Oh, and by the way, blocking someone from your diary (a diary they don't even have any interest in reading, and which has all of the entries already on FO) so as to make a point is juvenile.

Actually, you were blocked because I have pictures of my daughter up, and I, frankly, do not like you, nor do I trust you. However, that has nothing to do with the matter at hand. It makes me laugh that you would say that *I* am ruled by my emotions, when it seems that you are the one getting upset. As I said before, I was not angry at all, just stating MY opinion. If you don't like that, then maybe YOU are the one that is immature, not I. And, by the way, how in the world can YOU miraculously decipher MY tone through WRITING?

You don't trust me to see pictures of your daughter? What makes you think I'd even want to look at your pictures? Get over yourself. I went to your diary once because I wondered if you were someone else who you reminded me of here. Your entries are all FO. How could I possibly have seen any photos anyway?

I'm not upset, and nothing I have said here suggests otherwise. I'm somewhat amused at your over emotional nature, but that's it.

And it's entirely possible to get tone from the written word...

Oh, because you were THERE, of course? I must have missed THAT. sounds angry, particularly with your overuse of capital letters.

suck it up sounds angry also.

And emphasising words... Like *I* and using a lot of capital letters, portrays an angry, emotional tone.

So either you're angery and overemotional or just over dramatic in your writing.

And I have no problem with you having an opinion (although I'm also entitled to disagree). My only issue is with the rudeness and aggression you've shown here. Telling someone to "suck it up" is not an opinion.

It's nice that you have enough time on your hands to analyze all of that. Good for you. Get over myself? Get over yourself... thinking I blocked you to prove a point? What I do with my diary is my business.

hear hear! (i havent read the thread but i opened it and i saw "what i do with my diary is my business")

Don't like someone's opinion, then suck it up.

exactly. it's disgusting.

Agreed.

i am hugely curious why they shot up the van, when those people clearly only came to pick up the unarmed men they just massacred.

because they were told to stop in farsi and arabic. The standing orders over there are to open fire if you give the order to stop and they dont stop.

I understand if the guy is walking at you with a gun pointed in your direction and you say "stop" he doesnt stop, you shoot.

Those dudes had no guns, no bombs, no nothing. They were picking up the dead bodies and had no reason to be shot.

The soldiers (not that I am excusing their behavior, just pointing out a fact) had no way of knowing if there was an IED in that van or not. That is the point of telling a driver to stop - so that whatever they are driving can be searched. Or the person can be patted down.

There weren't any soldiers on the ground, if I'm not mistaken, so it wouldn't have mattered if there was an IED, only an RPG. I thought the only military there were people in the plane.

If there was an IED in the van, the explosion does go up as well as out.

Do you know how high up that aircraft is?

Just for the sake of the thread, and to be informative to anyone that reads this, that plane was high enough to the point where the people on the ground don't notice it. It's an actual plane, not a low-flying helicopter. If an IED went off, the soldiers in the plane would have been in no immediate danger.

... AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopter...

Er, right, that.

To be fair, the van could have had a stinger in the back, which easily can take down an Apache.

But there was also no proof of that, and therefore no threat, or reason to engage.

No, there wasn't proof, but in a combat "hot zone" after engaging suspected insurgents (also incorrect on the pilots' judgment), it was a reasonable fear.

A Stinger-7 takes about half a second to warm up, maybe two to lock on. If the back doors popped open and they lined the chopper up, it would have been down before they knew what hit them. The rules of engagement are pretty clear when it comes to this stuff, however, it doesn't excuse the fact they wrongly judged and acted against "suspected insurgents."

Did I miss that? How were they told that? Who by?

Can you post the time in the video where the men on the ground were told to stop?

I watched the video and never heard them say stop. I'm wondering what took place before hand? Why did they shoot. I know they were supposedly carrying weapons, but the video wasn't high-tech or anything. So there is no way I'd be able to make that out. Was there reasoning? I know the helicopters were up there watching for our troops who were on ground with grenades.

The bottom line is this...You can watch the video and make snap judgments about what you THINK you see...but unless you've ACTUALLY been there, then you have absolutely NO idea. You don't know what lead up to this event. Like Meghan said, Soldiers have standing orders to shoot to kill if commands are NOT followed. Their lives, and the lives of everyone else around them, DEPEND on following those orders.