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A disturbing video On the ITV Channel 4 news tonight I saw some of the more disturbing of news footage I have seen.
A cameraman points his camera at a group of US soldiers by a tank or other armoured vehicle. A soldier by the vehicle raises his gun and fires. You hear the crackle of rounds and see the muzzle flashes.
Then the camera drops to the ground. The cameraman was already dead.
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Once again, the failure to remember one is still in an extremely hostile situation and the failure to communicate have resulted in a terrible tragedy.
I’m doing something unusual: I’m putting in the first comment to my own short news item. What does this item tell us? What do some of the other stories I have been hearing tell us?
I’ll give you my take. The US troops are tired, nervous and somewhat scared. Discipline and training are slipping. We need to get those guys rotated out of there *fast*. We could be looking at some real disasters if we don’t.
Dean said some of what I have intimated in my discussion during the G post: combat troops are a very bad mix for civil action. It doesn’t matter whether it is Iraq or (ahem) “somewhere else.” You cannot keep attack troops on city streets and not expect it to lead to problems.
I fully understand the difficulties facing the military leaders. If they are doing their job properly, which I think they are, they are probably losing a great deal of sleep over exactly how to pull this off. It’s a real razors edge they are walking on and on either side of it is very deep trouble.
Dale Amon’s point is well taken, but this is a two way street. A Palestinian cameraman used to taking pictures in a combat zone where RPG use is infrequent and cameramen are common took the lessons used there to an area where RPG use is routine and photographers are usually behind US lines.
Look, I’m sorry he got killed; it’s a pretty high price to pay for missing a briefing. But even the best trained, freshest troops can’t be relied on to avoid all mistakes all the time. The people out of uniform have to understand you can’t just show up in a war zone and expect everyone to react to you the way they did in the place you came from.
Zathras,
Amen !!!
And somewhere else in Iraq a young soldier is killed because they weren’t careful enough. The people who ambush Americans nearly every day are to blame for this.
It reminds me of a British adage purportedly from the WWII era:
“When the Germans fire at the Brits or the Americans, they duck. When the British fire at the Germans, the Germans duck. When the Americans start firing… EVERYONE ducks.”
Lord Ben: Yes, it is an excellent strategy. If they can get our guys on enough of an edge to keep doing things like this and to radicalize enough individuals, they can hope to be around for a long time. It’s a very old, tried and true technique. You’ll almost certainly find it in Mao’s little book. You use the strength of the enemy against itself and let them make you look like a viable option… or else you infiltrate under false colours (Baathists aren’t exactly popular either) and try to organize an underground.
I’d like to see the US military leadership be wise enough to not do the devils work for him.
Had it been Northern Ireland that soldier would have got ten years.
There’s another human tragedy here. The soldier who killed an innocent man is going to watch himself do it, over and over and over again for the rest of his life. He’s going to see himself pulling the trigger through the eyes of the cameraman.
That film clip will still be shown in documentaries 50 years from now.
If he hasn’t topped himself by then, he’ll still be reliving it.
I wouldn’t want to be him.
This situation is low intensity warfare at its nastiest. The Ba’athists and the Islamic terrs need an increasing body count on both sides and they are not playing the game nice.
These Soldiers and Marines are tired, hot and they would be complete idiots if they were not afraid. They’re in a situation where people are sniping at them and their fellows daily with everything from small arms to RPGs.
It’s pretty obvious, to me anyhow, that the cameraman did not announce his presence and all the soldier saw was someone “pointing a weapon” at him.
The governments spend lots of money training soldiers to reacted aggressively when someone points a weapon at them.
He who hesitates is dead.
Order in Iraq was maintained very effectively for decades by a leadership that had the “wisdom” to use tactics that trumped those in Mao’s book: overwhelming force, mass executions, torture, and all the other things that a really thorough police state does. Come to think of it, Mao employed similar tactics when he came to power himself.
That is what Iraqis are used to. It is possible that had arbitrary violence on a large scale been used, for example, against looters in the early days after Baghdad’s fall that some of the people now causing trouble would have been intimidated enough not to. Rightly or wrongly, the American command decided that was not the way to go. I would like to find a “silver bullet solution,” a combination of tactics and propaganda that would make the situation in Iraq dramatically easier. Sun Tzu, Chairman Mao and the doubtless worthy British experience in Northern Ireland notwithstanding, there isn’t one.
