Leaked video showing US helicopter shooting journalists and civilians

[Berkut]

Some people are so entrenched in their position that they no long know what being objective is.

I don't think most people really value objectivity though - it is often seen as something to be avoided at all costs, or a sign of weakness.

"Faith" is a virtue, after all.

[Razgovory]

This coming from the guy who decries tribalism in everyone on the board and beats his chest defending the US at every opportunity.

[Berkut]

This coming from the guy who decries tribalism in everyone on the board and beats his chest defending the US at every opportunity.

Oh dear, there goes Raz again.

[DGuller]

I look at it differently.

You say "Hey, your objectivity is really important to your mission of being whistle blowers, you shouldn't do things that damage it so much!" and I look at it and say "If they cared about appearing objective, they clearly would not do something that is so obviously NOT objective - QED, they don't care about objectivity, QED they aren't really in the business of being objective whistle blowers" even if appearing to be in that business might be useful to their actual business.

If the whistle-blowing business is just a cover for wikileaks, then it's one very intricate cover.  They've been blowing the whistles for years before this that had nothing to do with US or Iraq, and reportedly collected more than a million damning documents.  Their real mission must be pretty damn huge in order for them to spend so much energy working on their cover.

[Berkut]

I look at it differently.

You say "Hey, your objectivity is really important to your mission of being whistle blowers, you shouldn't do things that damage it so much!" and I look at it and say "If they cared about appearing objective, they clearly would not do something that is so obviously NOT objective - QED, they don't care about objectivity, QED they aren't really in the business of being objective whistle blowers" even if appearing to be in that business might be useful to their actual business.

If the whistle-blowing business is just a cover for wikileaks, then it's one very intricate cover.  They've been blowing the whistles for years before this that had nothing to do with US or Iraq, and reportedly collected more than a million damning documents.  Their real mission must be pretty damn huge in order for them to spend so much energy working on their cover.

Argument from false dichotomy. I am not saying that their whistle-blowing activities are some elaborate cover, I am saying that their goal is likely not to be "objective whistle blowers". Clearly, it is NOT their goal, otherwise they would not have so clearly violated any sense of objectivity.

It doesn't have to be all one or the other, and as an organization whose basic mission is to simply provide a way to allow some people to publish things they leaked, having an agenda is not really all that much of a deterrent anyway. They are pretty clearly anti-government in general (not surprising given their mission). I don't think there is anything specific to Iraq or the US, other than that the US is a obvious target for the anti-government groups.

[Berkut]

This is pretty damn funny:

Scientology

On 7 April 2008, Wikileaks reported receiving a letter (dated 27 March) from the Religious Technology Centre claiming ownership of several recently leaked documents pertaining to OT Levels within the Church of Scientology. These same documents were at the centre of a 1994 scandal. The email stated:
"    The Advanced Technology materials are unpublished, copyrighted works. Please be advised that your customer's action in this regard violates United States copyright law. Accordingly, we ask for your help in removing these works immediately from your service.

-- Moxon and Kobrin[61]
   "

The letter continued on to request the release of the logs of the uploader, which would remove their anonymity. Wikileaks responded with a statement released on Wikinews stating: "in response to the attempted suppression, Wikileaks will release several thousand additional pages of Scientology material next week",[62] and did so.

[grumbler]

This coming from the guy who decries tribalism in everyone on the board and beats his chest defending the US at every opportunity.

Oh dear, there goes Raz again.

Why are you responding?  It just encourages his trolls.

I doubt that he is going to soon restart the argument with the voices in his head about poisoning immigrants.

[Berkut]

This is from wiki, so I am not sure whether it is bullshit or not, but it does provide a rather different tone to what happened:

According to the U.S. Army investigation report released by the United States Central Command, the engagement started at 10:20 Iraqi local time and ended at 10:41. A unit from Bravo Company 2-16 was within 100 meters of the individuals that were fired upon with 30mm AH-64 Apache cannons. The company was charged with clearing their sector from any small armed forces, and had been under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). The company was supported by two Apache helicopters from the 1st Cavalry Division's Aviation Brigade, callsigns "Crazyhorse 18" and "Crazyhorse 19". Two men were identified by Crazyhorse 18 as carrying an RPG launcher and an AKM or AK-47. When the cameraman on the ground aimed his camera in the direction of Bravo Company 2-16, a pilot remarked "He's getting ready to fire". An Apache maneuvered around a building to get a clear field of fire and shot all nine men, killing eight. A van then approached the area and attempted to load a wounded man. After getting permission to fire, the Apache crew fired on the van. When Bravo Company arrived at the scene, they found two RPGs and an AK-47 or AKM. They also found two Canon EOS digital cameras with telephoto lenses. Two children were found in the van, a four year old girl with gunshot wounds and an eight year old boy with multiple wounds, including brain damage arising from shrapnel damage to his right temporal lobe. Both children were evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital via Forward Operating Base Loyalty, then transferred to an Iraqi medical facility the next day.[5]

