The video makes plain that in this incident, as in almost all military encounters in both Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers are up against forces that do not wear uniformsa violation of international law precisely because it places innocent civilians in jeopardy. On July 12, 2007, a series of air-to-ground attacks were conducted by a team of two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, New Baghdad, during the Iraqi insurgency which followed the invasion of Iraq. In an Al Jazeera English interview on April 19, 2010, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange explained why WikiLeaks titled the video Collateral Murder: And you can see that they also deliberately target Saaed, a wounded man there on the ground, despite their earlier belief that they didn't have the rules of engagementthat the rules of engagement did not permit them to kill Saeed when he was wounded. This is urban combat and we're taking the war to children and women and innocents. [16][18][30] After the lead helicopter fires, one of the crew shouts "Hahaha. McCord: I've spoken with one of the medics who was there. (quote begins at 5:15)", "Soldiers in 'Collateral Murder' video apologise", "Meet The New Public Face Of WikiLeaks: Kristinn Hrafnsson Forbes", "2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as U.S. That's a violation of the laws of war and of course what the mainstream media have omitted from their stories is this context. They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9:53a.m., where sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued. In 2009, Stieber left the military as a conscientious objector and became a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. Colbert asked "So 'Collateral Murder' is to get political impact?" Ethan and Josh claim that though their unit was following the Rules of Engagement that day, they are taking responsibility for their role in the incident and initiating a dialogue around it; "Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. That's the hard part to swallow. [85] [94], WikiLeaks said they were unable to confirm whether or not Manning was the source of the video, stating "we never collect personal information on our sources", but saying that "if [Manning is the] whistleblower then, without doubt, [s]he's a national hero"[95] and "we have taken steps to arrange for [her] protection and legal defence". "[32], The Guardian stated "It is unclear if some of the men are armed but Noor-Eldeen can be seen with a camera". She was crying. A school district is mourning the loss of a 13-year-old student who was found dead along with 3 other family members after a "potential murder-suicide" in Clermont County.It happened around 9:41 a . Hanzlik said images gathered during a military investigation of the incident show multiple weapons around the dead bodies in the courtyard, including at least three RPGs. Part of Banksy's, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 21:26. [96] Her trial on the remaining charges began on June 3, 2013. [23] Among the group are two journalists working for Reuters, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. After the video was released, one of the soldiers involved in the incident, Ethan McCord, stated the following: "If you feel threatened in any way, you're able to engage that person. [86], Ethan McCord, the soldier seen in the video carrying the injured boy, recalled in an interview on The Marc Steiner Show that on arrival at the scene, "The first thing I did was run up to the van". But the time is long overdue that we say that the value of our nation's leaders no longer represent us. They split up and the footage follows one who appears to be armed. I'm going to help that person. He responded, "I hadn't heard of WikiLeaks before yesterday. Towards the end of the show, the star actor became an active member of the Screen Actors Guild and after he left "Adam-12." Bradley Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy, convicted of six counts of espionage", "Bradley Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy for giving secrets to WikiLeaks", "BBC News Bradley Manning guilty of espionage in Wikileaks case", "Manning Gets 35 years for wikileaks disclosures", "Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years In Prison For WikiLeaks Disclosures", "Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison live updates", "Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years", "Obama commutes Chelsea Manning's prison sentence", "Obama's final press conference: Chelsea Manning commutation is 'appropriate', "The WikiLeaks Video and the Rules of Engagement", "Exclusive: Reuters Chief Spikes Story on Killing of His Own Staffers In Baghdad", "US 'reviewing' Iraq killing video posted on WikiLeaks", "Ingi Ingason Ragnar and Kristinn Hrafnsson awarded International Journalism and Human Rights Award at Barcelona Human Rights Film Festival", "Verleihung des Whistleblower-Preises 2011", Whistleblower-Preis 2011 geht an Kernforscher, Collateral Murder: U.S. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/8 then located multiple individuals with weapons about 400 meters east of coalition forces and was given clearance to engage the targets. [116] The military did not include the attack on the building in their report. Ethan Cord (Horsley) is still a man with a conscience, and kids, but he is also less reluctant to rely on his ability with a gun. When they arrived, they found a scene of fresh carnage the scattered remains of a group of men, believed to be armed, who had just been gunned down by Apache attack helicopters. McCord: My platoon sergeant knew that I was having a hard time with it and that same night he came into the room and he told me, hey, just so you know, both of the children survived, so you can suck it up now. McCord's courage and integrity has nothing to do with his US army training. Ethan was on the ground at the scene of the shooting, and is seen on the video rushing one of the injured children to a U.S. WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. The WikiLeaks edited video did not add arrows pointing to these men, or label them, as it did with the men carrying cameras. