Well Hey, Gaming Shoot Out!
"The intentional or unintentional leaking and posting of U.S. Army sensitive or classified information to Wikileaks.org [sic] could result in increased threats to [Department of Defence] personnel, equipment, facilities, or installations. Such information could be of value to foreign intelligence and security services, foreign military forces, foreign insurgents, and foreign terrorist groups for collecting information or for planning attacks against U.S. forces, both within the United States and abroad."On the other hand, it could just serve to confirm what the entire world suspects from time to time, that the can-do attitude inspired in American military males when at the controls of high-tech militarized playthings makes new-age Cowboys out of them, eager to transport games-playing into the real world. Shoot 'em-up games so popular with male gamesters everywhere have reached deep into the psyche of certain muscularly-inclined males as to encourage their belief that anything goes.
And little wonder if agonizing resentment sets in by those who have been victimized by errant American decision-making when it comes to targeting civilians, whether it's in Iraq or Afghanistan or Pakistan. Of course errors that occur with unmanned drones are somewhat explicable, unlike errors that occur when "friendly fire" takes the lives of friendly combatants, or inexcusably careless bomb drops wipe out parts of villages and wedding parties and entire families. No way to treat friends or civilians requiring protection.
"No innocent civilians were killed on our part deliberately", according to Major Brent Cummings, executive officer with the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, who informed the Washington Post that the Apache crew had fired on a group of people far below them on a square in Baghdad, for the logical and extremely convincing reason that they "had weapons and were using them against coalition and Iraqi security forces". Sounds good.
"We took great pains to prevent that [the killing of civilians]. I know that two children were hurt, and we did everything we could to help them. I don't know how the children were hurt."
Well, didn't anyone tell him? How the children were hurt? For heaven's sake, there's that fifteen-minute video, after all. Readily accessible for anyone to see, thanks to some clandestine whistle-blowing from among the U.S. military itself. Seems not all U.S. military personnel transfer the games-playing zeitgeist to real life situations, and they know the difference between legitimate targets and civilians. They must be the ones who've read Romeo Dallaire's "Shake Hands With The Devil".
There were these two dudes, see, Apache helicopter pilots whirlybirding over Baghdad and they see a group of people, one of whom is carrying a camera because they're Reuters report staff; a reporter and his driver. The Apache pilots see opportunity where it exists,and they radio their controllers that they've spotted "five to six individuals with AK-47s", seeking permission to "engage". Mind, some of the men may have been carrying weapons, and charitably it could be interpreted that they thought the camera was really a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
In any event, the Apache cowboys fired a number of bursts of 30 mm cannon into the crowd. The standing crowd reverted to a mute, prostrate group. "Look at those dead bastards", said one of the pilots who likely felt as though he'd won the game. "Nice", the other laconically admits. And then, shortly afterward, a van pulls up to come to the aid of the wounded below. And that's when the Apache pilots responded by opening fire again.Two young children seated in the van were injured. All told, 12 people were killed, including the two Reuters news people.
All of the action was captured by the helicopter gun cameras. This occurred three years ago, but has surfaced latterly courtesy of someone within the military who had access to the camera footage, and kindly made it available to WikiLeaks, a non-profit organization distinguishing itself by publishing leaks of controversial government and corporate documents. The whistle-blowers are protected by the WikiLeaks code of conduct responsibility.
A WikiLeaks spokesman speaking before reporters at the National Press Club in Washington at the release of the video, disagreed with the U.S. military assessment that the incident represented a justified attack. The pilots, he claims, were interested in getting high scores in their real-life computer game. "I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong."
As for Reuters, its editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, pointed out that the deaths of the two Reuters crew represented as "tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones. We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognize the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular."
Labels: Conflict, Human Relations, That's Life, United States
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, April 06, 2010
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