6 ms·

WikiLeaks plans to post video showing US massacre of Afghani civilians

37 points by ulvund 17y ago

pbhjpbhj 17y ago
Wikileaks were exceedingly disingenuous with their presentation of the material in the former video - in which 2 helicopters killed a group carrying loaded RPG and assault rifles that were an imminent threat to a passing ground patrol that was already taking fire. I hope that they'll let the material stand for itself rather than lying like politicians trying to score points. The way they handled the last one was like some sort of Microsoft marketing exercise.
- BudVVeezer 17y ago
  Did we watch the same video? The RPG and assault rifles were professional cameras in mine...
  - dkimball 17y ago
    I think that this reveals the real villain of the previous video: the people who sent these men up to patrol a city in an Apache in the first place! Apaches are attack helicopters, "flying tanks," built to kill armored columns; they are not known for their stealthy approach (which is necessary to be confident that no one with an RPG will move around behind you and put a rocket up your tailpipe), nor for the high resolution and good zoom features of their gun cameras (since a small-screen, black-and-white camera is generally adequate to distinguish that which _is_ a column of tanks and ZSU-23-4s from that which _is not_. Well, maybe not buffalo herds, but there aren't many of those in central Germany). Not to mention, should it be assumed that a man with an RPG in a dangerous part of Baghdad is hostile? What if he's Iraqi military and the Apache shoots him, thereby robbing his squad of their light-artillery support and giving away their position? The right way to patrol is to _patrol_, and that means dismounted infantry operating out of forward bases (which the US is now using) -- not convoys of roadbound IFVs, and certainly not heavy helicopters. Counterinsurgency is not war against poorer enemies, it's police work with heavier weapons; and it's taken five or six years (and a _lot_ of incidents like the previous video), but I think that lesson is slowly sinking in.
  - Frazzydee 17y ago
    Depends, did you watch the full video or the cut one? AFAIK, there are no weapons in the cut one but there were people in the group walking around with weapons before.[1,2] Wikileaks's goal is not neutral publishing of leaks- it's maximum political impact.[3] As long as they continue to release the full video, I still think they do far more good than harm. The editorialization forces it into the public eye. Although I do think they were misleading, they're no worse than the MSM, and the full release allows it to be analyzed more objectively later. "US covers up a video that should've been made public" is not as sexy as "Collateral Damage: US covers up the murder of two reporters." And when you're dealing with a public that seems more interested in Tiger's romantic escapades, perhaps that's what is necessary to seize their attention. ----- [1] "there do appear to be two other—two people in that crowd having weapons" -Julian Assange[http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/6/massacre_caught_on_tape_us_military http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/6/massacre_caught_on_tape...] [2] "The [army's] report claims that at least two members of the group which were first fired on were armed"[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike#Release_of_Army_report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike...] [3] Assange's interview with Colbert. http://gawker.com/5515720/stephen-colbert-grills-wikileaks-founder-on-helicopter-video http://gawker.com/5515720/stephen-colbert-grills-wikileaks-f...
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0#t=3m40s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0#t=3m40s see the guy at 3:45 swinging around? http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201878.php http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201878.php makes it clearer. Also the US mil report from the time (not a response to Wikileaks, from 17 July 2007, 5 days after the event) - They did have AKM/AK47 and loaded RPG + extra rounds and were hidden around the corner watching, one of their party took pics, http://www.scribd.com/doc/29487634/Centcom-FOIA?page=41 http://www.scribd.com/doc/29487634/Centcom-FOIA?page=41 of an APC whilst their friends were apparently readying an RPG to blow them up with. And though it's not proof of anything specific in this case the photog in question, who died, was known for getting "victory" shots of insurgents handiwork.
- barnaby 17y ago
  >>> I hope that they'll let the material stand for >>> itself rather than lying like politicians trying >>> to score points. WTF? This is a video that Reuters has been trying to get released for over 2 years. The only reason that the video can no "speak for itself" as you say, is because wikileaks leaked it. And good thing that the video can now speak for itself because it shows that the Pentagon lied about what happened to those reporters. I'd rather have the video speak for itself rather than have the pentagon lying to score points.
- Quarrelsome 17y ago
  Erm, there was no RPG and arguably only one assault rifle. Camera equipment was mistaken for an RPG and for one of the assault rifles. The reason the propaganda was inserted was because the US military explicitly stated that they did not know what happened to the reporters involved and were obviously too embarrassed to admit that they mistook their camera equipment for weapons and proactively engaged them.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1270343 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1270343
dpritchett 17y ago
How should I feel about the possible reaction in Afghanistan given that we still have US citizens in the country? My father is due to make a two week tour of Afghanistan next week and this makes me worry for him. I realize that exposing the realities of war is the best way to end a war but I can't help but worry for the people on the ground.
