Just unspeakably horrendous. Sorry for the downer, but important for people to see:
Calling it a case of “collateral murder,” the WikiLeaks Web site today released harrowing until-now secret video of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuters photographer and his driver — and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men.
None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon’s initial cover story; they were milling about on a street corner. One man was evidently carrying a gun, though that was and is hardly an uncommon occurrence in Baghdad.
[youtube]5rXPrfnU3G0[/youtube]
One image talks for one hundred words, despite of it, there will be always words to explain this type of action, excuses that don´t change this image. We accept that ones that make us feel better. American people has too much influence of midia, it seens that they don´t know that terrorism raises up due hate. These “anti-terrorism war” only kills more inocent people, only builds up more hate, feeding terrorism, supressing freedom. When you send teens armed to the teeth to invade another country this is what we got. Don´t think this video is an exception, this video shows the usual day of war, deliberate killing. People forgot that the reasons for this war were fake (mass destructive weapons, did you remember?). But surely that will be always an intelligent one with good speech to convincing you that´s all right, or that all will be all right from now on, bull shit!
A good point was made in the NYtimes regarding this video. What we as ordinary citizens cannot grasp is the stress, fear, and panic of entering a combat situation with high chance of being targeted with an RPG. One of the most disturbing things for me were the nonchalant side comments of “nice” and “..dead bastard”. However, after reading a segment on how soldiers must psychologically remove themselves from battle in order to operate without panic, I almost understand why they reacted the way they did. Killing is wrong anyway you look at it, but when it’s your job? I could hardly comprehend the mental trauma I would endure after taking someones life. I believe if it were my job to kill people to protect my country, I would mentally remove myself from battle as well.
I’ve been waiting for this to land, I’m a huge Wikileaks fan.
If you listen and watch, you can see how it’s understandable that the troops in the air think that these guys are armed and heading towards the ground-based US troops nearby. I can actually understand that mistakes are made; how a journalist carrying a camera could be misinterpreted as an RPG-wielding ‘bad guy’ from 1000 feet up. I get the impression that the troops in the air genuinely thought they were defending their brothers on the ground.
The troublesome thing is the idea that if there’s ten ‘bad guys’ all walking around, and one has a weapon, they all need to get taken out without a closer visual inspection. Also, once the first attack was over, a car pulls up and starts collecting the wounded, and the gunship opens up on -them-, that’s -clearly- wrong. You don’t attack the medics, even if they are the enemy.
So how often is this sort of thing happening to the regular Iraqi folks, folks who aren’t well-known journalists? I suspect it happens all the time, which is reason-enough to withdraw, in my opinion.
The last thing I want to know… Will the mainstream news media play this? I would think that they have an -obligation- to. During Vietnam, footage like this was played non-stop by the news media, providing an important look at the realities of war to the American public.
i couldn’t bring myself to watch the video, but i read the transcripts. more people need to see what truly happens in war. part of what turned the tide in vietnam was actually SEEING the death, destruction and carnage… now it’s all drones and weasel words the military hides behind.
people keep rushing to defend the soldiers’ bloodthirsty ra-ra shoot ’em up attitude in the video because “that’s what soldiers do” and it’s “how it is”. i don’t place the blame on the soldiers–it’s the men at the top and the whole military complex and our imperialist interventionist government, but seeing human beings that callous about other human beings… sick.
i wish i could un-see this.