Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards…
[via Wikileaks]
“At this time, we are working to verify the source of the video, its veracity, and when or where it was recorded,” a statement from U.S. military headquarters in Iraq said late Monday.
An investigation of the shooting found that the crew of the two Apache helicopters at the scene might have erroneously identified photographer’s cameras as weapons, NBC News Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski reported.
According to U.S. officials, the pilots arrived to find a group of men approaching the area of a battle with what looked to be AK-47s slung over their shoulders and at least one rocket-propelled grenade.
The investigation later concluded that what was thought to be an RPG was really a long-range photography lens; likewise, the camera looked like an AK-47.
When all you have is a minigun, everything looks like a target…
seems like the video here (like any) is taken out of context. it claims that it “shows unprovoked murder of innocent civilians” (which it does), but it also shows the killing of others who the military would classify as “enemy-combatants”. this isn’t to say that i had an easier time stomaching the clip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_murder
the spokesman from wikileaks, Julian Assange, mentions that one goal of wikileaks is to get the “maximum political impact possible. that is our commitment.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sYXppiOteM)
all that said, war is FUBAR. by the military’s rules of engagement it isn’t very clear that the soldiers here did something VERY WRONG. some of the people on the ground had guns. so, to those who think that what these these guys did was an aberration from typical military engagement, they don’t fully appreciate the number of civilian deaths in modern war. I think THAT is the problem. we could easily see these kinds of events as institutionally condoned trajedies.
How the event is framed is critical to the importance of this clip – consider the way it was initially reported:
Note the words “no question” – the first action of command is to downplay the possibility that the actions taken were not warranted.
On the other side of the coin:
The footage serves as oversight to the investigation into the incident (which was not made public until it was released) – the informal investigations suggest that the military did not consider the incident noteworthy (i.e. no formal investigation was conducted, recommendations did not include any action against the personnel, and the statement that the reporters were amongst armed personnel is upheld, even though evidence of weapons recovered from the scene remains absent.
Note how well the system works at encouraging people to kill other people, (could those gunners be expected to speak of “dead bastards” without extensive training? Do you expect they’ll come back to society a little different than they would had they gone off to college, rather than the military?) pushing collateral damage under the rug, (would these activities even be a topic of discussion for any but the families of the dead, had this footage not surfaced?) and perpetuating an unjust war (was the invasion of Iraq justified as a defense of the USA? Really?).
Until people understand the mechanisms by which these activities are carried out, we (as a country and ultimately as a species) are doomed to repeat these same mistakes…
… so, how should we raise awareness of how manipulable people are in the face of a system which is so heavily invested in manipulating them at a profit?
“… the first action of command is to downplay the possibility that the actions taken were not warranted.”
- that’s exactly my contention. my fear is that events such as these are seen as anomalies (if condemned at all), and the focus of attention is on the soldiers instead of the context which provoked the soldiers to act as they did. certainly they’re responsible for their actions, but, they’re in the position to act without the negative repercussions typically associated with destroying people (and they’re spokesman is calling their actions “warranted”).
if you watch the 30 minute version, you see them put hellfire missiles into a building after some guys with AK’s walked into it. the question of whether or not their actions were “warranted” by military standards is uncertain at best. the certainty that innocent people were killed and injured is undeniable though.