Democracy Now!, April 12, 2010
“This is How These Soldiers Were Trained to Act”–Veteran of Military Unit Involved in 2007 Baghdad Helicopter Shooting Says Incident Is Part of Much Larger Problem
We speak with a former member of Bravo Company 2-16, the military unit involved in the 2007 helicopter shooting of Iraqi civilians that killed twelve people, including two Reuters employees, as seen on the military video released by WikiLeaks. “The natural thing to do would be to instantly judge or criticize the soldiers in this video,” says Josh Stieber. “Not to justify what they did, but militarily speaking, they did exactly what they were trained to do…If we’re shocked by this video, we need to be asking questions of the larger system, because this is how these soldiers were trained to act.”