insurgents, whether an investigation into rules of engagement was correct. ... "
Julian Assange, Massacre Caught on Tape: US Military Confirms Authenticity of Their Own Chilling Video Showing Killing of Journalists, www.democracynow.org, 6.4.2010
If this article is about full video (39min) then "Death of ~12 individuals including 2 civilian reporters" (in infobox) is not good estimation. -- mj41 ( talk) 21:30, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Cited from "Wikileaks?" I looked at their website... Wow. Really guys? We can't get a more neutral and a "just the facts, ma'am" source this? I'm not going to start that old can of worms about mistakes happen in wars and turn this into a big shitstorm, but really why is this so clearly slanted towards the "the american military is full of murderers" school of thought? There's been no definitive ruling on this incident yet, but already this piss-poor, agenda oriented article has decided the tragic accident is actually just cowboyism by "those awful Americans." I suppose the worldwide fanbase probably likes that thought, and I'm sure whoever is the guiding hand behind this article is simply playing to a crowd, but for Christ sake people..! Enough of this! Jersey John ( talk) 22:19, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
I have seen the video. Some of these guys had AK-47s and the guy with the "camera" appears in reality to be a guy with an RPG. At least, at first glance that is exactly what it appears to me to be. Fair is fair and the anti-American soldier bias of Wikisource is obvious. These actions of the American soldiers were lawful.
It is fine to say the United States should not be in Iraq, (I do not think we should be there) but falsely accusing Americans of atrocity is another matter. The recording shows the Americans were doing their best to protect bystanders. The reporter who drove up to the scene while battle was hot was an idiot who brought his death on himself; and I suspect one or both of these reporters were in fact also also insurgent agents or at least a little too friendly to them.
This will be exactly like the Vietnam era protesters who blamed the war on the individual American soldier and spat on him when he came back to the States. I assure you, if Wikipedia executives and Wikisource thinks this is the protest tactic to use it will backfire on them badly. Doing this to individual American soldiers is despicable. And if these Iraqi guys were innocent, tell me just what hot war in history did not include innocent people caught in the crossfire? This is part of the nature of war.
If you guys want anyone to blame, blame the cozy relationship of a lot of American politicians to Israel. Without our support of Israel we would not be embroiled in Middle Eastern affairs at all, there would have been no 9-11 attack, and no clumsy Bush reaction to it. Unfortunately getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a mistake. If we leave Iraq, Iran will absorb most or all of it, as Iran has a legitimate claim to the area. Watch tensions mount after that happens, my friends. Mtloweman ( talk) 14:47, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I disagree. There were some people in front of the building and on passerby-pedestrian. But this is war. In WWII there were plenty of German civilians killed as they simply went about their business. Had the United States fought with the rules of engagement you evidently want, Hitler would have won the war on the Western front. If you want us out of Iraq, do so through the politicians that got us there. Do not trash the individual American soldier. Mtloweman ( talk) 15:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
WikiLeaks has provided copies of the video at 360p and 480p. Even at 480p the image text is hard to read, yet in the leaked army report ( http://cryptome.org/reuters-kill.zip) the investigating officer has no trouble reading the time and other details from the video. This suggests to me that even the 480p copy of video is not at its original resolution.
A full resolution version would help to resolve the issue of whether members of the group were armed with AKMs and RPGs. Note that the army report implies the screen in the cockpit is small and would not be as clear as viewing it on a large monitor. Galerita ( talk) 01:38, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I remember reading about this some time ago. My older brother, who is a US Army Ranger, was talking about this with me. Me and him both agree that this illustrates just how messed up the entire situation in Iraq really is. A "normal" war, there isn't the sort of confusion that results in this. I refuse to believe that the Apache pilots saw a bunch of civilians and thought "hey I wanna kill some dudes!" Which is what the tone of this article implies. To be a chopper pilot requires an education that people with murderous tendencies don't really have the psychological capacity to go through, really, and I really, REALLY doubt that they would have fired if they had known exactly what was really happening. This is little more than an example of the horrors the confusion of war causes, it's not outright murder like what is hinted in this article. Neutrality on Wikipedia? It's becoming difficult to see these days on news articles. Yes, this was a tragedy but this also seems more like something slightly politically motivated than an informational article. Leave the political motivations to blogs, please? 71.191.209.143 ( talk) 06:44, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Among the dead were a 22-year-old Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.
