That Wikileaks video

[Guest theSun]

actually found the story on fox news, buried behind the "obama approval ratings at all time low" and "harry reid rapes 3 of your adolescent family members" stories.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/05/video-appears-forces-firing-unarmed-suspects-baghdad/

 

convenient little part at the end

 

Asked to comment on the video, a senior military official at the Department of Defense told Fox News on the condition of anonymity that "an investigation of the incidents confirmed our belief that these attacks were justified."

 

"The individuals who were killed, apart from the Reuters journalists, were involved in hostile activity," this official said.

 

The official also said all the material seen on this video has been addressed publicly by the Department of Defense. "With regard to the death of the journalists and the apparent misidentification -- all of this has been acknowledged in the past," the official said.

 

The "Rules of Engagement" have not been changed following the incident.

[awepittance]

it's great something like Wikileaks can even exist. I saw the guy who runs it interviewed on TV and i really liked the way he carried himself, the guy has balls of steel.

 

While the video is certainly shocking, I did find myself wondering about the way it was packaged. It sounded like they got the vid using the "Freedom of information act", but then they say they "decrypted it" or something like that. So which is it, did they somehow sneak out the vid, or did they just request it? Or was the delivered file encrypted? They kind of lost me there, but it sounded like they might be trying to inflate their own importance in the affair.

 

Reuters filed a FOIA request 2 years ago to get the video, somehow they knew that there was a video of the incident. Reuters was unsuccessful so someone who worked for the US military leaked the video to wikileaks.com. It was decrypted because it wasn't actually obtained via a Freedom of information request.

[awepittance]

i like what this guy, Glenn Greenwald has to say, they used to have him on MSNBC all the time until he started calling their employees out for being on think-tank payroll like Richard Wolfe and how Olbermann is told what he can and cant say by his corporate masters (see here for more information)-

 

But there's a serious danger when incidents like this Iraq slaughter are exposed in a piecemeal and unusual fashion: namely, the tendency to talk about it as though it is an aberration. It isn't. It's the opposite: it's par for the course, standard operating procedure, what we do in wars, invasions, and occupation. The only thing that's rare about the Apache helicopter killings is that we know about it and are seeing what happened on video. And we're seeing it on video not because it's rare, but because it just so happened (a) to result in the deaths of two Reuters employees, and thus received more attention than the thousands of other similar incidents where nameless Iraqi civilians are killed, and (b) to end up in the hands of WikiLeaks, which then published it. But what is shown is completely common. That includes not only the initial killing of a group of men, the vast majority of whom are clearly unarmed, but also the plainly unjustified killing of a group of unarmed men (with their children) carrying away an unarmed, seriously wounded man to safety -- as though there's something nefarious about human beings in an urban area trying to take an unarmed, wounded photographer to a hospital.

 

A major reason there are hundreds of thousands of dead innocent civilians in Iraq, and thousands more in Afghanistan, is because this is what we do. This is why so many of those civilians are dead. What one sees on that video is how we conduct our wars. That's why it's repulsive to watch people -- including some "liberals" -- attack WikiLeaks for slandering The Troops, or complain that objections to these actions unfairly disparage the military because "our guys are the good guys" and they act differently "99.99999999% of the time." That is blatantly false. Just as was true of the deceitful attempt to depict the Abu Ghraib abusers as rogue "bad apples" once their conduct was exposed with photographs (when the reality was they were acting in complete consistency with authorized government policy), the claim that what was shown on that video is some sort of outrageous departure from U.S. policy is demonstrably false. In a perverse way, the typical morally depraved neocons who are justifying these killings are actually being more honest than those trying to pretend this is some sort of rare and unusual event: those who support having the U.S. invade and wage war on other countries are endorsing precisely this behavior.

 

As the video demonstrates, the soldiers in the Apache did not take a single step -- including killing those unarmed men who tried to rescue the wounded -- without first receiving formal permission from their superiors. Beyond that, the Pentagon yesterday -- once the video was released -- suddenly embraced the wisdom of transparency by posting online the reports of the so-called "investigations" it undertook into this incident (as a result of pressure from Reuters). Those formal investigations not only found that every action taken by those soldiers was completely justified -- including the firing on the unarmed civilian rescuers -- but also found that there's no need for any remedial steps to be taken to prevent future re-occurence. What we see on that video is what the U.S. does on a constant and regular basis in these countries, and it's what we've been doing for years. It's obviously consistent with our policies and practices for how we fight in these countries, which is exactly what those investigative reports concluded.

