I think that it's fair to say that most people are aware of the "collateral murder" released recently that showed several helicopter pilots shooting and killing multiple unarmed men, including two reporters and two children, as well as several armed men.If you watch the video, what you find is alarming disregard for civilians and the wounded.

First off, I'm not unfamiliar with military ethics, although it has been awhile. In 1994, I took a military ethics course while completing my undergraduate degree. The course was part of the ROTC program at the college. I was also first introduced to military ethics in 1991
when in basic training but those classes were so truncated as to be worthless. Of course, there have been many changes over the last 17 years and the current wars are complicated and dirty because we are not fighting clearly defined enemies that wear uniforms and are easily
identifiable as combatants but we are fighting persons that actually try to blend with civilian populations. That said...

Several important themes of military ethics were treatment of civilians, the treatment of the wounded and the treatment of those that care for the wounded. These themes demonstrate what was so troubling about this video.

At first, the video shows several men walking down the street. Some of these men appear to be armed, some unarmed and some definitely armed.The two photographers vaguely look like they are carrying weapons because all you can see clearly is that they are carrying an object
with a shoulder strap. This confusion falls away because it is obvious that this is a camera with a telephoto lens. The cameras are first visible while walking but only vaguely so and would be easily missed during the heat of the moment.

Also, watching the video, it is obvious that what they are calling an RPG is actually Namir crouched by the corner of the building with his camera and telephoto lens. If it were an RPG it would not be at the
level of his nipples pointing horizontal to the angle of his forearms but would be on his shoulder and pointing at a sharper downward angle.

The fact that it was Namir with his camera becomes even more clear as the helicopter circles and Namir is clearly visible holding the camera right in front of him. There is no doubt that it is a camera and none of the men around him appear to be armed. Within seconds the group is killed in a barrage of gunfire with no warning.  Up until this point, it could be considered a case of mistaken identity but what comes next is not.

Saeed Chmagh was injured in a barrage of fire and was slowly trying to drag himself to safety. He managed to drag himself several yards from the street to the sidewalk. A man comes running up from a van. He is
joined by others that pick Saeed from the ground and the begin to carry him to the van, with two faces peering through the passenger window, where they place him through a side door. At the same time the helicopter gunman is saying that these men have weapons and are
trying to take "bodies." Less than a minute before the same gunman referred to Saaed as wounded. Why the change from wounded to body and add the claim that they are armed?

Maybe it is because firing upon the wounded and unarmed assistants would be a violation of the Geneva Convention Article 3 and 15.

Art. 3. In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following 
provisions: â€¨â€¨

(1) Persons taking no active part
in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour,
religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:


(a) violence to life and person, in
particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;


(b) taking of hostages;


(c) outrages upon personal dignity,
in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) the passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable be civilized peoples.



(2) The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for...

Part II. General Protection of Populations Against Certain Consequences of War

Art. 15. Any Party to the conflict may, either direct or through a neutral State or some humanitarian organization, propose to the adverse Party to establish, in the regions where fighting is taking place, neutralized zones intended to shelter from the effects of war the following persons, without 
distinction: â€¨â€¨

(a) wounded and sick combatants or non-combatants;


(b) civilian persons who take no part in
hostilities, and who, while they reside in the zones, perform no work of a military character.

What happens next really demonstrates the destructive power of the copter's chain guns. The guns fire on the van and men, throwing and twisting the van 90 degrees and several feet from its parked position. The result is more dead men and two mortally wounded children.
The initial firing upon of the group of men could have easily been an example of misidentification but the second incident is not so easily excused. The synopsis is that the crew changed their language from injured to body when requesting permission to fire and they also
claimed the men from the van were armed when they had nothing in their hands other than the wounded man. Add to this the imploring of a crew member to an injured Saaed that he pull a weapon so that he could kill him and ignoring the initial attack on the journalists, it seems
obvious that a serious crime has been committed and that the helicopter crews did, indeed, violate the Geneva convention by knowingly attacking unarmed civilians that were assisting an injured person.

It is true that there are caveats and that there had been skirmishes all morning and that the general area was overrun by fighters. The soldiers were also probably frustrated, angry and overrun by adrenaline but
these have never been an excuse for the firing and killing the wounded and civilians trying to help the wounded.