Keyword there is "think" versus "know". They have no idea, and instead of holding back until they have established an understanding of the situation, they shoot as soon as they are able because they think it's fun.
No, they shoot as soon as they are able
because that's their job. The situation was pretty clear; armed insurgents were in the direct path of a US convoy. The helicopter was there specifically to ensure the safety of the convoy. If it still isn't clear to you what the situation was, I suggest you never take on a job with your country's military.
The chance of successfully hitting an circling helicopter with an RPG-7 from 500 meters away is so small it does not exist, as you would know if you read the linked documents, where the chance of a hit with this weapon is illustrated in a nice graph. The chance of hitting even a stationary target at such range is minute.
I did read the document. And again, I say lets put you in a helicopter, and I'll fire an RPG at it. It's easy for you to be judgmental now, but once I fire rockets at your airborne high horse, we'll see how much faith you put in your "chance so small it doesn't exist" claim.
People win the lottery every day, despite million-to-one odds; explaining to your commanding officer, should you survive a rocket
actually hitting your helicopter, that you didn't fire on someone with an RPG because "the chances of the rocket hitting us were so small they didn't exist" probably wouldn't go over so well.
And I've even been ignoring the point, for sake of discussion, that
tigger and
Hidden_Hunter have made; that the RPG could have also easily been used against the approaching convoy, which the helicopter was there to protect.
While you are careful not to write it out in clear language, what you are arguing via your train of thought is that the lives of fifteen arabs are worth less than the lives of two americans, and that's why it's okay to open fire on a group of people without knowing who they are or what their intentions are. Because they're arabs, and probably dangerous. It's easy to draw paralells to Vietnam and "the gooks".
No, I haven't written it out in clear language
because I don't care what color anyone is. Those could have been whitest-of-white-bread Americans, and it still wouldn't change the facts of the matter. It's absolutely laughable that you and
chaos386 are trying to brand me as a racist, when it's
you guys that are the ones playing the race card.
You are the ones making a big deal about how it's Americans killing Arabs, not me.
You are the ones saying that I think Arabs are dangerous, not me; I think people with RPG's and guns are dangerous, regardless of race. It's easy to draw parallels between you and "someone who can't debate effectively".
It's also
you who is missing the entire point that
the helicopter was there to protect a US military caravan. It's not just "two Americans"; it's an entire platoon whose lives were put into jeopardy by these insurgents. The fact that you continuously and unabashedly ignore this important detail suggests to me that you should again, never consider a job within the military, and should stay away from positions that require attention to detail.
It's also worth talking about how "callous" everyone appeared to be during the video. I used to work at an animal shelter, and routinely had to deal with deadly, gruesome, or otherwise uncomfortable situations. I eventually had to become a certified Euthanasia Technician, and attend a class on what's called "
Compassion Fatigue". We were essentially taught, as everyone who works with mortality and trauma, to "disconnect" from our jobs. Not to not care (because what's the point if we don't care), but to not take personal care... and one of the ways to "disconnect" is to make jokes or improve efficiency. There's actually a couple Scrubs episode which deals with this; how you can appear heartless and callous to an outsider, but how you're actually keeping your sanity and improving your bottom-line job performance.
As a result, we at the shelter routinely made comments or performed actions that would appear callous to the general public, many along the same lines as the Scrubs episodes discussed. It wasn't because we didn't care about animals, because we did, but if we took personal interest in every animal in the course of our jobs, it would be absolutely crushing to morale and eventually drive everyone insane.
We saw animals in our care as names, numbers, and personality blurbs (I also worked in adoption; animals were leaving that building through me one way or another). We
could not get personally attached to animals, because if that animal had to "go to god" for whatever reason, or just didn't get adopted for months on end, that animal would simply
devour you. Same with doctors. Same with nurses. Same with law enforcement.
And same with the military. And because it's human mortality being
inflicted, rather than prevented, the compassion fatigue becomes dangerous and especially toxic. Why do you think there are so many PTSD cases with the military? Because compassion fatigue
will ultimately catch up to every person in the military who has to deal with mortality.
It isn't pretty, but that's what they're there to do. They're there to do a job. And it might not be a funny job to those of you saying "well they should have done..." or "well listen to them say...", but if you don't make it a funny job, it will eat you alive.
