By Debra Sweet
From the UK Guardian Monday, Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians:
"A secret video showing US air crew falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead after launching an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency, was revealed by Wikileaks today.
The footage of the July 2007 attack was made public in a move that will further anger the Pentagon, which has drawn up a report identifying the whistleblower website as a threat to national security. The US defence department was embarrassed when that confidential report appeared on the Wikileaks site last month alongside a slew of military documents."
WikiLeaks says it "obtained this video as well as supporting documents from a number of military whistleblowers. WikiLeaks goes to great lengths to verify the authenticity of the information it receives. We have analyzed the information about this incident from a variety of source material. We have spoken to witnesses and journalists directly involved in the incident."
We need to know what is being done in our name, as hard as this is to watch. This leaked combat documentation does not show an aberration, but routine disregard for the rules of engagement.
AFGHANISTAN — Glen Greenwald wrote Monday on How Americans are propagandized about Afghanistan. He traces the U.S. command lies about the Gardez, Afghanistan, killing of civilians on February 12, echoed in the U.S. media as fact. Each headline, each lie exposes the way in which we are being systematically lied to. Two male civilians killed were not "insurgents" and the three women, one who had just given birth, were not killed in an "honor killing," but by U.S. bullets. See Larry Everest’s account in Revolution, Made in America: The Gardez Massacre.
Even more on this story came out today, as the U.S. command has been forced to admit that all five were civilians killed by U.S. troops. Afghan investigators, who were not allowed to autopsy the bodies suspect that the troops cut the bullets out of the womens’ bodies, then lied and said they had found them already stabbed in an honor killing. Afghan Investigators Say U.S. Troops Tried to Cover Up Evidence in Botched Raid, according to the New York Times.
And…these are the forces there to protect Afghan women???
I am so grateful for the Whistleblowers.
And for World Can’t Wait.
It seems like there is more stuff that is coming out about this. So important that we get it up there, because people need to know what is truly going on in their names!