They are trained to react fast in a free fire zone. Which is not what we have now. Police and some special forces are trained to operate in an environment where there are good guys and bad guys and the object is to take down the bad guys and not kill the good guys… and do it almost instinctively.
Average combat troops aren’t (to my knowledge) given that sort of training, and it is essential in the environment they now find themselves.
They are not now in the environment they are trained for.
Patrick,
No soldier has ever got 10 years or anything remotely approaching that in Northern Ireland. Soldiers such as Lee Clegg have served short sentences, and then been taken back into the ranks and promoted.
Promoting someone after the shooting of a civilian, no matter how accidental, seems to me to be wishing to rub salt into the wound.
Remember the captain of the Aegis cruiser Vincennes which shot down an Iranian airbus. He was presented with medals at the end of his tour of duty. Lockerbie happened shortly after this.
What about the one who killed the guy from the rock band Bananarama? Happend in Musgrave Park I think? Didn’t he get put away for a good long while?
Don’t throw rocks at someone carrying a rifle, and don’t point anything that might resemble a weapon at him, either.
If too much is made of this death, more of our soldiers will die, and more Iraqi will die because we have had to pull in our horns.
As we often said in WWII, Don’t you know there’s a war on, Dale?
These things happen, and trying to draw a larger conclusion from them at this point is futile, especially given that there was a similar mistake in the opening days of the war.
Nope. Commander in Chief himself said the war was over. Except maybe it isn’t because there are still a lot of soldiers about in Iraq and quite a few casualties.
Soldiers are useful when fighting a war. But, as the British Army discovered after nearly 30 years in Northern Ireland, an army is not as useful for restoring the peace. Especially if that peace is being imposed rather than restored. I am sure that if anyone had to do the job, then our guys could do it as well as, if not better than, any other armed forces. But the situation in Iraq is like a “cleft stick”. It is difficult to become more involved in the seach and destroy operations that might counter the continuing attacks. But to withdraw troops now might be misconstrued as a climb down and who knows how the situation might develop in the absence of “internal security”.
As Dale says, this is a difficult situation. IMHO it will require more brain with brawn applied to date, although I am sure bullets will offer some advantage in the short term. In the meanwhile, give the guys a break, rotate the troops and be prepared for the long haul.
Even if Santa granted my wishes and Saddam died of a heart attack, I doubt this will be over by Christmas.
On the one hand, mistakes will occur in a war zone. On the other, that doesn’t mean that soldiers can kill anyone they like and then say “gee, it sure is stressful and dangerous down here” and get away scot free if it turns out they were incompetent or negligent.
Which category any given case falls into should be determined by the facts and evidence, not by one’s political bias for or against the occupying forces.
sorry, mad dog, but the prez said that major combat operations were over; no one said nothing about the war being over. i’m sorry this guy is dead but there’s an old cop adage that says its better to be judged by 12 than carried by 6.
Don’t point things that look like weapons at soldiers or policemen.
“IMHO it will require more brain with brawn applied to date, although I am sure bullets will offer some advantage in the short term.”
More brain is always better than less brain, of course, but the force levels in Iraq are, if anything, a little on the light side.
Another example of damned if you do, damned if you don’t in an occupation. Half the critics are saying we don’t have enough troops on the ground as a result of poor planning, and half are saying that our military presence is too heavy.
Actually, most of the front line troops from the intitial invasion force have already been rotated out or are in relatively safe areas. Troop rotations have happened.
The 3rd Infantry and 1st Marines have left the country. The 101st Airborne is in garrison in Kurdistan. The remainder of the Marines are in Shia areas and are being relieved at this time.
The troops in the active Sunni areas currently are principally the 4th Infantry and the 1st Armored, who have been in-country for three or four months only.
No doubt some units have been deployed in the region for much longer, but these are not major combat units – there are several military police and intelligence battalions, for instance, who have been in theater for 8-9 months.
It is widely known that video cameras look a lot like RPGs when they’re pointed at you. It is insane to point them at soldiers without first making your presence known.
I’m sorry he’s dead, but he won’t be the last. Nothing should be done to the soldier unless it was made widely known that there were cameramen there.
Please note — being stupid doesn’t give you divine protection.
Don’t point anything even remotely resembling a weapon at a tank in a combat zone. Duh!