I have uploaded the unedited full-length video in two parts at Commons:Baghdad 2007-07-12 airstrike videos. Each video is about 90mb. The quality is not as sharp as the original because it was over 600mb. We can decide if we want to add the videos to the article in place of the edited video. Also, another user has split relevant portions of the video (ranging from 10 to 60 seconds) which may be of use here. They are located in the link above. Mahanga Talk 06:59, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
This link on DefenceTech gives an interesting perspective: http://defensetech.org/2010/04/06/centcom-releases-report-on-apache-gun-camera-video/#axzz0kULrg6JR
Regarding rules of engagement: "There was apparently an extremely permissive ROE in effect during the operation because the statement from one of the Apache pilots says that after the attack that can be seen on the gun camera footage, the pilots spotted an individual(s) carrying an AK-47 enter a 3-story building. The pilots asked for and received clearance to fire and blasted the building with three Hellfire missiles, one in each floor, destroying the building. The statement says between 8 and 11 bodies were subsequently removed from the building."
On the van (excerpt from interview with investigating officer): "LTC: Did you see anything in the van? Pilot: I couldn’t see inside the van, but they ran around right after I had seen them extract weapons and individuals. LTC: As you saw on the tape, they didn’t have any weapons. So, what drove you then? What threat made you want to engage the van? Pilot: Well the friendlies were 300 meters away and from the initial report that a black car, sedan had been coming in and dropping off insurgents, taking them out, moving them to different locations. That was my whole thought process."
Applying ROE on the job : "LTC: Did you think your knowledge of ROE and the law of armed conflict adequately prepared you for this engagement? Pilot: You know, I know we go through ROE a lot, and you’ll be like oh okay, I’m tired of talking about the ROE. I think the heat of the moment is always the one thing that sometimes you might not have control over or you have to actively stop yourself and be like wait, think through it again, you know, and I talked with some of the other guys after the engagement..."
Where the children were sent: "The Wikileaks report is mistaken in saying that the children wounded in the van were not evacuated to an American hospital. The report says both wounded children were taken to the trauma center at FOB Loyalty, and later transferred to an Iraqi hospital."
Reporter's reaction to the language in the video: "The part of the video I had trouble with is the dialogue between the Apache pilots, which almost sounds like a caricature it’s so callous. I spent a lot of time around troops in Baghdad in 2005-06 and never heard anything even akin to that. Soldiers wanted to do soldier stuff and kill the enemy, but there was a basic level of respect for human life and the power of the weapons they carried. Trust me, there was a lot of gallows humor and grim photo collections of piles of dead from the civil war, but there wasn’t the absurd blood lust that’s so apparent in the pilot’s conversation. Perhaps it was because the ground troops saw the grisly aftermath of death and the second order effects on families up close and personal that they had a different outlook than the pilots that buzzed the city in glass enclosed cockpits. Or perhaps they spent so much time in the homes of the Iraqi people that they saw them as fellow human beings."
