The leaked "Collateral Murder" video everyone is talking about
This is the video that the people at wikileaks decrypted and posted, that shows something unpleasant and possibly criminal commited in Ameerica's name in Iraq.
The video is not bloody, but is very heavy and shows a helicopter shooting down a group of Iraqis in 2007. This would have gone unremarked, considering all the killing, but this group included two Reuters employees.
If it hadn't included the reuters men, obviously we never would have heard a thing about it. It's unremarkable in an occupation.
Right wingers are already franticly denoucing the release of the video, saying it's war what did the iraqis expect, saying they were insurgents who deserved what they got, and that it's treason to release the video.
You can see for yourself. Be warned the video does show people being killed. I did not see anything that looked like a gun, or behavior that looked insurgent or agressive. Decide for yourself.
Here's what google is saying about the Collateral Murder controversy.
From the youtube description:
sunshinepress — April 03, 2010 — Wikileaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a US Apache helicopter in 2007. It shows Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several others as the Apache shoots and kills them in a public square in Eastern Baghdad. They are apparently assumed to be insurgents. After the initial shooting, an unarmed group of adults and children in a minivan arrives on the scene and attempts to transport the wounded. They are fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially listed all adults as insurgents and claimed the US military did not know how the deaths ocurred. Wikileaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5th 2010 on http://collateralmurder.com
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A soldier speaks about the reality behind Collateral Murder
War is organized killing. It's important to remember that.
Christian war is organized killing in the name of Jesus.
What would Jesus do?
Pull the trigger, I suppose.
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2010/04/09
WASHINGTON - April 9 - Josh Stieber, who is a former soldier of the “Collateral Murder” Company, says that the acts of brutality caught on film and recently released via Wikileaks are not isolated instances, but were commonplace during his tour of duty.
“A lot of my friends are in that video,” says Stieber. “After watching the video, I would definitely say that that is, nine times out of ten, the way things ended up. Killing was following military protocol. It was going along with the rules as they are.”
Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16, whose members were involved in the incident captured in Wikileaks' “Collateral Murder” video, which has made international headlines by depicting a July 2007 shooting incident outside of Baghdad in which over a dozen people, including two Reuters employees, were killed. Although he was not present at the scene of the video, he knows those who were involved and is familiar with the environment. Stieber, who now works to promote peace and alternatives to war, is speaking publicly about his time in Iraq and the incident captured in this video.
“If these videos shock and revolt you, they show the reality of what war is like,” says Stieber. “If you don’t like what you see in them, it means we should be working harder towards alternatives to war.”