#facestab last cranked 2010-04-05 21:31

Collateral Murder: wikileaks documents US slaughter of innocents including two journalists in Iraq, first reported July 12th, 2007
posted by seti at 2010-04-05 21:31

seti: 135 news stories on Google News. MSNBC have it, Al-Jazeera have it (obviously), AP, AFP, Guardian, BBC News and HuffPo. But that's about it. CNN notably missing any coverage.
seti: "All of the editors other than [Mediaite] and producers are either unaware of this story despite having been given several weeks notice, or they have yet to determine whether or not the cover-up of a Coalition strike on civilians which killed two Reut
seti: Mediaite link above shows the rationalisation for horrible behaviour after the fact starting to do its work
seti: aka the "yeah shooting civilians is bad but leaking videos is beyond irresponsible!" logical fallacy. keep your eyes on the ball, you journos; it's being switched away right under your noses.
seti: interesting tidbit from the comments there, though: Washington Post reporter David Finkel described the incident--and the video---in great detail in his September 2009 book, "The Good Soldiers"
seti: Good view on the lack of media interest from True/Slant.
seti: tl;dw
seti: Fox News weighs in, too
seti: An AP source has confirmed the authenticity of the video.
seti: Al Jazeera interview with Julian Assange
thelink: for great justice, torrent this video ... and the summary version
thelink: LOLROFLMAO: "a website that, according to the NY Times, is viewed as a real threat to national security, according to the Pentagon" ... those must be some real heavy duty brave soldiers that can get frightened of a website
thelink: "Namir was the 109th journalist to be killed in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, and Saeed the 40th member of support staff."
thelink: source
thelink: "No pictures taken by Noor-Eldeen on July 12 show clashes between militants and U.S. forces. The pictures show no gunmen, nor residents running for cover," according to Reuters
thelink: "U.S. military personnel were seen taking away the photographer's cameras after he was dead," according to National Press Photographers Association
thelink: The footage has been confirmed authentic by US military... "WikiLeaks, told a news conference in Washington that it acquired encrypted video of the July 12, 2007, attack from military whistleblowers and had been able to view and investigate it after breaking the encryption code."
thelink: (US military says wikileaks factual does not mean wikileaks is factual ;-)
thelink: for that matter 'authentic' does not mean 'genuine' ;-) the video has been denoted as 'the video' by the applicable 'authority' ie the military, is 'authentic' ... but not necessarily 'genuine', 'factual', 'real', 'actually the video that was shot, if any really was shot, at the time,place, and by the people of the purported event'
thelink: authentic can be a weasel word, a word which conceals a lie
thelink: if the authority wants to lie
thelink: "my mom tells me that the networks are carrying the Tiger Woods interview right now. Almost makes you wonder why the Pentagon bothered keeping the fucking thing secret in the first place," hahars from the trueslant blog tracking dispersion of the story
thelink: this makes me ask myself, how good is the US military intelligence if they don't even know who/where the reporters are? how in fuck are they telling us they know where the goddam guerillas are if they don't even know of the presence of well known, respected journalists in the combat zone?
thelink: one of the reporters could have survived if the chopper had not opened fire on van acknowledged by combatants as merely rescuing wounded ... fwiw, for those apologists who might argue the soldiers were just being 'prudent' in eliminating possible foes while they had the chance, killing the wounded is dubious military strategy, since caring for wounded ties up your opponent
thelink: washington post reviewed the book by their reporter who had access to the video in 2009, also discusses Reuters attempts to get the footage
thelink: if i was perhaps paranoid, i might conclude that warzones are used as bait to attract good and brave reporters away from where they might stir up trouble at home, and into mortal danger ... apparently its where the pay is best ...
thelink: "U.S. military has withheld key information on the 2007 shootings on the grounds that it is classified" ... and the only conceivable reasoning behind keeping it classified must be because it shows the US to have acted in a questionable manner
thelink: "U.S. military has not made public several other investigations involving the deaths of journalists killed by U.S. forces"
thelink: action appears to have breached March 2007 rules of engagement in 'positive ID', 'use graduated measures of force', 'do not target wounded', 'minimize incidental injury' ... in other words, all applicable ones
thelink: units were not defending themselves, the ground vehicle had not yet entered the area, there was plenty of scope for drawing back, ID of the 'threat' which would have established that it was innocent civilians ...
thelink: coverup by US govt is unacceptable
thelink: fox news reports the video as having been leaked by US military personnel: "'It was being conveyed by people in the U.S. military ... [some] people in the military don't like what's going on.'"
thelink: and claims that the reporters were 'embedded' with iraqi insurgents ... still wouldn't remedy the breach of rules of engagement to the extent that is seen

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