"Collateral Murder"

Today I'll be talking about the video that is (at the time of this writing) on the front page of www.wikileaks.org.

First, I want to commend wikileaks for, as always, releasing important information about pertinent issues and keeping their sources confidential. This web site performs a very important role in the world, and it would do just about anyone well to become acquainted with it.

That said, I'm of two minds about the video as presented.

I'll pause here. Please go watch the video; it's on YouTube [link]. If you need a disclaimer, well, it's fairly graphic but not in color.

Great. You're back.

Now, like I said before, I have two different and distinct thought patterns about this video.

Number one: the soldiers in the chopper are laughing after shooting those people. What the fuck!? Also; if this were my hometown, I could see myself driving over to help some guy that had just gotten shot... I'm not certain I understand the logic behind shelling the van - as far as I could tell, it posed no threat to the chopper or the soldiers on the ground.

Number two: those people undeniably had guns, and what turned out to be a camera really looks like an RPG (rocket propelled grenade). The guys in the van drove to an area they knew to be a hot zone willingly and of their own volition - no fault of the gunner that they got shot too - the van could easily have been loaded with more guys with guns, who were going to unload on the chopper.

Now, I'm not a soldier, so that's one of the reasons I'm not coming down as hard as the video does on the gunner and the pilot in this video.

People have to keep in mind a few things:

-They were likely laughing because of the high stress, high adrenaline environment they were operating in; not out of sadist tendencies.

-There was a genuine threat, in the form of men who were not known to be allies, armed with AK-47 rifles.

-There were perceived threats, in the form of the camera (which looked like an RPG), and the van (which could have been loaded with enemy combatants).

Finally, to address the points the (unfortunately incredibly biased video editor) makes:

-Those nice little arrows that show who's who and what's what did not exist for the soldiers behind the camera. When the arrow draws your attention to the children in the van, realize that the soldiers are going to be focused on the obvious potential threat - the man walking around.

Also of note is how the video zooms in on the two blurry spots that it points out as children, and uses other editing techniques to draw attention to key points for the viewer's benefit. Remember all of that is done in post production.

-The hospital the children were brought to is referenced as possibly having "poorer standards of medical treatment" and causing "additional delay". Maybe we can talk when you have some damn facts. For all we know, the Iraqi hospital was closer, and just as capable. Don't insinuate crap like that.

-Note the care and urgency the soldiers display when they realize that kids were hurt in the firefight. Yes, they blame it on the people who brought the kids there, but in my mind, that's fair - bullets had been flying just prior to the van's arrival...

So in the end, my thoughts are with both those affected in this altercation (soldiers, journalists and civilians alike) as well as those who are indirectly affected (families/friends/acquaintances of those killed, and of those who did the killing).

I hope we can all learn from experiences like this, and hopefully tragedies like this won't occur again (though I'm not holding my breath). Take care, everybody - and remember there are two sides to most any story.

fin.