U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed Air

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

Well, I was.

But fine. Okay. So you think killing is more stressful than dying. The military's training prepares you for the first. It doesn't do as much to prepare you for the second. I still believe that getting killed is more stressful than pulling the trigger. What exactly is your reasoning for believing the reverse?

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Killing is often more stressful than the thought you may die, because normally the enemy isn't in as good of a position to kill you as you are to kill him, so you don't have to worry as much about dying. And often you have at least a little time to think about your decision to kill or not and most of the time thats in a situation where you can kill him at any moment. For example a vehicle is approaching a check point and has ignored speed warnings and has some common indictators of a car bomb, VBIED, you are standing behind your machine gun or rifle, the car will reach you in say 30-45 seconds. You can kill the driver at any time but you still have those 30-45 seconds to stress about should I flash another warning, fire a warning shot, attempt to disable his vehicle, kill the driver? A lot of a different options and Soldiers are trained to show restraint, and naturally as humans, dont want to kill someone.

AND you feel more guilty about shooting someone who has no chance of really killing you. If you're in a fire fight and someone is shooting at you, its much easier because you are directly and immediatly threatened, you don't have a choice to make about killing him. In the vehicle coming up to a checkpoint you are in less danger and aren't threatened at the moment, so you're calmer and can do a lot more thinking.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

I agree. We'll see what the military has to say. Right now they are denying it even happened.

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The question they have to answer is "Did the pilot have sufficient reason to believe if he did not act in a lethal manner his life would soon be immediately threatened or lost."

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

Wiseone said:

Killing is often more stressful than the thought you may die, because normally the enemy isn't in as good of a position to kill you as you are to kill him, so you don't have to worry as much about dying. And often you have at least a little time to think about your decision to kill or not and most of the time thats in a situation where you can kill him at any moment. For example a vehicle is approaching a check point and has ignored speed warnings and has some common indictators of a car bomb, VBIED, you are standing behind your machine gun or rifle, the car will reach you in say 30-45 seconds. You can kill the driver at any time but you still have those 30-45 seconds to stress about should I flash another warning, fire a warning shot, attempt to disable his vehicle, kill the driver? A lot of a different options and Soldiers are trained to show restraint, and naturally as humans, dont want to kill someone.

AND you feel more guilty about shooting someone who has no chance of really killing you. If you're in a fire fight and someone is shooting at you, its much easier because you are directly and immediatly threatened, you don't have a choice to make about killing him. In the vehicle coming up to a checkpoint you are in less danger and aren't threatened at the moment, so you're calmer and can do a lot more thinking.

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I agree with your scenarios. My original example was different, refer to post #55 which is kinda how this discussion got started and sidetracked.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

Wiseone said:

The question they have to answer is "Did the pilot have sufficient reason to believe if he did not act in a lethal manner his life would soon be immediately threatened or lost."

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I think that should be extended to the lives of the downed air crew as well, which makes things a bit more complicated.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

That's the first thing you've ever said on this forum that gives me a single ounce of respect for you. Color me slightly surprised, I can wholeheartedly agree with this.

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That's probably because you're just a ****ing kid and don't have near enough life experience to grasp most of the things I say.

One day you may learn--as I did--that when your parents told you that, "children should be seen and not heard", that they were actually trying to teach you an important life lesson and not just being, "parents".

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

apdst said:

That's probably because you're just a ****ing kid and don't have near enough life experience to grasp most of the things I say.

One day you may learn--as I did--that when your parents told you that, "children should be seen and not heard", that they were actually trying to teach you an important life lesson and not just being, "parents".

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Nah, it's cuz most of the other stuff you post is bull****. And plenty of non-kids on this forum agree with that assessment. :mrgreen:

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

I think that should be extended to the lives of the downed air crew as well, which makes things a bit more complicated.

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I forgot to add they also must ask did he have a reasonable understanding of the situation. Going back to the infantryman if he sees a kid running towards him with a stick and shots him, and attempts to argue he thought it was a rifle and therefore felt threatened and fired, his court martial may actually agree he felt threatened but state you're still guilty because you misread the situation so poorly. IE, you're a moron.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

Nah, it's cuz most of the other stuff you post is bull****. And plenty of non-kids on this forum agree with that assessment. :mrgreen:

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Yeah, that's it. You got all the answers at, 20-what?

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

Wiseone said:

I forgot to add they also must ask did he have a reasonable understanding of the situation. Going back to the infantryman if he sees a kid running towards him with a stick and shots him, and attempts to argue he thought it was a rifle and therefore felt threatened and fired, his court martial may actually agree he felt threatened but state you're still guilty because you misread the situation so poorly. IE, you're a moron.

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Or, it could just be, "the fog of war".

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

apdst said:

Yeah, that's it. You got all the answers at, 20-what?