- seven 17y ago
  At first: I feel very sorry for you and hope that your father will return home without getting into trouble. I do understand your point of view. I just want to say that this video could make US^H^H citizens worry more for _all_ the people on the ground of Afghanistan or any other war zone. That is a good thing.
- vaksel 17y ago
  nothing should change...the people in Afghanistan already know all about all this stuff.
amichail 17y ago
What's wrong with using non-lethal weapons when one side has an overwhelming advantage?
- koepked 17y ago
  I think it's possible that the widespread use of non-lethal weapons could result in greater attrocities than the use of lethal weapons on the macro-level. It may not always be aparent, but in general, there is human restraint against killing other humans. A group of people would have to do, or at least be pegged with doing, something fairly high on the "bad scale" to justify use of lethal force. I suspect the threshold for beating them into submission with shotgun fired beanbags, high-pressured water, etc. would be much lower. At the level of an individual life, non-lethal would obviously be better. But at the level of one group of people trying to exert their will over another, I think non-lethal weapons would lead to more of that exertion, because it would be less difficult to justify.
  - nfnaaron 17y ago
    Tasers.
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  When an insurgent points a RPG at my Humvee I should fire [far less lethal] rubber bullets back because I have better air support?
  - amichail 17y ago
    Generally speaking, it is better to disable weapons rather than kill people in war. If there is a way to disable RPGs from a distance, then it should be used if there is time.
    - nick-dap 17y ago
      I don't think you can SSH into a soviet era weapon. This idea that war can be carried out "safely" is detached from reality. We say that our technology gives us a moral advantage in warfare. "We can hit just the right targets, and minimize collateral damage." It will never be. WikiLeaks presentation of the first video was disingenuous, but I don't care as long as the video enters the public domain. I want to be able to pull up videos that show how worthless human life is on the battlefield. I have friends in the military and they need an emotional shell to do their job. The public, however, needs to start thinking about war not as a pissing match with browner countries, but as a serious issue.
dkimball 17y ago
The use of the word "massacre" implies something like My Lai or the Katyn Forest, a deliberate killing of large numbers of noncombatants, especially by infantry. Attacks by aircraft, like those in this video (as indicated in the article) and the previous one, should be described as something else -- although it remains the case that Apaches, F/A-18s, and B-1s (the US counterpart to the Backfire) do not have the large role in COIN that the Pentagon has assigned them, and their employment in Iraq and Afghanistan reveals a poisonously cavalier attitude towards non-American lives. The right way to fight COIN campaigns is known (see David Galula, _Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice_ (1967)); it is not the same as the Pentagon's -- although in fairness, the US military has been trending in the right direction since the happy day when Rumsfeld was given the boot.
- joubert 17y ago
  A massacre is the indiscriminate, unnecessary killing of a large number of people. It doesn't matter how you kill them.
- vaksel 17y ago
  like anything would be different if they killed more people. That My Lai incident you brought up? Where 300-500 civilians were killed? Where the soldiers went out of their way to eliminate every civilian(no fog of war, no "we thought they were terrurists"). Where they killed women, children and infants....only 1 person went to jail for it. 2 days later he was released from jail by the order of a president no less...pending his appeal, and on appeal he was only given 4 months in jail and 3 years under house arrest.
  - dkimball 17y ago
    I agree that the US has a long history of double standards (WWII was particularly shameful: the worst criminals in that war were the Communists, who got away scot-free; and the Western Allies' strategic bombings, especially the deliberate targeting of German civilians by the UK and Japanese civilians by the US, were war crimes); but my point was just the connotations of the word "massacre." And if we want to talk about US-perpetrated crimes with horribly inadequate prosecutions for them, we should talk torture. Death is death, and that's the end of it; but Guantanamo Bay, or the rendition programs, or the US torture which the rendition programs replaced when it was forbidden, or the employment of torture down to the present day to control prisoners? The mind revolts. A country which trusts in God should remember that He is just.
Subgun 17y ago
If it's anything like that pathetic excuse for an exclusive video from last week it won't be worth watching. Report the news . Don't make it, fabricate it or skew it. The days of yellow journalism are still alive and well.
- barnaby 17y ago
  >>>The days of yellow journalism are still alive and well. Ahem, Fox?
- dustingetz 17y ago
  its slightly ironic that people like you and me are less likely to subject here the HN meme of 'moral obligation to maximize shareholder value'.
dkimball 17y ago
This is a very minor point, but could someone edit the title? "Afghani" means the currency; "Afghan" means the people of Afghanistan (Afghan-i Stan, "Land of the Afghans [originally another name for the Pashtuns]", in Persian). This is a pretty common mistake, for what it's worth; demonymns in the eastern Middle East are kind of unpredictable.