While the Air Weapons Team was providing support at the first engagement area they were informed by ground troops that they were receiving small arms fire from the south / southwest. The crew for Crazyhorse 18 then located multiple individuals with weapons about 400 meters east of coalition forces and was given clearance to engage the targets. However, the co-pilot/gunner then observed a child and some other non-combatants in the vicinity of the individuals and decided to hold off on the engagement until the non-combatants were clear. After the non-combatants were clear Crazyhorse 18 engaged the targets. The crew for Crazyhorse 19 could not engage due to target obfuscation from buildings and dust.[5]

The team observed several individuals from this group, some possibly wounded, run into a large multistory building. The co-pilot/gunner for Crazyhorse 19 spotted 3 individuals near this building get into a red SUV and drive away to the west. For about 5 to 10 minutes the team diverted its attention to this vehicle. However, according to the co-pilot for Crazyhorse 18 they failed to positively identify the occupants as combatants and returned to the previous engagement area.[5]

These events, between the attack on the van and the attack on the building, were not captured on the leaked video footage

Interesting points:

1. The wikileaks video does not at all make it clear that this all happened within the context of on ongoing battle, with ground elements being quite close and having already received small arms fire.

2. Obviously excising out the part about the red SUV makes the entire thing much more damning, since the central message is "Hey, look at these hotdog chopper pilots who just want to kill anyone they can!". And of course the rather sad result of the children being wounded would lose much of its power if we know that the pilots were not at all callous about collateral damage.

[Berkut]

This coming from the guy who decries tribalism in everyone on the board and beats his chest defending the US at every opportunity.

Oh dear, there goes Raz again.

Why are you responding?  It just encourages his trolls.

But sometimes he *isn't* trolling, and actually has interesting things to say.

I know this is foolish of me, but for some reason, I don't want to let go of the hope that Raz can be a useful contributor, so I try to give him the benefit of the doubt. And he can be pretty damn funny from time to time.

Of course, then I get this result, so I go back to ignoring him for months again. No good deed and all that, I suppose.

[grumbler]

It doesn't have to be all one or the other, and as an organization whose basic mission is to simply provide a way to allow some people to publish things they leaked, having an agenda is not really all that much of a deterrent anyway. They are pretty clearly anti-government in general (not surprising given their mission). I don't think there is anything specific to Iraq or the US, other than that the US is a obvious target for the anti-government groups.

This is the way it strikes me.  I think that there are elements within Wikileaks that are very prone to view US military actions in Iraq as "murder" whether collateral or not, and they would be the ones likeliest to insist that they get charge of the web page releasing these kinds of videos. 

They would also be the most prone to label their page "Collateral murder" rather than something neutral and informative.  They would also be the ones least likely to question why there is a gap in the view record or even acknowledge that the gap existed.

None of that implies that they suppressed anything, though.  They may have just exploited what they had.

[grumbler]

But sometimes he *isn't* trolling, and actually has interesting things to say.

Respond to the interesting posts and ignore the others.  that is effectively ignoring Raz completely, but leaving the possibility of rewarding him if he controls himself.

[DGuller]

Did anyone watch the Colbert Report tonight?  Colbert had the wikileaks founder on.  It should be online soon.

[Razgovory]

Did anyone watch the Colbert Report tonight?  Colbert had the wikileaks founder on.  It should be online soon.

Is he a dick in person or is he like people on Languish and just saves that for the internet?

[Alcibiades]

Ah too bad I missed it, he lay into him?

[DGuller]

Here is a link: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/260785/april-12-2010/exclusives---julian-assange-unedited-interview .  Not a softball interview by any means.  I don't want to be on the other side of Colbert when he stops dicking around, and actually plays the role of a journalist with a brain.