Anything not resembling a billboard pointed at you is difficult to analyze at any time. How well are you able to differentiate auto’s in your rear view mirror, for instance? Camera, pogo stick, wine bottle, or oxygen tank; put them on your shoulder and point them at somebody for a brief viewing period, and you will get wildly disparate answers on what the viewer saw. Carrying a camera on your shoulder in the same posture that an RPG shooter carries his weapon is suicidal. The posture is the key much more than the object carried. What got that man killed was carrying the camera like an RPG.
Quoting:
The soldier who killed an innocent man is going to watch himself do it, over and over and over again for the rest of his life. He’s going to see himself pulling the trigger through the eyes of the cameraman.
I want to see the film from the soldier’s point of view before judging. Newspeople don’t always act wise or reasonable. During the NYC blackout I listened to the radio, a news reporter was on a land line phone (cell’s out) probably held the line for ten-twenty minutes waiting for her air time, while 20 people waited in line to use the phone. When she finally got on the air she reported the 20 person phone wait and other minor junk for a minute or so and finally someone in line reached out and hung up her phone, ending the report. There is no punishment for being boorish and holding a scarce telephone line away from twenty people during an emergency so as to get your moment of glory on the air. In a war zone – after a few days of no good pictures – maybe someone is told to move away and sneaks back for a closer look and pops up from behind cover? I doubt a soldier intentionally fired on and killed a camera man for no reason, knowing what he was doing. Could be, but one would need more facts before drawing a conclusion. (NOTE: I have not seen the news footage).
In war, if you act reasonably considering the circumstances as known to you, the ultimate truth is not a source of moral comdenation.
The soldier should be commended for recognizing the threat and killing it quickly. The only mistake made was by the camera man. If you act like a bad guy, you will die like a bad guy. If the camera had been an RPG, the journalists would be reporting the death of another American soldier.
The deceased cameraman was a highly experienced journalist. (I happen to know folk who worked with him). He had worked in the Mid East for years and certainly knew the risks of working around troops, having been near the Israeli forces in the past, not to mention others.
Dale is right. I think the sooner troops get fully rotated, the better. The strain is clearly having an effect. I want the creation of a decent Iraq to succeed. This sort of incident isn’t helping.
i disagree with some assumptions made here
1- this not a police operation, police behave diferently because isnt usualy a target, it doesnt have to face grenade attacks , sniper and rpg fire.
2- mistakes can happen when someone has to make a decision in miliseconds it’s very dificult to know where to draw the line between natural mistake and neglect , in US thousands die cause of medical mistakes but it isnt thousands of medical personal that are persecuted. In risky business a mistake is many times: death
3- we must understand how many life-or-death decisions a soldier must made in a day. A mistake made by me dont kills anyone in my work day. …they deserve a football star salary.
4- expect some feedayin to put a gun inside a box camera look a like and catch some GI in process.
I’m impressed by the nearly unanimous trend here to excuse the soldier’s actions in shooting a cameraman. Certainly, we don’t yet know the full story AFAIK, so I’m not going to condemn the soldier now. But most of you are perfectly ready to leap to his defence. A few comments:
1. Lee Clegg is mentioned above. He didn’t shoot anyone face-on pointing a camera: he shot at a speeding car that crashed a Belfast roadblock, assumed (quite reasonably) to be bearing terrorists, and was convicted on a technicality to do with the car’s being a matter of feet past the “don’t shoot” line. Other squaddies shot too, and they weren’t charged.
2. The stuff above about highly trained aggressive combat troops reacting instinctively is quite true. It applied equally in the case of “Bloody Sunday” in Belfast: the Paras are aggressive assault troops, and reacted accordingly to what was assumed to be enemy fire. This attracted a great deal of criticism, not least from that section of US opinion which had (has?) a romanticised view of the IRA.
3. I wonder if anyone here remembers a very similar occurrence, when a European cameraman was shot dead in Chile by a soldier he was actually filming during the period of the Pinochet junta. That film was shown on TV around the world, and attracted universal opprobrium.
4. More recently, a French (?) female photographer was shot in Israel by the IDF: from witness accounts and the description of her wounds (severe groin, abdominal etc injuries) it’s clear she was shot more or less through the anus from behind, as she dived for cover.
5. Much of the comment above seems reflexive, and suggests either “My country is always right,” which is absurd, or “My country right or wrong,” which is infamous.
