Collateral Murder

plugwater

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US Military classified video leaked

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.

Real Video begins at 2.40

http://collateralmurder.com/
 
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bhramos

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wow nice video man, great post, its common having a collateral damage in war
 

johnee

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So common that when its someone u love, u ll still say da same!!! :)
will I say the same when I am the collateral damage?! Whatever I say, collateral damage is still the reality and is common. The only thing we all can hope for is reducing it as much as possible.
 

ahmedsid

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will I say the same when I am the collateral damage?! Whatever I say, collateral damage is still the reality and is common. The only thing we all can hope for is reducing it as much as possible.
True! Good way to put it.
 

plugwater

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Lies, damned lies and US military cover-ups

Alexander Cockburn on two ‘utterly damning’ examples of trigger-happy American troops in action

The Pentagon is reeling after two lethal episodes uncovered by diligent journalism show trigger-happy US Army helicopter pilots and US Special Forces slaughtering civilians, then seeking to cover up their crimes.

The worldwide web was transfixed this week when Wikileaks posted a 38-minute video, along with a 17-minute edited version (above), taken from a US Army Apache helicopter, one of two firing on a group of Iraqis at a Baghdad street corner in July 2007. Twelve civilians died, including a Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and a Reuters driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.

At a press conference in Washington DC, Wikileaks said it had got the footage from whistle-blowers in the military and had been able to break the encryption code. The Pentagon has confirmed the video is genuine.
"Look at those dead bastards," one pilot says. "Nice," answers the other

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the US military has finally admitted that Special Forces troops killed two pregnant Afghan women and a girl in a February raid in which two Afghan government officials also died. Brilliant reporting by Jerome Starkey of the Times has blown apart the US military's cover-up story that the women were killed by knife wounds administered several hours before the raid.

It now appears that the knife wounds may have been inflicted by the Special Forces troops retrieving their bullets from the dead or dying women's bodies. Starkey reported that Afghan investigators had determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also "dug bullets out of their victims' bodies in the bloody aftermath" and then “"washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened".

The 17-minute video recording the US military's massacre from the air in Baghdad is utterly damning. The visual and audio record reveal the two Apache helicopter pilots and the US Army intelligence personnel monitoring the real-time footage falling over themselves to make the snap judgment that the civilians roughly 1,000ft below are armed insurgents and that one of them, peeking round a corner, was carrying an RPG, that is, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The dialogue is particularly chilling, revealing gleeful pilots gloating over the effect of their initial machine-gun salvoes. "Look at those dead bastards," one pilot says. "Nice," answers the other. Then, as a wounded man painfully writhes towards
the kerb, the pilots eagerly wait for an excuse to finish him off. "All you gotta do is pick up a weapon," one pilot says.

Then a civilian van, seeing the carnage, pulls up. A man jumps out and starts dragging the wounded man towards the van. The pilots implore the intelligence monitors to give them the go-ahead to strafe the van, about which they have made the instant, fatally erroneous judgment that this is an insurgent rescue squad. A few moments later, the intelligence monitors, with zero visual evidence underpinning their judgment, give the go-ahead.

Another salvo finishes off the wounded man and his would-be rescuer, kills other civilians in the van and wounds two children in the front seat. US ground troops arrive on the scene and report the presence of wounded children. "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle," one pilot tells the other. There are further sniggers as a US armoured vehicle rolls up. "I think they just drove over a body," one of the pilots cackles.

In the wake of the lethal onslaught in 2007, the US military denied that any error had taken place, its version of events faithfully cited by the New York Times under the headline: '2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as US Forces Clash With Militias'. The NYT reported: "According to the [US military's] statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed."

The footage made public by Wikileaks makes it clear this was fiction from start to finish.

Defence analyst Pierre Sprey, who led the design teams for the F-16 and A-10 and who spent many years in the Pentagon, stresses two particularly damning features of the footage. The first is the claim that the Reuters photographer’s telephoto lens could be mistaken for an RPG. "A big telephoto is under a foot and half at most. An RPG, unloaded, is 3ft long and loaded, 4ft long. These guys were breathing hard to kill someone."

