Apache Video from Iraq

[Seshmeister]

Download 4MB Video File here (http://home.columbus.rr.com/imagetek/Apache%20Helicopter%20Incident.mpeg)

I dunno it looks a bit harsh to me. It's not pretty seeing what an Apaches 30mm cannon does to a person.

From Snopes -


Claim: Video shows U.S. Apache helicopter firing at three Iraqi insurgents.

Status: Undetermined.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2004]


The one-minute file, filmed from a US Apache helicopter, shows three suspected Iraqi insurgents being shot with 30mm cannon fire. The clip was cut from a longer video obtained by ABC News last week and verified by a senior US army official. The MPEG format file has been posted to several right-wing US forums, where the effectiveness of the Apache's firepower has been celebrated. So far though, in spite of its graphic nature, the film does not seem to have attracted much attention from the anti-war movement.


Origins: Many
readers have asked us about an MPEG video clip (see links below), roughly a minute long, depicting a U.S. Apache helicopter gunship firing at men in a field. The men are Iraqis shown handling a long cylindrical object; the accompanying audio indicates that the helicopter crew believes the object to be a weapon, so they ask their commanders for permission to engage the enemy, then take out the three men one by one with the helicopter's 30mm cannons, firing over 100 rounds in all.

All we know so far is what ABCNews (presumably the source of the video) reported: the action depicted took place north of Baghdad on 1 December 2003, the soldiers heard on the tape are from the Army's 4th Infantry Division, and the men on the ground were fired upon because the helicopter crew believed them to be armed with rocket-propelled grenade launcher. According to ABC:
A senior Army official who viewed the tape said the pilots had the legal right to kill the men because they were carrying a weapon. He said there were no ground troops in the area and if the Apache pilots had let the three Iraqis go, the men might have gone on to kill American troops.

Keane agreed. "Those weapons were obviously not being pointed at them in particular, but they [the three Iraqis] are using those weapons in their minds for lethal means and they [the Apache pilots] have a right to interfere with that," he said.

Anthony Cordesman, an ABCNEWS defense consultant who also viewed the tape, said the Apache pilots would have had a much clearer picture of the scene than what was recorded on the videotape. He also said they would have had intelligence about the identity of the men in the vehicles. "They're not getting a sort of blurred picture. They have a combination of intelligence and much better imagery than we can see."

As to whether the Apache pilots could have called in ground troops to apprehend the men, Cordesman said: "In this kind of war, wherever you find organized resistance among the insurgents, you have to act immediately. If you wait to send in ground troops almost invariably your enemy is going to be gone."

Army officials acknowledged that the 30 mm cannons used by the Apache gunners were far bigger than what was needed to kill the men, but said it is the smallest weapon the Apaches have.

[John Ashcroft]

Sarge posted this a while back. I believe we've covered the topic quite well.

Yep, I believe it's here (http://www.rotharmy.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1341)

[Dave's PA Rental]

wow. I missed this when Sarge first posted...

thats pretty graphic. I feel a little queasy now.

Body parts flying...

Had to be done, though. They would have killed Americans.

[John Ashcroft]

The Use of Terror during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait

Historical Background

Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait on August 2,1990. In his July 17,1990 speech, Saddam Hussein justified the invasion by accusing the Kuwait's Royal family of damaging Iraq's economy by exceeding its OPEC production quota, and purposefully forcing down the price of oil.

Following the invasion, Iraq announced the creation of a nine man 'Provisional Free Kuwait Government'. Six days following the invasion, the Provisional Government was disbanded and Iraq announced the annexation of Kuwait. On August 28, 1990, Kuwait was declared Iraq's 19th Province and the border area was incorporated as an extension of the province Basra. Al-Hassan al Majid, Iraq's Minister of Local Government and cousin of Saddam Hussein was appointed Governor of Kuwait.

The Political Use of Terror by Iraq in Kuwait

Following the invasion of Kuwait, Iraqi forces used widespread political terror to suppress all forms of internal dissent. Between August and December 1990, hundreds of Kuwaitis "disappeared" after detention; thousands were arrested without trial. As in Iraq itself, the death penalty was imposed and hundreds of civilians, including children, were reported executed.

In the first days of the invasion, Amnesty International in London received reports that hundreds of Kuwait's military personnel had been rounded up and held in make-shift detention centers in Kuwait City. It soon became apparent that, as Iraq entrenched its hold in Kuwait, the Iraqi Secret Police were increasing their search for military personnel in house-to-house round-ups. Relatives were tortured during interrogation to reveal those hiding from arrest. In all, 6-7,000 Kuwaiti personnel were arrested and transferred to prisons in Iraq.