It might be interesting to learn how those supporting the US soldier in this Iraq incident feel about points 3 & 4 especially.
Tony H, I think its fair for people here to leap to the soldiers defence because the nature of the video is one sided because we instantly have knowledge that it is a camera that is being pointed at the soldier – while the same cannot be said for the soldier.
As for the question of troops being used in a police situation: Where there is armed attacks being directed at the population the troops are very definitely needed. In Northern Ireland a system of troops providing armed defence while escorting Police for normal policing situations was the norm for many years and saved many many lives. There were many hundreds of bomb and gun attacks prevented using this system. Yes there are casualties (which is hardly surprising as any state force is liable to attack by armed people out to cause mischief) but there is no denying that it works well.
Jeff Raleigh makes the most obvious point: “… being stupid doesn’t give you divine protection.”
No matter what country in the world you are in – it is stupid to point anything at soldiers on duty that could be mistaken for a weapon – sadly being human we all make mistakes… and if the cameraman didn’t make it clear that he was filming then he made a huge mistake (unless he was aiming to be a martyr!).
Anything other than a mistake is a crime – but – unless and until there is direct and incontrovertible evidence that a crime has taken place then the onus for this “mistake” rests solely with the cameraman.
Tony, With regard to your points 3, 4 and 5
-Point 3 is interesting in that it shows how direct an affect the media representation has on international affairs. Knowing this may make media people with an AGENDA act differently..In order to get a certain slant on stories these media people may be putting themselves in more dangerous situations – and therefore more likely to get attacked, injured and killed. (its just a thought)
-Point 4. A soldier being shot at or who thinks they are about to be shot at will fire back – generally regardless of whether the person is pointing at them or diving for cover.
-Point 5: I think you are reading too much between the lines. Most of the posts in support of the soldier are written based on sympathy with the soldiers point of view… that is only right and fair considering we received a very vivid image of him doing something that “looks” wrong. Especially when we don’t know the full story but do know that he is in the position where he must protect his own life and his comrades lives from people who are trying very hard to kill them.
Much of the comment above seems reflexive, and suggests either “My country is always right,” which is absurd, or “My country right or wrong,” which is infamous.
My take on it is that it suggests “Innocent until proven guilty.”
Seems to me like it was the soldier who made the bigger mistake here… the cameraman had presumably made the same “mistake” before without fatal consequences. What’s more, it sounds as though he had more experience in combat zones than the soldier too. This isn’t to say the soldier’s necessarily to blame; shit happens… he presumably didn’t realise he was shooting a cameraman, but to jump in and say the mistake’s all in the hands of the man who was killed is insensitive & partisan.
A_t, “to jump in and say the mistake’s all in the hands of the man who was killed is insensitive & partisan.”
If you are driving along a motorway and a motorcyclist swerves into your lane + you hit him and kill him – who is to blame? Surely the person who initiates the circumstances should bear the brunt of the blame even if they tragically suffer the most because of it.
In this case the most likely scenario is that the cameran initiated the circumstances by pointing his “weapon” at the soldier… when the “weapon” turns out to be a camera… it is sad but not the soldiers fault! Any other scenario would most likely be the soldiers fault + probably a crime!
Nothing partisan in this whatsoever!
… aside from the assumption that the cameraman brought it on himself, & it’s basically his fault. Like i say, i’m not blaming the soldier necessarily, but when mistakes like this are made, maybe something’s going amiss, as has been suggested in several posts above. How many iraqis are going to get shot by jittery soldiers in similar situations?
I did not see anything suggesting a “my country right or wrong” kind of attitude here. I am not sure we are reading the same thing. What I see here is a rather mature understanding that in a split second, a soldier had to decide whether it was a camera or an RPG or other weapon aimed at him and his troops. Regardless of the nation, or politics, someone points at you with what looks like a weapon, you gotta stop them. Or else you die.
And that is all it is. It ain’t got nothing to do with nations or politics or liberals versus conservatives. A cameraman pointed his camera at a soldier. The soldier fired and killed him. The most likely reason is because the soldier mistook the cameraman for a threat to his very life.
It sucks, but in cases like this, you have to put the blame on the cameraman. Because otherwise soldiers die, from taking too long to figure out the difference. You don’t want to punish the soldier too severely, (nor really will you have to.) because otherwise you end up getting soldiers killed.
