War is ugly. Indiscriminate, cold-blooded murder is uglier. What is captured on the U.S. Army Apache gunship video shown to the right of this article appears to my eyes to be just that—American military personnel in the act of indiscriminate killing, wounding 2 young children and murdering at least a dozen innocent people, including 2 Reuters journalists. If that is not what this video shows, I’d appreciate hearing a plausible alternative explanation.
During the two days since Wikileaks.org released the video to the public the Pentagon has trotted out numerous analysts and “military experts” to explain the video away, but their efforts have not been satisfying. At least, not to me. The Pentagon does not dispute that the video is genuine.
Who am I to judge? I have never worn a military uniform, and I have never been in a combat situation. I have never experienced the stress of confronting an armed enemy, and I know all but nothing about military strategy. All of that is absolutely true. On the other hand, none of that has impaired my vision or crippled my common sense. When I see an unarmed Good Samaritan cut to ribbons by gunfire while attempting to rescue a wounded man bleeding in the street, I figure that I’m as qualified as anyone to properly assess what I’ve seen.
I’ll concede that video footage taken out of context can sometimes present a false impression of events captured by the lens, but what we have in the video is a huge chunk of video spanning a 30-minute period of time. The length of the video would seem to establish its own context. If it does not, again, I would like to hear a plausible alternative explanation.
Whether what the video shows is murder, a criminal killing spree by American soldiers with high-tech weapons, or a “by the book” military operation wholly within the Rules of Engagement for our troops in Iraq, the casual and nonchalant attitude of the voices on the video as they ready to begin the slaughter is disturbing. They were not playing a video game. They were about to shoot and kill real people—flesh and blood human beings with no more ability to run, hide or defend themselves than goldfish in a bowl. Two of those cut to shreds were journalists, and two of those wounded were innocent children.
Whatever else is true, I do know this. Despite all presence and protestations to the contrary, the acts shown in the video cannot be justified by any rules of war. Why? Because there was no war in Iraq in 2007, just as there is no war there today.
The war in Iraq ended when Saddam Hussein’s military was defeated and his government toppled. Since that time there has been an ongoing occupation of that country by American and coalition troops and mercenaries in the employ of the CIA and Department of Defense, but there has been no war. The war only lasted a few days, and it’s been over now for years.
I have seen a number of different estimates of the number of civilian deaths in Iraq since 2003 that are directly attributable to U.S. military adventures in that country. The number I see most often is around 600,000 dead. At last, can we ask ourselves if we have accomplished something in that country that was worth the lives of more than half a million men, women and children? Is there some compelling need for more to die?
I remember Charlie Company, Lt. Calley and the massacre of 400+ civilians by American soldiers at My Lai forty years ago. I remember reading news reports like this description from the BBC:
“Soldiers went berserk, gunning down unarmed men, women, children and babies. Families which huddled together for safety in huts or bunkers were shown no mercy. Those who emerged with hands held high were murdered. … Elsewhere in the village, other atrocities were in progress. Women were gang raped; Vietnamese who had bowed to greet the Americans were beaten with fists and tortured, clubbed with rifle butts and stabbed with bayonets. Some victims were mutilated with the signature “C Company” carved into the chest. By late morning word had got back to higher authorities and a cease-fire was ordered. My Lai was in a state of carnage. Bodies were strewn through the village.” —BBC News, [2]
I remember Lt. Calley’s trial and the chilling testimony that shocked and shamed America. In a protracted “police action” with no legitimate military purpose it could happen again. It may be inevitable that it will happen again if we continue on our present course in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So, what are we to conclude about this video? View it carefully and decide for yourself what you have seen. Form your own opinion.
For my part, I see it as a warning. War profiteers have sucked enough profit from the veins of American taxpayers, and enough blood of innocent civilians has been spilled on their behalf. We need to heed the warning and bring our troops home. We’ll all, Americans and Iraqis alike, be the better for it.
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I am speechless, in tears…I could not get past 6 minutes of that video. It really brings home how ugly war is.
It’s hard to watch this. I’m a veteran and served in Vietnam and saw a lot of things that I wasn’t proud to see. I neer saw anything like this though. That might be because it is so much easier to do this sort of thing with the high powered technology the army has today that wasn’t available so many years back. This kind of killing should not be happening and I don’t like to see U.S. soldiers involved in these kinds of operations. This does not make me a proud American.
We already knew this, didn’t we? This is what some (PLEASE NOTICE that I said “some”) soldiers will do every time we send our troops into a conflict. There is always going to be a criminal element in every group of people.
I agree with your assessment of the video footage. Like you, I would like to hear an alternative explanation that would convince me that U.S. troops did not do what they appear to have done in the video.
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