"Iraqi terror was selective, to some extent. The elite Republican Guard that spear headed the invasion behaved with professional soldier's discipline. Torture centers sprang up under the control of 7000 agents of Iraq's Mukhabarat ... The worst brutality came early in the occupation ... Poorly trained Iraqi conscripts and volunteers of the People's Army acted without restraint".

During the first four months of Iraq's operation, over 300,000 Kuwaitis managed to flee. Much of the evidence concerning the use of terror by the Ba'athist regime as a means of subjugating the entire populace, derives from their testimonies.

Scores of Iraqi exiles who had been living in Kuwait, after fleeing Iraq's Secret Police, were also rounded up by the Security Services. The majority arrested were Shia Muslims, with links to the opposition group al-Da'wa al-Islamiya (Islamic Call), membership of which has been a capital offence in Iraq from 1980. As resistance to Iraqi occupation within Kuwait grew, an even more stringent use of political terror was necessitated. By October 23rd 1990, a delegate of the Kuwaiti Red Crescent recalled:

"...Young men were shot near their homes and in front of their families, this method was used by the occupiers to terrorize the people and to eliminate the young men on the pretext that they worked in the resistance ... Arrests, interrogation, torture, punishments and killings were carried out in an arbitrary and whimsical manner..."

Police stations, public buildings and the private homes of deported military men were used to hold those detainees not sent to Baghdad. The Law and Literature faculties of Kuwait University were transformed into makeshift prisons, as was the Iraqi Embassy building. Random arrest, interrogation and torture became the everyday norm. Terror was used to create a climate of fear and – as in Iraq - provided the political means to subjugate a nation.

Most Kuwaiti detainees, interviewed after their release, stated that they were not brought before a judicial authority during the period of their investigation. All were held incommunicado. Released detainees were expected to:

sign a declaration of allegiance to Saddam Hussein;
provide payment to their interrogating officials (televisions, videos, etc.);
provide detailed information on themselves and their families.
The Iraqis killed so many young men that bodies were transferred to a skating rink for short-term preservation. The fate of those detainees who had been too badly mutilated by torture was continued detention, a bar on leaving Kuwait, or execution.

Families were not provided with any official notification of arrest, place of detention or informed of the movement of detainee relatives. Those arrested effectively "disappeared". The bodies of those executed were often found in the streets of Kuwait, or dumped on the door-steps of their homes.

"On average, five or six new bodies were brought to the hospital each day. All were males... many bore marks of torture… [including]... the extinguishing of cigarettes on the body; burning of the skin with heated metal rods; application of electricity; cutting off of the tongue and ear; gouging out of the eyes and the breaking of limbs. In most of these cases, the immediate cause of death appeared to be a single shot..."

In the early days of the invasion, many Kuwaitis turned to the Red Crescent to help trace their relatives. The Kuwaiti Red Crescent, prior to the invasion, had professional links with its Iraqi counterpart. On September 16,1990, six Red Crescent workers were arrested and the Kuwaiti and Iraqi Red Crescent were merged. Individual investigations over the fate of detainee were suppressed.

"A young man went to enquire about his cousin who was held in al-Rigga police station. When he kept insisting he was taken inside the police station. He was stripped... and told to pray. When he kneeled down they started to kick and beat him. He was suspended from a fan for several hours and was told to sit on a bottle. He was released several days later with a message to everyone, that this is the punishment for those who ask about any detainee... This happened in the first week of September."

Seventeen days after the invasion of Kuwait, Iraq ordered all western foreign nationals in Kuwait to assemble in three hotels in Kuwait City: the Regency Palace, the Meridian and the International Hotel. Subsequently, it was announced that these nationals would be transferred for detention at key military and industrial sites in order to deter military attacks against Iraq.

On August 20, British and French government sources confirmed that 82 Britons and six French nationals had been moved from hotels in Kuwait to unknown destinations. A further 200 British and American nationals were transferred from Iraq to Kuwait and were detained in Baghdad.

Hundreds of foreign nationals were rounded up in Kuwait City and taken to Iraq; all were denied Consular access. Foreign diplomats were stripped of their diplomatic immunity. In the third week of August Iraq announced that some thirteen thousand Western, Soviet and Japanese nationals who had been working in Iraq and Kuwait would not be allowed to leave, until the U.S. withdrew its troops from South Arabia. On August 25, the death penalty for Kuwaitis harboring western nationals was introduced.

