Let us have an honesty check Sugarfoot:

1. "Seeing as you agree shooting kids is legit under certain circumstances Teribus"

Who exactly knowingly shot at any children? - Nobody

Who knew that there were children in the van? – The people who were in the van, certainly neither of the Helo Pilots or their controller knew who or what was in that van.

When was it that the children were discovered injured in the van, before or after the van was hit? Clearly it was after the shooting had stopped and US ground patrol had arrived on scene.

End result of all that Sugarfoot is that nobody has said that it is alright to shoot kids. Now was the van a legitimate target? Yes it was. Bottom line the "kids" should not have been put in that position, and there is only one person who put them in that position – the driver of the van. On that van, the time difference between the first phase of shooting ending and the van pulling up was just over one minute. With two helos in the air observing the area closely, had this van been innocently driving along, either one or both of the helos would have spotted it and reported that movement earlier. They didn't, because the van had been parked close by, someone who saw what had happened went to the van and brought it up to a position that they thought was out of the line of fire.

2. "what about the decision the commander on the ground made NOT to medivac those kids to the nearest aid post but simply send them to an Iraqi hospital already struggling with the number of casualties in it's wards?"

Tell me Sugarfoot, how do you know that the US medical facility at Rustamiyah WAS the nearest medical facility to the scene?

US forces would definitely know where their facilities were but not necessarily the locations of any local hospital or clinic, which may have been located a lot closer to the scene. Or are you trying to tell us that the driver of the van was going to take the wounded man to the US facility at Rustamiyah for treatment? I somehow doubt it, and the reason the destination was changed and the decision to hand the wounded over to the Iraqi Police was made because there was a local facility much closer. Now tell me how you KNOW for a fact that that was not the case? Or did you just go along with the spin applied by MSM to sensationalize this story and put as black as possible reading on the situation.

3.   "Do you think this sort of complete abdication of responsibility to the people they're supposed to be 'liberating' is helping win hearts and minds?"

Number of US troops actively engaged on front-line security operations in Iraq today is what Sugarfoot? Oh that's right it is NONE and that has been the case for some time time now, most MNF contingents have left the country and the security situation is being handled entirely by Iraqi National Forces (Army & Police).