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons to the trained eye. Ukraine Suffered More Wiper Malware in 2022 Than Anywhere, Ever. Ethan and Josh are available for interviews. I based the account in my book on multiple sources, all unclassified". [91], In May 2010, a 22-year-old American Army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning, was arrested after telling hacker Adrian Lamo she had leaked the airstrike video, along with a video of another airstrike and around 260,000 diplomatic cables, to WikiLeaks. Two children were found in the van, a four-year-old girl with gunshot wounds and embedded windscreen glass wounds and an eight-year-old boy with multiple wounds, including brain damage arising from shrapnel damage to his right temporal lobe. "[46] Assange later said "Based upon visual evidence, I suspect there probably were AKs and an RPG, but I'm not sure that means anything". I don't think that people really want to see this, though, because this is war. They're smoking you, they're making you tired. She continued, "the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are inflicting huge psychological damage on combatants". Highlighted in the 17-minute version of the video are Noor-Eldeen with a camera and Chmagh talking on his mobile phone. It happened because my content was bad. We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region. But you're not supposed to do that in Iraq. Their 43-year-old father, Saleh, had been driving them to a class when he spotted one of the wounded men moving in the street and drove over to help him, only to become a victim of the Apache guns. The Web site does not slow down the video to show that at least one man in that group was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a clearly visible weapon that runs nearly two-thirds the length of his body. McCord, together with another former member of the company, Josh Stieber, have addressed an open "Letter of Reconciliation" to the Iraqi people taking responsibility for their role in this. [21][79], The New Yorker praised its release, calling it "a striking artifactan unmediated representation of the ambiguities and cruelties of modern warfare".[3]. Personally, I believe the first attack on the group standing by the wall was appropriate, was warranted by the rules of engagement. There were plenty of times in the past where other insurgents would come by and pick up the bodies, and then we'd have no evidence or anything to what happened, so in looking at it from the Apache's point of view, they were thinking that [someone was] picking up the weapons and bodies; when, in hindsight, clearly they were picking up the wounded man. After attending to the girl's wounds and handing her to a medic, McCord was ordered to take position on the roof but he returned to the van to find the boy moving his hand. Assange responded: Yes, absolutely Our promise to the public is that we will release the full source material. When the cameraman on the ground aimed his camera in the direction of Bravo Company 216, a pilot remarked "He's getting ready to fire". McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Assange said that Finkel had seen the video and that at least one individual at the offices of The Washington Post had a copy of the video for at least a year, prior to its release by WikiLeaks. [43], Assange responded to the investigation report released by the Army in an interview with Democracy Now!, stating that "the tone and language is all about trying to find an excuse for the activity. The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. Reuters also stated that local police described the attack as "random American bombardment". It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. The Wikileaks videos also do not reveal the hundreds upon hundreds of cases in which American forces refrain from attacking targets precisely because civilians are in harm's way.[80]. [62] At a February 2013 pretrial hearing, Manning stated that Finkel "was quoting, I feel in verbatim, the audio communications of the aerial weapons team crew". Noor-Eldeen fails to photograph the Apache but three pictures of the U.S. Humvee appear on his camera's memory card when it was recovered by U.S. soldiers. Michael Bailey a medic who treated some of. [43] The report stated that the helicopter crew did not know how many people were in the building when they destroyed it with missiles, and that "there is evidence that unarmed people have both entered and are nearby". Fox News reported in 2010 that the rules of engagement in Iraq had not been changed since the incident occurred. It was pretty much a shock when we got there to see what had happened, the carnage and everything else. What was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. McCord: Yeah. I can accept their apology, because they saved my children, and if it were not for them, maybe my two little children would be dead. I was trying to wash it off in my room. [32], On the day of the attack the U.S. military reported that the two journalists were killed along with nine insurgents, and that the helicopter engagement was related to a U.S. troop raid force that had been attacked by small-arms fire and RPGs. Gabriel Schoenfeld, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, said of the airstrike: It is precisely the presence of weapons, including RPGs, that goes a long distance toward explaining why cameramen for Reuterspointing television cameras around corners in a battle zonewere readily mistaken by our gunships for insurgents. Using short sentences, similar punctuation, or using the same words frequently as well as using Grammarly can boost your content as AI written. Lying dead on a street were inanimate objects that turned out to be. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw, Ethan McCord had just returned from dropping his children at school earlier this month, when he turned on the TV news to see grainy black-and-white video footage of a soldier running from a bombed-out van with a child in his arms. Ethan Mccord and Josh Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16 in 2007. [19], As the tape resumes, two men, one holding an AK-47, are seen walking. Wired.com: Have you heard from any other soldiers since the video came out? [56], The Washington Post reported it was unclear whether the journalists were killed by U.S. fire or by shooting from the targeted Iraqis. [104][105][106][107] Pursuant to a commutation by President Obama, Chelsea Manning was released on May 17, 2017. [16] The military reported that it could not find its copy of the video. 'Re taking the war been changed since the video came out, and new industries ]! 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