So you need to modify the behavior of the cameramen in the war zone. Modifying the behavior of the soldiers, will result in dead soldiers. The soldiers have to be there, the cameraman does not.
“you have to put the blame on the cameraman”
Why? The guy was a veteran journalist/photographer who, I venture to suggest, had more experience of working in dangerous conditions than all the bloggers and commenters put together, apart from our corro in Basra. He was hardly naive and to suggest he should be “blamed” for his death is inane.
What happened was a tragic mistake of course but however much one may decry dumb peacenik attitudes, the fact is that too many journalists of the highest professional standing have died in such shooting incidents. Yes of course they know the risks but it doesn’t make it easier to bear. And spare us the usual “shoot first ask questions later” gung ho crap.
A-t asks, “How many iraqis are going to get shot by jittery soldiers in similar situations?”
How many soldiers would be killed if they were confronted with an apparently hostile situation such as some large, shoulder-borne object being aimed at them, but hesitated instead of taking immediate action?
Why assume the soldier was jittery, except to belittle the soldier and cast aspersions on the troops and their status? The soldier may have been completely calm. He may have analyzed the situation perfectly and acted entirely appropriately given the facts he had at his disposal at the moment.
Colin Powell had a good saying in his days as general (and I paraphrase a bit): “In a dispute between the soldier on the ground and the REMF, the soldier is presumed right until proven otherwise.”
That is a good policy, albeit one the REMF’s like A-t won’t care much for.
Clever use of language A_t, “partisan” – which normally applies to a person who takes up arms in their against the other party!
Also when you say “maybe something’s going amiss – of course something’s going amiss – its a war situation !!!!
As to how many Iraqis will be shot by “jittery” soldiers… there is the opposite side of that in: How many lives will be saved soldiers with “quick reactions”?
The use of wording is as deceiving as the use of images… we hear and see only what we are told and shown – we don’t hear and see the whole truth. Sadly
This death, and the Palestine Hotel deaths, were both examples of a simple rule of combat: don’t stand next to someone who is shooting at Marines. This is particularly true if you’re holding something that looks like a 30mm muzzle.
The photographer in question had NOT had a “lot of experience” in an area where shoulder-held RPG’s are common; that was even noted in one news report on the incident. A few newspersons are also known to be overly bold trying to get “the best film” or “the best story”.
If you are a soldier who has had RPG’s fired at you just previously, you are NOT going to let “this one” be fired straight at you.
END OF STORY !!
Johnathon, in an armed conflict situation when you know you are going to interact with armed soldiers – you act accordingly. You don’t go pointing *anything* at them unannounced without understanding that it carries one heck of a risk of being misunderstood. If the cameraman had become complacent through “experience”, or pointed the camera at the soldier for any other reason, that doesn’t absolve any stupidity on his part. If you yourself do something stupid then you youself are to blame. If the cameraman did something stupid (like pointing an easily mistaken object like a camera at the soldier without making his purpose absolutely CLEAR ) then he INITIATED the circumstances of his own demise. If this was the case he acted stupidly and paid the highest price for doing so. Just like walking off a cliff!
Any other reason would almost certainly mean that the soldier acted knowingly and therefore criminally and therefore the soldier would be to blame.
If the soldier didn’t act criminally then you cannot blame the soldier for doing his job – which at that moment entailed saving lives by killing a possible attacker.
Here are my directions to my son, when he began driving, for when a police officer pulls him over:
1) Stay in your car unless the officer directs you to get out. Jumping out and hurrying up to the officer could be interpreted as a hostile act.
2) If it is after dark, turn on your dome light. Police do not like walking up to a dark car.
3) Open your window. Police do not like having doors open when they approach. That can be interpreted as a hostile act.
4) Put both hands on the wheel, where the officer can see them.
5) Call the officer “officer,” “sir,” or “ma’am.” Let the officer know you are a Good Guy.
6) When the officer asks for your driver’s license, explain where it is and ask if it is okay for you to get it: “My license is in my hip pocket. Is it okay if I reach back there with my right hand and get it?”
MY POINT is, DON’T SCREW UP and convey the wrong idea to a person carrying a weapon in a hostile situation. If this cameraman had followed a plan like the one I gave my son, tailored to his situation, there would probably be no misunderstanding. Instead, he apparently screwed up.