37 points by ulvund 17y ago

Wikileaks were exceedingly disingenuous with their presentation of the material in the former video - in which 2 helicopters killed a group carrying loaded RPG and assault rifles that were an imminent threat to a passing ground patrol that was already taking fire. I hope that they'll let the material stand for itself rather than lying like politicians trying to score points. The way they handled the last one was like some sort of Microsoft marketing exercise.

BudVVeezer 17y ago
Did we watch the same video? The RPG and assault rifles were professional cameras in mine...
- dkimball 17y ago
  I think that this reveals the real villain of the previous video: the people who sent these men up to patrol a city in an Apache in the first place! Apaches are attack helicopters, "flying tanks," built to kill armored columns; they are not known for their stealthy approach (which is necessary to be confident that no one with an RPG will move around behind you and put a rocket up your tailpipe), nor for the high resolution and good zoom features of their gun cameras (since a small-screen, black-and-white camera is generally adequate to distinguish that which _is_ a column of tanks and ZSU-23-4s from that which _is not_. Well, maybe not buffalo herds, but there aren't many of those in central Germany). Not to mention, should it be assumed that a man with an RPG in a dangerous part of Baghdad is hostile? What if he's Iraqi military and the Apache shoots him, thereby robbing his squad of their light-artillery support and giving away their position? The right way to patrol is to _patrol_, and that means dismounted infantry operating out of forward bases (which the US is now using) -- not convoys of roadbound IFVs, and certainly not heavy helicopters. Counterinsurgency is not war against poorer enemies, it's police work with heavier weapons; and it's taken five or six years (and a _lot_ of incidents like the previous video), but I think that lesson is slowly sinking in.
- Frazzydee 17y ago
  Depends, did you watch the full video or the cut one? AFAIK, there are no weapons in the cut one but there were people in the group walking around with weapons before.[1,2] Wikileaks's goal is not neutral publishing of leaks- it's maximum political impact.[3] As long as they continue to release the full video, I still think they do far more good than harm. The editorialization forces it into the public eye. Although I do think they were misleading, they're no worse than the MSM, and the full release allows it to be analyzed more objectively later. "US covers up a video that should've been made public" is not as sexy as "Collateral Damage: US covers up the murder of two reporters." And when you're dealing with a public that seems more interested in Tiger's romantic escapades, perhaps that's what is necessary to seize their attention. ----- [1] "there do appear to be two other—two people in that crowd having weapons" -Julian Assange[http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/6/massacre_caught_on_tape_us_military http://www.democracynow.org/2010/4/6/massacre_caught_on_tape...] [2] "The [army's] report claims that at least two members of the group which were first fired on were armed"[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike#Release_of_Army_report http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike...] [3] Assange's interview with Colbert. http://gawker.com/5515720/stephen-colbert-grills-wikileaks-founder-on-helicopter-video http://gawker.com/5515720/stephen-colbert-grills-wikileaks-f...
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0#t=3m40s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0#t=3m40s see the guy at 3:45 swinging around? http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201878.php http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/201878.php makes it clearer. Also the US mil report from the time (not a response to Wikileaks, from 17 July 2007, 5 days after the event) - They did have AKM/AK47 and loaded RPG + extra rounds and were hidden around the corner watching, one of their party took pics, http://www.scribd.com/doc/29487634/Centcom-FOIA?page=41 http://www.scribd.com/doc/29487634/Centcom-FOIA?page=41 of an APC whilst their friends were apparently readying an RPG to blow them up with. And though it's not proof of anything specific in this case the photog in question, who died, was known for getting "victory" shots of insurgents handiwork.
barnaby 17y ago
>>> I hope that they'll let the material stand for >>> itself rather than lying like politicians trying >>> to score points. WTF? This is a video that Reuters has been trying to get released for over 2 years. The only reason that the video can no "speak for itself" as you say, is because wikileaks leaked it. And good thing that the video can now speak for itself because it shows that the Pentagon lied about what happened to those reporters. I'd rather have the video speak for itself rather than have the pentagon lying to score points.
Quarrelsome 17y ago
Erm, there was no RPG and arguably only one assault rifle. Camera equipment was mistaken for an RPG and for one of the assault rifles. The reason the propaganda was inserted was because the US military explicitly stated that they did not know what happened to the reporters involved and were obviously too embarrassed to admit that they mistook their camera equipment for weapons and proactively engaged them.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1270343 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1270343

dpritchett 17y ago

How should I feel about the possible reaction in Afghanistan given that we still have US citizens in the country? My father is due to make a two week tour of Afghanistan next week and this makes me worry for him. I realize that exposing the realities of war is the best way to end a war but I can't help but worry for the people on the ground.

