Gunsight Camera

[davidklecha]

Without getting into all of it–mostly because I just have too much anger to spread around as regards the event and subsequent discussion of it–one thing stands out to me about the recent revelation of footage from the shooting of the Reuters employees in July 2007. And, this may seem dispassionately technical, but what struck me was that this is an outstanding argument against the use of helicopters–especially Apaches which are, at their heart, tank-killers–in this sort of role. That is, from what I’ve seen on the video, it appears as though the Apache team is in a kind of hunter-killer mode: finding, identifying, and engaging their own targets on the ground.

Which I think is the reverse of close air support for ground troops and generally well away from what the Apache is designed to do in the first place. And, really, you can see it in the video. Whether or not one of the men had an RPG is virtually impossible to ascertain from the video itself, and I can’t believe the crew had a higher resolution view available to them. The Apache really isn’t designed for that. It’s a tank-killer. It’s meant to hunt 60 ton steel behemoths, not pick out non-uniformed combatants. If they’re going to be used in that role at all, it should be at the specific direction of ground troops, under fire. That’s the basis of close air support.

And from the video, that’s not what these guys were doing. All other decisions and actions, it seems, would stem from that central misuse of the assets. (Although, at present, the extent and rationale of that misuse is opaque to us.) This is, of course, not to excuse anyone from bad decisions, mistakes, or outright malfeasance.

Mirrored from Bum Scoop.