Incident in New Baghdad
Our pal and frequent commenter Doc Bailey has been interviewed by The Washington Post.
Incident in New Baghdad’: What happened in Iraq?
On July 12, 2007, during a long, hot mission, American soldiers searched houses in a ruined maze of a neighborhood in east Baghdad. The largely routine effort came to a violent conclusion: An Apache helicopter circling overhead spotted several men carrying weapons. The chopper stalked the targets, then opened fire. Among the 11 killed were a Reuters photographer and his driver. Among the wounded were two young children.The Army investigated. No one was publicly found at fault.
I’ve been following the story on FB here: 2-16, (and 4th IBCT) Vets for Truth.
On the face of it this is a story about the fog of war, but there’s more. Toss in Wikileaks, an potential Academy Award, and old wounds are being torn open.
First, a classified video of the action as seen from the Apache was released by WikiLeaks in April 2010. Now a 22-minute documentary of the “Incident in New Baghdad” by director James Spione is up for an Academy Award at the Oscar ceremony Sunday.
Yet for all the documentary evidence — video doesn’t lie, does it? — collective truth remains elusive. Nobody, including the Pentagon, disputes the authenticity of the video. What it means, however — and what happened before, what happened after, what were the intentions of the actors — those are different questions.
I can’t relate directly this event, but I CAN relate to the aftermath… Snippets of time, scenes from larger events, taken out of context and amplified. Maybe used with good intentions, or maybe driven by some hidden agenda?
Every Nam vet can empathize.
Category: Geezer Alert!, Real Soldiers, War Stories
Yeah. . .
Which version of the helecopter video was used in the making of the movie?
The original full length unedited one?
Or the Wikileaks edited “make the military look guilty” one?
It’s long past time for anyone to assume good intentions on the part of the critics.
This incident would have been a good time for them to reflect on the Islamists’ habit of mixing war with civilians — especially kids — and on the leftists who choose to befriend those Islamists.
If you read the whole article you’ll see I do make that point. I’m actually rather embarrassed that I’m one of the featured individuals, but if I don’t speak who will?
I read a book called “The Good Soldiers” by David Finkel that included a few pages about this incident. The book followed the 2-16 throughout their tour. I wasn’t in 2-16, but I was in Iraq about 15 miles away at FOB Falcon at the same time the 2-16 was deployed, and despite an amount of Liberal bias the book was actually really good. I don’t know about exact accounts being retold, but it surely was extremely accurate as far as telling a story about Iraq during the surge goes. There were some tough chapters about the guys in Walter Reed.
I’m glad you’re speaking about this Doc, though I’m sorry that you even have to. As many problems as we had in Rashid (Beauchamp, etc)…..those issues aren’t still in the spotlight.
Is the dumb ass that pointed a shoulder mounted camera at a Tank from an enemy position going to show up again too?
I had so many libtards waving this video in my face when it first hit. I found the unedited version, then took a still, photoshopped a SA7 in and asked them to tell me if they could tell the difference between the front portion and a camera. Surprisingly that shut them up fast for the most part. Seriously though, why is this being dredged up again.
I watched the video a number of times and its pretty clear there was something fishy going on in and around the van at the time of the engagement. When the van arrives, you never see any person physical exit the vehicle, yet there are almost immediately four to five military aged males on the ground working to recover people and items. Given the lack of any other pedestrians in the area, it seems obvious that those individuals were part of the original group of militiamen that were engaged the first time I’m sorry, but ones a group of men are, rightly, identified as armed insurgents, they stay that way. Both engagement were lawful. The only one at fault here is the father that put the welfare of armed terrorists of the welfare of his children.
Nice job Doc, way to use your condom sense 😉
@B Woodman,
They did use the unedited version for the documentary because the director said that he wanted to present the ‘whole story’ yet during the documentary there are only bits and pieces of the video shown. Out of the 22 minutes of the entire thing, there was probably less than 5 minutes of footage. The rest was McCord & his lies as well as a bunch of photos.
Yeah, nothing says telling the “whole story” like describing a group as being “mostly unarmed.” Even the WP article seems to be hedging their bets in order to placate the conspiracy nuts. Note that they describe the weapons as being “found at the scene” while the cameras were definitely being “carried.” Looks like they are keeping the option open that the weapons were just laying on the ground or possibly dropped by US soldiers. Even video can be distorted to support one side or another. Wikileaks will freeze frame on the guy carrying the camera, but the shot of the individual carrying the RPG shaped tripod winds up on the cutting room floor.
McChord’s motivation seems to be more about making amends for what he is convinced is his or the nations’s past sins in Iraq.
In the confusion of battle accounts and perspectives may differ or slightly deviant. The problem here is that he really is the only dissenter, if you exclude the other shit bird who wasn’t even there. The evidence supports Bailey and his/their actions, there is also a rational explanation for them. At the very least it they have the benefit of the doubt. I’m with Doc.
P.S. Hey Doc, History major? Fine. Then you tack on Internation Relations! Why not something more useful like Phrenology!
The rest of the story: http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/ps/2012/02/incident-in-new-baghdad-what-really-happened.html