Torture and Maltreatment of Detainees in Kuwait

The Amnesty International report of December of 1990 is the most comprehensive documentation of the torture and ill treatment of detainees in Kuwait. This document, entitled "Iraq/Occupied Kuwait - Human Rights Violations Since August 2, 1990", provides a detailed account of Iraq's political use of terror against civilians, Kuwaiti and otherwise, under a state of siege.

The terror inflicted upon detainees was designed to terrorize the population at large and to discourage any form of political opposition to Hussein. Examples of the many forms of torture documented include: beating, burning of the skin, sexual torture, beating the soles of the feet (falaqa), kicking, electric shock, mock execution, exposure to hot and cold temperatures and suspension from rotating ceiling fans.

In all, Amnesty lists over 35 methods of torture and ill-treatment by Iraq in Kuwait. The politics of terror utilized in Kuwait were consistent with methods developed in Iraq over many years. This consistency can be most clearly seen by comparing Amnesty's report on Iraq's political terror in Kuwait with earlier Amnesty documents regarding the use of terror in Iraq itself.

As in Iraq itself, the death penalty was used as the ultimate punishment, the final tool of political terror. Within a month of the invasion of Kuwait the death penalty was introduced for three offenses:

the hoarding of food;
looting; and
the harboring of western nationals.
By December 1990, Iraq had only officially confirmed the execution of 18 people for looting.

The first case was reported two days after the offense became capital. A body of an Iraqi soldier was found hanging from a crane in Kuwait City. A placard had been placed around his neck warning that, "this is the punishment for those who steal the riches of the people."
Photographs of other men further executed for looting were shown on Iraqi television from August 17-21, 1990. On November 30, 1990, seven men were publicly hanged in Kuwait. Extra-judicial killing was used as a deterrent to political activity, as well as a means of wiping out Kuwaiti military personnel. "Looting" became a pretext for the use of political terror.
Scores of hangings are alleged to have been carried out on the grounds of Kuwait University in late August and early September of 1990. It is difficult to ascertain with any accuracy the numbers of people killed in Kuwait by Iraq. The estimated total has been set at over 1,000 Kuwaiti dead.
Iraq demanded that families of Kuwaiti "offenders" pay the cost of the bullets used for executions. This practice of asking families to cover "state expenses" for executions is common in Iraq and was first documented during the Iraq-Iran war.

In addition to killings by execution and torture, as described above, a number of deaths also resulted from deprivation of medical treatment. These were carried out in the context of widespread removal of medicines and medical equipment by Iraqi forces in Kuwait.

Summary

A clear picture emerges of the political use of terror in Kuwait. Essentially, the model of terror carried out by Iraq is an extension of that used by the Ba'athist regime against its own people, using the same methods and institutions. However, in Iraq itself the institutions and instruments of terror developed over a number of years, whereas in Kuwait they were put in place in a short period of time, as the invasion of a foreign country necessitated an immediate and more draconian implementation to achieve the same objectives.

In Kuwait, the well-oiled Iraqi terror mechanism thus operated at a breakneck pace to produce similar control to that achieved in Iraq, in a matter of weeks, not years. From August 2 1990, until Iraq's withdrawal, Kuwait was subjected to the full force of Iraq's institutions of terror. The Ba'athist regime in Kuwait successfully removed Kuwaiti military personnel and killed its political opponents. Many Kuwaitis disappeared; some were detained and tortured; others were summarily executed. Compliance with the invading regime was the only means of survival, and control was successfully achieved.

Link: here (http://www.jafi.org.il/education/actual/iraq/3.html)

[knuckleboner]

everything i heard was that the iraqis were setting up a surface to air missile.

whether or not they were aiming specifically at the apache isn't really the point. the official iraqi military at the time wasn't doing it. those guys were clearly still enemy combatants.

it sucks that people have to be killed. though, graphic overkill still results in the same death as a "humane" lethal injection. death is death. if it's required, and sometimes it is, then you do what you have to do.

[John Ashcroft]

Hey, at least the Army didn't charge their families for the cost of the bullets...

[BigBadBrian]

I manned a .50 caliber machine-gun for a little while on my first ship.

Great fun! Rock and Roll babeeeee!!!!

:gun:

[BigBadBrian]

I manned a .50 caliber machine-gun for a little while on my first ship during General Quarters (Battle Stations for you non-Navy people).

Great fun! Rock and Roll, babeeeee!!!!

:gun:

[High Life Man]

Good.

I like to see fuckheads turned into a fine pink mist.