[Guest we_kill_soapscum]

i like what this guy, Glenn Greenwald has to say, they used to have him on MSNBC all the time until he started calling their employees out for being on think-tank payroll like Richard Wolfe and how Olbermann is told what he can and cant say by his corporate masters (see here for more information)-

 

But there's a serious danger when incidents like this Iraq slaughter are exposed in a piecemeal and unusual fashion: namely, the tendency to talk about it as though it is an aberration. It isn't. It's the opposite: it's par for the course, standard operating procedure, what we do in wars, invasions, and occupation. The only thing that's rare about the Apache helicopter killings is that we know about it and are seeing what happened on video. And we're seeing it on video not because it's rare, but because it just so happened (a) to result in the deaths of two Reuters employees, and thus received more attention than the thousands of other similar incidents where nameless Iraqi civilians are killed, and (b) to end up in the hands of WikiLeaks, which then published it. But what is shown is completely common. That includes not only the initial killing of a group of men, the vast majority of whom are clearly unarmed, but also the plainly unjustified killing of a group of unarmed men (with their children) carrying away an unarmed, seriously wounded man to safety -- as though there's something nefarious about human beings in an urban area trying to take an unarmed, wounded photographer to a hospital.

 

A major reason there are hundreds of thousands of dead innocent civilians in Iraq, and thousands more in Afghanistan, is because this is what we do. This is why so many of those civilians are dead. What one sees on that video is how we conduct our wars. That's why it's repulsive to watch people -- including some "liberals" -- attack WikiLeaks for slandering The Troops, or complain that objections to these actions unfairly disparage the military because "our guys are the good guys" and they act differently "99.99999999% of the time." That is blatantly false. Just as was true of the deceitful attempt to depict the Abu Ghraib abusers as rogue "bad apples" once their conduct was exposed with photographs (when the reality was they were acting in complete consistency with authorized government policy), the claim that what was shown on that video is some sort of outrageous departure from U.S. policy is demonstrably false. In a perverse way, the typical morally depraved neocons who are justifying these killings are actually being more honest than those trying to pretend this is some sort of rare and unusual event: those who support having the U.S. invade and wage war on other countries are endorsing precisely this behavior.

 

As the video demonstrates, the soldiers in the Apache did not take a single step -- including killing those unarmed men who tried to rescue the wounded -- without first receiving formal permission from their superiors. Beyond that, the Pentagon yesterday -- once the video was released -- suddenly embraced the wisdom of transparency by posting online the reports of the so-called "investigations" it undertook into this incident (as a result of pressure from Reuters). Those formal investigations not only found that every action taken by those soldiers was completely justified -- including the firing on the unarmed civilian rescuers -- but also found that there's no need for any remedial steps to be taken to prevent future re-occurence. What we see on that video is what the U.S. does on a constant and regular basis in these countries, and it's what we've been doing for years. It's obviously consistent with our policies and practices for how we fight in these countries, which is exactly what those investigative reports concluded.

 

this is interesting. the idea that neocons are making more sense in at least honestly believing this is all OK rather than foolishly believing this is some freak occurrence is striking.

[awepittance]

yeah it's interesting to see liberals defend these types of actions. With Obama in office now things that the military do go up the chain of command to a seemingly 'liberal ' administration.

 

neocons are at least openly sociopathic, haha

 

greenwald also an article dove tailing into what i was talking about earlier in this thread, the types of twists and turns people will do mentally in order to not take the video seriously - http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/06/myths/index.html

[Guest Franklin]

Is this really a helicopter gunship?

 

I was thinking that the circling action resembled that plane gunship with the gun-mount on the left side... hence the constant counter-clockwise rotation. The guy even mentions that he has to wait for the thing to come back around to shoot the van and the people. if it was an apache I'm sure it could just hover or whatever.

