WikiLeaks unveils new video

[neshcom]

WikiLeaks has been around the internet news for a few days about a new video they would be unveiling. The video was made available today and shows the gun-cam of an aerial drone along with radio transmissions of the killing of a number of people with weapons including people on foot as well as adults and children in a van. The people killed in the van were reporters with Reuters who were picking up an injured man. The Army claimed they did not know how the people died, but this video shows the eagerness of a number of soldiers to open fire.



Here is the video on Youtube (will be updated if it is pulled): "Collateral Murder" (this is very graphic and show the un-edited deaths of human beings)



The soldiers on the intercom were practically drooling at the mouth to open fire on the van, but the van was being very suspicious. A similar, more common situation is that insurgents will drive up to dead bodies, not to pick them up, but to strip them of guns and ammo. It is common practice to open fire in these situations.



This brings up a discussion on the validity and accuracy of aerial drones to ID subjects as well as SOP for handling suspicious behavior.



[doubleback]Boing Boing has a fantastic article that knows more than I do. Turns out all of the people were unarmed. If Wikileaks is down, you can also use the specialized site for the video.

[Ap2000]

It's so annyoing that wikileaks is in this crappy state for such a long time now:

http://wikileaks.org/



Also, there you can watch it without having a yt account.



Well, this certainly is something terrible and just makes me question the army (not only from the usa, but in general) even more.

[eri]

edit: nothing a good Googling can't fix.



I saw the video until they began to shoot and then I couldn't watch. I wonder about the privileges we have, safely tucked behind our computers, to have the choice to turn away. People in Iraq cannot turn it off, close their eyes, or divert themselves otherwise. What a tragedy.

[neshcom]

[quote name='eri' post='78251' date='Apr 5 2010, 03:58 PM']The video then shows the attack, as well as the aftermath. It becomes clear that the victims are Iraqi civilians, including children, and international reporters saving an injured man and children?[/quote]

Sort of. Sorry. I'll clarify. It is filmed from an aerial unit's gun camera. A number of pedestrians are seen walking and a soldier over the radio identifies an RPG. The aerial unit engages the citizens and kills most of them. An injured man is seen crawling on the ground and soldiers on the radio are instructed to cease fire until he reaches for a weapon (I'm assuming ground forces were nearby). The van pulls up to the injured man and humans were identified inside. After a moment, the air unit was allowed to engage the van. Inside the van were children and Reuters reporters. Before this video, the Army denied knowledge of how the reporters died and Reuters had been pushing for this tape to be released.



Boing Boing has a fantastic article that knows more than I do. Turns out all of the people were unarmed. If Wikileaks is down, you can also use the specialized site for the video.



News outlets coverage?

[aine]

Motherfuckers.

[Ap2000]

[quote name='neshcom' post='78252' date='Apr 5 2010, 10:10 PM']News outlets coverage?[/quote]



ZIB2 (the biggest newscast here in austria) had a 15 minutes long report. They showed most of the video and had some guy in Washington who shed some insight where this video came from and what it's impact is.



[just in case anybody here is interested if the media outside the usa is even caring about this.]

[Geof]

This is certainly a tragedy, and while I feel bad for the people involved, I also think mistakes were made by both parties. I won't try to defend the attitudes of some of the servicemen involved (and certainly not those of the higher-ups who chose to bury the incident rather than own up to the actions taken.) But at the same time, I'm not flying a gunship over an ongoing conflict area, having to deal with being fired upon & having to fire upon someone. I'm safe here in my home like the rest of you, watching this video. And I noticed some things that I feel are pretty important to consider.



Starting at the 3:39 mark (after the "fucking prick" has been declared to be carrying a weapon,) what are the two unidentified men who walk into the area just above the center crosshair (at 3:43) carrying? I'm assuming it's since been identified as some sort of photo equipment, but I can certainly see how it could be misidentified as rifles. Both men stop near the pole (at 3:47) as the others continue walking, the heavyset one visibly hiding whatever it is behind his body (3:59), as the other man walks towards the building and out of sight. I don't think anyone looking through the sight could seriously discount the possibility of trouble at this point. And then when Namir is seen crouched, peeking around the building, holding what's either a large camera or (as the gunner saw it) the front of an RPG (4:10), then points it at the helicopter (4:18) just as it's leaving line-of-sight, that locked the chain of events.



As harsh as this may sound, these journalists should have known better. I don't mean that in an offhand or dismissing way, I genuinely mean that any journalist sent into a conflict area should be well aware of the risks and how critical it is to behave in a manner that leaves little-to-no doubt of your intentions. Because there ARE people out there who are looking for an excuse to fire. There ARE people out there who've been shot at for months & aren't about to hesitate when they perceive a threat. And then there are people who simply don't give a shit & will wipe you out just for shits & giggles, we've seen numerous accounts of that committed to video over the past decade, but I honestly don't see that to be the case here. I believe this was an enormously unfortunate matter of the journalists doing the wrong thing (even unintentionally) at the wrong time & place, and things snowballing horrifically.



Again, I think the greater wrong here was covering it up instead of being up front & showing how ridiculously easy it is for misunderstandings to turn fatal.