Thanks for the insightful comment. I think you’re dead on here. What’s really interesting is that this Israel/Gaza flotilla mess has brought this example back into the media.

The catalyst to the American Revolutionary War, arguably, was the Boston Massacre. Lots of Americans, now and at the time, forget that those troops were acquitted of all major charges (with the help of John Adams). Does that matter? Nope. The soldiers and the protesters were present because a set of external circumstances put them there. And things got out of hand. When one puts an army into these types of situations, one has to accept the consequences, which is why it is important that the policies are sound.

I would argue that in all three examples there were overarching problems in the policy of the super power in question (Britain, America, and Israel, respectively), which led to disastrous results. I would also argue that if the overarching policies were sound, then the collateral damage, though tragic, would not have played out the way that it did in the court of public opinion.

Frankly, history continues to point out that soldiers don’t make good peace makers, through no fault of the particular soldiers themselves. They either invite one sided deaths of relatively weakly/unarmed civilians (Boston Massacre, the killing of the Reuters reporters, the flotilla event) or they invite civilians to take up arms (insurgencies, Somalia, Lexington and Concord) in order to even the odds. Following Sun Tzu’s teachings, both results are disastrous and both are the product of and result in the loss of initiative.

And that’s just a losing strategy.

Read my analysis of the Flotilla conflict here – http://www.dissectednews.com/2010/06/time-to-evolve.html

Thanks for the insightful comment. I think you’re dead on here. What’s really interesting is that this Israel/Gaza flotilla mess has brought this example back into the media.

The catalyst to the American Revolutionary War, arguably, was the Boston Massacre. Lots of Americans, now and at the time, forget that those troops were acquitted of all major charges (with the help of John Adams). Does that matter? Nope. The soldiers and the protesters were present because a set of external circumstances put them there. And things got out of hand. When one puts an army into these types of situations, one has to accept the consequences, which is why it is important that the policies are sound.

I would argue that in all three examples there were overarching problems in the policy of the super power in question (Britain, America, and Israel, respectively), which led to disastrous results. I would also argue that if the overarching policies were sound, then the collateral damage, though tragic, would not have played out the way that it did in the court of public opinion.

Frankly, history continues to point out that soldiers don’t make good peace makers, through no fault of the particular soldiers themselves. They either invite one sided deaths of relatively weakly/unarmed civilians (Boston Massacre, the killing of the Reuters reporters, the flotilla event) or they invite civilians to take up arms (insurgencies, Somalia, Lexington and Concord) in order to even the odds. Following Sun Tzu’s teachings, both results are disastrous and both are the product of and result in the loss of initiative.

And that’s just a losing strategy.

Read my analysis of the Flotilla conflict here – http://www.dissectednews.com/2010/06/time-to-evolve.html

I’ve never been in the military, but I was in both police and security work a number of years, and quite a few times I found myself in hot situations. Fortunately, I never harmed or killed any innocent people — in fact, I was lucky to never have to fire at all.

But there were PLENTY of times I came THA-A-A-T close to squeezing off in our equivalent of “the heat of battle.” While it’s entirely possible I would have been cleared of any wrongdoing, even if an innocent person had been hurt or killed, I’m *awfully* thankful I don’t have that on my head. And I imagine the Apache crew probably feel the same.

And I want to add my support on another aspect of this. I had and still have, in some cases, friends and acquaintances who served in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, in the latter some still serving. Maybe all three wars were and are completely wrong — but that’s not the fault of some grunt in a foxhole or any other uniformed serviceman (or woman). Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our highest uniformed officer, doesn’t make the final decision, though of course he advises the Secretary of Defense and the President, testifies to Congress, etc.

But the uniforms don’t pick the wars. The politicians pick them — then the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines go fight them, just like they were told to do. (Conversely, there are a few bad apples in the ranks; if one murders some innocent civilian, for example, nail his butt to the nearest cross — but don’t fault, say, the Chairman of the JCS, the President, etc. over one murderer they never even heard of — until now. And don’t judge the rightness or wrongness of the entire war based on that murderer’s actions.)

While I appreciate the stated goal of Wikileaks to expose wrongdoing, I *don’t* appreciate their editorializing and judging. If they were ever to be demonstrably and beyond any reasonable doubt to have caused the injury or death of even a single member of our armed forces, I’d support the government going after them — with a vengeance. Whistleblowing’s one thing; spilling legitimate classified information, such as battle plans, is not.

They’re not going to find a new set of Pentagon Papers every day, are they? (Though I’m convinced they’d love to do so.)

I’ve never been in the military, but I was in both police and security work a number of years, and quite a few times I found myself in hot situations. Fortunately, I never harmed or killed any innocent people — in fact, I was lucky to never have to fire at all.

But there were PLENTY of times I came THA-A-A-T close to squeezing off in our equivalent of “the heat of battle.” While it’s entirely possible I would have been cleared of any wrongdoing, even if an innocent person had been hurt or killed, I’m *awfully* thankful I don’t have that on my head. And I imagine the Apache crew probably feel the same.

And I want to add my support on another aspect of this. I had and still have, in some cases, friends and acquaintances who served in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, in the latter some still serving. Maybe all three wars were and are completely wrong — but that’s not the fault of some grunt in a foxhole or any other uniformed serviceman (or woman). Even the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our highest uniformed officer, doesn’t make the final decision, though of course he advises the Secretary of Defense and the President, testifies to Congress, etc.

But the uniforms don’t pick the wars. The politicians pick them — then the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines go fight them, just like they were told to do. (Conversely, there are a few bad apples in the ranks; if one murders some innocent civilian, for example, nail his butt to the nearest cross — but don’t fault, say, the Chairman of the JCS, the President, etc. over one murderer they never even heard of — until now. And don’t judge the rightness or wrongness of the entire war based on that murderer’s actions.)

While I appreciate the stated goal of Wikileaks to expose wrongdoing, I *don’t* appreciate their editorializing and judging. If they were ever to be demonstrably and beyond any reasonable doubt to have caused the injury or death of even a single member of our armed forces, I’d support the government going after them — with a vengeance. Whistleblowing’s one thing; spilling legitimate classified information, such as battle plans, is not.

They’re not going to find a new set of Pentagon Papers every day, are they? (Though I’m convinced they’d love to do so.)

And “Muzzle velocity 805 m/s (2,641 ft/s)
Effective range 1,500 m (1,640 yd)
Maximum range 4,500 m (4,920 yd)”

From the time the gun first fired until first impact was 2-2.5 seconds. Therefore the copter was 1600-2000 meters away. Over a mile away! What threat was an AK-47 or even an RPG at that range?