 

what do people think?

[awepittance]

it has been confirmed by the Pentagon today via a press release that it is a video filmed from an Apache helicopter

 

 

haha, from yesterday -

 

 

i especially like the 'do they love their ipads' headline article, CNN put it on the front page today but an entire 24 hours after Wikileaks put the video up. pretty much when they had no other choice but to cover it

[o00o]

It makes me really agressive how all massmedia is playing down this and tries to make it look as harmless and unimportant as possible

 

I had no Idea they where that much controlled

[YEK]

that dude is just trigger happy or something, saying on his walkie talkie that they were being fired at so he could fire at them. fuck the war

[Guest Yegg]

games like modern warfare are priming young minds to fight in mindless and useless wars. i wouldn't be surprised to see predator drones and any future remote killing machines be controlled by pad controllers.

 

 

I don't think is fair to blame video games for this type of behavior.

playing games won't make you a cold-blood killer , not every clod-blood killer plays video games.

other than mindless fun, these games have no point to them

 

I totally agree. I guess it depends what type of personality you have. Video games may trigger shit like that is you have a "Ted Bundy" kind of brain .

 

Apparently , the US army is looking for video gamers to test new technology

 

 

The woman in this semi-interesting TED video proposes that gamers could potentially engage with reality as if it were a game so that they can utilise their energy for positive change, to save the planet or whatever. It's really too bad people have been doing this for ages to commit wicked deeds.

[awepittance]

i never really believed the plot of the movie TOYS was possible, but now i do

 

Leslie starts to become suspicious, as children start to arrive at the factory. He breaks into one of the research area, and discovers that they are being trained to wage war through videogames.

[Guest Glass Plate]

i never really believed the plot of the movie TOYS was possible, but now i do

 

Leslie starts to become suspicious, as children start to arrive at the factory. He breaks into one of the research area, and discovers that they are being trained to wage war through videogames.

 

 

yes, once Robin Williams is lost, we'll be fucking doomed. (only man who can stop them)

[kaini]

My only comment is it's a scary world we're entering in to, in terms of there no longer being any way to "fight the power" if it comes to that. I'm on the same page with Awepittance and others there, I find the completely lopsided power dynamic in modern warfare extremely unsettling. And it's only going to get more lopsided.

 

in a world where most individuals feel powerless in this regard, it's great something like Wikileaks can even exist. I saw the guy who runs it interviewed on TV and i really liked the way he carried himself, the guy has balls of steel.

 

it's really a they - a panel, not a he - it's almost a p2p model in that there's not really a 'head' and therefore it's a self-healing system. i read an interview with a bunch of them, some who remained anonymous. they talked about everything from hacking to encountering shady bunches of MIBs in multi-story carparks who were doing the whole 'i strongly, strongly recommend you don't publish X' thing. scary fucking stuff.

[Guest KY]

i never really believed the plot of the movie TOYS was possible, but now i do

 

Leslie starts to become suspicious, as children start to arrive at the factory. He breaks into one of the research area, and discovers that they are being trained to wage war through videogames.

 

 

yes, once Robin Williams is lost, we'll be fucking doomed. (only man who can stop them)

 

best glass plate post of 2010

[joshuatxuk]

Is this really a helicopter gunship?

 

I was thinking that the circling action resembled that plane gunship with the gun-mount on the left side... hence the constant counter-clockwise rotation. The guy even mentions that he has to wait for the thing to come back around to shoot the van and the people. if it was an apache I'm sure it could just hover or whatever.

 

what do people think?

 

Apache, those rounds look quite large (30mm) compared to a machine gun. The Apache gun rotates and aims via the gunner's helmet direction, so they were probably in a hovering in a circle and aiming the gun to the side. Callsign sounds like one for an attack helicopter.

 

I haven't read every post, but here's my two cents. This isn't a clear cut war crime, it's a disturbing lack of following rules of engagement and extremely disturbing indication that the U.S. Army has and probably still covers up such "grey area" incidents instead of appropriate misconduct trials and thorough review of its tactics and standards. These pilots were clearly trigger happy. At best, they out of their element, apathetic and lazy to proper procedure and caution. At worst, they flat out didn't give a shit what they shot at or why. They don't express regret in their tone, they never were fired upon, they never confirmed the unknown men were combatants when they clearly had time to wait. The clearly camera isn't an RPG (granted we have the advantage of prior knowledge and a relaxed context). There is no reason they should of fired at the van, especially when ground units hadn't even moved in. They just wanted to blow shit up and bug out.