The original source of the interview excerpts is here: http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/rr/CENTCOM%20Regulation%20CCR%2025210/Forms/AllItems.aspx?RootFolder=%2fsites%2ffoia%2frr%2fCENTCOM%20Regulation%20CCR%2025210%2fDeath%20of%20Reuters%20Journalists&FolderCTID=&View={41BA1AAF-785A-481A-A630-12470AFCD6FD} Specifically: http://www2.centcom.mil/sites/foia/rr/CENTCOM%20Regulation%20CCR%2025210/Death%20of%20Reuters%20Journalists/2--Sworn%20Statements%20.pdf —Preceding unsigned comment added by Galerita ( talk • contribs) 07:31, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure what is relevant to the main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Galerita ( talk • contribs) 07:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I have changed the lead to make clear there were three separate strikes by the same helicopter force. Someone could change the title too. Gregcaletta ( talk) 07:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Now that his analysis was cited here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20100406/ts_ynews/ynews_ts1490 it would be nice to include some of it in this article. http://blog.ajmartinez.com/2010/04/05/wikileaks-collateral-murder/ Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 10:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I would like to delete the following the strikeout protion of this sentence: "During the helicopter force's surveillance, the group of men on the ground displayed no obvious hostile behaviour and most were clearly unarmed the crewmen reported seeing weapons: one man carrying an
AK-47 and another man a
rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).
The "no hostile behaviour" is sourced to one reporter's opinion having watched the video, and isn't the best opinion, or the opinion we should include in the article (its silly when you consider one guy is walking round a street with an RPG-7, which is inherently hostile behavior). The second part is just weasely, the article already states that there were 12 individuals, and only 2 were identified and carrying weapons. Repeating that the remaining 10 were unarmed is for POV reasons. Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 10:38, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
OK, got rid of it, its just so unreasonable. The article clearly later states that the crewman misidentified the raising of a camera as the raising of an RPG (hostile intent). Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 11:08, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
There are many instances of POV-trailing on this article. Right from the start, editors are mixing hindsight with the attack. The incidents should be described dispassionately, without hindsight. That hindsight should be left until later in the article, otherwise you have readers assuming that the pilots purposely misidentified weapons, and behaved in a gung-ho fashion.
While editors are busily inserting text like "the crews then misidentified x, and shot y (who showed no signs of hostile behaviour)", you'll never have a neutral and informative article. What you will have, is an article that seeks to establish blame, before the reader even has a chance to study the mission reports and subsequent media analysis.
In short, its an utter mess, and I can see myself becoming very quickly frustrated by the efforts of editors who clearly have an axe to grind against the US military. Let the readers arrive at their own conclusions—don't try to force those conclusions upon them. Parrot of Doom 11:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The only bias I see here is from Lipstick Pig and Parrot
GovernmentWalls (
talk)
10:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I suspect that eventually a reaction section will be appropriate. If you have any comments or items for inclusion, post them here. ButOnMethItIs ( talk) 12:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The article informs that Crazyhorse designates a helicopter unit, but what about the other radio units we hear? __ meco ( talk) 13:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
From Wikileaks twitter NOTE: "permission to engage" (kill) Reuters journalists was given BEFORE Namir took up his camera.
01:33 Hotel Two-Six this is Crazy Horse One-Eight [communication between chopper 1 and chopper 2]. Have individuals with weapons. 01:41 Yup. He's got a weapon too. 01:43 Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight. Have five to six individuals with AK47s [automatic rifles]. Request permission to engage [shoot]. 01:51 Roger that. Uh, we have no personnel east of our position. So, uh, you are free to engage. Over. 02:00 All right, we'll be engaging. 02:02 Roger, go ahead. ... 02:11 All right, we got a guy with an RPG. 02:13 I'm gonna fire. 02:14 Okay.
