Glen Greenwald:
<snip>
A week ago, I wrote about the war being waged on WikiLeaks by the Pentagon and other governments and corporations around the world, and noted at the time -- as a result of my interview with editor Julian Assange -- that WikiLeaks had obtained classified videos that were highly incriminating of the Pentagon and was planning on releasing them shortly. Earlier today, I wrote about the cover-up by the U.S. military in Afghanistan of the deaths of five civilians, the Pentagon's forced retraction of its story, and the way in which the U.S. media (as usual) mindlessly disseminated their original false claims.
Those two stories came together perfectly when WikiLeaks today released a video of the U.S. military, from an Apache helicopter, slaughtering civilians in Iraq in 2007 -- including a Reuters photojournalist and his driver -- and then killing and wounding several Iraqis who, minutes later, showed up at the scene to carry away the dead and wounded (including two of their children). The video (posted below) is truly gruesome and difficult even for the most hardened person to watch, but it should be viewed by everyone with responsibility for what the U.S. has done in Iraq and Afghanistan (i.e., every American citizen). Reuters has been attempting for two years to obtain this video through a FOIA request, but has been met with stonewalling by the U.S. military. As Dan Froomkin documents, the videotape demonstrates that military officials made outright false statements about what happened here and were clearly engaged in a cover-up: exactly as is true for the Afghanistan incident I wrote about earlier today, which should be read in conjunction with this post.
<snip>
More:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/05/iraq******************************************************************************************
Marci Wheeler/EmptyWheel:
<snip>
Wikileaks has now posted the video that–they have suggested–is one of the reasons the US government has been surveilling them. Here’s part of Wikileaks’ description:
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.
While there were armed men among those shot at, they were not engaging the Americans at all. At the moment the Americans started shooting, a number of the targeted men had their back to the helicopter flying overhead. And after they wound the Iraqi photo-journalist, they fly around a while waiting for an excuse to re-engage; they seem to admit he was unarmed when they hit him, and therefore can’t shoot further unless he shows a weapon.
When ground troops arrive at the site and discover two children among the wounded, they blame the Iraqis for the kids’ injuries (this is after 15:30 on the video).
“Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”
“That’s right.”
Of course, this wasn’t a battle at all. It was unprovoked killing, including the killing of two journalists.
<snip>
More:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/04/05/well-its-their-fault-for-bringing-their-kids-into-a-battle/:evilfrown:
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