 

War journalist deaths can't be avoided, and I can't say the journalist was "murdered," that's just absurd, but this particular attack should not of happand. The military should of jumped on this as a wake-up call. These were not frustrated infantry firing at a house in desperation, it was an attack helicopter firing at a situation that clearly wasn't a threat to them or the threat in the area being reported. What a fucking wasted opportunity to discipline the pilots and the command personel that covered it up. Flat-out tragic, and it's a shame that nothing will probably be done.

[joshuatxuk]

This reminds of the public service function that Ogrish used to play. There were several videos like this on that site, I remember in one they basically shot up a whole neighborhood from the air and turned it to dust and smoke, then tracked down people trying to escape through the underbrush using heat vision. It was surreal watching some guy running for his life with these unbelievably large explosions catching up behind him, until they eventually overtake him and turn him to flying blobs of tissue. Of course they also had all the beheading videos. They really should host all these videos somewhere, they should be part of the public record.

 

My only comment is it's a scary world we're entering in to, in terms of there no longer being any way to "fight the power" if it comes to that. I'm on the same page with Awepittance and others there, I find the completely lopsided power dynamic in modern warfare extremely unsettling. And it's only going to get more lopsided.

It's gross to say but I miss Ogrish--again, not in a voyeuristic, exploitative way but for the classic "for great justice" purposes of either viewing or saving that media for yourself so that you're an armed citizen intellectually. Liveleaks isn't a good substitute. You can find a lot of picture evidence of shit on jj.am but that site is really something; not exactly what I mean. Some fucking evangelical Republican goes about with "Iraq was us doing God's work" and you say, "Is that right? Huh, lemme open my laptop--here, put these earphones on nice and loud" and then make them watch all 40 minutes.

 

Yeah I know what you mean, war is hell and anyone whose been through it, around it, or actually become knowledgable of that fact doesn't say shit like that. Ogrish was well, disgusting and brutal, but liberating in the fact that it was a source of the kind of truth that straight media coverage or literature could never provide.

[chenGOD]

i like what this guy, Glenn Greenwald has to say, they used to have him on MSNBC all the time until he started calling their employees out for being on think-tank payroll like Richard Wolfe and how Olbermann is told what he can and cant say by his corporate masters (see here for more information)-

Basically what I said then, http://forum.watmm.com/topic/55016-that-wikileaks-video/page__view__findpost__p__1288920

 

Is this really a helicopter gunship?

 

I was thinking that the circling action resembled that plane gunship with the gun-mount on the left side... hence the constant counter-clockwise rotation. The guy even mentions that he has to wait for the thing to come back around to shoot the van and the people. if it was an apache I'm sure it could just hover or whatever.

 

what do people think?

 

It was an Apache, and it was on patrol doing recon for troops on the ground. that's why they were circling around.

 

 

 

 

I haven't read every post, but here's my two cents. This isn't a clear cut war crime, it's a disturbing lack of following rules of engagement and extremely disturbing indication that the U.S. Army has and probably still covers up such "grey area" incidents instead of appropriate misconduct trials and thorough review of its tactics and standards. These pilots were clearly trigger happy. At best, they out of their element, apathetic and lazy to proper procedure and caution. At worst, they flat out didn't give a shit what they shot at or why. They don't express regret in their tone, they never were fired upon, they never confirmed the unknown men were combatants when they clearly had time to wait. The clearly camera isn't an RPG (granted we have the advantage of prior knowledge and a relaxed context). There is no reason they should of fired at the van, especially when ground units hadn't even moved in. They just wanted to blow shit up and bug out.

