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Comment by tsally | Hacker News Reader

If I was running an insurgency in Iraq, I would keep a guy in the back of an unmarked van with an RPG and I would drive around pretending to pick up bodies. I think I'd probably get a lot of kills that way. I don't think it's fair to say the van was clearly unarmed, especially when you consider the fact that the van could have been called in to make a pickup by a group of people confirmed to have at least one RPG and at least one AK-47.

In the moment of the firefight it was unclear whether the van was armed or not. Was was clear to the soldiers was that the van responded very quickly to a group of wounded people who had several confirmed weapons among them. Also, as others have mentioned, the soldiers knew the insurgency has used similar tactics in the past to salvage weapons and ammo.

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It doesn't surprise me they found an RPG on the ground after the chopper reported there was one.

I have it on good authority from people who were actually on the ground that soldiers regularly keep RPG's and AK-47's in the Humvees such that if they do kill an innocent civilian, they just place the AK-47 or RPG on or near the victim to make them look like an insurgent. I don't know if that's what happened in this particular instance, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was.

Edit: I guess I'm being down voted for hearsay? Well, I worked with a number of soldiers and have a few friends who are infantry. This does happen, whether people want to accept it or not. Again, it could be that there was someone, or multiple people, were armed in this particular instance. I don't know. I haven't, to my knowledge, met anyone that was involved in this incident to ask. I have, however, talked to a number of people that were on the ground, that did have to take the lives of other people, and did have to cover things up when they made a mistake.

I hesitated before downvoting you; but I feel I have to because it's very easy (even with the edit) to make these claims online with little or no substance.

I feel if this was readily admitted to yourself it would have been admitted to others too and, by now, made it to the mainstream news. Where it would have been a massive, massive story.

I also feel all we have is your word and really that's not enough for such a huge claim!

Finally statements such as whether people want to accept it or not sound a lot like "typical" internet style rhetoric used to attach credence to a story.

You're right, and I hesitated before even posting it.

There's a difference in what some people are willing to say to a friend and what people are willing to say to a reporter. Honestly, it's surprising to me that more things like this incident and other like it haven't made it to the mainstream media. Ask any soldier that was on the ground (especially around 2007), and they'll tell you that, maybe, 10% of what is going on in Iraq is actually being reported. There's a bunch of stuff that goes on that you will never hear about.

From what I can tell, most people that were over there would rather leave most of it behind them. I haven't met anyone that's come back better for it, and very few of them are willing to go into any detail about the incidents unless it's with someone they're extremely comfortable with. When they do open up, it seems to come with an understanding that it won't be shared, and if it is, no names or specifics will be brought up.

Even after leaving Iraq, these guys can still face penalties if it's found that they were covering things up. I'm not sure what, if anything, they'd be charged with, but most of them are still within the Statutes of Limitations of the UCMJ for Court Marshal, and there are worse punishments beyond that that have no Statutes of Limitations.

I trust the stories that were told to me because they came from multiple people that weren't connected save for being in the military and having been stationed in Iraq at some point in time. If my word isn't enough for you (and I don't blame you if it isn't) then feel free to pass it off as another random person on the internet repeating a possible fabrication.

I mulled over this last night and today; here's my current thinking.

If this is true it is more than a step beyond what we have seen here. In the video we see a tragically mistaken engagement (which I understand) and then a terrible, idiotic, but I feel not malicious, attack on unarmed civilians. Even the restriction of information released by the army, whilst something I don't agree with, is understandable.

However; finding a mistake on the ground then covering it up by planting weapons? That's fraud and a war crime. It's morally and legally reprehensible.

This is why I feel it is probably not true (or a one off you have heard about); if it is a prevalent thing then it surely would have been reported by now (I cannot believe there is not one person in the US army that would be morally outraged by this).

If it is true; it needs to be outed, stopped and prosecuted.

Of everything posted on this subject this idea is the one that sickens me the most :(

There's several issues at stake here. The first is that these guys are under extreme amounts of stress. The level of stress the average soldier faces in a war zone (and that's what it is) is unimaginable to pretty much anyone that hasn't been there. I've heard stories of some things these guys are faced with, and none of it is pretty. I've had to take a step back from some of it, and I didn't even experience it directly. When you get an RPG shot at you that bounces off the front of your Humvee and by some miracle, it doesn't go off, you don't walk away from that the same. Having to stab someone repeatedly in order to save your own life. Shooting at actual people. Not some representation of people, but actual living, breathing human beings, and seeing the carnage wrought by your bullets. It's hard to even comprehend.

Now, imagine these guys come back and are generally able to continue to carry on some sort of a normal life at home. There's a lot of training involved here, and part of it is that you were simply ordered to do it. The chain of command is a real force, something the average soldier respects enough to go into a situation that very well could end their life. They also fear it. It's a force that's almost worse than death. Would you want to admit mistakes, or would you feel better about simply covering them up? This hypothetical soldier is already hardened enough to take the life of another person without feeling intense amounts of guilt. What is covering up a mistake compared to that?

There's also an insane amount of camaraderie amongst soldiers. These guys are willing to go into the line of fire to get back a piece of their buddy to send back home, because no soldier gets left behind. Would you risk your hide to get back part of your friend's dead body in order to have a proper burial? I don't know if I would, but that's a fairly ubiquitous feeling amongst soldiers. These guys will fight and die for their fellow soldiers, dead or alive. If you would already put your life on the line for someone, why wouldn't you help them cover something up?

Finally, the perception of people (civilians or combatants) from the view of a soldier is horribly skewed from what it is at home. They aren't really humans when they're on the battlefield. They're targets. The guilt doesn't really hit until after these guys get home. When you're in the midst of it, you're worried about your own survival, and the survival of those you care about. They don't seem to be particularly worried about the collateral damage. If they make a few mistakes, oh well. It's better than not pulling the trigger and finding out they were actually the enemy.

I'm not saying it's okay. It's certainly deplorable behavior. I'm just saying it's understandable, from where I sit. If I were put in a similar situation, I'm not sure how I would react. No one does, but the only way to prevent is to simply not go to war.

I don’t know what happened in Iraq. But something like this happened in Argentina (at least once).

In 2001 one policeman killed 3 unarmed guys in a gas station. Then he took the bodies to the street and put a knife near one body. He claimed that it was an assault, but later he was found guilty and sentence to prison.

Article in spanish: http://www.clarin.com/diario/2002/01/07/o-02001.htm

Google translation: http://translate.google.com.ar/translate?js=y&prev=_t...

"I don't think it's fair to say the van was clearly unarmed, especially when you consider the fact that the van could have been called in to make a pickup by a group."

Or my theory: The van COULD have been driven by aliens from Orion 3. Or the van COULD have been driven by the guy from the future who wanted to stop the LHC again by fighting in Iraq. COULD be, you must admit!

"Could have been called", "I would do so and so", "it was unclear whether they were armed", "has used similar tactics"...

If you were an USAA general, would you promote to commander someone who would gave permission to kill based on faint suspicions and their definition of "very quickly"? Because that doesn't sound like an official. That sounds like a God.

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