You would think that a war photographer in Baghdad would know

[Duer 157099]

that a camera on a strap slung over the shoulder just might look like a weapon to people flying overhead in a helicopter.

And yet, these guys didn't show the slightest concern about it.

I mean, if all of the "apologists" who are saying that "Oh well, this is war and mistaking a camera for a gun is pretty legitimate" really believe that's what happened, then what I wonder is how it is that these guys, these Reuters journalists who were clearly not new to this game, didn't seem to realize how it might be perceived as a threat of some sort.

Isn't that a little odd?

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. You're a photographer in Baghdad in the middle of a heated war. No doubt you've either heard about or seen examples of innocent civilians being gunned down because they were mistaken for an enemy combatant. I don't know about you, but if I were in that situation, I think I would think twice about carrying *ANYTHING* on a strap over my shoulder.

But yet these guys didn't. Why?

I don't know the answer, I don't even have a clue. I'm just bringing the question up to see what others might think.

[Oregone]

1. Maybe they thought their presence was known

Just a shot in the dark. Maybe they previously identified themselves. I don't know the SOP for them in these situations.

More brazen than Id be. Id be ducking behind shit. Though...thatd just make me look like a target. Maybe they thought they had clearance and thought they wouldn't get their ass shot off.

Do journalists just walk into war zones without telling anyone when helicopters are blowing the shit out of anything that moves?

[Duer 157099]

2. I guess I'm starting to think that they didn't feel the least bit threatened

It's like it never even entered their minds that they might be mistaken as hostile.

I think that's an imporant facet to this story, somehow.

[Oregone]

3. Well they didn't look the least bit threatening either

Yeah, I wonder why that was though

[coti]

9. It is interesting that the photographer did hide behind the corner, but

just ended up looking more like an insurgent that way, with his camera.

Maybe they wouldn't have shot him if he'd been out in the middle of the street taking pictures?

[protocol rv]

31. If you are in Baghdand, or Mogadishu

You look very carefully around the corner before you step out, don't you think? Especially in a city full of insurgents and very trigger happy US soldiers? I thought it was indeed a mistake the Americans made. It shows they do not have much of an idea about winning a war.

[kenny blankenship]

4. They stood well out in the open in the square. They walked down the MIDDLE of the street.

this says LOOK AT ME, HERE I AM. I AM NOT SNEAKING UP ON YOU.

DON'T SHOOT ME, OK?

That's standard journo practice. But most people -even people with telephoto lenses- don't imagine that someone would open fire on them from over a fucking half mile away.

The problem here was not with what the photographer was carrying, but the color of his skin. The gunship was just close enough to make out brown person with strap on his shoulder. THAT WAS ENOUGH TO OPEN UP WITH THE 30mm cannon, but not enough to provoke a closer look or second thought. After all when "they all look alike", what's a closer look going to prove anyway?

[SDuderstadt]

5. I'm even more confused...

to me, the camera didn't look like a weapon, but two guys in the group DID definitely have weapons and it's not clear who the people on the radio are talking about. I think both sides in this issue might be prudent to not rush to judgment quite so fast.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BeFree]

35. Oh I get it now

"...but two guys in the group DID definitely have weapons..."

Two guys had WEAPONS (OMG!) so the helicopter felt threatened and had to blow them away.

Sounds like the chopper guys are the ones who made a rush to judgment?

[kitkat65]

6. OMG! A photojournalist carrying a camera!

I guess he was asking for it, huh? :eyes: Okay, maybe I'm being a bit kneejerk here. I'm not sure what you're trying to convey or even hint at but it comes across as blaming him for being stupid.

It seems from their behavior they were completely oblivious to the events that were about to unfold.

[Duer 157099]

10. I know what you mean

While I was writing the post, I knew some would misunderstand what I was saying.

I'm not blaming the photographer, what I'm doing is trying to analyze the situation from his perspective, especially since he/they were very experienced. There must have been thousands of other times that he/they were actually in situations where combat was happening, but the camera(s) were not mistaken on all of those other occasions.

I don't have a conclusion, I'm just putting myself in their shoes to evaluate what they themselves believed the situation to be. If they had thought for a millisecond that pointing a camera at a tank a couple of blocks away would look threatening, would they still have done it?

I don't know the answers, I really don't. But they are worth asking, imho. Because it may reveal something about whether this situation was typical or unusual.

[kitkat65]

14. Okay, I see what you're saying.

That moment did seem threatening on the video but when the Apache swung around to the front of the building, the group of men didn't seem to even acknowledge it's presence. But the decision to fire had been made and it was going to happen no matter what. I can't remember where I saw it but someone had been in contact with the two journalists up until moments before they were fired upon. Let me see if I can dig it up.

[kitkat65]

17. Here's something for you.

http://www.thebaron.info/namirnooreldeenandsaeedchmagh.html

"Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh drove to the al-Amin al-Thaniyah area of eastern Baghdad to check on reports of a dawn air strike on a building by the American military.

There had been reports of clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents in the general vicinity . . ."

I cannot find the other thing I read.

[tekisui]

7. Fuck the apologists.

They are defending the indefensible. And I highly doubt that would be tolerated if bush was still the commander in chief.

Fuck the whole lot of them.

Including those that defend drone strikes and digging bullets out of dead women.

[leftstreet]

12. +1

[malaise]

13. FUck them indeed

but remember this happened during Bush's surge in 2007 slthough I hav eno doubt that the Afghanistan video will be no different.