 

War journalist deaths can't be avoided, and I can't say the journalist was "murdered," that's just absurd, but this particular attack should not of happand. The military should of jumped on this as a wake-up call. These were not frustrated infantry firing at a house in desperation, it was an attack helicopter firing at a situation that clearly wasn't a threat to them or the threat in the area being reported. What a fucking wasted opportunity to discipline the pilots and the command personel that covered it up. Flat-out tragic, and it's a shame that nothing will probably be done.

 

The bit in bold makes it a war crime. You don't fire on unarmed civilians and you're not supposed to fire on people retrieving wounded. You're not supposed to fire on wounded unarmed combatants who are out of the battle either. (read up on your geneva conventions :) ) So yeah there are definite war crimes being committed.

It is not murder as you would define it by the American legal code, but it's certainly killing in cold blood.

[chenGOD]

If the results of the Abu Gharib trials are anything to go by (where they straight up tortured people), he'll probably get a slap on the wrists.

[o00o]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQ2J8PX3Sdg

[kaen]

i saw the coverage on the bbc, its was totally smoothed over...like just because the gov/army said sorry for the loss of life that it was totally ok and didnt need further investigation, total bullshit politics - it got about a minute of air time.

[awepittance]

for a little more perspective

the one on the left is a 30mm cannon round, the same ones you hear in this video.

[kaen]

if one got fired into your butt, id imagine so.

[joshuatxuk]

I haven't read every post, but here's my two cents. This isn't a clear cut war crime, it's a disturbing lack of following rules of engagement and extremely disturbing indication that the U.S. Army has and probably still covers up such "grey area" incidents instead of appropriate misconduct trials and thorough review of its tactics and standards. These pilots were clearly trigger happy. At best, they out of their element, apathetic and lazy to proper procedure and caution. At worst, they flat out didn't give a shit what they shot at or why. They don't express regret in their tone, they never were fired upon, they never confirmed the unknown men were combatants when they clearly had time to wait. The clearly camera isn't an RPG (granted we have the advantage of prior knowledge and a relaxed context). There is no reason they should of fired at the van, especially when ground units hadn't even moved in. They just wanted to blow shit up and bug out.War journalist deaths can't be avoided, and I can't say the journalist was "murdered," that's just absurd, but this particular attack should not of happand. The military should of jumped on this as a wake-up call. These were not frustrated infantry firing at a house in desperation, it was an attack helicopter firing at a situation that clearly wasn't a threat to them or the threat in the area being reported. What a fucking wasted opportunity to discipline the pilots and the command personel that covered it up. Flat-out tragic, and it's a shame that nothing will probably be done.

The bit in bold makes it a war crime. You don't fire on unarmed civilians and you're not supposed to fire on people retrieving wounded. You're not supposed to fire on wounded unarmed combatants who are out of the battle either. (read up on your geneva conventions :) ) So yeah there are definite war crimes being committed.It is not murder as you would define it by the American legal code, but it's certainly killing in cold blood.

 

I agree, I meant it wasn't a "flat out" warcrime like Mai Lai or Abu Graib, i.e. sadistic torture or rape by a soldier during a war. But it still is a definate warcrime and a shameful cover-up. The follow-up attack was the most blatant offense and "killing in cold blood," those pilots deserve to be courtmartialed and thrown out for that at the very least.

 

so what will happen to that dude that was doing the shooting (and anyone else involved). will they be made into sacrificial goats by the military?

 

It was 2007, so it's unlikely anything will be done. They are clearly at fault but the more disturbing aspect of the whole incident is the scope of the cover-up. I mean, it clearly bothered a member of the military enough to leak it, that alone should speak volumes.

 

for a little more perspectivethe one on the left is a 30mm cannon round, the same ones you hear in this video.

 

Yeah, the media never quite specifies military weapons well enough. Apache helicopters use 30mm CANONs, not 7.62mm machine guns, most people killed were hit by sharpnel, the actual round would obliterate a person. 30mm canons are meant to destroy tanks and aircraft. The Apache itself was designed to destroy Soviet armour columns...it's arguably overkill to use it for urban warfare and especially warzone "policing." Just another aspect of how fucked up the attack was.

[Guest]

as you can see in the video, these HE rounds are quite effective against unprotected civilians though. They are basically fast frag grenades.

[cruising for burgers]

USA!!!! USA!!!!!