Mommabear, you say this reporter did not have a lot of experience and cite a report. Well, having worked in the same firm as this man for several years, all I can say to that is, bullshit. He worked in places such as Hebron for many years, so it is unlikely he did not know the dangers.
Funnily enough, this guy actually remarked shortly before the incident that he hoped a US soldier did not shoot him by mistake.
Sorry to sound so grouchy but some of the comments on this thread have really teed me off. The general tone seems to be that the photographer was the author of his own death. Well, I would like to see a full investigation. 17 journalsts have been killed so far in this war. They were not all idiots.
Anyone seen this?
Jonathan says, “17 journalsts have been killed so far in this war. They were not all idiots.”
Perhaps, but a number were killed from a distance; e.g., it was not a “cherry picking” of journalists as targets. The journalists were simply there when the shell went boom.
At least two were killed doing what they were specifically advised NOT to do: send radio signals from an unauthorized location during the active-combat phase. The two will not have the guts to do that again.
As for being idiots, no, most (the above two excepted) were not. Karl Wallenda, the great tightrope walker, was killed in a fall. As a magazine described it, “He had a bad day at the office in a position that did not allow him to have a bad day.” By the same token, the cameraman, and some of the other journalists, got careless and failed to take precautions in a place that does not allow one to get careless and fail to take precautions.
Look, the Yanks and Brits went to great lengths to accommodate journalists. The troops fed them, sheltered them, and protected them. To suggest that the troops are now picking off journalists for sport, or out of carelessness, is hysterical, speculative, unhelpful, and throughly idiotic. Talk like that belongs on Indymedia or Democratic Underground, not a board where sanity is supposed to prevail.
(Oops. My apologies. I’ll try again.)
Anyone seen this?
RGtator, I did not suggest journalists were being “picked off”, what I was criticising was the way in which, as many comments above suggested, that the camerman was at fault. In truth, we don’t know for sure and it is surely wrong to assume so. The risks are asymetric.
Of course there is a way to avoid accidents – don’t send journalists to cover the war at all. Not sure even the uber-hawks would be in favour of that.
Johnathon, Well, I would like to see a full investigation. 17 journalsts have been killed so far in this war. They were not all idiots.
I agree with you – The death of 17 News Media people is high and does seem to point to a possible “trend”.
Could it be accidental? (some were obviously human error) or is the “trend” more purposeful?
-could it be that their methods are placing them in more danger than ever before?
Is it possible that they are being specifically targeted -( are they wearing targets that make them stand out …possible but doubtful.) – or could it be that they are blending so well with the “enemy” in the urban/desert conditions that they are indistinguishable and that their equipment makes them look more like “enemy” than civilian?
Whatever the reason – and whether there is an investigation or not- 17 deaths shows that there is a desperate need for the media people themselves to thoroughly check out their own risk assessment and operational proceedures.
Oh, very good link, S2. Much recommended. I’m pretty sure I flunked the test.
I worry more about photojournalism than text journalism. People are so much more emotionally swayed by visual evidence than the intellectual idea that a thing has happened.
Problem is, the best, most impactful images are likely to be accidents by their nature. The best intentions in the world will not consistently produce accidents that accurately present a whole picture.
From photo-evidence, Journalists appear to be attempting to “embed” themselves in the civilian population. No doubt, it’s thought and even perhaps proven that they get a better take this way. But if they are appearing like a local and suddenly point what can be thought of as a weapon at a G.I., then consider it evolution in action!
Despite the Media belief that they walk on water and are entitled to do whatever they please, there are real life consequences for congenital stupidity.
That G.I. did exactly what (s)he was supposed to do and should never loose a seconds sleep over it. You want immunity from the Laws of War, wear a big red glow in the dark sign (front & back) that says “TV” and then maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a second chance to do something stupid like suddenly point something at a G.I. in a combat area.
The Reuters story showing a cameraman, possibly the deceased at work, with a pretty typical looking camera on his shoulder, is right here:
http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3291033
A Dragon anti-tank weapon is shown here (scroll down):
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m47-dragon.htm
A Javelin anti-tank weapon is shown here:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/javelin.htm
I’m not saying the tankers at a distance of 30 – 50 yards acted correctly. I will say that it’s plausible that they mistook the camera for an anti-tank missile, especially if the cameraman was peeking around corners or popping up from behind a car or wall.