[L0oniX]

15. +1

[Individualist]

28. +1

[treestar]

8. One would think there would already be a long list of safety tips and tricks

for war photographers. They've existed for a long time. I wouldn't go there without training from people who'd already done it and learning from any previous mistakes.

I can't imagine there's not entire instructions sheets, books and videos for people who go into war zones, about what to do and what not. Sort of like advice on how to behave if you see a bear.

[Duer 157099]

11. Right, that's what I think too

There was a series of documentaries on recently about WWII in the Pacific, and several segments featured the war photographer who was with the troops on many of the island landings, and that was some serious fighting going down! This guy was not armed except with a camera, and yet he escaped alive from some of the most devastating battles of the war.

So, these guys HAVE to know what they are doing, that's what I'm thinking. They don't survive because they are lucky, they survive because the know the rules of engagement.

[Motown_Johnny]

16. that is insane. Photographers carry cameras the way men wear pants

they would feel naked without it


The idea that it could be mistaken for an AK-47 or an RPG launcher is so far beyond the pale as to break with reality.


a weapon should have had a muzzle projecting up above the shoulder. There was none.

[thewiseguy]

18. I bet you have not even watched the freaking video

How could you possibly explain choppers engaging that van?

[Mojeoux]

19. They were obviously trying to help the wounded man,

Is that part of military routine? Is it SOP to engage with people helping the wounded?

[kenny blankenship]

20. Right, but once you've dehumanized the enemy, and labeled them "terrists"

you can do anything to them. Anything means anything. Invade their countries with ever-changing justifications for never ending war and occupation. Kill them indiscriminately along with whatever civilians may be around them. Bomb neutral countries. Torture their children (the little ones will just grow up to be terrists too, after all you killed their daddy and uncle and brother). Shoot their medics and stretcher bearers into raggedy bits of bloody meat and organ purée with an anti-tank machine cannon. It says so, right there in the Declaration of Independence in the Geneva Convention and Nuremburg Principles explicitly in the US Constitution right there in the United Nations Charter uh right there in that piece of paper with a Dept. of Justice letterhead sitting in Dick Cheney's man sized safe that Joe Biden is still waiting for the combination to.

[Greyhound]

34. Nice

:thumbsup:

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. No and there is where you start

getting into the gray lines of the rules of warfare.

Then again I got shot at least two times while riding a properly marked vehicle during the war on drugs... and one of them (damn Cadets, they paid for it later, I was NOT ammused) they were fully in their right to do it.

[Greyhound]

33. In the recent past, that was a courts-martial offense followed by 20 years in KS.

But, this is the new military and things have obviously changed.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. Having been in a few shootouts where Press Critters

have been specifically instructed about that little issue... and somebody with a gun actually confusing them with a combatant,

No, it is not about the camera. That happens. It is about message... that is messages sent and massages received.

These guys were not embedded, and as you said they were not wet behind the ears.

So yes, the camera probably played a role, but it is more than just that.

Here you go

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x8094928

[PufPuf23]

22. Blame the victim is easy

All the civilians and children killed in wars based on lies should have known better too.

[JHB]

25. Not as odd as it looks at first....

...since it doesn't look like the helicopters were "overhead".
I don't know what the magnification is on the helicopters' targeting displays, but enough that they would have seemed like they were off in the distance, flying around like they did most days. There would have been no obvious indication to the people on the ground that were being targeted until much too late.

[Hannah Bell]

26. That was the morning of Thursday, 12th July 2007, in the fifth year of the U.S

and British led campaign to pacify Iraq and restore democracy after the overthrow and execution of the dictator Saddam Hussein. Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh drove to the al-Amin al-Thaniyah area of eastern Baghdad to check on reports of a dawn air strike on a building by the American military.

There had been reports of clashes between U.S. forces and insurgents in the general vicinity but there was no fighting on the streets in which Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh were moving about.

There were other people in the street, including a number of men. It is believed that two or three of these men may have been carrying weapons, although it was clear from witness statements that they were not firing them nor were they held in a firing-ready position.

The men congregated on a corner and Chmagh and Noor-Eldeen chatted with them for a few moments. Noor-Eldeen looked around a corner to take a photograph from a distance of a U.S. Humvee vehicle several blocks away.

The Apache helicopter then opened fire, killing both Reuters men and nine others.

Reuters said the evidence “raises real questions about whether there was fighting at the time the two men were killed,” and asked the U.S. military for a full and objective investigation.

[Mari333]

27. if Bush were still in office this place would be screaming bloody murder

instead we have apologists.

jesus f christ.

[Greyhound]

32. Exactly fucking right, and that makes it even worse.

There is no excuse for what happened in any case, and the facts are crystal-clear on the video.

This was murder.

That "Democrats" are trying to weasel out of the plain facts is sickening. But then so is putting the man that tried to cover up another famous American military murder in charge of the whole theater instead of in front of a courts martial is pretty disgusting as well.

[Rex]

29. Wow, amazing...you would think people could try harder to apologize

for obvious war crimes.

[protocol rv]

30. I don't believe an Iraqi is familiar with helicopters.

I have flown helicopters, and I understand what you say. But I don't think those Iraqis, who were trying to make some money, thought much about what do they look like from the air. After all, they don't have access to US videos until now, do they?

On the other hand, if they can confuse a man with a camera that way, maybe the US helicopter should not be there at all. Why fly over a city full of civilians and launch rockets like they did? It does seem quite savage.