Michael Shelden, author of “Orwell: The Authorized Biography,” points out that the oft-used quotation is, in fact, incorrect. In an e-mail he wrote:

“The accurate quote from Orwell is from an essay on Kipling that he published in Horizon magazine in 1942: ‘He sees clearly that men can only be highly civilized while other men, inevitably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them.’ “Fred Shapiro points out the confusion between this correct version and others on p. 569 of the latest ed. of the Yale Book of Quotations.”

As much as in the general public, military blogs have reacted with passion to the released Wikileaks video of a 2007 Apache attack in Iraq. With more expertise than most viewers — as well as more empathy, even among those who felt the pilots acted improperly — they explored a range of issues: Were the people in the video carrying weapons? Is Wikileaks a security risk? Did the military fail in not explaining the video more fully to the media? Should journalists operate so closely to insurgents?

At A Look Inside, Anthony Martinez, an infantryman who has experience with aerial footage, writes with authority about the aerial attack. I highly suggest reading his entire post:

I have spent quite a lot of time (a conservative estimate would be around 4500 hours) viewing aerial footage of Iraq (note: this time was not in viewing TADS video, but footage from Raven, Shadow, and Predator feeds)…

Between 3:13 and 3:30 it is quite clear to me, as both a former infantry sergeant and a photographer, that the two men central to the gun-camera’s frame are carrying photographic equipment. This much is noted by WikiLeaks, and misidentified by the crew of Crazyhorse 18. At 3:39, the men central to the frame are armed, the one on the far left with some AK variant, and the one in the center with an RPG. The RPG is crystal clear even in the downsized, very low-resolution, video between 3:40 and 3:45 when the man carrying it turns counter-clockwise and then back to the direction of the Apache. This all goes by without any mention whatsoever from WikiLeaks, and that is unacceptable.

At 4:08 to 4:18 another misidentification is made by Crazyhorse 18, where what appears to clearly be a man with a telephoto lens (edit to add: one of the Canon EF 70-200mm offerings) on an SLR is identified as wielding an RPG. The actual case is not threatening at all, though the misidentified case presents a major perceived threat to the aircraft and any coalition forces in the direction of its orientation. This moment is when the decision to engage is made, in error.

(note: It has to be taken into consideration that there is no way that the Crazyhorse crew had the knowledge, as everyone who has viewed this had, that the man on the corner of that wall was a photographer. The actions of shouldering an RPG (bringing a long cylindrical object in line with one’s face) and framing a photo with a long telephoto lens quite probably look identical to an aircrew in those conditions.)

I have made the call to engage targets from the sky several times, and know (especially during the surge) that such calls are not taken lightly. Had I been personally involved with this mission, and had access to real-time footage, I would have recommended against granting permission. Any of the officers with whom I served are well aware that I would continue voicing that recommendation until ordered to do otherwise. A few of them threatened me with action under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for doing so. Better officers than they, fortunately, were always ready to go to bat for me and keep that from happening. That said, if either of the clearly visible weapons been oriented towards aircraft, vehicles, troops, or civilians I would have cleared Crazyhorse 18 hot in a heartbeat and defended my actions to the battle staff if needed.

At Small Wars Journal, considered the pre-eminent military blog because of its diverse audience and contributors which span from sergeants to generals, one commenter argues:

Wikileaks is not a security risk. The people who give them information are the security risk. Wikileaks is no different than any capable investigative journalist. They just happen to focus on these things more than most and provide a convenient website.

I do, however, object to the editorializing of the leak. You want to show the AWT video and let people decide what is or is not appropriate, that is one thing. But the comments added by Wikileaks were politicized and pre-interpreted what was going on in the video.

The same commenter also withholds judgment from the action stating:

I was there (same Area of Operations, different job, different dangers) but can’t talk to what threat these particular aviators were facing or what threat they thought was being posed to the ground forces they were supporting. That’s where someone in the know should speak, on the record, about the situation and present the video in context. If there was an investigation afterward, that should be disclosed. I’m not saying its going to change the tragedy that occurred or even justify what happened, but context needs to be used to help the public understand what is going on and not allow Wikileaks to set the agenda.



