General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Like it or Not, Bradley Manning is a Traitor [View all]ljm2002
(10,751 posts)...were when they (a) shot and killed wounded people on the ground, who were not a threat; and (b) shot and killed the good samaritan who tried to help the wounded. Both are war crimes under the Geneva Convention. A "quaint" document, to be sure; but we are signatories and agreed to be bound by those rules of warfare.
One may be able to rationalize the other actions taken (thinking the camerman's telephoto lens was an RPG; not knowing there were children in the good samaritan's vehicle). But I don't think the word "accident" applies to any of it.
There is no reason for the video to be classified, and there was no reason to deny the video's existence when Reuters tried to find out what had happened to their journalists who were killed in this incident.
Also, there were numerous instances of journalists being killed by the US or its allied forces in Iraq. My own opinion is that our military wanted all the journalists under their control, i.e. "embedded", and wanted to send a message to those who did not care to be embedded. The evidence for that is purely circumstantial but that is what I think.