Because it was a running gun fight. The Army also released it's After Action report showing there was in fact RPGs there. Now I'm not saying the reporters were bad guys, but they clearly embedded with an anti coalition militia. That carries the same risk of getting killed as embedding with coalition forces.
Of course we try to avoid killing them. But there's no way that Apache crew can discern them from the militia they embedded in. They're not super human.
Again. There was no way to discern them from the militia. The Army is not going to just let themselves get shot at because there "might be" a reporter on the other side.
seems to me they had the option to stay away from that conflict entirely, but the commander in chief decided that it was ok to endanger civillians with his adventurism. staying the fuck home wuold have meant that they avoided killing civillians. they chose not to do that.
I agree. That would have prevented civilian deaths at the hands of Americans. Soldiers don't have that choice though. They do the best they can with the situation at hand.