Starbuck, an Army Blackhawk pilot, in his blog Wings Over Iraq points out the limits of thermal and optical sensors in helicopters:

Despite the advances in thermal and optical sensors, it’s still extremely difficult for an air crew to tell an insurgent from a civilian. The Apache pilots believed that they saw AK-47s and RPGs in the hands of the figures in the video. An examination of the video, however, is inconclusive. They could really be carryinganything.

Starbuck says counterinsurgency tenets are not just important to infantryman but also to aviators and this video exemplifies the importance of teaching aviators counterinsurgency:

Upon hearing that one of the victims is a young girl, the pilots laugh, “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids to a battle”.Wrong.

The pilots fail to mention these two men walking into the building, nor do they mention another unarmed man (34:40) walking directly in front of the building as they shoot a Hellfire missile. Again, read FM 3-24 (Counterinsurgency Manual), Appendix F. Another obvious Counterinsurgency failure.



Schmedlap, a former infantry officer, on his blog dissects whether or not the people in the video were combatants or civilians:

It seems plausible that some of them were combatants. It is not clear that all of them were. Among the dead were individuals who were apparently being paid by Reuters as journalists. I am not suggesting that merely being employed by Reuters was grounds for killing them, but Reuters was notorious for hiring insurgents to obtain “news” for them when said stringers were not helping to manufacture propaganda for the insurgency, so count me as unimpressed by the concern about danger posed to journalists. My only concern is whether the people killed were justified in being killed, how the decision to kill them was made, and whether we have learned anything from it.



Schmedlap goes onto argue: “At worst, the events in this video show individuals wanting to get into a firefight first and wanting to analyze their actions second – kind of like the guys who shot first at Pat Tillman and worried about positive identification later. I suspect the reality lies somewhere between the best and worst.”

While the web has gone viral with the video, it has been surprising and disappointing that the official military response has been nonexistent. While there is much dissension on military blogs concerning whether the pilots followed the rules of engagement, there is unanimity among military bloggers that the military has failed by not having a media plan or response to this episode. A military that is seeking to embrace Web 2.0 needs to be more prepared for these episodes like the release of this video.

Back to Small Wars Journal:

Sadly, it looks like the DoD, or the government on whole, has completely dropped the ball on this and is unlikely to address the issue at all. This should really be a measure of the effectiveness of our strategic communications gurus to seize this opportunity to show what the real video showed in context (where were the US troops that were being overwatched, what was the state of violence at this point, how many helicopters had been engaged/shot down in this part of Baghdad at this point.) As has been shown time and again (think Rodney King) video of an event is not the whole story, context is critical. But days have passed now and it doesn’t look like anyone but a few on-line posters is making any effort to put events into context.

At Blackfive they are also wondering how the military has bungled this media engagement, in a post titled “Open Letter to Central Command Public Affairs Office:”

It looks to me like it started when you didn’t respond to what looks like a reasonable use of the FOIA by Reuters. The result of this is that you let your enemy get inside your OODA loop. You could have taken the FOIA request and complied with it on your terms to control the narrative. Perhaps you could have leaked the video out first to a few trusty bloggers who would have seen it for what it was: An ugly, sad, but common story. Sure, there was some gallows humor in there and some false bravado. But there were also American servicemen paying scrupulous attention to the ROE and a group of them, panicked out of fear for a little Iraqi girl, running through some dangerous urban streets to get her medical attention.



Within the military blogs are many defenders of the actions of the pilots. Captain’s Journal writes:

Embedding with insurgents is highly dangerous, and in this instance it turned around and bit Reuters like a snake. Reuters is in no position to question the ROE or the decisions made that fateful day. But concerning those decisions, I have repeatedly pressed the issue with rules of engagement for snipers that offensive operations are not contemplated in the standing ROE, and yet they should be. I have no problem with any of the decisions made that day. I support allowing ground forces to follow the same Rules of Engagement that Close Air Support followed in this instance and the drones follow in their attacks against the Taliban leadership in Pakistan.

The Wikileaks video began with a quote from George Orwell, so to end this post I would like to end with a quote attributed to Orwell which many in the military identify and often use in their signature block:

“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”