If I had the same decision to make, I might well have opened fire too, based on the resemblance of the camera, when viewed from the front and mounted on a man’s shoulder, to an anti-tank weapon.
And besides, it’s Reuters. There’s no telling whether the killing was perpetrated by U.S. forces, who are alleged by some in the United States to have invaded Iraq in order to spread so-called democracy through claimed acts of liberation…
Blackavar – check out Squander 2’s link above for a different angle on how these things look, and keep in mind that the soldier was 30 – 50 yards away, and had the camera pointed directly at him.
Absent some truly extraordinary additional info, I think this goes down as excusable error, tragedy of war.
This also occured in an active combat zone. This shooting occured outside the prison which had just been shelled and several Iraqi prisoners killed. The US troops were either stationed there during the shelling or responding to the shelling. I am not blaming anyone but it sounds as if the cameraman got a little excited and forgot where he was.
And why was this guy just roaming around loose in a combat zone. Isn’t Reuters coordinating any of their activities with coalition forces to prevent such mistakes. Or was that considered not being objective by Reuters.
Sigh, from the sound of some of the posters here I guess US troops will need to take their lawyers into combat with them to ensure they fight a clean honest mistake free war.
Johnathon:
It not a “shoot first, ask questions later, gung ho crap” Its a simple decision matrix. Shoot or don’t shoot, against a target that is either hostile or not hostile.
If you don’t shoot and the guy is not hostile, everybody wins. But if you don’t shoot and the guy is hostile, you and quite possibly several other of your friends are dead.
You don’t have perfect information all the time, and you have way too little time to get it all. You do the best you can, and hope someone does not point something at you that looks like an RPG from 30 meters away.
You seem offended at the suggestion that the cameraman did something stupid in a war zone. But a failure to communicate one’s intentions clearly with armed soldiers, especially in the environment of Iraq today, is not the brightest thing in the world. Adopting a posture that is very similar to one used to fire RPGs, in front of a tank crew, responding to the prison attack, is not smart.
But really, there is an entity that holds even more responsibility than either the soldier or the journalist. That is the jihadis attacking the troops in the first place. They are frequently attacking while in civilian clothes, making them indistiquishable from civilians or reporters, (and in clear violation of the Geneva convention.) This is the entire purpose of the Geneva convention, to minimize errors like this. To make it easier to tell a combatant, from a reporter, or civilian, combantants are required to wear distinctive uniforms and markings. The jihadis in Iraq are not doing that, and that is really the “root cause” of this incident.
What Ben says is absolutely true, and I have to add one other thing that no one else has mentioned: it cannot be that easy for someone to tell the difference between a Palestinian and an Iraqi at a distance.
Neither this nor anything I said above means the cameraman was a bad guy, or that he “deserved” what happened to him. He made a mistake, just as we all do, but he made his in a combat zone. Obviously, the soldier made a mistake too, but the only way to minimize the chances of this kind of thing happening is to treat the interface of journalists and combat troops as a two way street on which each has to recognize the concerns of the other.
“And spare us the usual “shoot first ask questions later” gung ho crap.”
Absolutely right, Johnathan. The soldiers should ask questions first, then shoot if necessary. That cameraman would be alive today.
Of course, the soldiers will probably end up dying in the future because of their hesitation, since ATW’s seem to be thicker on the ground than cameras. But the important thing is that journalists will be safer in combat zones, and absolutely the most important thing in a combat situation is insuring the safety of reporters so that they can file interesting stories and get really cool pictures. Soldiers are amatuers who don’t know that’s what real war is all about.
And of course, anyone who has ever been in a bar with war correspondents and cameramen know that these sensible, sober, cautious, modest fellows do not display any of that “gung-ho crap” attitude shown by the trigger-happy soldier with his misplaced priorities.
To sum up the majority opinion, the cameraman was at fault, it’s a warzone, and we should naturally give all soldiers the benefit of the doubt.
The underlying attitudes can be discerned though commenters like ‘Blackavar’ who pointed out that “besides, it’s Reuters” are out on a limb. Since he worked for an agency that is disliked in prowar quarters, his death can be treated as less significant.
All I know is that, without waiting for the facts to be adjudged, people leapt to the defence of the military without knowing the context. Perhaps a camera does look like an RPG but we still don’t know if the soldier thought it was.
People here have been quick to judge and apportion blame in this unfortunate incident. Too quick and it has resulted in one shameful statement, referenced above.