April 05, 2010

• The war on WikiLeaks and why it matters
• I watched the video. Lost for words.
• New background material from Iraq
• Depersonalized engagement. But where's that wedding ring? A ring of fire.
• I watched two movies this last week; a British mini-series Occupation and the latest Matt "Bourne" Damon vehicle, Green Zone. Although fictional, I wasn't surprised at the common themes. If and when the occupying forces leave, I expect there to be a few "My Lais" discovered.
• Some insightful commentary on this footage from veterans: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1607760&cid=31737886 http://www.metafilter.com/90734/Collateral-Murder#3027272
• Another relevant link pulled from the blue, an article about lazy journalism.. In this regard the topical incident seems most like My Lai. I hope the bad PR that goes along with WikiLeaks forcing this exposure is comparable.
• ..I expect there to be a few "My Lais" discovered. *drumroll* May I present to you, Mr. Ed "The Master of Understatement" Arzakh! In 1968, My Lai was shocking, but hey folks, it's 2010, we're blase about those kind of things now. If our mercenary army is being given the slideby on their murderous ways, why should the military be any different? In October '07: U.S. security contractor Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 shooting incidents in Iraq since 2005 and, in eight of 10 cases, their forces fired first, a leading U.S. lawmaker said on Monday, reported Reuters. In November '08: The only reason you need a silencer is if you want to assassinate someone... Or kill civilians without attracting attention. We don't punish the My Lai perpetrators anymore, we reward them with billion dollar contracts when they change their names: March 2010: Any indictment, even of former executives, would be unwelcome news at a company beleaguered since a 2007 shooting involving Blackwater guards in Baghdad left 17 people dead. Under a new name, Xe, the firm is trying to win Defense Department approval to train police in Afghanistan. The contract could be worth up to $1 billion but has drawn the ire of some in Congress. Bah, these were just the top of the google heap. I don't want to play this game anymore.
• I watched the video. It is awful, but that is what happens in those situations. That is why it is important not to invade a country unless you are under attack from that country or another country who is under attack from the original country asks for your help. In short, you go to war to stop killing that is already going on. You go for no other reason. Had we followed that simple rule, none of this would have happened.
• I'm thinking that all those paparazzi that are making stupid amounts of money in LA taking photos of people doing nothing should be sent to use their skills for social good where the wars are, acting as our eyes and the military's conscience. *takes breath*
• Some insightful commentary on this footage from veterans Here's another.
• Atrocious clusterfucks like this are inevitable in any war so if you're going to war, you'd better have a damned good reason, as bernockle says. The specific events and actions of the soldiers can be debated but the root cause of those deaths was an unjustified war. Wikileaks may be accused of making a slightly less than objective presentation but the facts remain that innocent civilians were callously killed and those responsible tried to cover it up. Thanks to the efforts of organizations like Wikileaks the public (at least those who are paying attention) have a better idea of what their elected leaders were responsible for. Hopefully they'll remember when it counts, at election time.
• That's a good corollary to the wikileaks video, homunculus. I'd seen a few comments saying that there was at least one person in the group carrying a weapon (which wasn't highlighted in the video so I didn't notice it) - but it's legal apparently for individuals to own one AK-47 for home protection (uh). But even so, as that guy said, he wasn't behaving in a threatening manner even if he was holding a gun, and the real shitfire is when the van of samaritans drives in. Not that the whole thing isn't a bloody trainwreck from the get-go.
• The comments linked by waxboy and homunculus are excellent, and well worth a read. I've been seething, on and off, about the amateurish way this story has been covered since a friend showed me this video yesterday. I'm not a soldier, but I understand something of how these things work, and the truth is that when I watched these videos in real time I felt that I understood everything the Americans were doing. I saw the automatic weapons, I saw the RPG, and when I saw the guy pointing the camera I was totally fooled into thinking that he was firing down the street. In fact, I was so fooled by that segment of the video that afterwards I could have sworn that I saw recoil and smoke. In fact, the view is cut off by the building at the exact moment that the 'RPG' would have fired and my brain (knowing what it 'should' be seeing) interpolated the shot. It was a very interesting example of how our memories and perceptions, in a fast-moving and tense situation, can play tricks on us. As for the van, if you look at the early part of the video, a black van looking very similar to the van later in the video was in the area just prior to the engagement. My instant thought, at the time, was that this was a getaway vehicle, and this seems to be the same assumption that the US soldiers made. This is a bad situation, for sure, but these reporters were walking along with a group of armed men in the middle of a battle. They were acting as one would expect a group of insurgent fighters to act, were the victims of unfortunate timing wrt the specific angles of the cameras, and were not wearing 'PRESS' tabards, or otherwise marking themselves out as noncombatants in a combat zone. This is a horrible, tragic event, but it really does look like an accident.
• I respect your erudition regarding military matters Dreadnought and agree that the reporters could have done more to ensure their own safety but blaming the victims (among whom are probably some of the soliers involved and obviously the civilians who stopped to help), as well as faulting the whistleblowers for imperfect journalism just adds to the fog of war. This may have been an accident, but a predictable one, given the nature of modern warfare. In a few days or weeks the video will be largely forgotten but I hope that Wikileaks is able to keep up their work, however amateurish. It's not as if they have much popular competition in the US when it comes to 'professional' mainstream journalism.
• I can see how the guys in the Apache could make the mistakes they made at the beginning, but there's no excuse for shooting the van. The van was clearly there to help the wounded and was not posing a threat. How was the van driver supposed to mark himself as a noncombatant? That combat zone was his home. And now his kids have no father.
