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Wikileaks Releases Video of Journalist Killings
linguizic writes "Today Wikileaks released a video of the US military firing large caliber weapons into a crowd that included a photojournalist and a driver for Reuters, and at a van containing two children who were involved in a rescue. Wikileaks maintains that this video was covered up by the US military when Reuters asked for an official investigation. This is the same video that has supposedly made the editors of Wikileaks a target of the State Department and/or the CIA, as was discussed a couple weeks ago."
Needless to say, this video is probably not work safe (language and violence), and not for the faint of heart.
This is really disturbing..
Disclaimer: I'm at work, and they have video stuff blocked, so I have not seen the video
What really got me was that they used a GUNSHIP on HUMAN TARGETS.
And what's wrong with this? The usage of 'gunships' on human targets is valid by the laws of war. There's normally nothing special on how you kill people during war.
Where I WILL get upset is the targeting of non-combatants, whether by gunship, missile, or even humble assault rifle. I understand that there can and will be collateral damage if you need to use something with explosives to take out a target, but sometimes this is necessary.
Ahem... There have actually been numerous agreements that use of intentionally excessive force (even on a clear enemy target) goes against common decency, and to that effect things like the NATO ban on hollow point and other intentionally egregious ammunition have come about, specifically because you shouldn't kill when you can incapacitate, even if you really really don't like who you're shooting at.
Definitely, it might alter our perception because we knew they had cameras, but the military officers did not know they had weapons. They saw objects, presumed they were weapons, then reported these unclear objects were weapons in order to obtain clearance to engage. It's alright to make a mistake, but it's not alright to err when you are killing someone.
I'm no warmaster, but it might be the case that AK-47s, which is what they reported the weapons were, weren't a threat to them. If that's the case, then they had leave to further investigate whether these unclear objects really were weapons. Although I'm sympathetic to the officer who believed he might have seen an RPG. That's an immediate threat.
I think the moral issues are compounded by the fact it was a manufactured war, where no threat existed. For instance, whether they were wrong to bring children into the area (I don't know what their circumstances were), is preceded, in my opinion, that there never should've been a war. I'm not saying it's justifies their actions of bringing the children in, I'm saying we should've never had to judge these people because there oughtn't have been a war.
Back when I was given my training (std. mil. subscription, Norway) we where clearly told not to use our .50 M2 gun at human targets - it would be in violation with the Geneva convention. The M2 was always loaded with MP round - but I'm fairly sure you not suppose to use large calibers like that on human targets. The chances of collateral are way to big.