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I hate getting in a pissing match, but I'll bite. I might be a kid but I'm certainly knowledgeable enough to know that Japan apologized for their actions during WWII and that Judaism is a religion...And like I said, I'm not the only one.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

dirtpoorchris said:

So then are you saying we are attacking Kaddafi but hes not a terrorist or that if an American is a terrorist he shouldnt be stopped?

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My understanding of Gadaffi's alleged ties to terrorist activity is not complete enough to venture an opinion. My understand of our intervention in Libya is that it is based in the belief that the Libyan rebels represent the legitimate will of the Libyan people and that we are attempting to assist them in establishing control of the region. It's possible that we are merely destroying Libyan government assets in order to mitigate an impending humanitarian crisis. I'm comfortable with this mission because I do not consider it so much morally wrong as it is strategically inadvisable.

We are attacking Gadaffi's forces because there are two sides of this conflict and we have chosen one.

It is my position that we should not stop American terrorists who are acting under legitimate orders from their chain-of-command or American terrorists who are helping to achieve our foreign policy goals, whether directly or indirectly. This incident appears at this time to be a simple wartime misunderstanding of the sort that is known and expected to occur in any war zone. If the American pilot is found to have fired on civilians maliciously and in contradiction to our objectives, I would support appropriate discipline, but I see no evidence to suspect that this is the case.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

Wiseone said:

I forgot to add they also must ask did he have a reasonable understanding of the situation. Going back to the infantryman if he sees a kid running towards him with a stick and shots him, and attempts to argue he thought it was a rifle and therefore felt threatened and fired, his court martial may actually agree he felt threatened but state you're still guilty because you misread the situation so poorly. IE, you're a moron.

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I think those criteria are fair.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

I hate getting in a pissing match, but I'll bite. I might be a kid but I'm certainly knowledgeable enough to know that Japan apologized for their actions during WWII and that Judaism is a religion...And like I said, I'm not the only one.

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Hey dude, I get it...you got it all figgered out. Keep on keepin' on, bro.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

apdst said:

Or, it could just be, "the fog of war".

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Ya thats all the what ifs I was talking about, I'm sure in the right circumstances a stick could make a convincing rifle, maybe it was a low visability enviroment. I was just trying to provide an example of a case where feeling threanted wasn't enough and show any court martial also has to understand how well/poorly the person in question understood his enviroment measured against what they could reasonably expect him to understand about his enviroment given the situation. ie, was it low visability, literal fog, was he half conscious from the crash, etc.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

Wiseone said:

Ya thats all the what ifs I was talking about, I'm sure in the right circumstances a stick could make a convincing rifle, maybe it was a low visability enviroment. I was just trying to provide an example of a case where feeling threanted wasn't enough and show any court martial also has to understand how well/poorly the person in question understood his enviroment measured against what they could reasonably expect him to understand about his enviroment given the situation. ie, was it low visability, literal fog, was he half conscious from the crash, etc.

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Then, the court martial factors in the fact that the decision had to be made in less than 3 seconds and now we have a different ball game.

In combat, you react, you don't think, there's no time to think.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

apdst said:

Then, the court martial factors in the fact that the decision had to be made in less than 3 seconds and now we have a different ball game.

In combat, you react, you don't think, there's no time to think.

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That is not true, there may be times were all you can do is react but there are plently of times where you have a chance to think.

And you dont know if the pilot had only 3 seconds, in fact I know for a fact he must have had more time because he called in air support which takes more than 3 seconds to arrive.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

Isn't it a cardinal sin to not have identified your target before you shoot...should at least figure out if your target is armed/hostile before one pulls the trigger?

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It's not always possible to tell if a crowd is hostile or friendly. They were in a strange environement with one of their man stranded, if I was in that helicopter I would shoot too. The other pilot got saved by the villagers and handed over to Western forces though.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

Wiseone said:

That is not true, there may be times were all you can do is react but there are plently of times where you have a chance to think.

And you dont know if the pilot had only 3 seconds, in fact I know for a fact he must have had more time because he called in air support which takes more than 3 seconds to arrive.

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No one- absolutely no one, has a lock on this.
We all see things from our particular frame of reference, and that bias colors everything that we do. Sometimes we get so focused on what we know/ believe is correct that we can't see the proverbial forest for the trees.

There are a great number of reasons as to why/ how people react a certain way, all of which are irrelevant if you are the guy pressing on them.

There are some things that are constants, and some that are out there in the ether.
The ability to think on your feet and engage properly may be the difference between a great war story and having a Soft Ball Field named after you.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

Or, hypothetically, instead of waiting they could have fired warning shots, or bracket them, to hold them off until they got close enough to tell who they were shooting at.

