This is a most shameful episode. It represents failure at every level in the US:
The psychotic pilots were saw what they wanted to see, and either made an incompetent judgement on what they could see, or lied, or both.
* The rules of engagement were clearly misapplied and the chain of command failed to verify that a threat existed.
* The pilots then fired on civilians rendering aid to the wounded, which is a clear breach of US military code and of the Geneva convention.
* They also fired on wounded people who if they represented a threat before the were fired upon certainly didn't once shot with 30mm cannon (a weapon which incidentally should be used on materiel rather than people given that these look like exploding rounds).
* There is no proper investigation and the General lied to Reuters.
* Once the video released the White house and doubtless Pentagon behaved in a shamefully complicit way.
* Finally the US media behaved in an extraordinarily cowardly way. Why is it too shocking to show what ones troops do? If you don't want to be shocked your troops should be properly commanded and controlled?

I think this is a war crime. But who cares what I think? What should happen is that these pilots undergo a Court martial, and if found guilty serve long hard time, and if innocent (fog of war and all that) be exonerated by a court. That presumably is why there are military courts - to test difficult cases?

The bottom line here is that the US needs to sign up and recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court over the US military that most other countries accept, but which the US has failed to ratify, so that its soldiers and indeed the whole chain of command recognise that they are accountable for what they do. Why should US soldiers be exempt from a need to observe human writes in the same way as American Civilians? Only real accountability will prevent this sort of shameful butchery in future.