What courage?

There are so manyu fake stories about American atrocities in Iraq, the odd real one shouldn't change anything.

And I don't think it takes particular courage to do something that people will celebrate you for.

Didn't terrorists just a few days ago attack a mosque and kill 58 civilians?

Perhaps those soldiers were brutal morons who deserve to be put to prison forever, perhaps they had recently been shot at and were out of control, certain that everyone in the area was an enemy (in which case I would wonder what the journalist wanted in that area).

I don't know any of these things but I trust the US military more to deal with this than a bloodthirsty uncaring public who ignore worse crimes all the time.

Anyway, if 8 dead civilians are the horror that is unfolding than we are really dealing with the nicest war we have ever fought. If American atrocities are really limited to that, despite the fact that tens of thousands of soldiers are deployed, we are dealing with an impressive discipline rarely found among non-Israeli military.

1.  WikiLeaks is not a "little known site".

2.  The Reuters employees were not following the conventions of journalists -in other words, they were indistinguishable from the enemy combatants.

3. The Wiki Leak video was doctored, and has been proven to be doctored, to show the fight in a bad light for the American military.

4.  this is old news.  Hardly ground breaking.

5.  The terrorists were armed, but of course the doctored video you reference was done to hide the weapons.  If there were children there, they were put there by the terrorists as cover.

Now if you had done some more research, you would have found out that while a mistake and regrettable, it is hardly a calculated cold blooded killing you make it out to be (or your sources I would assume).  The journalists were not following protocol, the GIs were in a fire fight with armed terrorists, and they mistook the camera equipment for weapons (it was a firefight, not a firing squad).

As you opened your piece with, in war, mistakes do happen and innocent people do die.  That is all this is.  Not a conspiracy of a cover-up or some rogue soldiers taking out innocent babies trying to suckle the teats of their jobs.

I am a bit surprised that you are now participating in spreading propaganda, instead of digging for the truth.

BTW:  Terrorists ARE civilians by definition, so while they were armed, you at least got the part right about dead civilians.

Have Wikileaks ever reported leaks from terrorists?

You story is about the killing of innocent people in 2007 and these horrors are what are unfolding now? I have to agree with Leauki, if our atrocities are this small compared to what terrorist do, then our problem is a few idiots as oppose to an entire fanatical, radical army or country compared to the terrorist groups out there.

I think you are stretching pretty far here Bahu. You can't acuse a culture while ignoring another.

Well, back up a second and look at it this way- when this event unfolded, the official U.S military statement was that the reuters employees were smack dab in the middle of a firefight with insurgents and were killed in an action along with several other insurgents. This is a lie, plain and simple. The only people engaged in any kind of hostilities was the gunship- the crowd they fired on was all bunched together and just kind of milling about.

The point is, how many other such events have happened that have been glossed over?

Let's look at a few other examples-

-Haditha- an IED went off next to an American patrol which did kill and wound U.S soldiers. The troops were angry so they stormed the homes surrounding their patrol in order to 'secure' the area. What happened when they entered the homes is another matter- they gunned down 24 civillians. This includes womena and children as young as five or six year olds. The only weapon recovered in the area was a single AK-47 in one of the homes, which was allowed as a household defensive weapon as common practice.

However, the U.S military version of events was also a plain lie- it stated that after the IED went off the convoy came under small arms fire, the marines returned fire and killed 15 insurgents. All of this was a lie to cover-up the fact that war is an atrocity-producing situation, regardless of the uniform being worn.

And then we can't forget the private contractors, like what blackwater did on a crowded street when they opened fire- completely unprovoked- and killed 17 civilians because one of their hired guns got spooked and started shooting.

Hi Dr Guy-

Have you seen the video? The "doctored" portion is simply that they shortened it down to about 17 minutes instead of 35. I watched the full 35 minute version and lo and behold here's what you see-

A bunch of people are randomly milling around on the street. Some of them are armed, yes, but most of them are not. Also, there is -no- way of being able to identify the armed people as "terrorists"-

1) they are not shooting at or engaged in combat with anyone

2) they are not organized in any discernible fashion

3) to assume that a handful of people in civillian clothing  carrying weapons in a large crowd of unarmed people are 'terrorists' is ridiculous.

4) Even if the few armed individuals are terrorists, opening fire on them in a crowd of unarmed people is a violation of pretty much every rule of counter-insurgency- that's exactly what the insurgents want is to foment civillian casualties and thereby expand their recruiting base.

Yes, this is a good point. US forces in the general area were involved in fighting that day. However, no one in the video was engaged in fighting, besides the helicopter which opened fire. This helicopter was over a mile away from the scene and basically saw a handful of guys milling around and made a bad judgement call.

Again you saw the doctored version (long or short does not matter).  Now is the complete version (as yet unreleased so we have but the words of the OBAMA administration to go on and given their hatred of the military, I doubt they would lie for them), that BEFORE they were milling around, they came in guns ablazing (ok, that is just dramatic hyperbole, but they were firing the weapons).

