[Snail]

http://collateralmurder.org/

5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.

Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.

The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how the children were injured.

After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement".

Consequently, WikiLeaks has released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing these rules before, during, and after the killings.

WikiLeaks has released both the original 38 minutes video and a shorter version with an initial analysis. Subtitles have been added to both versions from the radio transmissions.

WikiLeaks obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident.

WikiLeaks wants to ensure that all the leaked information it receives gets the attention it deserves. In this particular case, some of the people killed were journalists that were simply doing their jobs: putting their lives at risk in order to report on war. Iraq is a very dangerous place for journalists: from 2003- 2009, 139 journalists were killed while doing their work.

Hardly surprising that some civilians would be getting caught in the crossfire, however regrettable that many be, but I haven't heard anything about this on any of the main news channels, which leads me to believe there is some form of cover-up going on.

[Wolfy]

Well, thats been on the BBC News website for a day or so, i dont know about any TV reports though, i've not seen the news on TV in some time .

IT would be a kind of pathetic cover up, seeming its already been reported in other countries. Maybe the US News Agencies don't want to post anything that makes the US look bad? Which is the oposite of the UK, where outr news agencies ONLY report things that makes the UK look bad.

Edit: I should hence forth add, apart form the BBC and my local newspaper, as far as im concerned, most News organisations in this country suck.

[iamzack]

Mostly if it makes it to the mainstream media in the US, the story won't be about "it's their fault for bringing kids to battle" it'll be about wikileaks threatening national security by releasing this video.

[Nuclear1]

Anyone who says releasing the video is a threat to national security is a ****ing moron.

Also, anyone who believes what this story seems to imply, the US deliberately doing this is equally a ****ing moron.

[iamzack]

A few individuals got caught on tape killing a bunch of innocent people (reporters, bystanders, some people who got out of a van to try to help the wounded), wounding two children, and treating it like it's a goddamn video game.

And then the US military tried to cover it up with a series of lies (there was a gunfight going on when the soldiers opened fire, etc).

* iamzack has a hard time believing the latter wasn't deliberate.

[Snail]

Also, anyone who believes what this story seems to imply, the US deliberately doing this is equally a ****ing moron.

I view it as simply horrendously bad judgment on the part of the pilots (who were complete ****ing morons).

[Wanderer]

The copter crew's comments are totally horrible to listen to - its just like they were playing a game. That is i can understand how some one can mistake a camera/tripod or equivalents for weapons. Though the group was in the open and only few had anything resembling weapons with them. Having grotesque fun and sort of 'egging' wounded targets to pick weapons just to give the crew a valid reason to resume firing is something that to me seems totally wrong. Sure little kiddos when playing some FPS or the likes do that but (adult - though apparently not mature) trained soldiers in real combat?

If US wants to make sure the Arabs will keep hating them then by all means keep up the 'good' work. Otherwise hiding this kind of incident for several years does not exactly help with anything.

Of course there is the prevailing situation which affects the judgments the soldiers and pilots made but that is not usually an acceptable excuse for this kind of actions.

[Flipside]

An unhealthy eagerness to pull the trigger was my main concern over that video.

Edit: Oh, and the 'That's what happens when you bring you kids to a battle' comment, that's just so full of ignorance and assumptions it's unbelievable.

[Scotty]

I noticed this on Reuters yesterday.  Disgusted by the conduct of the pilots and gunners.  Disinclined to believe it was completely deliberate.

[General Battuta]

I noticed this on Reuters yesterday.  Disgusted by the conduct of the pilots and gunners.  Disinclined to believe it was completely deliberate.

Concur.

oh and right before I saw it I had an amazing killstreak as a chopper gunner in Bad Company 2

[Flipside]

Heh, agreed, it was a cock-up, and the pilots were pretty disgusting in their attitude, but it wasn't deliberate to my eyes (or, at least, not any more deliberate than firing a gun into a group of people can be).

One thing did occur to me, though, obviously, the cam from a single chopper involved in a multi-vehicle operation won't explain everything, but why did the reports first go from 'they're carrying guns' to 'they're carrying AK47's and RPGs' to 'We are under attack from AK47's and RPGs' without a single shot being visibly fired?

