[The following is a response to the editor of Media Roots, re: the Wikileaks video showing journalists killed in Iraq]
MEDIA ROOTS- What do you get for all the effort and risk involved to
become an Army aviator? In the Apache
video footage of the journalist massacre, US ground forces had already been
engaged sporadically in that area earlier that day.
Being a war photographer is not safe, and the people in this video were operating away from any American forces. They were carrying big cylindrical objects (cameras), and running around trying to get photos of American forces in combat.
As for the Iraqi civilian paparazzi, they often act like this. Being in a mob of civilians doesn’t quite follow the common sense principle in an area where any country’s young troops are being engaged.
One of our biggest concerns is rules of engagement. We brief this to no end. We constantly talk about techniques to prevent fratricide. We have a lot of civilian “observers” mixed in with IA (Iraqi Army), IP (Iraqi police), and another policing group called “Sons of Iraq.”
Now flash back to a couple thousand feet up in the air to the Apache pilots looking at all these people on the ground – none of them have radios, uniforms, or training.
Our ground forces hardly ever know where they are. The “insurgents” switch sides all the time. You can’t quite get the big picture, until you’ve seen American forces get hurt that are depending on you to protect them. Then it doesn’t matter why anyone is there. You can’t always think perfectly straight either when you have been flying 6 to10 hours a day for 15 months straight.
This film is a “video/sound-bite”. That’s a nice name for propaganda. Remember, if you really want to figure it out, assume you are already brainwashed. I just feel badly for that crew. It isn’t fair to put soldiers in such positions. It isn’t fair to have wars like this one. As I said, short of defense, war is not justified. It serves other purposes.
“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence-economic, political, and even spiritual-is felt in every city, every state house, and every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Transcription courtesy of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum.
There is much going on that we do not know about, and not just in the Middle East. This is why we need a First Amendment and a free, unbiased press. When the press is truly unhindered and free, they serve as your eyes and ears, and will take you places to make you aware of events you never could have otherwise in order for you to make your own judgements. Do you really know what the First Amendment is and why it’s the first item in the Bill of Rights? Why is it there? Who would ever attempt to remove it and how? “Politically correct” censorship, for example? We will explore this next in greater detail…
Yossarian.
Mr. Howe,
Appreciate you man! Thanks for reading my thoughts on this matter…
The best way I can re-articulate my viewpoint regarding the ‘Collateral Murder’ gun-tape is simply this, and I do apologize for the delayed response.
Americans are standing by, while Bradley Manning is being incarcerated in a fashion qualifying as “cruel & unusual”… this constitutes torture and is prohibited by our constitution for any person, but made legal by the Patriot Act. There were some nights in Germany during the second world war that pushing a hundred thousand innocent German citizens experienced death by allied fire-bombing… and they were in there basements trying to avoid it. Citizens die in wars. That’s fact. Some deaths are ‘war-crimes’, some are not. There is no question for me the United States military actively seeks, prosecutes, and disciplines such acts. That’s why we tape our engagements. Imagine being shot at, defending your life, and then being judged by a lawyer? This is what many good military members confront. Crimes also happen in war and peace… all the while, I understand many that shoot at us are not Islamic extremists… they just want the occupation to end.
My pointing out that: 1) Innocent Iraqi citizens, following a Reuter’s photographer into combat, as American men and women are being engaged, is probably not a smart decision 2) It is virtually indistinguishable, a sniper’s attire from a citizen Iraqi’s, and 3) It is not fair to put your men and women into a position where they and their ‘supporting’ countrymen will be unable to reconcile in their own hearts the atrocious consequences of a war… then perhaps the legitamacy of said war should be called into question.
Mr. Howe I believe you and I are calling this war into question. I know what you saw in that gun tape video. I heard the comments those men made as they pulled the trigger. I also know what the little 2-by-2 inch screen looks like in the cockpit of an AH64D longbow as it thrashes me around for 10 hours. I know the desperate voices of men on the ground asking for my help. Furthermore, I know exactly how the men in that helicopter felt about what happened that day. This is why I feel so strongly this war is dead wrong. It is unfair to them, to me, to Bradley Manning, and to you.
A free press is the ONLY way the legitimacy of a war can be called into question. Accountability is needed more than at any other time. I believe you want to hold the men in the helicopter accountable. They were held accountable for their actions.
I want our government held accountable for this war.
I feel Wikileaks is being used to justify a restriction of other truly free press. I believe this incident is being used to manufacture: 1) the consent of the American public for inhumane incarcerations, 2) the development of restrictions to alternative media, such as this very site, and 3) the cultivation of an illusion that military members are sociopaths… this will destroy us from the inside.
What I most humbly ask from you Mr. Howe is this. Please do everything within your power to bring us home, if that’s what you believe is right.
I honor you.
Yossarian
Yossarian,
You’ve done a nice job expressing some important truths, and from a credible perspective. Thank you.
I cannot, however, buy into the defense of what the gun-site video shows as a “video/sound bite” that is out of context and not representative of what happened on the ground; And casting it as propaganda is ridiculous.
These were fairly clearly non-combatants wielding cameras, not weapons, that were brutally killed regardless of lack of real cause. And you just feel badly for the gun-ship crew? Are you serious?
Next, are you going to somehow excuse how Pat Tillman was killed, and tell us how bad you feel for the trigger-men? And that exposing what happened is propaganda?
I’m sure you’re a decent guy or Abby wouldn’t have you there, but I can’t buy what you’re trying to sell.