Sprey's second point is that an Apache helicopter makes a very loud 'Whomp, whomp' noise. "Twelve guys are unconcerned, with loud helicopters right overhead. Imagine if they were planning an assault on American troops. They’d be skulking along walls, spread out. They would not be walking down the street, totally ignoring the helicopters."

A retired US Marine was even blunter in an email exchange: “Not a good show at all. The group on the ground were brandishing nothing that ‘looked’ or appeared as weapons especially the voiced 'RPG' which is so obvious when loaded. And then again - they were told in advance by intelligence (I am sure by the tone in the flight) that these people were bad guys. The Apache crews were just stupid and the intelligence clowns pointing them and egging them on are guilty of murder – 'you are clear to engage'. GMAFB. [Give me a fucking break.]"

In the aftermath, the US military claimed that machine guns and grenades had been found at the scene. Sprey comments that by then the cover-up was probably already underway and the weapons and grenades planted. According to Reuters, their men had been working on a story about weight-lifting when they heard about a military raid in the neighborhood, and decided to drive there to check it out. Local witnesses say there was no fire fight anywhere near where they were gunned down by the Apaches.

Reuters - which by the time of the attack had already had four employees killed in Iraq by the US military (now up to eight) - demanded an investigation, which the Army says it undertook, finding no breach of its rules of engagement either by the pilots or US Army intelligence.

The reaction of David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, to the release of the footage by Wikileaks has been disgraceful. Schlesinger said on April 5: "The deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones. We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognise the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular."

This anodyne blather elicited a furious email aimed at Schlesinger, sent two days later to The Baron site "for Reuters people past and present". It came from a former Reuters editor-in- chief and general manager, Michael Reupke, who wrote: "The flabby response to the shameful murder of photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh by reckless US forces is not reassuring. What of their families? Why do we leave it to others to make the running? Is this a Thomson effect? Michael Reupke (outraged and angry!)."The final sentence alludes to the 2008 takeover of Reuters by the media conglomerate Thomson.

In fact Reuters was shown the Apache video by the US military shortly after the killings, but raised no stink. Requests for public release under the Freedom of Information Act were denied. Finally whistleblowers handed the video to Wikileaks.

Leave the last word to a retired US Army man, answering the email from the retired US Marine quoted above: "The damage this incident and its video evidence will do is immense… it will irrefutably confirm for many that large chunk of anti-American propaganda which insists the American flyers are just playing computer shoot-em-up games using real flesh and blood as a proxy for the digital figures they usually slaughter only in the arcades.

"How much is simulator-training responsible for the disconnection from reality demonstrated in this incident? The crew was detached from reality… How [is] the Army… producing crews that, having the potential for such incompetence, cannot detect it among themselves? If anyone in that crew had paused and asked if the action being taken was correct, surely it would have been aborted…. The Army has to find out why."

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/61873...ups-iraq-shooting-photographers#ixzz0kXNiUA5F
 

Armand2REP

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You can clearly see the guys at 3:39 armed with an RPG and an AK. Its against the law to carry weapons in Iraq and the people know they are liable to get wacked by a floating Apache. No surprise it happened, the travesty is the tard who brought his daughters.
 
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Known_Unknown

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Its against the law to carry weapons in Iraq
Does that also apply to the US troops there or do they have total impunity to murder anyone as they wish?
 

Armand2REP

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Does that also apply to the US troops there or do they have total impunity to murder anyone as they wish?
They didn't murder anybody. They shot armed insurgents armed with AK and RPG. Photogs got in the way... so sorry but they shouldn't have been hanging around gun toting militants to take pictures. If there wasn't any weapons, you might have an argument.
 

Calanen

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The US was in a battle with armed insurgents. An insurgent RPG team moved up and was spotted by the Apache. The last picture the Reuters camera man took was down that road, and he was looking at a US humvee parked, a perfect strike for the RPG. Was he doing some recon for the RPG team?