-- mj41 ( talk) 15:11, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
The description of the video, in one Guardian, article, includes the throw-away phrase "it is unclear if anyone was armed". However, a casual review of other articles shows more expert and convincing commentary that, yes, in fact, there were light arms and at least one RPG being deployed. My preference would be to ditch the phrase entirely and let viewers make up their own mind about what the video shows. However, if necessary, we should rely on expert commentary about what the the video shows rather than the view of one journalist. Ronnotel ( talk) 15:32, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Maybe I missed it, but theres nothing I saw in the article that spells out that american soldiers in helicopter were flying around a battle zone, and they see guys they think have RPGs and guns, which the RPGs are a threat to them, and they request permission to fire and carry out an attack. There at a distance, so yes its hard to see things clearly, and stuff is happening quickly. Do they wait for a potential attacker to shot an RPG at them and take them out of sky, or do they fire first? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.99.65.63 ( talk) 21:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
It seems to me that wikipedia's policies around secondary sources are actually poorly serving the accuracy and NPOV elements of this article. Press reports are not competent secondary sources in interpretation of video of military operations (or of the operations themselves), nor necessarily NPOV, but seem to be being used as such to justify editorial decisions in this talk page. Similar competency concerns apply to the interpretation being made by the personnel of wikileaks, who in addition are approaching the interpretation from an adversarial point of view. The release of the video under the 'collateral murder' label is very clearly an adversarial POV that taints the video by association before anyone even looks at it, as are the additional statements made by Julian Assange in various venues. The entire 'Reaction to report' section currently consists of further statements by Julian Assange, the person ultimately responsible for posting the report, so might more accurately be titled 'Further Allegations', it certainly isn't reaction. We need to be very careful to distinguish between fact, opinion, interpretation of video evidence by qualified personnel and interpretation of video evidence by unqualified personnel and whether or not those sources represent NPOV. Equally language used needs to be watched carefully, for instance 'The (army) report claims ' would seem to imply an acceptance of a level of doubt about the veracity of the report, which therefore sides with the wikileaks POV rather than NPOV, 'The report states' would more clearly be NPOV.
77.96.255.55 ( talk) 16:04, 8 April 2010 (UTC) DWG
I felt this complaint was well justified, but I blamed it on a bad outline structure rather than bias per se. So I've changed the section specifically for "reaction to the US Army report" into a general "2010 coverage" section as an independent subheading, and added in the short paragraph naming media sources that covered the video. I hope this will encourage people from all sides to add or expand description of the reliable sources that document their points of view. Wnt ( talk) 20:43, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
This is an unimportant technical point, but I'm going to fact-tag each statement in the article that claims that the video came from the "gunsight". A better term (and preferably a wikilink) needs to be used for the video system; I just don't know what it is. Comet Tuttle ( talk) 17:17, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/8/exclusive_witnesses_describe_deadly_2007_us
Especially:
"RICK ROWLEY: Yeah, now, I mean, I’m a journalist, and I go and talk to people and report what they said. And these residents came and told me that the man who they drove over was alive, that he had crawled out of the van that had been shot to pieces and that he was still alive when the Americans drove over him and cut him in half, basically, with a Bradley or tank or whatever armored vehicle they were driving in." 206.248.159.113 ( talk) 17:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Whatever the implications of the event, the article, especially its introduction, conveys a conservative and factual story. To those who dislike the implications of the event: please stop turning this talk page into a forum for your opinions. If there are qualified and notable opinions expressed, they can be and have been cited in the article. To those who wish the implications of the event would be made explicit or exaggerated for a good cause: that's never Wikipedia's job, and the commentary of passion that doesn't go on the articles is not meant for Wikipedia talk pages either.
The many sections here expressing a) clearly the people on the ground are insurgents or b) clearly the gunners are murderers, are misplaced and should not be on Wikipedia. An article about an event, regardless of its implications, should not be accompanied by the sentiments those implications arouse.
Thank you. Flipping Mackerel ( talk) 19:15, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'll start with the very first inconsistency I encountered in the sworn statements available from the CENTCOM website one of the members of the AWT says:
He says he saw them extract weapons, however note that in the video the pilot says:
And as is clear from the video nobody ever tries to pick up any weapons, they're completely focused on trying to get Saeed Chmagh out of there.
Note that LTC and CW3 are ranks, Lieutenant Colonel and Chief Warrant Officer Three respectively.
-- Bruce ( talk) 19:54, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm reading the sworn statements and it contains some information regarding the footage missing, specifically:
I'd be very interested in seeing all the footage taken and don't see any reasons DoD/CENTCOM shouldn't release it (last I heard they had some trouble "locating" any footage though).