There was a recent series where the central part of the episode was about Al Qaeda releasing a video showing a soldier deserting under fire.  Pretty damning.  Until you got the rest of the story/video, where it showed that soldier running to a HMMV to attack the terrorists fortified position.

is it any wonder WikiLeaks is looking for a name?  They have been around as long sa Wikipedia and so far have had nothing of substance, so of course they want to embellish a non-story.  Even the author could not truthfully answer questions posed by sympathetic journalists!

A mistake is now a bad judgment call?  I will hand it to Bahu, at least he did qualify his outrage by saying that shit happens in war When you have to make split second decision based upon partial information, mistakes (bad judgment?) happen.  it is not the fault of those attacked, but of those attacking.  let's put the blame for the death of the reporter where it belongs - Al Qaeda.

P.S. Good to see you back. I was wondering if you were still frozen in at Yellowknife.

That is what bugs me the most about some comments. Some people want to find fault so bad that they will accept anything that will satisfy their search without truly researching the information to verify if it's true or even accepting that this could be misleading or a lie. On top of that they change their opinions as if these different opinions mean the same.

Arty,

You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't describe it as an act of senseless killing and then call it a bad judgment call. You need to decide if you are sincerely accusing them of purposely killing innocent people just for the fun of it or if they made a mistake and killed them as a bad judgment call. or accept that this may be incorrect as DrGuy is claiming. I have to accept his comment as well since I can neither verify or prove to the contrary whether it's real or not.

I have made it very clear that it was bad judgement on the part of the crew on the ground that gave the go-ahead for the strike. I have certainly not accused the entire military of a Katyan" in Baghdad. As for propaganda, I agree that the event is such that contrived postures can be struck, but my purpose was to highlight the absence of supervision on the ground.

The courage part is not irony. The part of the world I come from, I have no hesitation is saying that more horrible things happen and all records are routinely destroyed. I do think that whoever took the decision to hang on to the video record of the event in question was fully aware of its explosive nature and wanted to expose it.

As for the editing of the video. I am of course aware of the fact that A 34 MINUTE FOOTAGE WAS EDITED TO make it appear as a 17 minute episode. However, my basic premise of bad judgement and lack of supervision is not in any way affected by the fact that the video in question was edited not doctored. The latter means deliberate attempt to mislead. I do not think this was the case. However, the jury is out on that one.

The terrorists cannot be held accountable but a National Army  is and will be judged on the basis of the laws,treaties and conventions signed.

You're a broken record, Bahu.  Gave me flashbacks.  Nice writing style, though, if you like that sort of thing.

Daiwa, honestly I did not understand both the "style" and the "flashback" bits. Elaborate?

You are wrong.  Edited and doctored.  But then if you want to believe the worst, you are going to use every excuse to believe that.  And so the truth becomes the first victim of your crusade.

Don't be confused by facts.  They will interfere with your jihad to promote the doctored propaganda.

I do not believe in jihad and consider the senseless violence unleashed in the name of Islam to be a crime against humanity. So I do not have to keep saying this.

I see the incident as a violation of human rights. I have said in my post itself that the 2 were in an area that had seenm sectarian violence and so my question is: Why the second strike when it became clear that the 2 photographers the initial target were killed. It was the second strike that killed more people and I do point out to the causalness in the video voice recording that showed no remorse at the bool dplit. Now you can say that all is fair in war, but nations play by rules of engagement, terrorist do not.

As for the editing  is concerned. The uncut version is far more potent than the tame edited one.

As far as truth is concerned even the US Military has admitted its mistake.

I forgot more more point. I have not made any value judgement about the incident as the place I come from worse things happen and the so=-caLLED  POLITICIANS GET AWAY WITH murder, rape and pillage. So I record my admiration for the institution that kept the video, did not destry it and when confronted with the video did not claim that it was fake and morphed. So the video is not for propaganda and I certainly am not using it as such.

Hi Dr Guy,

Okay, I have some big problems with your comment-

1) This happened WAY before the Obama administration. In truth, I think that Obama is just as bad if not worse than Bush but the particular episode occurred almost two years before OB's time.

2) The video is not doctored. The U.S department of defense has publicly stated that it is the real deal. Keep in mind this is an organization for whom the SecDef is still the fellow appointed by Bush (Gates) and while he puts up a quiet demeanor in public is frighteningly effective behind the scenes. If it is, as you say, doctored, please provide your proof, referencing evidence from the DOD or other government organization.

Why not at all my good man! I always enjoy our discussions. However, I have been outdoors more lately thanks to the unseasonably warm weather

This is essentially what I have also said. The video is not doctored and the fact that Dr Bob Gates has spoken about it in public means that the US Miliotary will not brush this under the carpet. But the more serious issue still remains: both in Iraq and Afghanistan there have been several incidents that have turned out to be extremely damaging to US image and quietly money is paid out and the noise subsides at least until the next big headline grabber. What the US military needs to put in force is an effective overall command and control structure for air borne attacks based on humit.