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

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.