Heres some comments from a former Apache driver on another forum
What the leaked videos dont show is that this small engagment was part of a larger battle in the area that had been ongoing during the day.
Commenting on the same videos but the longer more dramatic ones put up by Wikileaks.
My personal opinion is if you play with fire you're gonna get burned. Hanging out with gun and RPG toting people in an active combat zone is retarded.
As for the van that showed up with kids in it...Its my opinion they were probably there in support of the armed men.
Bringing your kids into an active combat zone is....well beyond stupid.
As for the language in the video thats pretty much standard. One of my good friends is a civi in support of Air Force ops. He was called in to review some gun camera footage/audio with a psychologist as well as a PR person to see if some could be released. When the lady psych and the PR guy heard the pilots yelling things like
"motherXXXXer when I kill you you stay dead" while commencing a second bombing run etc.. it shocked them.
They were then instructed that language like that was not to be used. So they recieved the next several dozen missions worth of footage with the pilots humming things like the i dream of genie theme while bombing trucks and buildings.
Wanna guess which one was more disturbing?
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Where to start...
I've been on that side of the camera before, in that particular weapon system. I don't know if we have any other members who are AH-64D qualified, but if we do, I haven't seen them say anything yet.
I made some comments on my company forum, and I'll include some of those here.
-First, let's start with the web address - collateralmurder.org. Biased much?
-If anyone stuck around to watch the video credits, you'll notice the first individual listed is credited as "Producer, Creative Director". Seriously? Creative director? What are we being "creative" about here?
-This video footage has information on it which is classified. When DoD releases Apache video footage, certain features of the video aren't released because they are considered classified due to operational security reasons.
-At 3:39 of the video, you can clearly see at least two guys with rifles. These guys were responding to a report of gunfire in the area, which would undoubtedly raise their blood pressure a little. I'm pretty sure that if the RoE were the same as when I was there, these guys were justified in their decision to engage.
-As long as the guys were following the RoE, it's a good shoot. Yeah, maybe their language wasn't appropriate. But also understand that every bad guy over there wants to shoot down a US helicopter, especially an Apache. These guys get shot at day in and day out. Part of their actions are based on self-preservation; the other part is protecting the guys on the ground.
-Yeah, there are probably numerous individuals out there who hate America even more after seeing this. It's probably going to be used as a recruiting tool for them. That's probably why DoD didn't want it released. To the untrained observer, it looks like a bunch of trigger happy gun bunnies wasting a bunch of innocent women and children. Unfortunately, there's a tactical situation on the ground that isn't obvious just from watching the video.
-Finally, let me tell you about what the pilots see. They watch the video on a 5" by 5" screen positioned at an angle approximately 18-24 inches from the pilot's eyes. Add to that the resolution of the camera and it's easy to understand how the pilots wouldn't be able to see the kids in that video. You saw toward the end of the video the "super-zoom" footage where the kids were pointed out in the front of the van. I certainly didn't see them in the original footage, and I had the video blown up on my 15" laptop screen. Based on my experience, I can tell you with almost 100% assurance that the pilots didn't see them, and had they, I know with everything in my heart that they would not have engaged the van. You heard one of the pilots say that they shouldn't bring kids into a war zone. I know in my heart that guy was trying to justify his actions to himself, even though he was fully justified in pulling the trigger (and yes, it's a trigger).
I won't get into the politics of this incident, because whether or not I think we ought to be there is irrelevant. We're there, we have a job to do, and we're doing it.
