00:27 Okay we got a target fifteen coming at you. It’s a guy with a weapon.
00:32 Roger [acknowledged].
00:39 There’s a…
00:42 There’s about, ah, four or five…
00:44 Bushmaster Six [ground control] copy [I hear you] One-Six.
00:48… this location and there’s more that keep walking by and one of them has a weapon.
00:52 Roger received target fifteen.
00:55 K.
00:57 See all those people standing down there.
01:06 Stay firm. And open the courtyard.
01:09 Yeah roger. I just estimate there’s probably about twenty of them.
01:13 There’s one, yeah.
01:15 Oh yeah.
01:18 I don’t know if that’s a…
01:19 Hey Bushmaster element [ground forces control], copy on the one-six.
01:21 That’s a weapon.
01:22 Yeah.
01:23 Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight [second Apache helicopter].
01:29 Copy on the one-six, Bushmaster Six-Romeo. Roger.
01:32 Fucking prick.
01:33 Hotel Two-Six this is Crazy Horse One-Eight [communication between chopper 1 and chopper 2]. Have individuals with weapons.
01:41 Yup. He’s got a weapon too.
01:43 Hotel Two-Six; Crazy Horse One-Eight. Have five to six individuals with AK47s [automatic rifles]. Request permission to engage [shoot].
01:51 Roger that. Uh, we have no personnel east of our position. So, uh, you are free to engage. Over.
02:00 All right, we’ll be engaging.
02:02 Roger, go ahead.
02:03 I’m gonna… I can’t get ’em now because they’re behind that building.
02:09 Um, hey Bushmaster element…
02:10 He’s got an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade]?
02:11 All right, we got a guy with an RPG.
02:13 I’m gonna fire.
02:14 Okay.
02:15 No hold on. Let’s come around. Behind buildings right now from our point of view…. Okay, we’re gonna come around.
02:19 Hotel Two-Six; have eyes on individual with RPG. Getting ready to fire. We won’t…
02:23 Yeah, we had a guy shoot—and now he’s behind the building.
02:26 God damn it.
The tragic fate of the people on the ground begins at the moment when a helicopter crew member thinks he recognizes a weapon. From this point on, the group, which the helicopter crews watch from a distance via video monitors, becomes a target, and the intention to focus on and destroy this target is preprogrammed. It only takes a few seconds for other crew members to identify further weapons. Almost instantaneously an armed individual becomes a whole armed group. Equally quickly, the weapon becomes an AK-47 and then a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. When the first helicopter receives permission to attack, the group disappears from view behind a building. At that point, from the soldiers’ perspective, the only thing that matters is to get their sights back on their targets, and one of the people deemed to be carrying a weapon is perceived as having fired a shot. Precisely because the group has disappeared behind a building, the U.S. soldiers’ desire to “incapacitate” them as quickly as possible becomes overwhelming. Any remaining doubt about whether these people actually are “insurgents” and whether they really are carrying weapons is rendered moot. The soldiers have defined the situation, and that definition calls for a set procedure.