• agree that the reporters could have done more to ensure their own safety but blaming the victims (among whom are probably some of the soliers involved and obviously the civilians who stopped to help), as well as faulting the whistleblowers for imperfect journalism just adds to the fog of war. I think that the real story here is not that the victims somehow 'deserved' their fate, but that a terrible chain of accidents, with mistakes on both sides, lead to a number of tragic deaths. I don't think that rises to the level of victim blaming any more than it would to point out that human error contributed to a car accident. Bad things happen, and that's why we all, military and civilian, have to take steps to reduce accidents. Yes, I'm upset about what I see as a sensationalistic and manipulative presentation by the people who made the annotated version of the wikileaks video, but I'm much, much more annoyed about the way it's being covered uncritically in the professional media, especially by the usually excellent BBC.
• Yes, it was a terrible chain of accidents and mistakes were made on both sides but it was the war itself that set the stage, as wars always do. Bad things do happen but bringing the bad things to light, even if it's done in a less then professional manner, can only help to encourage us to not make the same mistakes in the future. The real evils here, in my mind, are the transparently venal and presumptive motivations behind the war and the effort to cover up the war's real consequences. As far as the BBC's coverage of this particular incident goes, their article a couple of day ago seems pretty dispassionate. I doubt that this horrible incident would ever have reached the mainstream media without Wikileaks, so I'm willing to grant them a little leeway when it comes to their style of presentation.
• Damn, sounds like we Monkeys have the soothing smoothing sugary platitudes down pat. Well, nothing ever changes. Guess my outrage is somewhat misplaced. After all, who am I ask that our standards be higher than the rest or to hold anyone accountable. Most of that is just recruiting hype anyway.
• No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency.
• U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe
• WikiLeaks to release video of deadly US Afghan attack: Whistleblowing website says it is still working to prepare the film of the bombing of the Afghan village of Garani in May 2009
• Inspired by Wikileaks, Iceland Aims to Become Reporter Haven
• I'm just praying that WikiLeaks becomes the next responsible journalism.
• Glenn Greenwald: The strange and consequential case of Bradley Manning, Adrian Lamo and WikiLeaks
• A new bill rocketing through Congress would give the president sweeping powers to police the Web for national-security reasons. Could this be a way to block WikiLeaks?
• I got that confused with Lieberman's bill to force ISPs to provide a shutoff switch which Obama can activate during emergencies/terrorist attacks etc. The internet is obviously the new frontier for fighting terrorism. Woo.
• They tried to suppress printing presses too. Look at how well that worked. I always figured the decentralized setup of the net would prevent any measure like this from working well.
• WikiLeaks' Founder Speaks: Julian Assange, who the feds fear may publish State Dept. secrets, talked to Philip Shenon about his outreach to Washington, his fear of criminal charges—and why Bradley Manning is a “national hero.”
• Was alleged Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning's crisis also one of personal identity? Was Wikileaker Bradley Manning Betrayed By His Queer Identity?
• I'm just sorry he was nailed on this. AFAIC, he's a hero for leaking the video. Not sure about the memos, but if there's something in there that needs to be made public, so be it. I'm not sure if I entirely trust Assange in the matter of the cables/memos, however, his record seems to suggest he is an honorable man.
• Rules of America's rule of law
• I'm absolutely enraged.
• How Lady Gaga Helped Leak 150,000 Classified State Department Cables
• Wikileaks making the news rather than breaking it
• Feds look for Wikileaks founder at NYC hacker event
• Wikileaks Critic Adrian Lamo Defends Manning Decision
• WikiLeaks: War Diary The NY Times: The War Logs The Guardian: Afghanistan: The War Logs Der Spiegel: The Afghanistan Protocol
• The first civilian said it appeared from the questioning that Army investigators “are trying to build a network among Bradley’s friends to infiltrate WikiLeaks.”
• Kiss This War Goodbye: The national yawn that greeted the war logs is an indicator of the country’s verdict on the Afghan war itself.
• WikiLeaks in Baghdad: Soldiers involved in the "Collateral Murder" video have come forward to tell their story.
• Early Struggles of Soldier Charged in Leak Case
• In Iraq we killed 61 terrorists for every 161 civilians during the month of July, according to the US army.
• The total deaths for Afghanistan are much higher, but the percentages show kinder and gentler machine gun hands.
• Why won't the Pentagon help WikiLeaks redact documents?
• Superbombs and Secret Jails: What to Look for in WikiLeaks’ Iraq Docs
• WikiLeaks says funding has been blocked after government blacklisting
• The Iraq Archive: The Strands of a War Iraq: The War Logs
• It's good to get news that our troops were at odds with the worst criminals: "Shortly after 10am on 14 May 2004, a convoy of private security guards from Blackwater riding down "Route Irish" – the Baghdad airport road – shot up a civilian Iraqi vehicle. While they were at it, the Blackwater men fired shots over the heads of a group of soldiers from the 69th Regiment of the US Army before they sped away heading west in their white armoured truck. When the dust cleared, the Iraqi driver was dead and his wife and daughter were injured..." "American soldiers, however, often intervened. During a visit to a police unit in Ramadi, an American soldier entered a cell after hearing screams and found two badly dehydrated detainees with bruises on their bodies. He had them transferred out of Iraqi custody."
• Online, the censors are scoring big wins: Attacks on WikiLeaks are part of an attack on free speech, aided by the companies that make up the Web's backbone
• Julian Assange: Don't shoot messenger for revealing uncomfortable truths
• The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
• Getting to Assange through Manning
• Iraq War veteran on Manning, the media and the military