seven 17y ago
At first: I feel very sorry for you and hope that your father will return home without getting into trouble. I do understand your point of view. I just want to say that this video could make US^H^H citizens worry more for _all_ the people on the ground of Afghanistan or any other war zone. That is a good thing.
vaksel 17y ago
nothing should change...the people in Afghanistan already know all about all this stuff.

amichail 17y ago

What's wrong with using non-lethal weapons when one side has an overwhelming advantage?

koepked 17y ago
I think it's possible that the widespread use of non-lethal weapons could result in greater attrocities than the use of lethal weapons on the macro-level. It may not always be aparent, but in general, there is human restraint against killing other humans. A group of people would have to do, or at least be pegged with doing, something fairly high on the "bad scale" to justify use of lethal force. I suspect the threshold for beating them into submission with shotgun fired beanbags, high-pressured water, etc. would be much lower. At the level of an individual life, non-lethal would obviously be better. But at the level of one group of people trying to exert their will over another, I think non-lethal weapons would lead to more of that exertion, because it would be less difficult to justify.
- nfnaaron 17y ago
  Tasers.
pbhjpbhj 17y ago
When an insurgent points a RPG at my Humvee I should fire [far less lethal] rubber bullets back because I have better air support?
- amichail 17y ago
  Generally speaking, it is better to disable weapons rather than kill people in war. If there is a way to disable RPGs from a distance, then it should be used if there is time.
  - nick-dap 17y ago
    I don't think you can SSH into a soviet era weapon. This idea that war can be carried out "safely" is detached from reality. We say that our technology gives us a moral advantage in warfare. "We can hit just the right targets, and minimize collateral damage." It will never be. WikiLeaks presentation of the first video was disingenuous, but I don't care as long as the video enters the public domain. I want to be able to pull up videos that show how worthless human life is on the battlefield. I have friends in the military and they need an emotional shell to do their job. The public, however, needs to start thinking about war not as a pissing match with browner countries, but as a serious issue.

dkimball 17y ago

The use of the word "massacre" implies something like My Lai or the Katyn Forest, a deliberate killing of large numbers of noncombatants, especially by infantry. Attacks by aircraft, like those in this video (as indicated in the article) and the previous one, should be described as something else -- although it remains the case that Apaches, F/A-18s, and B-1s (the US counterpart to the Backfire) do not have the large role in COIN that the Pentagon has assigned them, and their employment in Iraq and Afghanistan reveals a poisonously cavalier attitude towards non-American lives. The right way to fight COIN campaigns is known (see David Galula, _Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice_ (1967)); it is not the same as the Pentagon's -- although in fairness, the US military has been trending in the right direction since the happy day when Rumsfeld was given the boot.

joubert 17y ago
A massacre is the indiscriminate, unnecessary killing of a large number of people. It doesn't matter how you kill them.
vaksel 17y ago
like anything would be different if they killed more people. That My Lai incident you brought up? Where 300-500 civilians were killed? Where the soldiers went out of their way to eliminate every civilian(no fog of war, no "we thought they were terrurists"). Where they killed women, children and infants....only 1 person went to jail for it. 2 days later he was released from jail by the order of a president no less...pending his appeal, and on appeal he was only given 4 months in jail and 3 years under house arrest.
- dkimball 17y ago
  I agree that the US has a long history of double standards (WWII was particularly shameful: the worst criminals in that war were the Communists, who got away scot-free; and the Western Allies' strategic bombings, especially the deliberate targeting of German civilians by the UK and Japanese civilians by the US, were war crimes); but my point was just the connotations of the word "massacre." And if we want to talk about US-perpetrated crimes with horribly inadequate prosecutions for them, we should talk torture. Death is death, and that's the end of it; but Guantanamo Bay, or the rendition programs, or the US torture which the rendition programs replaced when it was forbidden, or the employment of torture down to the present day to control prisoners? The mind revolts. A country which trusts in God should remember that He is just.

Subgun 17y ago

If it's anything like that pathetic excuse for an exclusive video from last week it won't be worth watching. Report the news . Don't make it, fabricate it or skew it. The days of yellow journalism are still alive and well.

barnaby 17y ago
>>>The days of yellow journalism are still alive and well. Ahem, Fox?
dustingetz 17y ago
its slightly ironic that people like you and me are less likely to subject here the HN meme of 'moral obligation to maximize shareholder value'.

dkimball 17y ago

This is a very minor point, but could someone edit the title? "Afghani" means the currency; "Afghan" means the people of Afghanistan (Afghan-i Stan, "Land of the Afghans [originally another name for the Pashtuns]", in Persian). This is a pretty common mistake, for what it's worth; demonymns in the eastern Middle East are kind of unpredictable.