Edit: And I'm still not certain that RPG wasn't a telephoto camera, but it's very hard to tell, it does appear to be a shoulder-mounted device of some description, so maybe the RPG claim was correct...

[Liberator]

To be fair to the pilots and the "attitude" they had, the way they and soldiers throughout time have dealt with what they are required to do is to depersonalize the enemy, imagining them as monsters or whatnot.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Well this has defiantly been all over the news.  There are a couple of important points no one has mentioned.  One is that the chopper was cleared by troops on the ground that the targets were indeed hostile before firing.  The chopper itself wasn't even close to the target.  The footage is highly magnified.  Attitude of the pilots bad or not it wasn't their call to pull the trigger.  Second the chopper had apparently been taking sporadic small arms fire from somewhere in that area. 

[General Battuta]

To be fair to the pilots and the "attitude" they had, the way they and soldiers throughout time have dealt with what they are required to do is to depersonalize the enemy, imagining them as monsters or whatnot.

Actually soldiers used to be really bad at this; it's why so few soldiers actually fired at the enemy in World War II.

Today we have training that helps with this, but (directly or indirectly) it also causes horrifying PTSD in many people. And in this case, it made these soldiers unable to perform their jobs.

They failed in their mission and are probably struggling with the consequences even today.

But I do agree that at the time this is probably what caused the problem...they thought they saw enemies and rushed to kill them, forgetting that the benefits of killing a few insurgents were far smaller than the costs of killing a few civilians.

[iamzack]

Edit: And I'm still not certain that RPG wasn't a telephoto camera, but it's very hard to tell, it does appear to be a shoulder-mounted device of some description, so maybe the RPG claim was correct...

It was a camera. They shot a reuters journalist and his cameraman.

To be fair to the pilots and the "attitude" they had, the way they and soldiers throughout time have dealt with what they are required to do is to depersonalize the enemy, imagining them as monsters or whatnot.

And that's why we should be proud of our military. They no longer have any regard for the lives of huge groups of people (regardless of age), just because the government told them not to. USA! USA! Our soldiers think it's fun to commit murder! Yaaaay!

[Mika]

In this case I'm pretty sure what was shown counts as a war crime. But that's mismanaged war policy, too little ground troops, over eager pilots and Shock and Awe for you. Innocent people have always died in war, but that isn't a reason to ignore good pre-planning and smart weapons delivery. It is odd that ground forces identified objects as RPGs and AKs when they clearly aren't.

It is not surprising that the usage of Air Force has been restricted in Afghanistan after similar incidents.

Well this has defiantly been all over the news.  There are a couple of important points no one has mentioned.  One is that the chopper was cleared by troops on the ground that the targets were indeed hostile before firing.  The chopper itself wasn't even close to the target.  The footage is highly magnified.  Attitude of the pilots bad or not it wasn't their call to pull the trigger.  Second the chopper had apparently been taking sporadic small arms fire from somewhere in that area.

But do you know who's gonna face charges should this thing proceed to court? Being ordered to do so doesn't count as an excuse in a war crime tribunal!

[General Battuta]

There was an interesting incident at some point in the past 50 years where what I believe was an Air Force pilot shot down a friendly Black Hawk helicopter full of US troops.

The pilot swore that he had seen a Russian helicopter and even vividly described his perceptions.

It's possible that what happened here was a cognitive illusion produced by stress and expectations.

[iamzack]

I get that. Sure, maybe the camera looked like an RPG. I really do understand that. They thought they were shooting insurgents. Okay.

But murder shouldn't be fun, no matter who you're killing. And there's absolutely no reason to not care that you just shot a couple of little kids.

[Colonol Dekker]

I find it hard to take anyone (meaning original article) seriously who doesn't know how to spell "gunsight".

[Snail]

The military released a report yesterday that which produced pictures which do show some busted AKM rifles at the scene and the cameras. The conclusion drawn by the army was that the cameramen were in the company of armed insurgents.




Thoughts?