-- Bruce ( talk) 20:10, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
A car bomb a week vs. this? How is this really notable other than it made it to Wikipedia thereby building its own notoriety? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.75.1.2 ( talk) 20:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Another editor privately queried whether both aircraft (CZ18 and CZ19) had engaged, or only one of them. For the avoidance of doubt, the official military reports state:
— Sladen ( talk) 21:05, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
David Finkel's account of the day sheds some more light on the context and should be integrated into the article.
Links:
-- Bruce ( talk) 21:29, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Maybe this one link should be added. It's a contemporary report published on Friday, July 13, 2007 in the Washington Post about that day's events, and in which Finkel also participated
Johannjs ( talk) 12:40, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
The third attack is definitely the same helicopter and crew. It's shown at the end of the unedited version of the video and the crew use the same call-sign througout. The New Yorker explicitly links the the third attack with the earlier ones: "...earlier portions of the video suggest that Crazy Horse One-Eight is not an entirely reliable narrator.".-- MoreThings ( talk) 21:39, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
I couldn't think of a single non-awkward way to point out that Wikileaks has nothing to do with Wikipedia in the text. But I wish there was some way to make this clear in the article lead, as I think some of the hostile reactions we've seen here might be based on the false but not particularly unforeseeable assumption that Wikileaks would have some relationship to the people behind Wikimedia/Wikipedia/Wiktionary/Wikisource/Wikibooks/etcetera. Wnt ( talk) 22:07, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Wow Parrot, you're a bit arrogant. IT's not "catering to the lowest common denominator." It wouldn't be unreasonable for someone with no prior experience with WP or Wikileaks to make the assumption, off the name, that there could be some connection. I personally knew from the start that there is not, however it is not nonsensical for one to make that assumption initially, and certainly not just because YOU say so. Having a disclaimer to make clear that "Wikileaks" is not somehow linked with Wikipedia.org is not a bad idea at all. I get the idea you believe many to be the "lowest common denominator."
Jersey John (
talk)
00:04, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
The geography of this incident might be of some interest. For example, after following the Coordinates link, and assuming the morning sun is in the east, I was able to determine that the van came out of the road at the western side of the open square. What's interesting about this is that this area was the eastern edge of a combat zone that day, with some of the heaviest fighting near the east edge. So I'm inclined to think that the parents and children were actually fleeing the combat zone rather than entering it, when they stopped to pick up the wounded person. They were headed toward the edge of the city, about 0.4 miles away. Does this make sense? It'll be interesting to see if I can find discussion of the landscape. Wnt ( talk) 23:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
We first state that the children we denied medical treatment at an American facility (per Wikileaks) and later that they were evacuated to FOB Loyalty by the Americans for medical treatment (as per the CENTCOM report). We should figure out a good way to present this discrepancy. Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 23:55, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Are you all OK with making the presentation of the references the same? I prefer simpler, without the extended quotes embedded in them. Lipsticked Pig ( talk) 00:50, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Can someone fix this up: "While US ground forces were en route to the scene, an unmarked van arrived, from which two men disembarked. " Close inspection of the short video from 9:04/17:47 to 9:22/17:47 reveals that neither of the two additional men disembarked from the van, but rather arrived separately on foot from the same direction as the van. Galerita ( talk) 02:35, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Some of these have been mentioned in passing above.
The 'Full Version' of The Wikileaks Video Is Missing 30 Minutes of Footage, gawker.com, 9.4.2010 -- mj41 ( talk) 11:51, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
I find it distressing that the neighborhood where the attacks occurred isn't documented at all in our List of neighborhoods and districts in Baghdad or in our Administrative districts in Baghdad.
I have gathered material to make a stub article, but I would prefer if someone else would make the article.
Variant spellings and namings:
Google searches: I find it helpful to include the word "district," e.g.
baghdad "al-amin district".
Thanks and best wishes, JD Caselaw ( talk) 15:54, 9 April 2010 (UTC)