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Not everyone is trained to fire warning shoots. In the Marine Corps if you open fire you shoot to kill. No warning shoots no wounding shoots. Not sure what the other branches policies are.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

cpgrad08 said:

Not everyone is trained to fire warning shoots. In the Marine Corps if you open fire you shoot to kill. No warning shoots no wounding shoots. Not sure what the other branches policies are.

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Seems like it would be a good idea given that we're fighting in built-up urban areas these days with civilian populations (and hostiles who hide amongst them).

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

Seems like it would be a good idea given that we're fighting in built-up urban areas these days with civilian populations (and hostiles who hide amongst them).

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Urban enviroment were the Enemy hides among civillians populations, and were no uniform. Warning shots don't stop this fanitical enemy. Ballin I like you but until you get over here you don't really understand.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

cpgrad08 said:

Urban enviroment were the Enemy hides among civillians populations, and were no uniform. Warning shots don't stop this fanitical enemy. Ballin I like you but until you get over here you don't really understand.

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I'm not talking about a fanatical enemy. I'm talking about civilians who don't know that sometimes it's not safe to be where they are, as it apparently was in this case. Seems warning shots would be useful in warning them off while not causing unnecessary collateral damage.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

I'm not talking about a fanatical enemy. I'm talking about civilians who don't know that sometimes it's not safe to be where they are, as it apparently was in this case. Seems warning shots would be useful in warning them off while not causing unnecessary collateral damage.

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Typically there are other methods available.

I recall a story one of my buddies told me after he got back from Iraq a few years back. Apparently he had been working at a check point outside of a major city during the invasion. I recall him mentioning that they had several escalating methods of scaring off civilians who would drive toward the checkpoint (although now I can't think of them off the top of my head). Most of them hadn't seen much action yet and were more on edge than anything else.

One incident in particular he mentioned really hit home in regards to this story. A 4-door sedan was headed straight for the checkpoint. They did everything they could to scare the car away, even going so far as shooting into the air (an act which is NOT okay) but nothing stopped the car. Finally they had no choice but to open fire on the car. It turned out that the car was carrying a family of four, a father, a mother and two children. Some of the others there actually suggested trying to plant AKs in the car, but their NCO shut them up real quick.

This is coming from a guy that could probably break me in half, someone who I always viewed as untouchable. He couldn't finish the story because he broke down in tears.

I don't blame the servicemen and women who make these sorts of calls. I blame the ****ed up people who have created such a situation to begin with. Those who disguise themselves as civilians just so that they can effectively car bomb a soft target. Most of those who make mistakes like these suffer enough by their own hand without our help.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

TheBook said:

Typically there are other methods available.

I recall a story one of my buddies told me after he got back from Iraq a few years back. Apparently he had been working at a check point outside of a major city during the invasion. I recall him mentioning that they had several escalating methods of scaring off civilians who would drive toward the checkpoint (although now I can't think of them off the top of my head). Most of them hadn't seen much action yet and were more on edge than anything else.

One incident in particular he mentioned really hit home in regards to this story. A 4-door sedan was headed straight for the checkpoint. They did everything they could to scare the car away, even going so far as shooting into the air (an act which is NOT okay) but nothing stopped the car. Finally they had no choice but to open fire on the car. It turned out that the car was carrying a family of four, a father, a mother and two children. Some of the others there actually suggested trying to plant AKs in the car, but their NCO shut them up real quick.

This is coming from a guy that could probably break me in half, someone who I always viewed as untouchable. He couldn't finish the story because he broke down in tears.

I don't blame the servicemen and women who make these sorts of calls. I blame the ****ed up people who have created such a situation to begin with. Those who disguise themselves as civilians just so that they can effectively car bomb a soft target. Most of those who make mistakes like these suffer enough by their own hand without our help.

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There are plenty of these types of stories and I've heard numerous examples similar to the one you've provided, and I empathize with the troops involved. Iraqi drivers for whatever reason just act crazy sometimes, and it doesn't do anyone any favors. As for planting AKs in the car, I'm glad the NCO made the right call. The systematic use of "drop weapons" has been well-documented in certain cases. If it happened as your friend described it then it's just a tragedy and nobody can really be faulted, just be honest.

Re: U.S. rescue chopper shoots six Libyan villagers as they welcome pilots of downed

StillBallin75 said:

There are plenty of these types of stories and I've heard numerous examples similar to the one you've provided, and I empathize with the troops involved. Iraqi drivers for whatever reason just act crazy sometimes, and it doesn't do anyone any favors. As for planting AKs in the car, I'm glad the NCO made the right call. The systematic use of "drop weapons" has been well-documented in certain cases. If it happened as your friend described it then it's just a tragedy and nobody can really be faulted, just be honest.

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Yeah. I've sadly heard plenty of stories about people in the service who have planted weapons and it is often times overlooked.

There is a difference between being understanding and turning a blind eye, although it is a very fine line.