Letters to David Irving on this Website

A US airman tells us, Friday, April 29, 2005, he was aboard the AC-130 gunship which shot up an Afghan wedding party in 2002, but says the assault was justified

Afghan war crime - not a crime?

I JUST read the web page you made here. I was flying AC-130's [right] and was deployed to the region when it happened, and I would just like to point out some areas where you were dead wrong.

First of all, to address your comment about the wedding party [in Afghanistan]. I was on the plane that supposedly shot the wedding party.

Our crew was receiving anti-aircraft fire from a gun in the village. We flew overhead for twenty minutes being shot at. It wasn't a concern as the gun was too far below us to hit us. We were simply watching. After about thirty minutes, the villagers came out of their houses and started attacking the Taliban on the gun. The Taliban soldiers then leveled the gun and started shooting the village up.

That is when we received clearance to fire. We fired three rounds of 105mm that all hit the anti-aircraft gun and the fight was over. Do you ever wonder why the situation went away so fast? The reason is every time we fire the guns, there is a video camera showing what we are shooting, the coordinates of where we are, and the date and time.

The tapes are turned over to intelligence personnel and reviewed by the JAG [Judge Advocate General's office]. Once they saw the video of the wedding party, the issue was over. It clearly showed what truly happened.

Unfortunately the BBC, CNN, and other networks took a story from Al Jazeera and used it as a credible source to report on. Big mistake. Also an unfortunate event was the fact that the same networks didn't have the balls to report a retraction when the truth came out.

Due to that, anti-US/anti-war freak sites like yourselves use that as a spring board for how bad the US is.

Do you remember the pictures from the "wedding party"? The victims they showed had small arms bullet wounds. The AC-130 fires 105mm, 40mm, and 25mm high explosive rounds. When they hit something, it takes parts off, not making little tiny bullet holes. The injuries sustained could not have come from us.

As for the video you show itself, your hypothesis of it being posted to the web by an officer with a conscience is wrong also. The video you are showing has been filtered down for video clarity, all targeting symbology removed, and the overall size is wrong. Raw video is classified due to the above reasons.

If it was an officer with regret, you would have seen the raw footage. Instead, this video has been processed by an intel person to filter out what would make it classified. It is a produced video. It was also quite widely known it was made to be released, so take your bleeding-heart officer routine and try again. Also like the other person said, this video was taken in early 2002. You didn't even get the date right.

"One by one the long-range infra-red cameras, and then the guns and rockets, focus on and take out the figures running for their lives." Come on man...do a Google search to find out what kind of weapons the AC-130 has if you are going to report on it with any credibility.

It doesn't carry any rockets. Be a credible reporter. Maybe stop with the drama too. All infra-red is long range. Being as it is light, its range is likely line of sight. Guess it gave a nice dramatic touch though.

"The shamed US commander sent in special forces afterwards to remove all traces of spent ammunition from the ground and buildings"

Once again, your hypothesis is wrong. The AC-130 doesn't have spent ammunition casing that fall to the ground. They are retained inside the plane. Nice flair for the dramatic again though.

I will credit your sight for one thing. You had the guts to post the letter on the next page correcting some of the mistakes you made. Maybe you will again show some credibility and post this too.

Thank you for your time

A US airman

[who unfortunately did not have the guts
to provide a real name or address]

David Irving comments:

I WILL surely post the letter in a day or two, as I am on the road right now (I drove 1,200 miles in last two days alone); what worries me is that the US forces promised, as usual, an "investigation", and we have heard no more about that (or indeed about any of their other "investigations" into such apparent war crimes). Why not, if your account is what really happened? Your account still leaves many questions unanswered, particularly if the video is watched again. We have to take it at face value that you are who you say you are, of course., and that you were indeed in the AC-130 plane concerned, and not just part of the same unit.

 

We have corrected minor spelling errors in the letter, but it is otherwise unchanged or edited.

 

Correcting the facts: AC-130 gunship in Afghanistan (Letter)

Video of AC0-130 shooting up a civilian target in Afganistan: "Don't shoot the mosque!"

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