Those who know, know, that this area was under total insurgent control. You were not there without insurgent support and permission. The Apache chopper got it right, it protected advancing US troops from a threat. If (and its a big if) any of the people who were near the RPG team got wacked were innocents, that is regrettable, but in war, you cannot surgically atomise the bad guys that wear no uniforms, and hide amongst the civilian population. The Apache on overwatch did its job, they made a tough call, and got it right under the ROEs they have for the US military and the laws of war. But the insane hatred of America that many around the world have clouded their judgment if (they had any) and their reason.

The US troops acted with restraint that is not shown by their enemies. They treated the wounded insurgents (two of them) as well as the two children in the van, and took great steps to get them help. Those who oppose them would not have returned the favour. We hold the US to such a high standard, and still, it usually meets that standard and it did in this case.

That edited video was disgraceful - it tried as hard as it could to manipulate the public and not present the true picture of what happened. The public should be told the truth, I accept that wikileaks has a roll to play in that - but they should not be given a biased and manipulated editorial spin, with corrupted video. Just play the video and let the audience decide.



RPG, as shown on Rusty's site - http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/ created by Ryno and reproduced with permission.
 

Known_Unknown

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But the insane hatred of America that many around the world have clouded their judgment if (they had any) and their reason.
No the fact that the US invades sovereign countries at will resulting in murder of hundreds of thousands of people to satisfy their own geopolitical objectives is what "clouds our judgement".
 

Super Commando Dhruva

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No the fact that the US invades sovereign countries at will resulting in murder of hundreds of thousands of people to satisfy their own geopolitical objectives is what "clouds our judgement".
Saddam was no saint either. If US killed Iraqi's with impunity then Saddam was way ahead of them in brutality. Frankly speaking, Iraqi civilians were fcked both ways. There is no reason or Joy for Americans to kill Iraqis and waste their precious trillion dollars and marine forces. While digressing on the fact that America is blatantly shown as invaders, christian crusaders and enemies of Muslims/Muslim world by posting one sided opinion to impress the gullible, that doesn't make it so. Its last clutch at straw attempt by extremists to gather support and legitimize their cause of Jihad.

The fact is that both parties are at fault. US ,knowingly and unknowingly, did some bad decisions on foreign "cowboy" policies to meet its narrow ends acting as Frankenstein before monster turned on its creator.

On topic

Ask any soldier irrespective of nationality and religion, survival instincts kicks in battlefield thereby making them quick on triggers. A mere sight of teenager with toy gun won't stop soldier to take them as adversary.
 
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Known_Unknown

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Saddam was no saint either.
That is irrelevent. Iraq was a sovereign nation and the US had no business to invade it. Would you support the invasion of Gujarat or India tomorrow because of Narendra Modi's massacre of Muslims? Or because of the Congress Party's massacre of Sikhs in 1984?

There is no reason or Joy for Americans to kill Iraqis and waste their precious trillion dollars and marine forces.
You're being quite naive here. By invading Iraq and installing a puppet regime, the US strenghtened its hold over the middle east. Besides the large scale destruction of Iraqi infrastructure, which itself probably cost Iraq hundreds of billions of dollars, almost all the major post war contracts were awarded to US companies to recoup the war costs.
 

ahmedsid

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Iraq was a SECULAR Nation!!! Now where is the Sikh Gurudwara or the Priests in those churches? Oh! I remember those priests were killed in mass (pun intended!!!!) The Americans went in for the Oil! Saddam hated Al Qaeda as much as you or me, but for a different reason, he was a Baathist, and they were Religious Fanatics! He was no Saint, but then who made him Slaughter the Shias? The Americans, because the Americans dropped leaflets asking them to start an uprising, and when they did, no apaches or Abrams were in Sight! :) How would you have felt? :)

Who Gave Saddam the Chemical Weapon to Use on the Iranians which he ultimately used on his "poor" citizens? :) West Germany, and Uncle Sammy! :)

Now, I dont hate the USA, but I hate folks who try to defend its policies without knwowing Cr@p about it! Educate yourself and come back! God Speed
 

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